Single-particle interference observed for macroscopic objects

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: zinfamous
The good thing is that our collective brains can work as a cluster. No one should assume that any one individual--a single human brain--can be capable of comprehending everything about the Universe.

Our collective brains, our vast resource of collected knowledge across many disciplines, may indeed be able to comprehend all there is to comprehend.

You underestimate how much there is to comprehend.

These brains we've got have other problems too - they forget easily, they don't remember very precisely, and they have very little short term memory capacity. They evolved in order to keep us alive in a hostile world with predators and scarce food sources. (Ok, maybe they got a bit freakishly large to accomplish that task, but here we are.) They didn't evolve with technology in mind, or for a data-based society. They can do reasonably well at it, but they aren't ideally suited for it.

Nor are they ideally suited for networking in the data-based society. We've got verbal, symbolic, and visual communication. These methods aren't especially efficient. If you want to network two computers, you don't print out a document, scan it into another one, and use OCR software. It's horribly inefficient. Instead, you wire the two together and let them speak in their own language to one another as directly as possible. True, we have methods which augment our existing means of communication, allowing information to travel near or at the speed of light, but the information itself is still in those older forms, always translated from thoughts to something else, distilled down to something which possesses less meaning than what its originator may have had in mind - lossy transmission. Slow lossy transmission.

But still, it's better than anything else we've come up with to this point, and it's the best we're able to do. For now.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: zinfamous
The good thing is that our collective brains can work as a cluster. No one should assume that any one individual--a single human brain--can be capable of comprehending everything about the Universe.

Our collective brains, our vast resource of collected knowledge across many disciplines, may indeed be able to comprehend all there is to comprehend.

true but the collective is often not as efficient as an individual. as our knowledge grows up imo it will eventually reach a state where either the collective mind cannot deal with it effectively, or each atomic component is too complex for an individual. I believe upgrading the mind is possible and will be pursued.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: dighn

Originally posted by: zinfamous
The good thing is that our collective brains can work as a cluster. No one should assume that any one individual--a single human brain--can be capable of comprehending everything about the Universe.

Our collective brains, our vast resource of collected knowledge across many disciplines, may indeed be able to comprehend all there is to comprehend.

true but the collective is often not as efficient as an individual. as our knowledge grows up imo it will eventually reach a state where either the collective mind cannot deal with it effectively, or each atomic component is too complex for an individual. I believe upgrading the mind is possible and will be pursued.

Time for dual-core processing then.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Devine
Anybody want to translate that into laymen's terms?

Everything we are is interconnected. Its Chaos Theory meets Fractals meets Karma.

 

[IHAVEAQUESTION]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: zinfamous
The good thing is that our collective brains can work as a cluster. No one should assume that any one individual--a single human brain--can be capable of comprehending everything about the Universe.

Our collective brains, our vast resource of collected knowledge across many disciplines, may indeed be able to comprehend all there is to comprehend.

You underestimate how much there is to comprehend.

These brains we've got have other problems too - they forget easily, they don't remember very precisely, and they have very little short term memory capacity. They evolved in order to keep us alive in a hostile world with predators and scarce food sources. (Ok, maybe they got a bit freakishly large to accomplish that task, but here we are.) They didn't evolve with technology in mind, or for a data-based society. They can do reasonably well at it, but they aren't ideally suited for it.

Nor are they ideally suited for networking in the data-based society. We've got verbal, symbolic, and visual communication. These methods aren't especially efficient. If you want to network two computers, you don't print out a document, scan it into another one, and use OCR software. It's horribly inefficient. Instead, you wire the two together and let them speak in their own language to one another as directly as possible. True, we have methods which augment our existing means of communication, allowing information to travel near or at the speed of light, but the information itself is still in those older forms, always translated from thoughts to something else, distilled down to something which possesses less meaning than what its originator may have had in mind - lossy transmission. Slow lossy transmission.

But still, it's better than anything else we've come up with to this point, and it's the best we're able to do. For now.

That's why I said it's going to take a few thousand years assuming human don't kill our own civilization before making all the discoveries.