On 08 Jul 2011, at 03:39, B Soroud wrote:
Bruno, you are an animal...
True. According to Aristotle, I am a rational animal. What Aristotle
did not see is that the more an animal is rational, the more it can
become irrational and even self-destructing.
"So that you can in principle survive with another body, coming
from the first by local functional substitution. I coin this into
saying "yes doctor" to a surgeon proposing you an artifical digital
brain."
What is local functional substitution?
It is the substitution of a part of you by a machine. Like an
artificial heart.
If I am not my brain, then what am I,
You are a person. Your body-brain run a program which actualize and
reactualize your perception, belief, knowledge, observation, etc.
Comp will in fine need less than that, comp, thanks to the UD, needs
only that this exists at some level, and for some arbitrary, but
finite, size of the brain. But the neurophilosophy (the level for
consciousness is the neuronal level) makes the reasoning more easy.
and how can i be projected or transferred into an artificial one?
By copying your brain/body/environment at the correct level (which I
can show to be uncomputable! So you will have to make a bet with the
doctor).
The usual analogy is that your mind is your software, and your brain
is the main operating system. It is obviously Turing universal (once
you know the definition and think a little bit), and the comp
assumption is that it is not more than Turing universal.
What of "me" is transmitted to the artificial brain-body?
You bad souvenirs and your good souvenirs.
The obligation to pay taxes.
If the doctor was luckily right on the level, Your 1-you is
transmitted in the artificial body. Your soul.
Note that comp entails that if you have 100% survive, nobody will ever
know that for sure, not even your 1-you. Your 1-you can know that he
survived, but cannot know (only bet) that he has 100% survived.
Or in other words, what is this me that is exported to the
artificial digital brain-body and continues to live through it?
It is a question of personal opinion. With comp, it is you. He has the
right to vindicate your identity, and password.
It is obvious it gives you, in principle, many new powers, like
travelling at the speed of light. But that could distract us from the
*proof*, which does not rely on any technical feasability.
It converges more toward an understanding that something has already
been done, most plausibly. (Indeed, it will be was is done by just
addition, and multiplication).
If someone takes my brain out, and puts an artificial digital one
in.... you think that I will continue to express my consciousness
and will through it? That is pretty strange and weird... what
accounts for it?
The fact is that most natural phenomenon are computable. That might
even be a problem for comp, which faces a priori to much uncomputable
path (white noise, white rabbits).
What account for? it is the mechanist philosophy, or simply, that
your brain is a (natural) organization of 100 billions of neurons
doing sum on signal and responding in elementary rules temperate by
the concentration of say, many, chemicals, together with 2000 billions
of glial cells communicating with neurons and with themselves by their
much more wave-like ways.
A very complex machine, no doubt. The idea is that at some level, the
causality is elementary computable, like in all field theories.
The contrary would be an invisible mechanic changing the laws, or the
use of infinite amount of information with sophisticated non
computable distribution.
Plus, that artificial digital brain-body has to break down
sometime....
It is the price of universality, you can crash. Worst, you have no way
to prevent it.
can we really have technical immortality....
We cannot know that.
But we can understand that IF we can have technical immortality, THEN
we are already immortal.
But who "we"?
we just keep exporting and exporting our "soul" (what?) to another
brain-body whether digital-artificial or physical-artificial?
For economical reason, in the long run, we will live in virtual
realities, still connected to an impressive technology making us aware
of the galactic surroundings, and the other dimensions and directions.
As universal being knowing that we are universal (Löbian) we have to
be vigilant for not transforming ourselves into a mere neuron of a
superior organism. We can remain universal, and participate to higher
organism. This will leads to new fears (like when handling black
holes, and other partners in this branch of reality.
"The conclusion is an explanation how the laws of physics emerges in
the mind of the universal machine, or number (the digitality makes
them analog to numbers). This needs some amount of work to be
familiar with."
Are you claiming that in addition to our particular machine-body
that there is somehow a universal machine-body?
By universal, in the comp context, I always mean Turing universal. It
is the golem. It is a being (number, program, machine) which is such
that if you give it a number (program, machine), it will behave like
that number should.
You computer is like that, except that tons of people have succeeded
in putting many "applications" (good particular program) which hide a
bit his universality. It is more easy with notation, but that is not
for today.
A universal being? Or do you call the "universe" the universal
machine?
Not at all. Do you know what is a programming language? Choose one,
let us say COBOL, you order the programs by length and those having
the same length by alphabetical order. You can code all functions from
the number to the numbers (including necessarily those who will make
the universal number crashes), so you can generate the list P_0, P_1,
P_2, of all programs computing those computable functions from N to N,
(and/or from N to crash).
n is universal if P_n(<x, y>) = P_x(y). Here ni is the universal
number, P_n is the body (the computer), x is the program, and y is the
data. The universal machine is the general purpose computer. It is
mathematical notion, which is well "incarnated" in some physical
machines since.
And if so, in what way is the universe actually distinct from me? Am
I not essentially "the universe"... am I not an integral part of its e
Its existence? yes, that is possible. The reasoning is independent
from what you consider to be your body, or your memories.
"That something else is arithmetical truth."
You mean quite literally or just figuratively?
Literally.
It can be made precise by using a language, like first order logic,
with a finite set of symbols. The non logical symbols can be just 0,
s, +, *
You can read s(x) by the successor of x. So s(0) denote 1, and
s(s(s(s(0)))) denotes 4.
The main axioms are
for all x, x + 0 = 0
For all x and y, x + s(y) = s(x + y)
and similarly for mutiplication. And that is enough for the ontology
(it is already Turing universal, and already define in its consequence
the existence of a DU and its running.
One loop more, you get Self Aware little observers: the Löbian machine.
"There is something compelling in Objective Idealism... but what
does it mean to me beyond just an interesting speculative idea...
UDA is an argument that it is a consequence of mechanism.
Well, no more once you accept the digital transplant."
What if I don't accept the digital transplant, what of all those who
don't and can't and haven't and won't?
Hard question. Literally, you will survive in the most normal worlds
close to this one. But jumps are possible, and amnesia can make you
visit past.
"You can already understand that *you* are immaterial."
Yeah but saying I am immaterial doesn't exactly say or designate
what I am.... it only says what i am not. There is no identity
statement, just a dis-identification.
The 1-you has no name, and only you know. The 3-you, might be more
complex, but with comp, you accept it to truncate it at some level.
The DNA might already be a bet on the relative finite embodiment.
" You might be able to change your body every morning, or to travel
through the web, useful to go back and forth Earth and Mars."
Yeah but for what end? What is the value in this.... is there -
feeling- and -felt value- in this? It sounds childish... some point
I might get over it..... one needs purpose and meaning, real purpose
and meaning.
The only purpose of this, is to illustrate the meaning of comp, so as
to ease the undersatnding of the reasoning. It needs just to be valid,
and the sc.fi. aspect of it is not relevant (except some likes that,
and some hates that, but again, that is not relevant for the validity
of the reasoning).
"But then the delicate point to show, is that such immateriality of
you is contagious on your environment, and testably so below your
substitution level."
I might die before all this happens, before all this goes anywhere, -
if- all this goes anywhere.
If comp is true, even without application, the consequences persists.
If comp is true, then applied or not, physics is no more the
fundamental science, but a branch of machine's theology (say). It
might concern you (in case it is true) without applications. Then
application of it can change what happens even for period without
application. The technology of 400,000 might be enough developed to
deduce your code by your impact on the past, and to "resurrect" you
then. It might be than by convincing our descendant to proceed in the
study of arithmetic and matrices, we augment our chance in surviving
in more cool "closer realities".
"I can't really doubt that 6 is even, and I need no more to explain
why some numbers develop stable believes in monstruous deep and
complex histories."
Don't follow you..... the kind of pointless abstract fact that 6 is
even gives you all you need to explain why we have come up with some
stupendous conception of natural history or elaborate cosmogonic
histories?
Yes. I don't want to be rude, but that's the easy part. The problem is
that it gives too much dreams, and if they don't glue well enough,
then comp is refuted.
"It is the basic of theoretical computer science. I have often try
to explain a bit, but it is hard to give a course on mail. "
lol.
" Religion is the truth, and science is the tool."
That is optimistic... let us hope.... I suspect that science as we
understand it is not up to the task... some new science would have
to be conceived for such a herculean ambition.
You don't need herculean ambition for that. You need only extreme
humility in front of the task.
It is basically the natural right to doubt, and think.
The new science is the ancient science. By separating science from
theology, you get a war between what looks like two theologies. By
letting theology in science, you reintroduce the rigor in it, and its
necessary humility and caution, and competing theories, and competing
interpretation of theories.
It is a wrong conception of science to believe it has some given
acquaintance with the truth. Making theology a science, would make it
like "we know the truth". On the contrary, making theology a science
means "OK, we know nothing", except now that by the Church-turing
thesis we can study sort of ideal machine's theology. That is
basically what did Cantor Gödel, Kleene, Löb, Solovay.
"but you might have to replace "we, the humans", by "we the
universal machine".
Well I just realized today that to talk of "man" is overly
presumptuous... rather I should talk of "I".... but like I said....
I am not so sure what you mean by universal machine.... you mean:
universe? or do you mean the generalization of brain-intelligence?
No it is a very specific sort of digital machine (number) which can
emulate all the other machines, including the other universal machine.
It is universal in its ability to compute, or emulate. It is NEVER
universal in its ability to believe/prove.
"Exactly. When you interpret "man" in the sense of the arithmetical
interpretation of Plotinus (it is the (Löbian) machine)."
Lost you again. lol, makes me feel guilty.
Again a confirmation you met a bad teacher. Why feeling guilty because
of not understanding? Oh! Simple; because *not understanding* leads to
bad notes, which leads to parents bad mood and anxiety. Ah! They fear
you step into a black hole!
No. Feel guilty only of bad faith (if that happens), evidence deny (if
that happens), and well, making my mail box exploding (that happens!).
Do you feel that computers were fated to exist?
Yes. Their existence is a theorem of elementary arithmetic.
If you believe in addition and multiplication, and a very small amount
of logic, you believe or have to believe in the existence of computer.
I mean if you went back to classical greece... or classical
india.... could it have been predicted or shown to deduced?
Excellent question. China was close. Reading the treatise "number" by
Plotinus, and having a bit study Diophantus, I am not sure that in the
world were Plato academia lasted longer they could have find it.
Nature found it before (quantum vaccum, DNA, Brain, humans, Human
thought, computers, ...).
It is the little God. The one you can named (Like FORTRAN, Java, c++,
LISP, game of life, etc.) but when you name it, its names multiplies.
"Mathematics is useful everywhere, even outside the universe."
outside the universe? you are very good at casually making extremely
controversial statements.... haha.
"After Gödel, we know that even in Heaven there are typhoons!"
eh? you making jokes again? Is this mathematician humor? haha.
I am serious, alas.
Here by heaven, I meant Platonia (the whole thing, which comp
restricts to arithmetical truth). You might define Hell so large as to
include heaven's typhoon, that would be a vocabulary point.
I feel semi degenerate for not being initiated into the mathematics
mysteries
A rather common disease. And most mathematicians don't know really
about logic and computer science.
"It is just vaster than the physical universe. It is not so big from
outside, but uncomputably big from inside."
In truth, I don't know what you refer to when you talk of "it".
It is arithmetical truth, seen from inside (from different
perspective). It is beyond arithmetical truth. Far beyond. But that
complexity is reflected in the arithmetical relations.
"But your Platonia strikes me as empty.... it feels like a heartless
world devoid of flesh and blood.
From outside. But the party proceeds inside."
Projection?
Party.... what kind of party?
All kind of party.
They have to be computable, or some slighting of the notion (there are
Turing oracles) due to the indeterminacy.
And don't start telling me we are gonna fly around the universe....
because that is not my kind of party.
Yeah, that will be the problem. You will have to encrypt your Gödel
number (code, program, body description) if you don't want to get
"invited" to party you don't want to go.
"We might think too much, or not enough.:
true, very true. There is nothing harder an rarer then good solid
thinking. Probably because there is no end to thinking...?
There is no end, but there are jumps. Things get complex, then a
"phase transition" occur, or a change of perspective, and things are
simple again, at another level, but then they complexifies up to the
next transition.
From the feeling you give me, I think that you would have love math
and computers, if they were appearing in some other way than in your
school or youth.
But if you like music, it is about the same, except for the
applications.
I could potentially get into it, for me everything depends on
relationships... I wouldn't get into it just alone.... at least I
haven't....
OK. You might find someone on the net.
"Only, the phenomenal world is not all what is."
I don't follow you here. To me the phenomenal world is the main
event, the whole point. and I can't conceive of some other world...
yes, that might be your problem. And math is a tool for conceiving
other worlds and realities.
Of course I can conceive of them.... Its just I don't take it that
seriously.... I have the feeling that if there is another world....
it would have to be highly phenomenal..... I am into plurality/
diversity/multiplicity/motion/play...... I am into rainbow and not
light..... I am into heterogeneity and not homogeneity like
Buddhists and Plotinus. This world would have to be some other form
or version of our world... but maybe I lack imagination....
nevertheless, imagination is one thing..... -living it- and -being
their- and realistic accessibility is another.
You would love the universal machine, if you get familiar with it. It
is vaccine against a vast class of reductionist thoughts. She can
defeat all theories about them, but she can also be sleepy and
imitates just the behavior of the universal machine next door.
"Digital mechanism, like $any* theory cannot be proved, but my point
is that it is experimentally testable."
I don't know about that.... but even if it is.... then what? If or
when we get the wherefrom.... we must say, okay, that is over, we
are over that....but then how about the whereto?
The whereto is not part of the scientific discourse. I show, you
dispose.
Acceoting some definition and platonic relation between Truth and
Good, and between Truth and Beauty, and Protagorean virtue (that you
cannot teach, except by your own example) there is a sort of ethic
akin to harm reduction, and an understanding that world like asshole
are good only in joke, but typically means only "I don't like you".
Plotinus, like all platonist relate evil to matter. I am still trying
to see if that translate into arithmetic too.
I am nowhere. I still don't know if the physical universe is an
invention of the devil (type Bf) to distract us from the real thing,
or if the physical universe is on the contrary a serious hint (type
Dt) on the real thing.
The theology of machine is in its infancy, to say the least. Humans
does not listen to humans, so it can take time for them listening to
machines.
It might be relevant when we die, or before birth. Things appears
more complex than materialist want to believe.
Possibly..... yes.
"We might have to teach math and physics to our descendants so that
they will come back and save our souls, before the galaxy collide,
but there might be shortcut and exit door already nearby."
Lol, I know me saying this is gonna irk you a little.... but you
would really make for an excellent science-fiction writer...
seriously.... I am not saying your work is science fiction! I am
just saying you have an incredible imagination....
I have none. I just can listen to the machine. To the music of
numbers, and to the mess when they begin to look at themselves.
anyways...
How do you know a more advanced race of more advanced beings hasn't
already accounted for all this and prepared for everything in advance?
I don't know.
How do you know a super-bruno from some prior galaxy isn't a 1000
steps ahead of you and running the whole show?
I don't know. In a sense that appears to. The UD generates an infinity
of variants of that story. What counts is the relative measure of
those stories.
" I am a super agnostic too. I don't believe in God, nor in Matter.
And I don't believe in their inexistence as well. But then I show
that if we assume comp, much light on those kind of things is given.
It is free, and not yet taxed."
That is pretty cool.
"That is not so incoherent for someone who find materialism 75%
compelling."
Well today I did some deep thinking about materialism and I came to
the conclusion that it was a ridiculous notion. But I need to do
some more thinking of course.
Nice. Matter is a bit the gap explanation of ... God! In Plotinus
Matter is where God lose control. And the soul falls and then try to
go back. God (truth) is a universal soul attractor.
"I am open to the idea that we can discover new force, but
spirituality is already some exploding just from the number
relation, that I find it not necessary to hypothesize more than
necessary."
I kind of feel it is not a hypothesis... in the sense that I feel or
experience some "astral force" or something....
Sorry but that proves nothing. I am not saying that such things does
not exist, but that a personal experience proves nothing, even for
you. The dream argument works for both for the moon and astral bodies.
it is pretty real to me some of the times.... or atleast it seems
that way.... it is a subtle feeling/force and it even has visual
components etc...
I need salvia, or sleep, for things like that.
I can see it around me and stuff.... I don't know exactly what it is
our what its causes are... I just see/feel/sense it as some kind of
subtle "force" or I don't know what! But I guess from third-person
communicative it is hypothesis.
It is an experience, and it might be hard to interpret it, especially
if we let theology in the hand of those who use argument by authority.
I have not the damned clue what kind of experience of are living, and
if that repeat consult parapsychologists or psychiatrists. You might
be lucky, also and experience part of yourself, or, who knows, some
kind of alien. I am agnostic, but you will need a lot of data so that
we can start theories. At least with salvia everyone (well many) can
have a chat with the Virgin Mary (like the Mazatec called the femine
presence reported by some salvia smokers).
"Me neither, literally. But it makes sense it term of the
information you can discover."
That makes sense....
"We can see that, but that's not all. That is why mediation technic
ask for some amount of calming down the thoughts."
If we apprehend some kind of phenomena or ecstatic feeling or
luminosity or sparks show or latent force made manifest or some
totalizing transformation or I don't know what.... the question
still remains: "what really happened?" or "how should I interpret
this?" "what are the true causes" etc. .... right?
yes, but many buddhist confuse the samadhi (total peaceful mind) and
enlightenment ("big sudden shift or perspective").
lol, for "analytical meditation"... I don't go for any of those....
I just try to have clearest and most concentrated and most thorough
thinking I can have.... that is the meditation..... or sometimes if
I meditate I try to go for high concentration for like greater inner
power and ecstatic euphoria empowerment.
OK.
Incidentally.... what is this so called "inner power" or "will"....
or even perhaps "mental force"... what does physics or science have
to say about that?
I think there are a lot of misuse or abuse of science (especially QM
and Gödel's theorem). Comp put some sort order there, but the surprise
is that those misuse are often partially correct, just that they
applied already to numbers. Hard to say.
.
"That is the whole point of reasoning. To fit the pieces of the
puzzle, we need something simple, but big. Arithmetical truth from
inside is ¨very big*. This list is based in part of the work on
Everett in Quantum Mechanics, which shows that if we read QM
literally, there are infinities of parallel universes. I show that a
priori, if we similarly take just arithmetic seriously and
literally, there are many more dreams, and realities emerges from
gluing property of dreams. Reality is beyond fiction, always."
How did we end up in this mess in the first place? Do you believe in
Designer, do you believe in Design?
No. The day I wake up and hope comp is true, I tend to believe only in
the natural numbers, and some relations between them.
It is more like universal dreamer, gigantic matrix, level of
realities. There are gods, and there is a big unameable thing, from
inside. There remains very big unknowns and Unknown.
I don't believe in Design, not in Designer.
But I believe that numbers dream. It follows from the comp assumption.
They can dream about time and spaces.
Did we exist billions and trillions of "years" ago? And if so, what
were we doing? lol. (this question is loaded like gun powder because
so many scientists blow up are become very anxious over the
question of design... because they think it is christian or perhaps
it goes beyond the reach and range of scientific verification so
they consider it insignificant and they are tired of getting nowhere
with the notion. And perhaps even if they were to entertain the
notion, they would hate the 'Demiurge' because it has created a
seemingly absurd situation and it is pretty Deist.... not sure all
the psychology involved) what I am saying is, if you presuppose some
kind of spiritual meaning to the cosmos, then it seems to me that
you presuppose some kind of Demiurge.... because how else would it
become infused with spiritual meaning and import?
No. I can't really make sense of design and designer. The god here is
literally "arithmetical truth" (but that is a secret, for us, and a
sort of theorem for the machine, but we cannot know we are machine,
that is the trick). It verifies some of the quality often attributed
to God: it has no name from the machine perspective, and it makes
intelligibility possible (by emulating the Löbian machine), but then
there is a tension between proofs and truth, and the universal soul
appears and fall (all this is a logical space, not in "time"). Then
the soul generate matter and nature, but that's is not necessarily the
will of truth.
Good/Bad, True/false, Consistent/inconsistent appears to be
inseparable and, well, the parties develop on the border. For the best
and the worst.
p.s. by dreams do you mean ideas?
I mean pieces of computations.
Bruno........ I am 25 and I have like what, 60 more years
optimistically speaking?.... and you, you have 40 more years
optimistically speaking? Even if we had a hundred or hundreds
more.... I doubt we would transcend our present predicament....
Of course. It is here and now which really counts.
I don't think the morrow will be much different from today.... we
probably will not liberate ourselves from our present plight of
radical ignorance....
We will be more and more aware of it. Except for regular dark periods
when the fear sellers get control. We can only fight for preventing
this, by augmenting respect for education and research. We must invest
on education, not in lies, like today (see the heath politics).
and then..... cremated to smithereens or entombed six feet under....
what will become of us, whence our fate? no one knows, or at least
not we.
We cannot know. But we can reason from assumptions.
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
good talk, take care.
Shakespeare got the blues, that day.
I wish you the best.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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