On Jan 21, 4:38 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > On 21 Jan 2012, at 01:31, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > >>> 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. > > > Why do numbers make machines or tapes? Do the want to? Do they have a > > choice? > > As much choice and free will than you have. They too cannot predicts > themselves and can be confronted to making decision with partial > information.
Where do they get this capacity? Why do we never see it manifested in our ordinary use of numbers? Generally the point of counting is to establish a deterministic quantitative relation.. that's sort of what counting is? If the numbers themselves made choices, then why should we consider counting a reliable epistemology? > > > > >>>> 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 sounds like you are saying that what makes a machine universal is > > if it computes any given program the same way as every other universal > > machine. I don't have a problem with that. By that definition though, > > it still appears to me that consciousness, being both > > idiosyncratically unique to each individual and each moment and > > sharable through common sense and experience is the opposite of a > > universal and the opposite of a machine. > > Each universal machine is a particular machine. Even the virgin, non > programmed one. > You are a universal machine, at least. (Even if you have a non machine > component). Me the person, or me the biography? Is my life a machine within which I exist as another machine or are we both the same machine? > > > > >>>>> 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. > > > Is that supposed to invalidate the observations? Programs do get > > tired? They do catch colds? > > With comp, that is obvious. At what point do programs develop the capacity to get tired? Is it a matter of complexity or degree of self-reference? > > > > >>>>>> 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). > > > I know that you believe in comp. > > Then you are wrong. I am agnostic on this. As I should be: no correct > machine believes in comp (nor in non-comp). We just cannot know. That > is why I insist that we need some act of faith to say "yes" to the > doctor. That is why I insist that it is a theology, and that we are > forced to accept that people thinks differently. The way I've found to get beyond that is through sense. Sense bridges the gap and connects the dots. It says to us, you cannot know, but yet, it seems like you do, and that has to be good enough. Does it seem like the universe is mechanistic and arithmetic? On the outside, yes. Everything outside of myself seems like it could be quantified as a single story with countless discrete parts. Inside myself seems like there are many stories and meanings, all shifting and catching the light in different ways at different times - a constant flux of significance which re-contextualizes many stories and meanings simultaneously. > > > > > I propose another possibility. Imagine a universe where things can > > become what they actually are without running a program. Running a > > program supervenes not only on sequential recursion but on a whole > > universe of logical consequence, ideas of representation, memory, > > continuous temporal execution, etc. What if those things are aspects > > of particular experience and not universal primitives? > > I don't know what is a universe. That's part of what I want an > explanation for, that is in term of simple things that I can > understand, like elementary arithmetic or combinatorics. What is it you mean when you talk of universal machines then? What are they universal to? But you are sidetracking my point: **Things may not need to run a program to be what they already are.** *It is programs which need things to become what they are not.* This bit of common (universal) sense is what your view seems to be missing or hiding or denying. The result is a perfectly logical theory of an anti-cosmos in which intangible programs simulate thingness to achieve irrelevant tangibility as a meaningless side effect. If you can just turn it inside out, you will see that we participate in a real universe directly, and that ideas cannot embody things on their own. Codes and mechanisms are what real objects do to each other, but objects are not codes themselves. They are a chunks of the singularity with masses and densities. > > > What if the > > entire cosmos is a monad; a boundless and implicit firmament through > > which objects and experiences are diffracted? The primordial dynamic > > is not mechanism but stillness and stasis, like a spectrum to a prism. > > All that is Turing emulable, and doesn't add to the understanding. A boundless and implicit firmament is Turing emulable? > > > Anchored in that stable unity, matter is the more direct > > representation of this singularity (ie the many alchemical references > > to 'stone'). > > But what is matter? The discrete diffractions of the monad. Carved out of the singularity using the knife of interior figurative diffraction (feeling/being, sequence, significance, time) which is expressed as literal diffraction on the exterior (indirect detection, objects, space, relativity, topology) > > > The subjective correlate would be silent and dark void as > > well as solar fusion and stellar profusion. This is realism. > > This is imagination. Imagination is part of realism. It is our experience, but it is impossible to emulate mechanically. > > > A prism > > is not a machine, it is an object which reveals the essential > > coherence of visual qualia. Machines are the second tier of > > sensemaking. A dedication of what already exists to a specific > > function which arises from the consequence of it's existence rather > > than as the cause of it. > > Locally it looks like that. But I want an explanation of where such > things come from. > Your "theory" takes too much as granted. I want an explanation of where non-locally is and how it comes to influence us locally. > > > > >> 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. > > > Assuming comp. I don't. > > >>> 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. > > > Heh. Now who is discriminating against inanimate objects? > > Because they are inanimate, and the evidence that they are dreaming is > weak and non refutable. But mainly because they don't exist by > themselves. Matter is a consciousness creation, or view from inside > arithmetic. It is an epistemological precise notion. That is what I > like in the comp hyp: it explains the origin of the beliefs, by > "numbers" in physical things, without the need to assume them. But it doesn't explain beliefs themselves. Which are much more likely to be a figment of consciousness than an asteroid. What believes an asteroid into existence? How do we happen to subscribe to all of these beliefs? > > > > >> 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. > > > Oh I actually agree with that, and have for a long time. Life emerged > > from inorganic matter. I think that self replicating crystals began to > > add organic molecules to their repertoire for greater flexibility and > > convenience. Biology is geological technology. We have come full > > circle now and are impregnating inorganic crystals with the honey of > > our anthropological hive - the skimmed cream of our evolutionary > > organic journey is going to return toward the inorganic from which it > > came but not backward to trivial intelligence, forward to post-organic > > synthesis. We can't lose the organic matter, we will always have to > > live in it or we will not be us. The challenge is to integrate and > > hybridize without losing sight of who we are and why we care about > > living in the first place. > > >> 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. > > > I understand completely. You are channeling my exact worldview circa > > 1990. > > That's comp. The comp that you claim to be agnostic about? > But the notion of UD-recoverable illusion is new, I > think. That's the key notion, given that both consciousness and matter > are not Turing emulable, but still Turing recoverable though the > unavoidable (by incompleteness) number's epistemology. Where did the UD come from? Does it run on itself? What is the hardware? > > > Since then I have explored some other ideas which make more > > sense to me, and which I think will eventually make more sense to > > others. We are extending a noosphere or a technocortex, yes, but like > > the brain, we do not discard our limbic system and brain stem. We > > might like to, but we can't or there will be no 'we' left. > > I can agree. But again, that's not an argument for saying that comp is > false. As we said before, you need to add non Turing emulable things > locally in the brain to get that. Your theory makes matter and mind > more hard to make intelligible a priori. If they were intelligible a priori, there would be no point in going through the formality of experiencing them. This is why the universe exists. To do what theory cannot. > > > > >>> 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). > > > It still sounds like it means that knowers must be subjects since > > subjects are knowers. > > A knower is anything satisfying the axioms of knowledge logic (Kp -> > p, K(p->q) -> (Kp -> Kq), and, for rich subject, also Kp -> KKp: they > know p implies that they know that they know p). > With Kp = Bp & p, all enough rich machine are knower. Knowing is contingent upon biochemistry. "When I'm rushing on my run. And I feel just like Jesus' son. And I guess that I just don't know. And I guess that I just don't know." - Heroin, Velvet Underground > > > > >>>> 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. > > > Not racism, taxonomy. Kingdom, phylum, class, order... you have heard > > of this, yes? > > I was troubled (say) by the expression "not likely very high quality > subjects"). Like the Sapinsh considering Indians humans, but lesser > humans. I understand, but I'm not using it in pejorative sense, I'm making a material distinction. In the comp theology it seems though that machine selfhood is not so much elevated to human levels, but that all subjectivity is flattened to machine levels. It makes us all what the Spanish considered the Indians to be - even less...had the Spanish had Kp = Bp & p, they would not have bothered torturing them to save their souls, they would have just reformatted the continent completely with their guns, germs, and steel program. > > > > >>> 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. > > > What is an example of a man made machine whose parts naturally grow as > > part of the same whole? > > Buildings, cars, industries, cities, computers, ... well, basically > all of them. None of those things grow out of a whole. They are all assembled from disparate parts manufactured in different places all over the world. Cars and computers are not born, they are put together. > > > > >> 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. > > > If you say so. Who are we waiting on to complete the test? > > Test have been already done, and QM confirms comp up to now. QM is the black and white television that 'confirms' color is a hallucination. Comp is literally a non-sense view of a non-local non- universe which is based on the fantasy that recursive enumeration can embody itself in objectively real patterns. As the Bohr quote goes, the opposite of a great truth is also true, so comp will prove to be quite useful, and is true in an inside out way. It may be the only way to predict and control ourselves and the universe, but if we don't understand that the image it presents of reality is an inverted truth, we will never comprehend what the universe actually is. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
