What is Knowledge?

I've been delighting in meeting new people on the other side of the world. Open Parachute and MandM are a couple of New Zealand blogs that seem to maintain a surprisingly intelligent level of discourse. Open Parachute is an atheist/non-theist site and MandM is run by a Christian couple.

There's a hot thread happening on Open Parachute right now. It started with a book review but it has turned into a discussion of the nature of knowledge. I'm not expecting that many pearls of wisdom to start flying (if they do, watch out for pigs!), but it's a pleasure to hang out with people who debate the nature of knowledge for the fun of it.

I have nothing to contribute to the debate right now, so I'm retreating to a neutral corner to think about the physical basis of human knowledge. I'm more-or-less committed to the concept that human knowledge has a physical basis. All my ideas have a physical component to them--there's a certain number of neurons in some particular state. I'm not saying that's what knowledge "is," but every idea in every human brain has a physical aspect.

I'm interested in abstracting this physical aspect of human knowledge out of its biological, neurological context. It would seem that a fully-developed-technology could replicate the entire neural network of a living human brain in a medium besides protoplasm. I've long thought that one could represent electronic neural nets as a multi-dimensional phase space. (I use the term "hyperdimensional" to refer to any phase space big enough to include a separate dimension for each of about 100,000,000,000 neurons.) Just to make things interesting, I see no reason to limit my hyperdimensional space to any single human brain. Two heads are better than one--and a phase space of 200,000,000,000 neurons makes just as much sense as a phase space for one hundred billion.

But why stop there? My real interest is in the phase space composed of every human neuron out there. The topology of that space should be filled with fascinating features. What does the word "banana" look like, when you say it to the whole human race? There are so many neurons firing all at once--neurons associated with "sweet," "yellow," "shopping cart," "colonial exploiters," "fruit flies," and a million other connotations. The whole human experience of a "banana," put all together, is different from any actual banana, just as it is different from any individual's understanding of the word--yet each individual has a real understanding of a real fruit.

I can't visualize a phase space with 600,000,000,000,000,000,000 (six hundred quintillion) dimensions, of course, so I just imagine little dots in outer space. Each time somebody interacts with a banana, I light up a little spot in space. As more and more people interact with more and more bananas (banana splits, banana peels, banana boats, etc., etc.) more dots light up. I picture these dots beginning to cluster. Eventually, there should be enough data points that one could say, "This cluster is 'banana' in human conceptual space."

"Banana" is a trivial example, of course. Nobody needs to go through this much work to talk about bananas. The concept of conceptual space gets more interesting when we move on to words like "beauty," "justice," "truth," "love," or "God." Would a hyperdimensional map of these terms produce a meaningful pattern, the way "banana" does--or would it be a chaotic smear with no distinct features?

Wood, Hay, and Stubble

What if...

• Jesus really rose from the dead and is really coming back to judge the Earth
  
• And some scientific genius could prove that everything the Bible says and promises is true?

Should that person:

1. Use every effort to spread the good news (like the Apostle Paul) or
   
2. Seal up the vision (like the prophet Daniel)?

The parable of Lazarus suggests that scientific proof won't convert people. The rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers of the coming judgment, but Abraham said, "If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen to one risen from the dead."

That throws a bucket of cold water on a Christian's urge to find the scientific answers to the riddles of Creation. Even if you could answer every question the skeptics raise, you wouldn't change their minds. In the meantime, you're bound to hunt down a lot of dead ends and bark up a lot of wrong trees. Why go to all that effort if it doesn't save souls and can't add to what the Bible already says? It's like teaching a pig to whistle--it doesn't work, and it annoys the pig.

My personal reasons for digging into science are not to convince others. I ask questions because I can't not. I am curiously made--and I was made curious! But being curious and imaginative doesn't make me right. My brain tells me that every new idea I come up with is 99.99% likely to be wrong (at least!). My Bible tells me all my own ideas will be burned up on the Day of Judgment, along with all the other wood, hay, and stubble.

A Kindred Spirit

Frank Wilczek won a Nobel Prize for his work on quantum chromodynamics. I love his take on life and science.

Evolution should not be taught in State Schools: A Defence of Plantinga Part II | MandM

Evolution should not be taught in State Schools: A Defence of Plantinga Part II | MandM

One Step Closer to Multiple Futures

My best example of a truly metaphysical question is, "How many futures are there?" The logical possibilities are "0," "1," "several," or "all." I'm undecided between "1" and "several." Some very smart people have just built a gadget that may help me decide between those two answers:

Researchers at Yale have succeeded in producing the first working solid-state quantum processor.

Quantum computers have the potential to do things conventional computers just can't do. The best current application for quantum computing would be cryptography--a lot of modern codes and ciphers rely on "keys" that can't be cracked without computers bigger than the solar system that would require more power than the sun puts out in a year. (We're talking about some serious computational requirements!) A working quantum computer could crack those codes in an instant. That's because they use an infinite number of timelines to produce measurable results in the here and now.

Each "qbit" in a quantum computer supposedly exists in all possible quantum states at the same time, as if all that little box contains "all the possible worlds" for the qbits inside it. That makes a quantum computer the ultimate "parallel processor."

If humans can ever get quantum computers to work, it may lead to a new view of our entire universe. The new physics of the 17th century paved the way for the Deistic concept of a "clockwork universe" where God created the world, wound it up, and walked off. The new biology of the 19th century enabled people to believe in an evolutionary universe where enough time and chance "just happened" to produce intelligent life.

If quantum computing works, the new information science of the 21st century could lead to a view of the whole universe as a quantum computer programmed to produce its own "observer." Some people will see that as a vindication of the "intelligent design" hypothesis. Others will say it proves "intelligent design" false. (The fact that people will predictably argue both sides makes me question whether the universe has produced any actual "intelligence" yet!)

Imagination Stretcher

I hate to think of myself as narrow-minded and parochial, but every so often I run across something that makes me realize I don't get out enough. Here's an example...

21% of Atheists Believe in God

Or so they tell pollsters. Tip of the hat to HotAir.com.

And I thought Christians were mixed up!