Post #2158808

I think that if 100-200 years down the line, if some other intelligence is able to develop all the beautiful and elegant mathematical intuitions and instincts like we are, and maybe even "better", though I doubt we can truly objectify this. But yeah, that wont be a deafeat at all. At the end, being awed by all the different ways to perceive numbers is all that matters. I really like Klowden and @tao 's Copernican reframing. Earth is one of seemingly infite planets, and I think it's quite clear to me by now that a similar fact exists for intelligence. Maybe we integrate ourselves with silicon intelligence, or completely offload ourselves onto it. As long as someone is able to appreciate all the new levels of abstraction, there is no loss of “qualia” or thought. And if the answer to the universe is just raw computation with no deep interpretation, then I’m simply not interested in studying or exploring it. And I strongly believe that this is not the case. The probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, I believe, settles the argument that the answer to the universe is not merely “raw computation” devoid of “emotional distractions and noise.” A probability is a probability, no amount of computation can collapse it beforehand. The best you can do is study more, measure, and then simply appreciate what you have observed.