One hint for the solution to the hot washer problem, given here, is the old trick for getting a tight lid off a jar: Running hot water over it.
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It is not more “metaphysical” to say that the universe shows apparent evidence of design than to say it does not. The bias in insisting otherwise is evident.
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A sense is growing that no matter what stunning neuroscience discoveries we make, we cannot in principle explain E = MC^2 by what Einstein had for breakfast.
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One element of getting to choose our private truths is that we need only notice or understand the significance of the things we want to notice or understand.
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I still find it hard to see the connection between physics and neural networks but if it’s there, Paul Werbos and Bernie Widrow should have won the Nobel Prize.
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A recent experiment claimed to have identified negative time. If that’s true, solving one mystery in science opens up a vista of… more mysteries.
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As developers ponder how to produce graphene in large quantities, trend watchers wonder whether Silicon Valley will one day be Graphene Valley.
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Before dismissing the idea as untestable, we should ask, is the idea that consciousness is an illusion, grounded in Darwinian evolution theory, testable?
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Human reason could not be open abstract truths, physicist Barr notes, if it were under the complete control of physical factors, as Sapolsky believes.
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The conflict between free will and predestination disappears when considering the perspective of the almighty “I Am” vs. our human perspective.
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One question the physicists must eventually tackle is, can agency come into existence without an Agent? And how can meaning exist in a mindless universe?
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Perhaps it will turn out that a “slush” phase — neither ice nor water exactly — is essential for a structure as complex as a brain.
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The COVID lockdowns often introduced people to a different approach to time from what they were used to, with mixed results.
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Viewing the heavens beyond our reach causes us to look up and stretch our imaginations to envision a realm vastly greater than our own.
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I think it’s fair to say that interstellar space travel isn’t even remotely possible with our current understanding of physics and technology.
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If we grasp the psychological role that the belief that we live in a sim universe plays, it’s easier to see why it persists in the absence of evidence.
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It’s useful to know that this sort of fact-free performance is acceptable, given the state of a materialist interpretation of consciousness today.
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Apart from demoting evolution, “consciousness first” is yet another attempt to naturalize consciousness by making it a basic origin of life process.
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Only in the intellectual world are concepts like correct vs. incorrect (or right vs. wrong) meaningful. It’s a different world from the one created by physics.
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In his discussion with Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth, Tufts physicist and cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin addresses the question, “Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life and Mind?”: If the deep laws of the universe had been ever so slightly different human beings wouldn’t, and couldn’t, exist. All explanations of this exquisite fine-tuning, obvious and not-so-obvious, have problems or complexities. Natural or supernatural, that is the question. Vilenkin — who is also a professor of evolutionary science — concedes the main point: Alexander Vilenkin: [0:40] Well yeah that’s right. It appears that the Universe is fine-tuned in the sense that there are about 30 constants of nature which take some specific value: if you look at these numbers, they look Read More ›