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Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Through the wormhole: Q&A

Posted on 07:12 by Unknown


Below are some of the follow up questions I answered for viewers of Through the Wormhole. I was very impressed with the quality of the show after watching the episode I had taped.

We know that time and space are relative, is 'information'?
Information can be defined in relative terms, as in what is known to a particular observer. There are also notions of absolute information, as in what is the total amount of information (bits or qubits) required to specify the exact quantum state of a system, or even of the entire universe. (See here, here and here.)


How is our scientific knowledge going to progress in the coming centuries? Right now, there are certain scientific properties and equations that only a handful of genius humans can grasp. Are we to evolve better brains?
Unfortunately, the conceptual frontiers of modern science are only comprehensible to a small fraction of humans. Perhaps genetic engineering in the future will raise the average intelligence level, but there will always be outliers in the intelligence distribution and they will likely be the ones driving scientific progress. It is possible that someday machine intelligence will surpass that of all humans and our entire species will become spectators to scientific progress. (See here and here.)

Is reality a perception of one's own mind? Or does it exist at all? No one knows the answer to this deep philosophical question. Most scientists make the assumption that our senses and devices convey information about a "real" universe of which we are a part. Our job is to understand how that universe works. (See here.)
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