Hi Karen et al - see embedded comments.

Karen Fu wrote:
> Hi Fil et al.
> [...]
> 
> Anyway,I should have at least explain in more detail that I do not imply
> that nature being
> the ultimate solution. It cannot be.I should have said nature being the main
> basis but not its entirety.
> we can never actually trace and know every bit of Mother nature regardless
> how advanced we are in
> technology. You mentioned problems are value judgements.I think its
> partially true. What if tomorrow
> the climate falls on us, .that would be perceived by all to be a universal
> problem.

Nature isn't a thing.  If anything, it's a process or dynamic.  Given 
that, though, I would agree that we can't ever know everything about 
nature, or else we'd have an identical duplicate of 'nature' in our 
brains.  But we *can* know all the basic/abstract principles that govern 
it.  EG: Newton's Laws don't describe every moving object individually 
and exhaustively; but they /do/ give us the means to describe a HUGE 
chunk of the universe in a way that would let us know everything about 
some specific bit of the universe.  Same with the laws of 
thermodynamics, E=mc^2, etc.

We don't know them all yet, but I believe strongly that we will someday.

The biggest outstanding issue is dark matter/energy, which may account 
for up to 75% of the universe.  We ain't got a clue about that stuff. 
But we will.

Re: climate change.  Karen is missing my point.  Even if every single 
person agreed that it was a universal "problem", it's still not a 
problem for nature itself.  Climate change is a problem for us because 
we don't want to give up our standard of living and, /in extremis/ we 
don't want to become extinct.  We value our own existence, and the 
possibility of its ending is something we don't /want/ - which makes it 
a problem.

Nature, however, has no problem with humanity - or even life-on-Earth - 
ending.  Nature doesn't care one way or the other.  Because whatever 
happens, it will be per Nature's rules.  And also because nature has no 
consciousness (that we've ever noticed); it doesn't have any values at 
all.  In past mass-extinctions, up to 90% of all species on Earth were 
wiped out.  Nature didn't care - nature puts no value on any of it. 
Nature just runs its rule-set.

> [...]
> Good thinking has to be crystal clear.
> Though mental patients often cannot think well,
> there are few who are exceptions. They probably
> reason better than the so-called sane people. Probably the best
> way to put it is to say that when their disease doesn't plague them
> they are able to produce fine tuned thinking.[OT: I often suspect that the
> very onset of any mental disease for such people is often stem
> out of being different and spending too much time
> in seclusion in their own world. To be able to walk out of that
> world itself is rare. But a mind that is able to achieve that is
> a superior one, IMHO]
> Should have stated that clearer. Thanks Fil for the note.

I don't think this is borne out by the literature on brain 
function/dysfunction.  Thinking & reasoning are two different things. 
John Nash's work suffered when he was on medication that alleviated the 
symptoms of his disease and made him more "normal."

I would agree that 'reasoning' is done best by people without 
significant mental dysfunction, but I would /not/ say that about 
'thinking.'  Indeed, my reading of the literature is that 'thinking' is 
an automatic act of the brain (and 'reasoning' is at least guided by 
consciousness).  John Nash /thought/ in math, but the reasoning part 
that was necessary to externalize those thoughts - that was his big 
problem.  He could only do one or the other but not both.

Once again, I believe this may be a language thing.  I'm very used to 
'thinking' and 'reasoning' meaning specific things, that others might 
not share.  I'm not saying I'm right - I'm just explaining where I'm 
coming from.

> 
> I'd say "good thinking happens" and certain acquired behaviours (via
>> education) can improve good thinking and increase its frequency and breadth.
> 

I botched this one myself.  I should have written 'reasoning' instead of 
'thinking' throughout this sentence.   ...wait, let me wipe the egg off 
my face....:-)

> 
> I often think that though education does help, it can only do so
> to a certain extent. Beyond a point, it probably isn't that important
> either.
> Often, I think, extremely bright minds are born. Its almost impossible
> to teach people the intricacies of thinking despite quantitative or
> qualitative
> tools.It can only be felt and experienced. One

The low-level brain hardware, the so-called white matter, matures by the 
age of 5 or 6 yrs.  This is the infrastructure on which everything else 
depends.  The white matter (in the centre portions of the brain) is also 
nearly the oldest in evolutionary terms (the oldest is the brain stem). 
  One screw-up there, and you're toast.

The part of the brain that controls abstract, higher level reasoning 
(including temporal reasoning and ethics and other cool stuff) is the 
"grey matter" that wraps around the white matter, and is a relatively 
recent addition.  It's the "surface" of the brain.  And the grey matter 
doesn't mature until - on average - the age of /20/ years.

So even at birth, the extremely bright are still only potentially so.

Education is one kind of experience.  All kinds of experience help the 
brain learn stuff, including how to learn.  But everyone's brain is 
different too (et vive la difference!) so the same experience will do 
different things to different people.  It also explains the different 
"learning styles."

> cannot exactly measure how the mind process. Especially minds like that
> of John Nash or Einstein. You could guess and make
> theories behind,  preserving the brain and
> peering into it in pieces time after time, but
> I doubt anyone can really exactly replicate the natural process and
> directly translate it to a *seemingly simple* man made one.
> 

Have you heard of "the singularity"?  There's some very bright people 
convinced that within our lifetime, we will see computers that are 
conscious and more intelligent than us, and that we will learn to upload 
human consciousness into a computer "brain."  I jest you not.

Anyways, whether it happens soon or in a thousand years, I don't doubt 
that it will happen.  Indeed, I can't see it /not/ happening, unless we 
make ourselves extinct (in which case Nature will just begin again 
because it can't do anything else but).  I base this solely on inductive 
inference.  I look back at the history of science and see us only ever 
learning more.  It might take millenia, but I'm confident we'll work it 
all out.

> That's the magic of nature.

I would remind you of Arthur C. Clarke's 3 "laws" of prediction:
    1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something 
is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something 
is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
    2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to 
venture a little way past them into the impossible.
    3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Especially #3.

> 
> Hope I've made myself clearer. : )
> 
> Karen Fu

Yes you have Karen, and I appreciate the effort you've put into this.  I 
applaud your outlook on life, and I hope you will understand that I come 
to essentially the same outlook, but via a different route.

Cheers.
Fil
-- 
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/