Intelligent or unintelligent?

[greenbug]

Oh and I wanted to add to the REM. I’ve thought about it a lot and yeah its needed to sort memories but I don think that’s what evolved it. I think that it’s a balance of chemicals or a chemical clean up that goes on in our head.. In away its like a maintenance mode of the brain, to clean up the office after every one as gone home. Files or memories don’t exactly get put away, sort of get put on the desk, which is why you recall them in the morning. Its kind of your responsibility to put them away when you wake. When you do what do you relate them to? How do you solve the stack of papers and just how do you file them comes when your awake not sleeping. If those were sorted when you were sleeping then you wouldn’t recall them. Sometimes that’s the case, but it might just be the difference between a hard day at the office and an easy day.

[greenbug]

With solely exploration, the value would be a pure "mean" of whatever existed. Any finite window of determination involved would lead to finite control of those probabilities - in that case, it would appear that an optimal decision could be to minimize the exploration component to its minimum, non-zero value possible and so that would be like stacking everything in favor of the most beneficial circumstances possible, but allowing the possibility of a random event nonetheless.

I wonder what form such an algorithm could appear as ... how long a period clock can be made with finite resources? That's probably another science in itself.

I think your right.. I'd add more but don't have the time right now.

[Stella]

Hey, Stella, this is great! This is what Nobody and I have been saying.

See Nobody’s thread (maybe go near the end, for now, or maybe 10 pages back, since Nobody just returned from the grave):

http://www.toequest.com/forum/your-t...-now-here.html

and also the more recent parts of Bogie’s thread:

http://www.toequest.com/forum/your-t...gy-my-toe.html

The lack of anything is the none, which, obviously didn’t happen, and can’t happen; but, evidently it tries to happen, but is perfectly unstable, as the simplest state would have to be, for, of what else could existence be made of but the negative and positive distributions of opposites that are the balance of ‘nothing’.

So then, since Nothing(the none/0/a lack of anything) can’t be (or stay), then something has to( which is all very real); thus, there is a connection there—a link of nothing to everything; yet, the completely solid everything(the one) cannot exist either, which is the back link and the connection, again, to the in-between, which is the something, better called the sum-thing, that necessarily finite mid-point, as seen, for example, in one of its instances: the exact center of infinite largeness and infinite smallness.

Why is the universe so large? It is because a point is so small.

Austin, the No-Thing? You might be interested to know that is exactly what the mystics call it. Some years back I decided to take up study to see what the mystery schools say. To describe the power that created the universe they used the name the "No-Thing". The concepts are rather abstract and defy discussion so archetypal images are used to communicate concepts instead. These archetypes are otherwise known as (ahem) the tarot which was designed for the purpose of both concealing and revealing their teachings (in days of antiquity discussing anything other than exoteric religion could get you killed; passing around a deck of cards will only get you laughed at).

The first archetype in the series is numbered 0 and depicts the No-Thing. Termed "The Fool" it 'embodies' the unembodiable: the state of the universe prior to existing, illustrated by a scene of an innocent boy moving gleefully toward the edge of a precipice and about to fall off. God; The Big Bang; the Universe coming to exist from nothing. I'm sure you can see the many purposeful ironies there with the Fool: a double entendre of the ultimate innocence of 0 and the state of pre-existence with the paradox that tricks the mind: the biggest “fool” of all time JEventually the student must come to grips with the heady paradox of "good and evil" and the understanding that they are two sides of One thing. How you come to grips with it is to understand that it is not One that unites opposites but 0. 0 in order to exist had to take the plunge over the precipice. From its innocence it took this journey and fell on the hard bedrock of reality. Darkness, pain & suffering! Love and light! Time, stars and black holes, oh my! It also enables you to come to grips with the paradox of the big bang arising from "nothing".

Our trouble with these concepts is that we can't get past the realization that everything is "One" – thinking that is the ultimate lesson. But it isn’t, because it isn’t One, it’s 0, as that is what -x + x comes to. I think we like to spell out the number One in English when discussing these ideas because we know intuitively that 0 is there and that's what we really mean. It is of immense comfort because we can understand that 0 must find a way to exist and all the negatives must have their rightful place in the universe. And this vast universe from the No-Thing doesn't hurt our heads quite so much. It’s a long-held saying that this concept is a “great secret” only because it is very difficult if not impossible to discuss due to the paradox presented and the inadequacy of words. Some say it’s “folly” to try and tell it.

I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch either that the title “the Fool” is intentionally pointing by way of irony to the source of all intelligence.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Yes, right on, those mystics who knew it long ago, it then appearing as Yin-Yang and such, then sometimes layered upon with many more wishful, humanized levels, such as a sleep Brahman, which doesn't really go anywhere, but who can blame them.

Where's your paper on the glorious virtual reality adventures of REM sleep that, I believe, too, make for good practice toward real life?

Just got off work in the desert?

[Stella]

Oh and I wanted to add to the REM. I’ve thought about it a lot and yeah its needed to sort memories but I don think that’s what evolved it. I think that it’s a balance of chemicals or a chemical clean up that goes on in our head.. In away its like a maintenance mode of the brain, to clean up the office after every one as gone home. Files or memories don’t exactly get put away, sort of get put on the desk, which is why you recall them in the morning. Its kind of your responsibility to put them away when you wake. When you do what do you relate them to? How do you solve the stack of papers and just how do you file them comes when your awake not sleeping. If those were sorted when you were sleeping then you wouldn’t recall them. Sometimes that’s the case, but it might just be the difference between a hard day at the office and an easy day.

Well Greenbug there are some strange aspects of dreams we don't tend to notice. But it turns out that brain scans of people performing a kind of meditation used to label/identify and deal with tough emotions and problems is just about identical to that of REM experiencers. The prefrontal cortex/higher reasoning is involved and then subsequently the amygdala, seat of the emotions, is completely calmed. Where memory often comes in is that REM dreams are often about situations and problems that we didn't deal with during the day because our consciousness is pinned to the urgency of the moment. Sleeping for 8 hours and dreaming is a way that people and animals can get a break from the urgency of the moment and the issues du jour to get the higher mind on solving problems. If that sounds a little crazy, think about how refreshed your mind feels after sleeping when problems are plaguing you. Cognitive coping is not best done while keeping the wolves away from the door, nature seems to have guaranteed us some quality cognitive time. Narcoleptics go directly into REM as soon as they experience an emotion that indicates cognitive coping is needed. A man in a coma actually dreamt - and when he woke he said his REM "experiences" showed him he was paralyzed, and how he would deal with it going forward.

So I think intelligent cognition in humans (and animals) that we usually refer to is only 2/3 of the coin and the other 1/3 is nature's insurance. Oh no, not that 1/3 again!!!

[greenbug]

Vary concise....

[Stella]

Where's your paper on the glorious virtual reality adventures of REM sleep that, I believe, too, make for good practice toward real life?

Just got off work in the desert?

Since the REM paper is one I wrote "for fun" ? (rather than for academic credit) I have it up at a site: http://emotivecognitivetheory.web.of...m/default.aspx.

The desert is on "vacation" these days celebrating the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Time to catch up on forsaken projects!