Quantum Computers

Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net
Mon Nov 4 19:02:47 PST 2019


Been catching up on some bucket list "unread" emails, and Steve, this
below email of yours is a real knockout - so many thought seeds, I'm
reminded why I kept it it "unread" state since you posted it 3 years
ago.

Thank you.

It's evident you really put some intention here and there on
communicating as clearly as you can, and that, IMEHO is a valuable
exercise/ contribution to grind mill of experience.

I note you refer below to "E-Prime" variant of English.
Are you familiar with this at all?
If so, tl;dr ?




On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 08:42:01AM -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:
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> On 09/07/2016 02:50 AM, Georgi Guninski wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 06, 2016 at 09:07:25PM -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:
> 
> >> A new Hilaritas Press print edition of RAW's Quantum Psychology
> >> just
> > 
> > Wikipedia has an article about "Quantum Mind", basically claiming
> > that the mind heavily depends on quantum stuff. Pretty sure medical
> > students don't study this.
> > 
> > Are the theories about quantum mind taken seriously?
> 
> Not by me.  To grossly oversimplify:
> 
> 1)  Quantum physics is spooky and inexplicable.
> 2)  Consciousness is spooky and inexplicable.
> 3)  Therefore, quantum physics explains consciousness.
> 
> Maybe.  But the missing link is evidence.  Or even a clearly
> articulated model that can tell us where to look for evidence.
> 
> People who just "have to" explain everything in terms of concrete and
> familiar concepts have been known to assert that consciousness does
> not exist.  Maybe they are right in a limited set of cases:  The
> Gnostics maintained that most humans are born without souls.  The
> Taoists and Sufis posit that the soul is a latent potential that
> remains dormant unless developed through self observation, and may be
> extinguished by the weight of neurotic compulsive attachments to
> "materialistic" motives and activities.  By "soul" I think they mean
> consciousness exhibiting the ability to directly modify thought or
> behavior, and/or perceive something other than the activity of the
> nervous system, but that's a shot in the dark on my part.
> 
> Two questions at the opposite ends of scale sit there like bookends on
> the library of human knowledge:  What is consciousness made of?  What
> contains the Universe and enforces the laws of physics?
> 
> Again, those who simply "must know everything" assert that these are
> meaningless questions and/or that there is "nothing there at all." The
> scientific method addresses "how" but not "why" questions and to them,
> if it's not science it's not real.
> 
> Those with a more experiential / subjective frame of reference often
> arrive at the conclusion that consciousness and existence are
> manifestation of the same thing.  Philosophers who tend toward
> rigorous argument assert that by definition consciousness and
> existence are the same thing for all practical purpose, and that this
> tells us almost nothing except to define the limits on what /can/ be
> known by human beings.
> 
> In Quantum Psychology, Wilson provides a guided tour of a lot of this
> landscape and presents some practical tools, like the E-Prime variant
> of English, for correcting some of the problems that arise from
> believing that we know things we can not know, and behaving accordingly.
> 
> > A news headline like "5 yro savant boy from Uganda breaks root cert
> > in his head for 42 kilograms of western chocolate" will make my day
> > ;)
> 
> If he does, he will probably use a crystal ball, or dance until he
> drops while tripping balls on the best available local psychedelic.
> We have ways of getting at content that is "off limits" to normal
> waking consciousness.  But he probably won't get the desired result
> because in these matters, the process very notoriously has its own
> agenda.  By way of analogy, one does not interrupt a paramedics
> working at a disaster site with a request that she solve a crossword
> puzzle.  You can try but she will ignore you or, if you continue
> pestering her, kick your ass.
> 
> :o)
> 
> 
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