On 06 Sep 2012, at 21:25, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Thursday, September 6, 2012 2:02:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 05 Sep 2012, at 17:27, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:50:02 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal
wrote:
On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:
Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge
to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how
far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first
step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the
point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that
respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished
what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp,
and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it
anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point,
since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what
consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to
physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of
our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and
AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather
than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say
the least.
Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed
with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no
organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The
scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.
That is step 6.
I haven't even gotten to step 2 yet. I'm reading "In the figure the
teleported individual is represented by a black box. Its
annihilation is
represented by a white box appearing at the left of the arrow" from
1.
Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could
be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers,
talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have
to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured
as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and
erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where
does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?
As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by
the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do
with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping
comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract
computations.
So the person's consciousness arises spontaneously through the
overall effort-ness behind the writing, erasing, and calling, or
does it gradually constellate from lesser fragments of disconnected
effort-ness?
Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its
local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to
time and space, but that's particular content of an atemporal
consciousness. I would say (no need of this in UDA).
If you exclude space and time, what kind of locality do you refer to?
The computational locality used in the local universal system.
In my example, a quintillion people call each other on the phone and
write down numbers that they get from each other and perform
arithmetic functions on them (which in turn may inform them on how
to process subsequent arithmetic instructions, etc). Ok. So where
does the interpretation of these trillion events per second come in?
What knows what all of the computations add up to be? At what point
does the 'local content' begin to itch and turn blue? Even if it
could, why should it do such a thing?
Because it concerns a machine looking at herself and its probable
environment. Then the logic shows that it is unavoidable that the
machine get non justifiable truth. You can see that informally with
thought experiment, like in UDA, or formally in the logics of self-
reference.
Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear
what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it
seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would
be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email
the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.
Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the
original. That's step 5, precisely.
You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the
problem for you is in the assumption.
Yes, the assumption seems to presume physicality to disprove
physicality
At some place, yes. In a reductio ad absurdum.
and presume consciousness to explain consciousness.
Yes. Like we presume (at some metalevel) anything we want to explain
(from some other realm). It is not a lott, but science works that
way. We don't know the public truth. We can only make clear our
hypothesis and reason, and propose tests.
Why not just recognize it formally and say that consciousness
doesn't need any explanation other than the experience of "this" and
"that".
I am OK with this, and that is why I refer mostly to the first person
discourse than to consciousness per se.
But of course an explanation of why the 1p comes from is given.
.
Computation seems to have nothing to do with either one of them in
comp other than the fact of the plasticity and aloofness of comp
can be seen as a sign that it is neither mind nor matter. It still
doesn't answer the question of why have appearances of mind or
matter at all?
Comp is used to formulate the problem in math. Then we can see the
general shape of the solution, which is a reduction of physics into
arithmetic, with the advantage that we get a clear explanation of
the difference of qualia and quanta. And we can test the quanta.
I'm ok with reducing physics to math or math to physics, but neither
have any link back to experience.
Physics doesn't, except an embryonic one with thermodynamic and
Everett QM. Computer science does, and that is what I am illustrating,
notably through the duplication experiences, and the intensional
variants of G and G*.
If there is a reason, then that reason is the nature of the cosmos,
not the filing and organizing system that indexes it's activities.
I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:
yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the
entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but
your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced
by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already
agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.
Why? A program or piece of information is not nothing. It asks
works, can be paid for, can be precious and rare, etc.
It can't ask for anything by itself though.
Proof.
We can't coerce data into keeping secrets. All forms of secrecy
require some kind of social control of information. Data will always
talk to strangers. (see my post today: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=
#!topic/everything-list/L9LbbtQAN9U)
?
We are the ones to whom the significance relates.
Actually God told me yesterday that we are wrong on this. Only the
jumping spider can do that.
Jumping spiders and God are us too.
OK :)
Information is nothing but an experience that can be remembered and
transmitted to other experiencers through formation.
Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of
resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc.
This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced
from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing?
How and why does data enter or exit a computation?
It is a discovery by mathematicians.
And it is a valid discovery in the context of mathematical theory,
but it doesn't translate to the realism of subjectivity and physics.
Physics, or not physics are not among the hypothesis. More in the
questioning.
It assumes weightless computation that generates weight (for not
particular reason).
We search the reason. You say "for no particular reason" without
providing a reason.
The realism of physical weight in the universe is what I am saying
is one of the things that is not derived from pure computation.
Indeed. Such a realism is shown to be an illusion, even if a
persistent one.
There seems to be no anchoring in mass (despite info-theoretic
confusions about entropy). To comp, it makes no difference whether a
program operates on a galactic scale or microscopic scale - the code
is weightless. That is not our experience of galaxies and atoms
though.
But we can justify exactly that. Those are experiences, and they
correspond to stable patterns of information, not to primitive mass or
realistic physics.
You talk, like many, like if the primitive physical universe was a
datum, and not an hypothesis. This comes from the fact that such an
hypothesis has been hardwired in our brain since a long time, for it
of course an hypothesis. Indeed, it is refuted in the comp theory. You
might think that this refute comp, but then we have already agreed on
that. That is why I say that your position is coherent; you keep
matter and abandon comp. No problem, given that my point is that *in*
comp, we have to explain matter from non material relations.
Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self
justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a
shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the
cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal
consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without
any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-
correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within
each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?
They come from the inadequacy between belief and truth.
Incompleteness makes this unavoidable at the root, and that is why
the logic of Bp & p is different from the logic of Bp, despite G*
proves Bp -> p. G does not prove it, so correct machine already
knows that they might be incorrect "soon enough".
Your last paragraph confirms you are still thinking of machines and
numbers in a pre-Godelian or pre-Löbian way, I think.
I admit that I have only a wisp of understanding about modal logic
and Gödelian-Löbianian ideas, but I feel like even this surface
understanding is enough to tell me that it is ultimately a red
herring.
This is self-defeating.
Why, do you feel yourself to be defeated ;) ?
These concepts seem to just be about self-reference - maps of maps
with no territory. Great for simulating some aspects of thought,
because indeed, thinking has to do with copying copies and
intellectual grammar, but feeling doesn't.
The machine knows that, already. Feeling and first person notion
have no 3p representation at all. For logical reason, explainable
with the math above.
I agree. Why does 1p machine theory propose the existence of feeling
though?
Feeling are handled by Bp & Dt & p, and behave like feeling and
qualia. They have shape, and many attributes, but are private and
incommunicable as such, etc.
These are ways of mentioning how ideas are mentioned. In reality,
this sentence does not refer to itself. There are only characters,
or pixels, or optical phenomena here. The significance does not
arise from the same level in which it is transmitted. This is the
Chinese Room. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
This has already been commented. You confuse the 3p self-reference
and the 1p self-reference. I think.
I don't think that I do (nor does Searle or Korzybski, Magritte...)
I don't see a reference to first person in "ceci n'est pas une pipe".
Everything is 3p, at that level. The 1p is a fixed point of personal
doubting procedures, and is not representable in any way, provably so
for machines.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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