Omnist

Pressure and temperature don’t really exist, says my guest, mathematician and physicist @getjonwithit. Look at water closely enough and there is just molecules bouncing around. We invented those properties because we can’t see individual molecules. Other key moments from our conversation: >A galaxy-sized intelligence wouldn’t know what we meant by “temperature.” It could track every particle. It would never need our equations. Jonathan thinks all of physics is like this, with space, time and particles dissolving at high enough resolution. >Relativity and quantum mechanics both came from one realization: the observer is part of the universe, under the same limits as the thing being measured. Once you ask what a limited observer would actually see, both theories become unavoidable. >Intelligence and consciousness may work against each other. Far more sensory data arrives than your brain can process one piece at a time. That’s why it batches that data (pain, pleasure, the color red etc). AI might become less sentient as it gets smarter, because it stops needing the shortcuts. >Jonathan says his digestive system is probably conscious. It has enough neurons to model the world and has the same bottleneck as the brain. It just can’t speak (reminded me of Michael Levin). >General anesthesia may not actually knock you out. As best we understand it, anesthesia makes you calm, paralyzed and unable to remember. It turns off the conscious part of you from the part that can report. This would explain why so many people have PTSD from surgery. Full interview below