Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave
You could think that any attempt to confine what we could know could not be right.
Alex
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Hi Alex,
Then if we put aside the possibility of a Gödel-like paradox getting in the
way of being able to prove all physical laws of nature, might
we ever still run into some physical limitation like we just aren't
smart enough to get our brains around it all?
Take chimpanzees. I've heard it said that when they look at themselves in
a mirror that experiments have shown that they don't appear to grasp that
it is themselves that they are looking at.
In the whole scheme of things, the human brain is not much bigger
than a chimps but most of us get who it is looking back at them
when we comb our hair. Some human brains are clever enough to
attempt brain surgery but still maybe know one knows how consciousness
or the human brain really works.
Take that one question. How does the brain work?
Understand it to the point where you could design and build a device with
comparable functionality.
Most of us would agree that the question of "how does the brain work"
to be a tough one.
Or is it that we are just like the chimps. If we were just that little bit cleverer,
problems like that may be as transparent to us as recognizing our own
reflection.
Are the people most of us would label a true genius - such
as Newton and Einstein - many, many times smarter than the majority
of us by some quantitative metric (it
feels like they are) or are they
just that little bit smarter and are a bit like the one or two chimps
that understands it is them in the mirror?
We have writing and books and computers and can share information.
The majority of us aren't geniuses so books and the like give us the
luxury of time to try and grasp what the ideas in them mean (the luxury
of time except when we are cramming for tomorrow's exam
)
But what would happen if we had a seemingly complete theory of physics
but no individual brain could hold it in their heads to make sense of it?
We would like to think as a species we could understand everything.
We sense there are no limits. But just like we would see it as futile to try
and teach a goldfish quantum mechanics, would some hypothetical
advanced alien intelligence who had a much bigger grasp of physics
look down on us and say, "Forget it. They won't get it if we explain
it to them. Might as well teach their dogs some new tricks instead"?
I'd like to think not. I'd like to think that one day there would be at least
one human that gets it. Who could hold it all their heads and the ideas
would be like plastic they could mould in their minds.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts.
It's a small world.
