On 20 Jan 2012, at 02:34, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Jan 19, 11:33 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 17 Jan 2012, at 21:20, Craig Weinberg wrote:
My point is that a Turing machine is not even truly universal,
let alone infinite.
A universal Turing machine is, by definition a machine, and machine
are by definition finite.
The infinite tape plays a role of possible extending environment, and
is not part of the universal machine, despite a widespread error
(perhaps due to a pedagogical error of Turing).
What machine makes the infinite tape?
Eventually the numbers themselves. It is simpler than the universal
unitary rotation of the physicist, but if you want an infinite tape,
you need to postulate at least once infinite thing. At the meta-level,
or in the epistemology, or in the ontology.
That error comfort me in talking about universal numbers, and
defining
them by the relation
phi_u(<x, y>) = phi_x(y). u is the universal machine, x is a
program and y is a data. "phi" refer to some other universal number
made implicit (in my context it is explicited by elementary
arithmetic).
So a universal machine's universal number made implicit from data in a
program = a program's universal number from data. I don't understand
what it means.
A number (code, body) transforms itself into a function relatively to
a universal number.
u is a computer. Phi_u is the universal function computed by u. If you
a program x and a data y to the computer u, it will simulate x on the
input y, and will output phi_x(y). u does that for all program x, and
so is a universal simulator.
It's an object oriented syntax that is limited to
particular kinds of functions, none of which include biological
awareness (which might make sense since biology is almost entirely
fluid-solution based.)
This worth than the notion of primitive matter. It is mystification
of
primitive matter.
It's not an assertion of mysticism, it's just a plain old
generalization of ordinary observations. Programs don't get excited or
tired, they don't get sick and die, they don't catch a cold, etc. They
share none of the differences which make biology different from
physics.
I know that you believe in non-comp.
Do asteroids and planets exist "out there" even if no one perceives
them?
They don't need humans to perceive them to exist, but my view is
that
gravity is evidence that all physical objects perceive each other.
Not
in a biological sense of feeling, seeing, or knowing, but in the
most
primitive forms of collision detection, accumulation, attraction to
mass, etc.
I can agree with that. This is in the spirit of Everett, which treat
observation as interaction. But there is no reason to associate
primitive qualia and private sensation from that. It lacks the
"retrieving memory" and self-reference.
Doesn't an asteroid maintain it's identity through it's trajectory?
I can agree with this.
Can't the traces of it's collisions be traced forensically by
examining it.
Yes.
Memory and self reference have to come from somewhere,
why not there?
Because self-reference needs a non trivial programming loop (whose
existence is assured by computer science theorem like Kleene second
recursion theorem). there are no evidence that such program is at play
in an asteroid above your substitution level. Below your substitution
level, the asteroids implement all computations, but this is relevant
only to your observation, not to the asteroid.
Don't forget, without human consciousness going as a
comparison, we can't assume that the experience of raw matter is
ephemeral like ours is. It may not be memory which is the invention of
biology, but forgetting.
Profound remark, and I agree. But subjective memory is an attribute of
a subject, and there are no evidence the asteroid is a subject, at
least related in the sense of having private experiences. It lacks too
much ability in self-representation, made possible by complex
cooperation between cells in living systems, and programs in computers.
Machines have no feeling.
What I say three times is true.
What I say three times is true.
What I say three times is true.
(Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark).
I really don't find it a controversial statement.
http://thesaurus.com/browse/mechanical
mechanical [muh-kan-i-kuhl]
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: done by machine; machinelike
Synonyms: automated, automatic, cold, cursory, *emotionless*, fixed,
habitual, impersonal, instinctive, involuntary, laborsaving,
*lifeless*, machine-driven, matter-of-fact, monotonous, perfunctory,
programmed, routine, *spiritless*, standardized, stereotyped,
unchanging, **unconscious, unfeeling, unthinking**, useful
Antonyms: by hand, **conscious, feeling**, manual
This is not evidence that machines are incapable of feeling but it
indicates broad commonsense support for my interpretation. Of course
popularity does not mean truth, but it does mean that I don't have to
accept accusations of some sort of fanciful eccentricity peculiar to
myself alone. My interpretation is conservative, yours is radically
experimental and completely unproven. How can you act as if it were
the other way around? It's dishonest.
Other have well commented this, as you have admitted. You should read
the little book by Jacques Lafitte, in french, "la science des
machines" which in the early 20th century describe machine as natural
extension of life. "we" call that "artificial", but machines are as
natural product of earth than apple and jumping spiders. Today's
computers and net can be seen as neo or neoneocortex, and the math
shows this can develop autonomously and we have only partial control
on the process.
But we use the term machine in both its natural and man made sense. It
basically means no magic, made precise with Church-Turing thesis,
magic means precisely non-Turing emulable nor 1-person UD recoverable.
These kinds of careers rely on sensitivity
to human feeling and meaning. They require that you care about
things
that humans care about. Caring cannot be programmed. That is the
opposite of caring, because programming requires no investment by
the
programmed. There is no subject in a program, only an object
programmed to behave in a way that seems like it could be a
subject in
some ways.
If you define the subject by the knower, believability by
provability,
and if you accept the classical theory of knwoledge (the axioms: Kp-
>p, K(p->q)->(Kp->Kq)). Then it is a theorem that a subject exist
for
machine, and indeed that machine have to be puzzled by the relation
between that subject and their body.
It sounds like I can name anything 'knower' and have that be a theorem
for subjectivity.
On the contrary. the definition I gave is quite specific, yet very
general. It leads to the ideal theology of the self-referentially
correct universal machine, including its physics (as it should by UDA,
MGA).
Now, there is no reason to expect a *human* subject. Unless the
machine is a copy of a human at some genuine level. But most machines
are not a priori human machines.
Right. I don't have a problem with natural holarchies of the parts of
a material machine being subjects, just not likely very high quality
subjects.
Looks racist to me.
I just don't think the parts know each other unless they
naturally grew as parts of a whole.
Man made machines already do that, they grow as a part of the same
whole we share with them.
Babies also look dumb, weak and so dependent.
Anyway, my point is that mechanism is a testable hypothesis. If
mechanism is false, we will find this out more easily by reasoning
from its assumption, than by criticizing it superficially at the start
through racist prejudices.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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