Evgenii, great questions 2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru>
> On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following: > >> >> > What do you mean by "the world of the mind is different form the > phisico-mathematical world"? Is this as by Descartes res cogitans vs. res > extensa? > > As you said, it is a matter of common sense and Descartes had it. But it can be also derived from the Computational hypothesis in virtue of it, even monist materialists have to accept the world of the mind, (and I need the opinion of Bruno) because two different "material substrates" can support the same mind. Materialism is a monism but has a hidden dualism that is converted back into monism by the process of avoiding delicate questions, for example the nature of perceptions and the nature of the suppossedly "external" phenomenons that they affirm that they study, This i suspect, does not resist a deep examination. Within the monist sceintist, It resurfaces in the mathematical nature of reality that implies a dualism between matter and (some) mathematics. That is because matter ,and perceived phenomenons of "reality" are nothing but mental categories like electron, Person, among other more abstract like USA or Vanity or Essence, all of them have some correspondence with the outer world, that I argue, is purely mathematical. This is the world outside of the mind. Any way you take it, wether the mind is a product of the matter or the opposite or something else, there are two different realities. no matter if you put both in a single substance, or you divide them > >>> [Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us >>> >>>> because it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of >>>> a common brain architecture, that is a result of a common brain >>>> development program that is a result of a common genetic >>>> inheritance] >>>> >>>> >>> Let me ask Max Velmans' question again. According to neuroscience, >>> all conscious experience including visual is in the brain. Hence, >>> according to the ultimate causes, is the brain in the world or the >>> world in the brain? What would you say? >>> >>> >> Again, this question is quite important, as we have to define what >> >>> observation is. Does for example observation happens in the brain >>> >> >> >> The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate >> world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the >> mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in >> reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen >> in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in >> the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our >> minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same >> language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric >> Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind. >> > > I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two assumptions: > > > "What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons perceived by > the mind." > > "because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind" > > Do you mean that the world outside of the mind is congruent with the > perceived world by the mind? > > Yes. This is not magical, but a product of natural selection. Our mental world is made to support life, and life is the art of maintaining and reproducing our bodies, that live outside of the mind. A computer can simulate anythnig we want, but our brains are dedicated computers devoted full time to carefully examine the external reality that appear to our perception as phenomenons or else, we would not survive. Some irrealities can be accepted when they are in a trade-off with other more valuable knowledge, or the perception is too expensive. We do not see individual dangerous bacterias for example, but we avoid them by smell and taste and some visual clues, well before we noticed its existence. So when we have in front of our eyes an arrangement of atoms that has direct or indirect meaning for our purposes, we identifty and classify it according with his "use": men, women, disgusting, pleasing, horses, experiments, countries..but also atoms, electrons and so on. And we proceed acordingly. None of these things exist outside of the mind, but what we are sure of is that outside there is something that make all of us perceive the same things and it respond with certain laws that we have discovered that are mathematical. So both are congruent because the mind evolved to be congruent, but not only congruent, but congruent in certain defined ways. There is a branch called evolutionary epistemology that study the epistemological consequences of the evolved nature of our mind. > > However, The COMP hypothesis it is possible to parsimoniously >> substitute every component of the brain by a silicon analogue without >> the mind being aware of the change. this , for me, makes the question >> "were our minds come from" a mistery >> > > Do you know Bruno's theorem? If yes, what do you think about it? > Yes, I agree with the first steps, but do not see the need of computing the universe. rather than that, I see that the living beings compute and this computational nature of living beings impose very strict requirements for an existent universe that exist, that is, can be observed by life forms. Rather than deciding arbitrarily that a universe must be mathematical or computational or absent from contradictions, is the computational nature of life what imposes a mathematical universe with smooth, continuous macroscopical phisical laws under reusable mathematical structures that appears again and again in different contexts. This is the only way for living beings to evolve and to evolve minds capable of understanding the universe. Otherwise, the brain necessary for a complex universe would be too complex for natural selection to design it and even life would not appear in the first place. > >>> >>> An example of ultimate causes may be the theory of Relativity, >>> >>>> statistical mechanics, the fact that we live in a four >>>> dimensional universe and our 4d life lines go along a maximum >>>> gradient of entropy, and the desplacement along these lines is >>>> called time, that is local to each line. Another ultimate cause >>>> is the nature of natural selection, how and why a certain >>>> aggregate of matter can maintain its internal entropy in his path >>>> trough a line of maximum increase of entrophy, and it is by >>>> detection computation and acting to avoid dangers and to capture >>>> good things. The good and bad entropy must come in identifiable >>>> bags in an eternal "videogame". This is a requisite for life. Non >>>> avoidable changes of entropy causes mass extinctions. >>>> >>>> [The maximum gradient of entropy is paradoxically at first sight, >>>> the most computable path, that is why life proceed in this >>>> direction: >>>> http://www.slideshare.net/****agcorona1/arrow-of-time-**<http://www.slideshare.net/**agcorona1/arrow-of-time-**> >>>> determined-by-computability<ht**tp://www.slideshare.net/** >>>> agcorona1/arrow-of-time-**determined-by-computability<http://www.slideshare.net/agcorona1/arrow-of-time-determined-by-computability> >>>> > >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ] > >> >>> In your presentation you use terms causation and computation. How >>> would you define them? >>> >>> Causation is a consequence of life, that proceed in a definite direction, the direction of entropy increase. In a space-time unverse , such is the solutions of general theory of relativity or the M theory, there is no notion of beginning nor end. some solutions are represented as a four dimentional bell with a singularity in the peak of the bell. For example: https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRbl4DxQDMxQPWgT9KC5I-W14ykhrOC7vKfGIk3YhxVHLgsP2_W That´s all. No beginning , no end . No time. No causes. Is our urge for seeing our arrow of time represented in the bell, and to add some causalities what adds to the figure a notion of principle, in the singularity and a a initial "explosion" (why not implosion back?) . This is unavoidable, but it is not something phisically demanded by the equations. But why we see causes and efects and time-dependent phisical laws? . Our local experiments in physics do have causalities and time because we observe them going trough our arrow of time. We see photons emerging from a bulb. We do not see photons converging to the bulb and heating the metal in the bulb in a way that produce electricity back. In this case the causes and effects would reverse. This reverse process is compatible with the microphisical laws and we would observe it in this same universe if our lifes would proceed in the reverse arrow of time, but this is not the case and moreover, it is impossible, because a this reverse arrow produce umpredictable phenomenons such are "miracolous" convergences of photons in lightbulbs and thus are not computable. A living being could not make use of the environment and would die (or disintegrate). so life is not possible in this reverse direction. That is what I try to demonstrate in my presentation and in the associated documents. The fact that macroscopical phisical laws(like the law of thermodinamics, the achimedes principle, the dynamic of bodies reduced to the dynamic of its center of gravity etc) do have a arrow of time while microscopical laws do not obey to the same reasons why life is possible in this direction and not in the opposite: we can reason about whole macroscopical objects in the entropy increase direction, but in the opposite direction we are forced to consider individual particle by particle trajectories. Under the idea of four dimensional (or higuer dimensional) block >>> universe >>> >> where time are included and everithing is static, causality does not >> exist. The M theory describes a timeless manifold, but there are >> partial phisical laws, that describe particular local phenomenons, >> that uses time as parameters, but these phisical laws which take time >> as parameter, do not have a preference for a particular arrow of >> time, so, as I try to show, heat in the air can rearrange the pieces >> of a porcelain vase and push it up to the table. causality appears in >> our time-oriented mind, who proceed, as I try to demonstrate in the >> presentation, in the computable direction , the direction of entropy >> increase. for this reason causes are less entropic that consequences. >> is the drop of the vase what causes his crash because entropy >> increase is the direction of life and we observe it this way. >> >> >> Let us say that there is some conglomerate of atoms. When it >>> computes and when not? >>> >>> From a black-box perspective, they compute when they are open to to >>> the >>> >> environment and they maintain its internal entropy. That may be the >> definition of life too. From inside, they must live in a predictable >> environment with smooth phisical laws where entrophy dangers and >> opportinities can be discovered to react appropriately >> > > I would suggest to consider a series as follows: > > A greath exercise, > 1) A rock; > A rock does not compute but it may be said that it maintain its internal order by generating a newtonian force equal and opposed to every force exerted against it. So it may be considered that perform a analogical computation. But a rock does not preserve and extend its information by reproduction. > 2) A ballcock in the toilet; > It is an analogical device with a detector (the piece thar floats) and an actuator (the piece that closes the flux of water) . Both are solidary. The computation is the most simple possible: upon a threshold the flux of water is interrupted. > 3) A self-driving car; > A self driving car can maintain temporally its internal order by acting as consequence of computations that take sensory information as input. The crankshaft is an analogical computer that coordinate the cycle of the engine cilinders. But this order can not last across generations unless humans repair, maintain the information of how to build it and assemble more. His life status may be the less than the one of a virus. 4) A living cell. > A living cell perform chemical computations. For example. upon contact or the receptors of the membrane with certain proteins, it trigger a reaction that make the membrane localy permeable to accept this protein . the mcrobiological literature is full of chains of chemical reactions to produce ATP, sugars, proteins, using gene sequences , enzymes, RNA etc, that are the computations performed by the cell in order to maintain its internal order, Also to reproduce, to segregate substances for other cells, if they are social cells and so on. Schneider page about molecular machines is very good. It defines clear definitions for entropy and information for such molecular machines. http://www.ccrnp.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ computations for life is the art of achieving good internal correlations between chemical and neurological systems in a way that every possible input produces an output that is good for the system. The engineer that select such correlation is the process of natural selection. If the correlations are good, the living being survive. if not, another mutant variation can solve the problem and survive. In the process, natural selection construct a genetic storage and transmission system, an enzimatic machinery to execute the genetic program and produce proteins, a replication system, a sensory system, a information processing center, i.e a brain, and actuators to execute responses and so on in multicellular and social systems. > > Evgenii > > >> The same is with causation. What is causation according to >>> ultimiate causes? Does it mean something more as solution to some >>> transient inexorable governing laws? >>> >>> >> At the end as I said ultimate causes can be just consequences. I >> used ultimate causes in the sense of evolutionary psichology, but >> this does not ultimately bring any definitive meaning of causality, >> when seen from a broader philosophical perspective. what is >> interesting is the link between the phisical and the philosophical >> world, betwen the world of phisico-mathematical and the world of the >> mind that evolutionary thinking brings. >> >> >> As for the entropy and the arrow of time, recently I have found >>> some nice quotes about Boltzmann >>> >>> From Boltzmann’s fluctuation hypothesis to Boltzmann’s Brain >>> http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/06/****boltzmanns-brain.html<http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/06/**boltzmanns-brain.html> >>> <http:/**/blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/06/**boltzmanns-brain.html<http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/06/boltzmanns-brain.html> >>> > >>> >>> >>> >>> That's what happens with the entropy approach: > >> >>> “And that minimum fluctuation would be “Boltzmann’s Brain.” Out of >>> the background thermal equilibrium, a fluctuation randomly appears >>> that collects some degrees of freedom into the form of a conscious >>> brain, with just enough sensory apparatus to look around and say >>> “Hey! I exist!”, before dissolving back into the equilibrated >>> ooze.” >>> >>> The Boltzman brains , according with what i have read, are >>> completely >>> >> different beasts. Boltzman pressuposes, that , since no random >> arrangement of matter is statistically impossible, and Boltzman >> demonstrated it in certain conditions (ergodic conditions) , with >> enough time, some arrangements of matter would simulate minds, or >> even worlds and civilizations. But 15.000 Million years, that is the >> age of the universe is not enough. The Boltzman mechanism lies in >> random events. the process of natural selection instead select random >> events and create designs more fast. Seen from a mathematical four >> dimensional perspective,, or better, in what the phisicist call a >> phase space, adaptations may be seen as attractors in a chaotic >> evolution. boltzman evolutions are pure chaotic. >> >> >> Evgenii >> >>> >>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the >>> Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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