Friday, October 28, 2016

Science and Intelegence Part 1

Thought Experiments: 

Science Fiction as a Window intoPhilosophical Puzzles



Let us open the door to age-old questions about our very nature, the nature of the universe, and whether there are limits to what we, as humans, can understand. But as old as these issues are, let us do something relatively new - let us borrow from the world of science fiction thought experiments to fire the philosophical  imagination. Good science fiction rarely disappoints; good philosophy more rarely still.

Thought experiments are imagination’s fancies; they are windows into the fundamental nature of things. A philosophical thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in the “laboratory of the mind” that depicts something that often exceeds the bounds of current technology or even is incompatible with the laws of nature, but that is supposed  to reveal  something  philosophically  enlightening  or fundamental about the topic in question. Thought experiments can demonstrate a point, entertain, illustrate  a  puzzle,  lay  bare  a  contradiction  in  thought,  and  move  us  to  provide further clarification.  Indeed, thought experiments  have a distinguished  intellectual history. Both the creation of relativity and the interpretation of quantum mechanics rely heavily upon thought experiments.  Consider, for instance, Einstein’s  elevator and Schrödinger ’s cat. And philosophers, perhaps even more than physicists, make heavy use of thought experiments. René Descartes, for instance, asked us to imagine that the physical world around us was an elaborate illusion. He imagined that the world was merely a dream or worse yet, a hoax orchestrated by an evil demon bent on deceiving us. He then asked: how can we really be certain that we are not deceived in either of these ways? (See Descartes’ piece in this volume, Chapter 4.) Relatedly, Plato asked us to imagine prisoners who had been shackled in a cave for as long as they can remember. They face a wall. Behind them is a fire. Between the prisoners and the fire is a pathway, where men walk, carrying vessels, statues and other objects (See  Figure I.1.)
Fig. I.1 Plato’s cave


As the men walk behind the prisoners, they and the objects they carry cast shadows on the cave wall. The prisoners are thus not able to see the actual men and objects; their world is merely a world of shadows. Knowing nothing of the real causes of the shadows, the prisoners would naturally mistake these shadows for the real nature of things. Plato then asked: is this analogous to our own understanding of reality? That is, is the human condition such that our grasp of reality is only partial, catching only the slightest glimpse into the true nature of things, like the prisoners’ world of shadows?1
Intriguingly, if you read science fiction writers like Stanislaw Lem, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark and Robert  Sawyer, you are already aware that some of the best science fiction tales are in fact long versions of philosophical thought experiments. From Clark’s 2001, which explored the twin ideas of intelligent design and artificial intelligence gone awry, to the Wachowski brothers’  Matrix films, which were partly inspired by Plato’s Cave, philosophy and science fiction are converging upon a set of shared themes and questions. Indeed, there is almost no end to the list of issues in science fiction that is philosophically intriguing. It is thus my modest hope that this short book isolates a number of key areas in philosophy where the interplay between philosophy and science fiction is especially rich. For instance, you might have seen the films AI o r I, Robot (or you may have read the stories they are derived from). And you might have asked:
• Can robots be intelligent? Should they have rights?
• Is artificial intelligence even possible?

Or you might have read a time travel story, such as H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, and asked:

Is time travel possible? Indeed, what is the nature of space and time?
In this book, we delve into these questions, as well as many others, such as:

• Could I be deceived about the external world, as in The Matrix, or Vanilla
Sky?
• What  is the nature  of persons?  For  instance,  can my mind  survive  the death of my body? Can I ‘upload’ my memories into a computer and somehow survive? (E.g., as in Mindscan.)
• Do we ever act freely, or is everything predetermined?  (E.g., see Minority
Report.)
• Should we enhance our brains, and even change our very nature?

So let us see, in more detail, where our reflections will lead.
Part I: Could I be in a “Matrix” or Computer
Simulation?


Related Works: The Matrix; Permutation City; The 13th
Floor; Vanilla Sky; Total Recall; Animatrix

You sit here in front of this book. You are as confident that the book exists as you are of the existence of any physical object. The lighting is good; indeed, you feel the pages  pressing  on your  hands  - this  is no illusion.  But  think  of  stories  like The Matrix or Vanilla Sky . How can you really be sure that any of this is real? Perhaps you  are  simply   part   of  a  computer-generated   virtual   reality,   created   by  an omnipotent supercomputer of unthinkable proportions. Is there some way to rule out such a scenario?

Our first section explores the aforementioned  issue of the reality of the external world. Does the world around you - the people you encounter, the book you are now reading, indeed, even your hand - really exist? Answers to this question are a central focus of the sub-field of philosophy known as “epistemology,” or “theory of knowledge.”  We begin with a brief science fiction story written by a philosopher, John Pollock, who depicts a “brain in a vat” scenario. Pollock’s thought experiment, like the works named in the section title listed above, invites reflection on a philosophical position known as “external world skepticism.” The skeptic about the external world holds that we cannot know that the external world that we believe is around us really exists, instead we may be in a dream, in virtual reality, and so on. Represented   in  this  section  are  the  aforementioned   ideas  of  both  Plato  and Descartes;  such  provide  essential  philosophical  background  for  this  topic.  While reading the pieces in the section, as well as other sections of the book, readers may wish to view or read one or more of the science fiction works named in the section titles.  (Relatedly, instructors  using  this  book  for  their  courses  may  want  their students to do so. In particular, they may consider screening the Star Trek episodes I list, as they are short, leaving time for in class discussion.)
The next piece in the section develops the issue of external world skepticism in a stunning new direction, suggesting that virtual reality science fiction thought experiments depict science fact. For philosopher Nick Bostrom has recently offered an influential argument that we are, in fact, in a computer simulation. He observes that assuming that a civilization survives long enough to be technologically sophisticated, it would likely be very interested in running simulations of entire worlds. In this case, there would be vastly more computer simulations, compared to
just one real world. And if this is so, there would be many more beings who are in a simulation than beings who are not. Bostrom then infers that given this, it is more likely than not that we are in a simulation. Even the seasoned philosopher will find Bostrom’s  argument  extremely  thought  provoking.  Because  the  argument  claims that it is more likely than not that we are in a simulation it does not rely on remote philosophical possibilities. To the skeptic, the mere possibility of deceit means that we cannot  know the external  world exists;  for the skeptic  holds that we must be certain  of  something  in  order  to  truly  say  that  we  know  it.  On  the  other  hand, opponents  of external  world skepticism  have argued that just because  a skeptical scenario seems possible, it does not follow that we fail to know the external world exists. For knowledge doesn’t require certainty; the skeptic places too strong a requirement  on  knowledge.  But  Bostrom’s  argument  bypasses  this  anti-skeptical move:  Even  if  you  reject  the  claim  that  knowledge  requires  certainty,  if  his argument is correct, then it is likely that we are in a simulation. That the world we know is a computer simulation is no remote possibility - more likely than not, this is how the world actually is.

Part  I  also  features  a  related  piece  by  philosopher  David  J.  Chalmers.  In  his “Matrix as Metaphysics”  Chalmers uses the Matrix films as a means to develop a novel  position  on  external  world  skepticism.  Interestingly,  Chalmers  does  not dispute Bostrom’s argument. Instead, he aims to deflate the significance of knowing we  are  in  a  simulation.  Chalmers  asks:  why  would  knowing  that  we  are  in  a simulation prove that the external world skeptic is correct? He writes:

I think that even if I am in a matrix, my world is perfectly real. A brain in a vat is not massively deluded (at least if it has always been in the vat). Neo does not have massively false beliefs about the external world. Instead, envatted beings have largely correct beliefs about their world. If so, the Matrix Hypothesis is not a skeptical hypothesis, and its possibility does not undercut everything that I think I know. (Chapter 5, p. 35)
Chalmers is suggesting that being in a simulation is not a situation in which we fail to know that the external world around us really exists. Suppose that we learn we are in a matrix. According to Chalmers, this fact tells us about the nature of the external world: it tells us that the physical world around us is ultimately made of bits, and that our creators were creatures who allowed our minds to interact with this world of bits. But upon reflection, knowing a new theory of the fundamental nature of the universe is just learning more physics. And while intriguing, this is not like proving that skepticism is true. For Chalmers contends that there is still a “physical world” which we interact with; what is different is that its fundamental physics is not about strings or particles, but bits. Furthermore, learning that there is a creator outside of
space and time who allowed our minds to interact  with the physical  world, while obviously  of  great  metaphysical  and  personal  import,  is  akin  to  learning  that  a particular religious view holds. This would be an earth shattering revelation, but it does not mean that we are not situated in the external world that we believe we are in.

Suggestively, a very basic brain in a vat was recently developed at the university of Florida in the laboratory of Thomas De Marse. It now is sophisticated enough to successfully  fly a flight simulator.2  Bostrom  would likely say that this is further proof  that  we  are  in  a  simulation;  for  when  we  start  turning  our  own  basic simulations on, this is, in effect, evidence that advancing societies have interest in doing so. It also indicates that we are nearing the point at which we are capable of surviving the technological age long enough to develop more advanced simulations. Indeed, I find De Marse’s development to be yet another telling example of the convergence  between  science  fiction  and  science  fact.  Some  of  the  most  lavish science fiction thought experiments are no longer merely fictions - we see glimpses of them on the technological horizon.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Time Travel and Warp Drives

Time, Clocks, and Reference Frames

As happens sometimes, a moment
settled and hovered and remained for
much more than a moment. And sound
stopped and movement stopped for
much, much more than a moment.
Then gradually time awakened again
and moved sluggishly on.

These lines from Steinbeck’s novel cap Tture the experience we have all had of the varying l ow of personal time. Our subjective experience of time can be affected by many things: catching the fly ball that wins the game, winning the race, illness, drugs, or a traumatic experience. It is well known that drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, can change—sometimes profoundly in the latter case—the human perception of time. People who have been in car crashes report the feeling of time slowing down, with seconds seeming like minutes. The windshield appears to crack in slow motion due to the trauma of the accident. If our subjective experience of time is so l uid, we might ask, “Well then, what is time . . . really?” Most of us can give no better answer than Saint  Augustine in the Confessions: “What then is time? If no one asks of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not.” Augustine’s answer some what anticipates Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart’s well-known definition of obscenity, delivered from the bench: “I know it when I see it.”

    In this book we are concerned with measures of time that do not depend on the variations and vagaries of human perception. Physicists do not at all discount the importance of the problem of the human cognition of time, but it is,

Thursday, July 5, 2012

A BRIEF HISTORY OF RELATIVITY CHAPTER 1

ALBERT EINSTEIN, THE DISCOVERER OF THE SPECIAL AND
general theories of relativity, was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, but the following year the family moved to Munich, where his father, Hermann, and uncle, Jakob, set up a small and not very successful electrical business. Albert was no child prodigy, but claims that he did poorly at school seem to be an exaggeration. In 1894 his father's business failed and the family moved to Milan. His parents decided he should stay behind to finish school, but he did not like its authoritarianism, and within months he left to join his family in Italy. He later completed his education in Zurich, graduating from the prestigious Federal Polytechnical School, known as the ETH, in 1900. His argumentative nature and dislike of authority did not endear him to the professors at the ETH and none of them offered him the position of assistant, which was the normal route to an academic career. Two years later, he finally managed to get a junior post at the Swiss patent office in Bern. It was while he held this job that in 1905 he wrote three papers that both established him as one of the world's leading scientists and started two conceptual revolutions—revolutions that changed our understanding of time, space, and reality itself.  Toward the end of the nineteenth century, scientists believed they were close to a complete description of the universe. They imagined that space was filled by a continuous medium called the "ether." Light rays and radio signals were waves in this ether, just as sound is pressure waves in air. All that was needed for a complete theory were careful measurements of the elastic properties of the ether. In fact, anticipating such measurements, the Jefferson Lab at Harvard University was built entirely without iron nails so as not to interfere with delicate magnetic measurements. However, the planners forgot that the reddish brown bricks of which the lab and most of Harvard are built contain large amounts of iron. The building is still in use today, although Harvard is still not sure how much weight a library floor without iron nails will support.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The time-travel ad By John Silveira

It's also been read by Jay Leno on his late night TV show, on National Public Radio more than once (including Car Talk), on craigslist.org (sans the P.O. box), it's been printed on T-shirts, discussed on the liberal website democraticunderground.org, it's been the subject of conversation in several online forums, and very similar wording has been used in some computer games. There's even a ghost hunter, Richard Senate, a resident of Oakview, who's looking for the author. On his website he says the ad appeared in a local paper in 2004. He states "Some have even walked the town of Oak View seeking...evidence of the traveler..." It keeps popping up.
Where did it come from? Who is the mysterious author? What was his intent?
Actually, it first appeared on page 92 of the Sept/Oct 1997 issue of BHM—and I wrote it.
Why'd I write it? What was my motive?
In the early days of Backwoods Home Magazine, the publisher, Dave Duffy, used fillers when the classified ad pages came up short. He'd ask me to come up with jokes or riddles. I often did. Some were original, some not. One night, desperate to wrap up the classifieds, he asked, "John, give me a couple of jokes." It's not easy to do that on demand. I sighed and asked, "How about I place a couple of ads—for free?" He said, "Sure."
So, I came up with two. One was a personal—I was looking for a girlfriend. The other was the time travel ad. If you can find that issue, and look on pages 92 and 93, you'll see both of my ads and they both use the same P.O. box. A few astute readers caught it. But I didn't dream the ad up that night. It's actually the opening lines to an unfinished novel I started years ago. I let Dave use it, expecting three or four responses from it and hoped for a few dozen from the personal. Instead, I've received more than a thousand from the time-travel ad, and maybe five from the personal—four from women and one from a gay guy. I'm not kidding. And the responses to the time travel ad never end.
Sometimes, the flow into my P.O. box is a mere trickle. Other times, the box is stuffed. I think it's the result of the periodic appearance of the ad on the Internet and, as I said, in other places over the years. It's also been appropriated by individuals who have either used the exact same or nearly identical wording, except they've changed the P.O. box to one of their own. Others have claimed the Oakview mailbox belongs to them. Some guy with a bad mullet has run the ad with his picture as if it's his. But I'm the only one with a key to the box.
Over the years, I've received responses from every state and every continent, including Antarctica.
What have the people who've responded wanted? Most seemed to have believed the ad. Several hundred, while admitting maybe it was a hoax, hoped it wasn't and wanted to go back in time for the sheer adventure. Though pay was offered, many of those said they'd do it for nothing. (Hell, I would, too.)
Some letters came from guys who gave me a list of some pretty sophisticated weapons they could bring along with their credentials: black belts in martial arts, explosives expertise, language skills, etc., along with assurances they can pretty much take care of themselves. I believe 'em.
But many letters came from people who wanted me to correct a past tragedy. Dozens, in prison, asked me to go back in time and talk them out of committing the crime that put them away. Others (and not a few) were from people who begged me to go back and save a loved one from a tragic death. Those letters were so heartbreaking I almost couldn't read them and I felt a certain amount of shame for not anticipating the false hope I placed in so many hearts.
On the other hand, I also got letters from people who, despite postal regulations, threatened me with either bodily harm or death if the ad turned out to be a joke or a scam. I guess it all balances out.
Several years ago, I even got a letter from someone on the staff of the Jerry Springer Show asking me to appear on the show. Friends asked if I was going to take him up on it. Are you kidding? I'm not a good enough actor to pull that off.
But why did I use an Oakview P.O. box? (I now live in Oregon.) I used to live in the Ojai Valley, just a few miles from Oakview, and a P.O. box there was on my way out of the Valley. My daughter, Meaghan, used to read them to me on our long commute up I-5 to the magazine, about 800 miles each way.
What's happened to all the letters? I wish I still had every one of them. For a while I kept hundreds of them in a big box in the trunk of my Honda Civic. But when the trunk leaked, they all got mildewed. I threw most of those away. But I still have a few hundred left.
What lies in the future? Even though I've now revealed it was just a joke, I expect the P.O. box will continue to receive letters until the end of time. And, for all the writing I've done, they are probably the only words I've written that will outlive me. In the meantime, it's 13 years later, and I still need a girlfriend.