Sunday, August 13, 2006

More on Sharikou's ramblings

This is a continuation of "Sharikou's dennounciation", article which should be read before this.


Sharikou presents his interpretation of "Matrix Revolutions" as "authoritative", in his typical arrogance. He is so arrogant that he resembles a cartoon character, Syndrome of "The Incredibles", with his frustration of not being a true super hero (a successful investor), and the bitterness of having been rejected (his lost credibility), also his incapacity to understand that not because he wants it so badly then what he writes is true. That strikes me as kind of funny when I disregard how pathetic it is.

After his un-especial interpretation of "MR" he goes on in full-fledge political and social commentary displaying his precariousness, thing that also made me laugh, you know, the blatant ignorance in a loudspeaker arrogant voice.

I am not a Ph.D., but I will try to comment on the subject with my sub-masters degree credentials and you be the judge if Sharikou speaks with a higher quality that may indicate that his claimed Ph.D. title is more than a cereal-box-conferred one:

I am a researcher in Artificial Intelligence, thus I have come across the philosophical question of "Hard" Artificial Intelligence versus "Soft" A.I., that is, the discussion of whether mind and thinking are deterministic physical processes susceptible of being completely formulated and therefore emulated by a computer, or "Soft", that is, stochastic. It is important the distinction, because if mind were "Hard AI", then it will be guaranteed that eventually there will be computers smarter than minds, but if the mind is soft AI, then there is the chance that our brains have some sort of peculiarity that would prevent them from being emulated in computers. For instance, the monumental work of the great theoretical physicist Roger Penrose in "The Emperor's New Mind" attempts to demonstrate that mind includes quantum processes not possible to be emulated by digital (actually universal turing machines) computers because of fundamental reasons. (I don't agree with Penrose, by the way).

Then, there is the issue of the incompleteness of logic. Kurt Gödel demonstrated that no mathematical system can provide the tools to demonstrate every truthful assertion, that is, there are mathematical theorems that require to go beyond what the formal system provides with a bit of "intuition" to demonstrate. From this, the opposers of Artificial Intelligence say that logic is incapable of encompassing intuition, and in a failed logical implication, they say that computers being supposedly logic can't evidentiate intuitive behaviour, dismissing the fact that stochastic processes such as what occurs in neurons are replicatable in hardware.

If you accept that Artificial Intelligence is possible, then The Matrix is possible, that is, a simulation so perfect that minds can not tell the difference between the simulation and reality.

Now that the world is shifting to Quantum Computing, it has been proposed that quantum computing is viable only because the Universe is a quantum computer itself. If the Universe today is a state on the execution of the quantum configuration (program) in a quantum computer, then it is clear to consider the posibility that we are a simulation.

By the way, an English medieval philosopher (sorry, don't remember his name) got to the conclusion that we are thoughts in God's head, I sort of remember that since that philosopher subscribed to the idea that change is not possible (Zeno's paradox), the only way he could concile the illusion (for him) of change was that we were thoughts. It would be the same thing to say that God's mind is a computer.

Speaking about thinking, René Descartes summarized in "cogito, ergo sum", "I think, therefore I exist", or my interpretation: "since I am capable of doubting my existence, I am not a "nothingness", and I have demonstrated my existence" that even if we are a simulation there is a loophole: to doubt of true (real) existence, which leads me to think, Turing's test withstanding that if Zion's simulation is so perfect as to make it indistinguishable from reality, then it is demonstrated that it is a reality. But I don't remember much about "MR", so I will leave it at that.

It is important to mention that if a simulation is undistinguishable from reality then it is reality, because Sharikou's Western Civilization's Matrix is not provable to be false. That is, there is no evidence to demonstrate that Sharikou is wrong: If you keep throwing evidence at him of democracy, and freedom, then he will just reply that the simulation is so good and pervasive; but if we are content with degrees of satisfaction of those principles, we may see if there is enough evidence to call something a democracy, or freedom, or not.

I am a guest in the United States, thus, I shouldn't emit an opinion on whether this polical system is a democracy of free people, or not. I will, nevertheless, mention that my hosts (citizens of this country) tend to take for granted the freedoms that previous generations were able to preserve and expand through dilligent vigilance, and have become, quite frankly, sloppy at that. That is, this country is less democratic, and less free, than what it was 70 years ago, even including the huge advances it meant of broadening the real citizenship to people of other races than just anglo saxon.

We operate in a stock market. It may be full of manipulation, but in the end, nobody forces me to sell or buy at a price that I don't accept, thus, we have but one crucial freedom that allows me to categorically speak of a free market. As in every sort of freedom, success (and its preservation) depends on eternal attentive vigilance: We listen, we read, we see what Wall Street says, but always should do our own Due Dilligence, which is to corroborate the facts (or the data accepted as fact) by ourselves as much as possible. We should mistrust the companies we own, read their filings, inspect the actions of our managers (that is, the managers of our companies), watch the watchers, that is, make sure that the S.E.C. does it job, demand objectivity and truthfulness from the financial media, etc. That is the way to preserve freedom and democracy, if we fail at that, as simple as that we lose them.

And by the way, it is not individualism. How is it possible to accomplish all of the above? Only by partnering. If you have read this far, chances are that you got to know about this blog through the AMD investors message board, thus you may already have a fundamental understanding that the secret to the protection of my liberties lies on the protection of the liberties of others, and everyone.

I hope to have sounded very different to Sharikou, not only because we have exactly the opposite opinion, but because he speaks with comical arrogance about subjects to which he displays equally comical ignorance.

4 comments:

Eddie said...

In the (improbable) case that you may want to know/read more about this subject, you may try:

Gödel, Escher and Back by Douglas Hofstadter (a Pulitzer prize-winning volume).

Many short stories by the Argentinean Jorge Luis Borges (what a privilege I have to be able to read Borges untranslated!)

Hackers, or "Artificial Life" by Steven Levy

Penrose, of course

And you should also read about the history of the U.S. Constitution, Madison, Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Kennedy's inaugural...

And don't forget to watch "Elephants Dream" and get "Ghost In The Shell", and I leave you at that because "the net is vast and infinite"

Anonymous said...

Chicagrafo,great article that every American needs to read; but you neglect to mention the welcoming of the native American .......

Sharikou, Ph. D. said...

chicagraf0, you are a pathological product of Chavez's rule. You view stuff through your political eye glasses while other people are just making fun of anything political. Go back and fight in the jungles of Venezvuela. There is no war in US, only money, political talk, and games.

Dude, don't be so serious about politics. Your fellow countrymen voted for Chavez, and he likes socialism. That's the will of your people -- that democracy.

Eddie said...

You know what? I have enjoyed to expose how pathetic you are, Sharikou. Perhaps I will do it systematically because that's the remedy for liars and manipulators such as you. You had your chance to come with ideas of intellectual callibre, but you instead came with incoherent insults.

Remember Lincoln's words that apply so well to you: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

You once again fight with me and are left in ridicule, enough of you. I won't ban you from my blog, I prefer to have you here embarrassing yourself, but since you are polluting with your incoherent personal attacks, I will erase one of your comments every time you post a new one.

Now, for the rest of the audience, what "Dr." (cereal-box-conferred) Sharikou says that democracy is "five wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for dinner" is another display of his ignorance; not because a political regime is elected then it is democratic, remember the elections in which Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

Since he is dishonest, cbphd Syndrome has to depend on distortion of facts and outright lies to fool people, his method is to at least seed confusion. To cure the malignant misinformation he is seeding regarding me, I think it was best to explain how my personal things are in reality:

Before Chávez I was already successful at educating my fellow Venezuelans about how to exercise Democracy, when this communist proto-revolution happened. I felt very dissapointed that my efforts of years were wasted in a wave of demagogy and brain washing, but as a result of the emergency, just like so many thousands of fellow Venezuelans I had to attend to the calling of my acquaintances in the organized politics; resulting in deeper involvement in political activism. I guess that our group was particularly successful at preventing the people to be brainwashed because the government soon started to pick it on us. Then the outright political harrassment began and I decided for personal reasons to throttle down the activism and took it as an opportunity to reach my full potential somewhere in the big wide world. In any case, what I do best is to work with ideas, and the remnants of the Venezuelan free press always publish the articles I write; and I feel that my contribution is important and effective, because our communism-fascism breaks when you rescue the people from the brainwash.

That's what cbphd Syndrome calls to betray my people and a pathological product of Chávez's regime.

I let Syndrome to insult me because after all it was me who stirred things up by laughing about his political ignorance and mediocrity at interpreting "The Matrix"; nevertheless, it is not advisable to mess up with psycopaths.