Re: good books

marc said:
> And of course, if you hadn't read it yet, the classic: Goedel, Escher,
> Bach
> by Douglas Hofstadter. Twenty years old but utterly cool.
> It's a several hundred page excuse to explain Goedel's Theorem, which in
> itself is a *whoa* kind of thing, but with some molecular biology and AI
> mixed in.
>
> Marc
>
Is that the same theory in which every system has an member that cannot be
described by the system's rules, but the member exists and is true
nonetheless? I think it is called a Goedel sentence, not sure.

I have seen that discussed in depth on the imdb.com's Matrix Revolutions
board.  If it is the same theory, then yes it is very much whoa.  However,
without having read the book or performed any in depth study on the
theory, I tend to think the universe is cyclic, in which the microcosmic
from our perspective is macrocosmic from another perspective, maybe
another universe.  Combined with the Schrvdinger?s Cat,Suicidal Physicist
thought experiments and the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum
mechanics description of reality itself,  reality , as experienced through
sensation, can be thought to be irrelevant, with the remembered experience
as the only thing 'real'.  I think therefore I am?  Did you see that
episode of South Park where Kyle is reading all this metaphysical stuff
like, Descartes, Hawkins, etc and, once he absorbs all this info, he
disappears from reality only to come back as 'everything, but nothing'?  I
feel that way alot. No, I don't disappear, but to read and understand what
the most forward thinking people of our time are describing, it makes me
want to either run screaming through the streets or destroy the universe
or something ... I don't know.

Anyway, tho I enjoy the mental exercise, I feel that much cannot be
proven. Kind of like conspiracy theories, I used to be into those until I
realized the if there was a conspiracy then everything I learn about it is
wrong or I would not know about the conspiracy at all.  I feel that life
is the question, and death the answer and belief you me, the bell will
toll for thee.

It's also why I like the Matrix movies:  something to make me question
reality and authority is always welcome.  My daughter learned how to have
lucid dreams better after watching the Matrix, her favorite line is 'Do
you think that is air you are breathing?'  Now, whenever she is scared in
her dreams, she knows nothing can stop her.

Bill Joy from Sun wrote an article (on Wired somewhen in 2000) on the
future of computers/machines and published an excerpt from the Unabombers
Manifest where he says dependence on technology will be man's downfall. 
Then Bill goes on to elaborate on how this is possible, like the 'gray goo
problem'.


Dave

-- 
Have Fun!