SeaOfThought

There are at least two perspectives on heaven, one has to do with the pleasure and pain of one or more individuals may feel in a certain context. Adam and Eve for instance were in heaven because they felt no pain, everything felt good to them. In this sense we were obviously "expelled" from paradise as soon as our parents stopped treating us like gods. I don't find this perspective very interesting because even if one could achieve going back to that kind of heaven (all pleasure no pain) that wouldn't mean (to me) a more interesting life. It's like drugs, they may make you feel good, but nothing else gets better. When the effect passes you're just the same and everything else remains the same. Or a very rich guy, he may have lots of pleasure (girls, trips, adrenaline, etc) but although he may satisfy most of his immediate desires, he won't really grow up, at most he will grow old! In a sense, all this pleasure is a sore replacement for the development of vision and consciousness we could otherwise have (a much more interesting life). There is another sense of paradise which has to do with the degree of beauty. A person, for instance, may sometimes be so amazingly beautiful that you may think: she belongs in (or comes from) Paradise! Now there are many kinds of beautiful things but, at least to me, the ones that articulate several kinds of beauty are even more beautiful. Complexity, harmony, diversity, are some of the things that add up to the beauty of the whole. So a world where there would be only music by the Black Eyed Peas would be quite beautiful (in my view at least), but a world where there would be music by the Black Eyed Peas and Mozart would be even more beautiful. You can see where this leads: millions of musicians, writers, hairdressers, lovers, ambitious people of all sorts, etc... then the whole gets even more beautiful. So if you're seeing the world (the entire universe, in all possible dimensions) from the outside, and if you could see both the smallest detail and in the widest scope, then I think it would be very difficult not to see it as the most beautiful thing in existence. For one it contains all that is beautiful. Secondly all that is beautiful is articulated, it's part of a whole, it has a story, a sequence, ramifications, antecedents and consequents, a story to be told that connects all the dots. Thirdly there is all this diversity, from the very small to the very large, to every point in space and time, to all kinds of creatures, feelings, thoughts, etc. Just imagine, all the books would be there, all the tv shows and everything that lead to them, all the lies, all the sacrifices, all the attempts at truth, all the galaxies and planets, every drop of water. How could you say, seen in this perspective, that this wasn't the most beautiful object, by far, in Existence (in fact the All of Existence). I think even "Paradise" seems a shallow word in this context. So I would have to say that, from an "outsider" perspective, we are living in a world far more beautiful than any Paradise we can imagine (that encompasses all of our imaginations and hopes). Of course, knowing that is of little practical use to us insiders. It won't reduce our pain, disease, disillusionment or other kinds of suffering or of those surrounding us. It may, however, get us in Love with Reality. It may make us want to know her better, be it in the form of another person, a star, an economy, a sea, a painting, a music, whatever. And, in fact, what better way is there to pass what moments we may have left, than by searching beauty, truth and love wherever we may find them?

While I type in this keyboard I am reminded of how much of my "functioning" is automatic. I already know where the keys are, I already know the words, all I have to focus on is the general idea which, in this case is, I have my own computer inside my head. I don't know how it works, just as I don't know how my laptop works, but I know then why I try to communicate words get out of my mouth and when I try to write my fingers get to the correct keys without much effort (or hardly any conscious effort at all). But not everything is automatic in me. There is consciousness, a sense of freedom, lights and sounds all around. It is this "light" of consciousness that allows me to distinguish between right and wrong answers, to see if anything is missing in a puzzle, if some goal "feels right". The computer in my head doesn't have nothing of that. At least as far as I can see it is simply programmed by me to do common tasks (like reading, writing, putting the gears in my car) without me having to think about it. It does not feel, it simply does. Now, this difference between what I do automatically and what I do consciously may lead me to establish the same difference between automatic digital computers and conscious persons. After all, a computer is just a machine, programmed to do something. So it is just blindingly executing orders just as my brain is repeating a well-rehearsed movement, when walking or typing, that I taught it long ago. But this analogy might not be good. Notice that certainly our automatic/unconscious procedures are essential to our lives, we couldn't operate in a complex world if we had to think constantly about keeping balance, breading, directing both eyes to that location and focusing, and so on. The fact that we don't feel anything when those kinds of processing takes place does not mean necessarily that no feeling is associated with them. Perhaps there are huge amounts of feelings and consciousness in my brain, associated with every small (automatic) function, and I just am spared of feeling them, due to some mechanism in my brain that allows the "director" part to be alienated from all the rest and concentrate on the big picture. This hypothesis would be compatible with: every sufficiently complex automaton is conscious. we are nothing but complex automata (that describe themselves as conscious and free). digital computers are in fact conscious. I for one don't believe this due to a whole different set of data. There is, I think, sufficient data on paranormal perception to strongly suggest that we are capable, sometimes, to anticipate future events or communicate feelings telepathically (even Turing agreed with this last one). This ability seems difficult to reconcile with a fully deterministic description of our brain. If paranormal abilities turn out to be real, then the brain cannot be wholly described as processing unit having as input the 5 senses. There must be something else. And that is one thing digital computers would be missing, the ability to be influenced by something non-local. Of course all of this is nothing but a bunch of conjectures. What seems clear today is that we don't know how far artificial computers will be able to go. In any case, I wouldn't be surprise if digital computers will teach creative drawing in the near future. True creativity cannot be taught anyway. Also, I hope that, in the long run, sufficiently complex computers can be built in order, not only to emulate intelligence, but to host consciousness. That would bring a whole new dimension of discovery. Just imagine: a life that could last for millions of years, we don't need to kill to live, we don't need words to communicate, we don't even need to stay fixed on a planet... it'd be a whole new horizon.

A black hole is a well-defined concept in astronomy. You can check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole It is generally originated from a star, so huge, that, when it has no more fuel to keep her expanded, starts contracting (and then explodes and contracts again) until nothing can stop the force of gravity to contract it even further and further (everything gets heavier as you approach the center - so if the star is compressed every part of it will get closer to the center and therefore heavier and heavier which will lead to more compression and so on). No one really knows what happens with such endless contraction, but the general consensus seems to be that all the matter of the star gets compressed to a single point with no dimensions. This is the basics of it, why it's called a black hole has to do with the Schwarzschild radius which you can also check on the above link.

Thank you so much for the welcome, regarding music I like so many styles that it is difficult to describe them. From Paul Simon, Freedie Mercury and Adele to Mozart and Bach, Sting, Dave Matthews Band, Regina Spektor, many Brazilian and Portuguese singers too. It's really hard not to forget even those who left great inspirations.Thanks again, p.PS - regarding the name, I'm so use to answer to both of them that I really can't distinguish between them. It's more a phonetic preference, I guess, of who calls me.

Hi, my name is Pedro, although in my family almost everyone calls me Peter. I was born in Portugal and lived here most of my life. I spent just a few months in Paris, where I did a graduation on cognitive science and also a few months in Tucson where I tried to do something useful on quantum mechanics and the brain (working under Stuart Hameroff's supervision).Life is for me a great mystery. I don't think the many thousands of years our civilization has had to perfect its knowledge of the world has contributed much to unravel these mysteries. Why is there something instead of nothing? Where does all the complexity originates from? Is consciousness really a result of "blind" matter? Or, by the contrary, is all matter capable of consciousness, even if in the smallest degree? Are we really free or are we just complex machines that (must) describe themselves as free?I also am interested in more practical things, right now I'm starting to learn programming languages, I know just a lit bit about java.Regarding movies, my favorite directors include: Cameron, Kubrick, Clint Eastwood, Cohen brothers, Tarantino, Scorcese, Wachowski brothers, Tim Burton and Peter Jackson.Also these actors almost always appear in movies to my liking: Kevin Spacey, Jim Carrey, Jeff Bridges, and others. I'd sure love if there were more sci-fi movies. I pass a substantial amount of my time trying to imagine what the future will be like, and what we, humanity, are in this endless tapestry of change.I also love music and art. One of my favorite paintings is "The Kiss", by Klimt, but I also love Renoir and others.Politically I think we are destroying the world. One of the most clear expositions of this is "The Story of Stuff", which I've seen several times, and the documentary "Home". Clearly we are the most powerful species of the planet, we don't have predators, we plant more than we can eat, we have machines to do most of the hard tasks for us. So why do we work so much? Why don't we have time for our kids, for our family and friends? Time to grow, to love? Because we are in this frenzy to always get more and more. But iPhones and tablets won't give us happiness, by the contrary: we are hungry for what can't fulfill us.I hope this will be a fruitful experience,p.