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  1. #1
    Groovebox
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    The Big Brain Theory

    Wrap your head around THIS theory:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/scien ... 1&8dpc&_r=

    Summary for those who can't click link:

    It could be the weirdest and most embarrassing prediction in the history of cosmology, if not science.

    If true, it would mean that you yourself reading this article are more likely to be some momentary fluctuation in a field of matter and energy out in space than a person with a real past born through billions of years of evolution in an orderly star-spangled cosmos. Your memories and the world you think you see around you are illusions.

  2. #2

    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    sounds like something out of futurama

    i found this article much more interesting

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/he...a7c&ei=5087%0A

    A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the “flesh-eating” MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday.

  3. #3
    Conejita's Jolly
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Capnveil
    sounds like something out of futurama

    i found this article much more interesting

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/he...a7c&ei=5087%0A

    A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the “flesh-eating” MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday.
    Some would say it's an act of God

  4. #4

    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    I love this kind of stuff

    Very peculiar, and dare I say probable? Oh hoho!

  5. #5
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    When popular sciences goes wrong... Start with a shocking headline, add a string of scientific words together to confuse the average reader and give an half assed explanation of the current theories. Hint: It's not sciences when it doesnt have integrals and derivatives. Those theories sound more like something a physician would say after drinking a few beers. They aren't wrong, but they are making so many hypothesis about thing we have no clue about it's kinda stupid.


    http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...AINa_large.jpg

  6. #6

    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    It's leaning towards philosophy as far as I'm concerned.

  7. #7
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Cosmology has been trying as hard as it can to turn into philosophy for a while now I think. But the best they can do is to throw out a shocking headline and then confuse everyone else with a string of scientific words. And then they throw it all out and try again.

  8. #8
    Ridill
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Except that everyone else you talk to seems to know your past, unless they, too, are illusions.

    I'd like to think that the world would seem surreal, as in a dream, if this were the case. I could have anything I wanted, but alas, I don't.

  9. #9
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Yeah that's the thing. If this is an illusion then it's a pretty shitty one.

  10. #10
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Agreed.

    And i don't want to be too dismisive, but this is just so unprovable that it makes you think why they even bother.

  11. #11
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuya
    Agreed.

    And i don't want to be too dismisive, but this is just so unprovable that it makes you think why they even bother.
    Most hypotheses about the universe and outer space can be considered "so unprovable" but if we don't theorize about it we're never going to get any closer, are we?

    This sort of stuff interests me a lot, though I wish cosmologists would work on something a little more concrete

  12. #12
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Now, if this were just a fluctuation, and you really are just a giant floating disembodied brain with atoms and electrical charges perfectly aligned in exactly the right fashion to replicate sensory experience and memory, it would probably only last a fraction of a second before dispersing.

    This would mean, as the article states, that memories of your past are an illusion and your split second of consciousness is all you really ever had.

    Take a moment now and focus on this word: OCTOPUS. Relish this split second in time that you are conscious.

    Now, remember when I said OCTOPUS? Well, that was just an illusion since THIS exact moment in time is the real split second you are conscious.

    Remember when I told you to remember when I said OCTOPUS? That was an illusion, too. In fact, it's this exact moment that you are truly conscious.

    Actually, it's now.

    No, now.

    Now.

  13. #13

    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    article lost any credibility here:
    The basic problem is that across the eons of time, the standard theories suggest, the universe can recur over and over again in an endless cycle of big bangs, but it’s hard for nature to make a whole universe.
    i'm assuming they're talking about big crunch and NOT brane clash.

  14. #14
    Relic Horn
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Khamsin
    Now, if this were just a fluctuation, and you really are just a giant floating disembodied brain with atoms and electrical charges perfectly aligned in exactly the right fashion to replicate sensory experience and memory, it would probably only last a fraction of a second before dispersing.

    This would mean, as the article states, that memories of your past are an illusion and your split second of consciousness is all you really ever had.

    Take a moment now and focus on this word: OCTOPUS. Relish this split second in time that you are conscious.

    Now, remember when I said OCTOPUS? Well, that was just an illusion since THIS exact moment in time is the real split second you are conscious.

    Remember when I told you to remember when I said OCTOPUS? That was an illusion, too. In fact, it's this exact moment that you are truly conscious.

    Actually, it's now.

    No, now.

    Now.
    And this is why they came up with Occam's Razor.

  15. #15
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Very weird to think about

  16. #16

    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Take a moment now and focus on this word: OCTOPUS. Relish this split second in time that you are conscious.

    Now, remember when I said OCTOPUS? Well, that was just an illusion since THIS exact moment in time is the real split second you are conscious.

    Remember when I told you to remember when I said OCTOPUS? That was an illusion, too. In fact, it's this exact moment that you are truly conscious.

    Actually, it's now.

    No, now.

    Now.
    I like this way of explanation

  17. #17
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Quote Originally Posted by Khamsin
    Except that everyone else you talk to seems to know your past, unless they, too, are illusions.

    I'd like to think that the world would seem surreal, as in a dream, if this were the case. I could have anything I wanted, but alas, I don't.
    The first line mades no sense, it was probably tossed by whoever published the article because he didnt understand a shit of what he was about to post .

    Wikipedia explain Boltzman's brain [paradox] much better in my opinion (funny that wiki explain it much better in 10 lines than that 3 pages of garbage)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzman_brain

    Seriously, that articles is probably the worst cosmological/scientifics articles I read in a while. It's so confusing because you have absolutely no idea what they are trying to explain, or where they are going. Most readers will stop after the intro because they don't know enough physics to understand it, and people who do have some basis probably want something more credible. It's just good for people who are in need of philosophy.



    Quote Originally Posted by Xajiii
    Most hypotheses about the universe and outer space can be considered "so unprovable" but if we don't theorize about it we're never going to get any closer, are we?

    This sort of stuff interests me a lot, though I wish cosmologists would work on something a little more concrete
    This isn't quite correct. Generally, theories pop to explains a direct observation that contradict our current understanding. However, in this case, that theories explain absolutely nothing. It's based on another theory, that is itself based on a 3rd unverified theory. It's getting to the point where you could theorize anything (God, lack of God, why do kids love cinnamon toast crunch)

    And cosmologist aren't working on that, it's just the media that are ready to post anything.

  18. #18
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Now, if this were just a fluctuation, and you really are just a giant floating disembodied brain with atoms and electrical charges perfectly aligned in exactly the right fashion to replicate sensory experience and memory, it would probably only last a fraction of a second before dispersing.

    This would mean, as the article states, that memories of your past are an illusion and your split second of consciousness is all you really ever had.

    Take a moment now and focus on this word: OCTOPUS. Relish this split second in time that you are conscious.

    Now, remember when I said OCTOPUS? Well, that was just an illusion since THIS exact moment in time is the real split second you are conscious.

    Remember when I told you to remember when I said OCTOPUS? That was an illusion, too. In fact, it's this exact moment that you are truly conscious.
    Actually, it's now.
    No, now.
    Now.
    Playing devil's advocate here, but if you are made of fluctuation or w/e garbage they posted, time would probably not apply the same way and relativity (and subsequent theory) would change the rules. It's not that hard to imagine a moment in our universe that last an infinity of time from the observer perspective.

  19. #19
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    Kaylia, i'm still not quite sure about this. Does the problem mean, that if we are highly organize products of a large fluctuation, then there should be less organized products in existence formed off smaller fluctuations?

    Fluctuation as in the lower entropy state required to form organized products within a high entropy universe.

  20. #20
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    Re: The Big Brain Theory

    I can't really answer, because everything I know about this theory is from the wiki entry. >_>

    Our thermodynamics laws dictates that enthropy can only goes up, in other word, everything should be in a chaotic state after so long. Those fluctuations are simply used to explain the ordered state of the matter we observe in what should be chaos. If those fluctuations can organize matter in such way (enough to create brain), why couldnt it create brain with something else? Other particle? Energy? There is nothing preventing the universe from creating another kind of organized self aware brain (could be better or worse than our).

    The Boltzmann brains paradox is that it is more likely that a brain randomly forms out of the chaos with false memories of its life than that the universe around us would have billions of self-aware brains.
    The paradox means it would be easier to create a brain with false memory (from the infinite chaos) than an universe that allow matter to organize like we know it.

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