Mind Reading is one step further - neuroscientists can read words before they are spoken

[Gauss]

I'm opposite to you. I used to think that a human brain is like a computer. But now I believe a human brain is not the same as a human mind and that a computer cannot imitate a human mind. I've come to this conclusion because of mathematics.

When you think about mathematical topics like formal system, provability, computability, completeness/incompleteness, you face really puzzling issues. Well, maybe I'm not a math major so I find it puzzling.

For example, how does mathematicians discover/come up with mathematical Axioms? These axioms does not come about through a mechanical process (i.e. step-by-step process) that a Turing-machine type of computer can replicate. Some say it's a special "intuition" that mathematical genius people possess. You cannot use a mathematic model or computer to replicate or explain this "intuition".

I'm not a math major, but maybe @Gauss can better explain this.

Also, computer software language are based on classical logic (logic calculus), but human do not use any form of formal logic that are derived from this classical logic. A human mind seems to use a logic system, if any at all, that logicians are still puzzled with. So all the computer system that we have today, does not work the same as a human mind.

And when people say "be logical" or "only logical arguments are good", they are actually wrong. A computer is "logical" but a human mind must not be logical.

I am not a maths major either. I am studying physics. Though i intent to switch to maths after graduation and eventually get a PhD in maths.
I believe the human mind to be mechanical and limited. As people with pets can verify, if we examine animals for long enough they become completely predictable and robotic. Humans are the same, there mind is just more evolved. An alien being more evolved than humans will look at us the same way we look at animals (or women....lol).

 

[Aepsilons]

Nihonjin1051 - have you come across any additional studies, have any info of your own or your own research, or conversed with anyone who has additional information?

I'd love to add some points. Let me review some notes first.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

What I was saying is that there's no physical analog to the field. A "field" is a mathematical construct only. It's a fancy way of saying object A affects object B at a distance, we're not quite sure how. One explanation is that such interactions are mediated by exchanging photons. The exchange of photons defines a "field" -- the "field" has no physical existence otherwise.

Really?

http://physics.unipune.ernet.in/~phyed/23.4/23.4_Curiosities-5.pdf

Aharonov–Bohm effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The field can affect things even when the things are in a region where it is zero. They can store energy, momentum and even angular momentum. That's pretty physical to me.

Most physicists and electrical engineers deal with the physicalness of fields all the time. There are phenomena which apparently result in non-conservation of momentum or energy if the fields cannot store them.

Do not listen to pop-sci. Pop-sci is inaccurate. To get the real physics, you need a book. The particle-exchange model is mathematical, not literal - in contrary, the field model is actually more physical. You can't deal with field storage of energy/momentum in the particle exchange model very well.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I am not a maths major either. I am studying physics. Though i intent to switch to maths after graduation and eventually get a PhD in maths.

do not go to the dark side.

 

[Developereo]

Really?

http://physics.unipune.ernet.in/~phyed/23.4/23.4_Curiosities-5.pdf

Aharonov–Bohm effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The field can affect things even when the things are in a region where it is zero. They can store energy, momentum and even angular momentum. That's pretty physical to me.

Most physicists and electrical engineers deal with the physicalness of fields all the time. There are phenomena which apparently result in non-conservation of momentum or energy if the fields cannot store them.

Do not listen to pop-sci. Pop-sci is inaccurate. To get the real physics, you need a book. The particle-exchange model is mathematical, not literal - in contrary, the field model is actually more physical. You can't deal with field storage of energy/momentum in the particle exchange model very well.

I am not talking pop-sci; I am talking very real science.

Show me one physicist who can tell me what is a field -- physically.

You'll get a lot of hand waving, a lot of humming and hawing, and a lot of smoke and mirrors, but no actual answer. The same thing you get when you ask tricky questions about relativity or quantum mechanics. That's because the field is a mathematical construct to describe nature's behavior.

Random particles appear out of nowhere? no problem; we'll just conjure up a zero point field. Energy comes out of nowhere and disappears, violating conservation of energy? no worries; we'll cook up a magical field to store latent energy.

The fact is that most of modern physics is very good at describing nature, but not explaining the why and the how. This is not just my criticism; it's from John Bell himself, who was a Nobel Prize winning quantum physicist (Bell's Inequality). If you can catch a physicist in a mood of candor, they will also admit it.

It's not bad, since we can squeeze a whole lot of benefit just from understanding the behavior -- description -- without knowing the how and the why. All of modern electronics is based on QM, but we haven't got the faintest idea why things happen the way they do.

PS. Anyway, it's getting a bit off-topic.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

It's not bad, since we can squeeze a whole lot of benefit just from understanding the behavior -- description -- without knowing the how and the why. All of modern electronics is based on QM, but we haven't got the faintest idea why things happen the way they do.

I actually study the physics of semiconductor materials and get paid for it. We have a pretty damn good idea of why they behave the way they do.

Like I said: if a field was not physical, then how does it store energy or momentum? I mean classical electromagnetic fields, not even quantum fields.