On 24 Mar 2013, at 22:50, Russell Standish wrote:
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 02:05:23PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 21 Mar 2013, at 13:46, Telmo Menezes wrote:
I still find it hard to grasp how we could have a creative process
without some degree of random exploration.
Why random. Pseudo random can be enough, or the natural randomness
contained in the computable.
No machine can distinguish randomness from the behavior of a more
complex machine than herself, so I think that the kind of randomness
and indetermination that you invoke in creativity is already there,
in many form and shape in the computable.
This is true, however real randomness is aavailable, through the very
first person ineterminancy phenomenon you mention below, and evolution
doesn't care, it will exploit whatever is at hand.
That does not entail evolution will generate wheels, or quantum
brains, or comp-brains (brains exploiting the first person
indeterminacy). It is possible of course. The point is just that I do
not see how "genuine" indeterminacy, like first person indeterminacy
(FPI) is needed.
Also "real randomness" is provided by the FPI in the case of the
iterated WM-duplications, but in front of the UD, or in arithmetic,
this is filtered by the UD*.
For a human, it is conceivable that we have mental processes that are
too complex for our introspection to understand.
For all machines actually.
These would be random
enough.
That kind of randomness can be used. I don't criticize this. Only the
use of "genuine randomness".
My point is just that free-will, creativity, consciousness does not
need such genuine indeterminacy. We don't need "ontological or
primitive indeterminacy", the one coming from inside (or from self-
reference and self-induction) is enough. We seem to agree, thus.
The FPI is used by "nature", but only with respect of the relative
measure on the consistent histories/computations.
But for a simple animal, trying to flee a predator - think
fish fleeing a shark, for instance - their brains may not be
sufficiently complex to generate the sort of complex behaviour
required to outwit the predatit. In which case, evolution will exploit
the genuine randomness available in the environment.
Well, the animals will survive on the branch where they make the right
decision, but I think that their brain will use simple Turing-like
complexity, not the FPI, unless they are quantum computers, or the
equivalent comp-computers, which I doubt. It is conceivable;
The point I made is conceptual: what I say is that we don't need
real pure randomness. We have it by the first person indeterminacy,
but its role is more in the statistical stabilization of the
computable than used as a tool in creativity, fro which the
computable is enough random per se.
Why is first person indeterminacy, not "real pure randomness"?
It is, in the case of iterated self-multiplication. But the one with
which we are confronted in the the one corresponding to arithmetic, or
the UD*, which gives a role to computations and their big
redundancies. The compression of that information is genuine and
algorithmic randomness, but is pure white noise from our points of
view. The physical laws evolve from that, but it is open if our brain
exploit this. It would make the substitution level very low.
I think
the genius in your approach is showing how genuinely random
phenomenona can appear in a fully deterministic system.
thanks.
It solves a
real philosophical problem, and I don't see why you would want to
shrink back from such a discovery.
I hope I am not shrinking it back. But I doubt we exploit it, as it
would make our brain sort of quantum or comp-machine. That would not
change the consequence of the reasoning, but that would introduce a
complexity for which I don't see evidence. Then, conceptually, I don't
see how genuine non computable randomness, like the algorithmic one,
can play a role, others than stabilizing relative computations in term
of relative measure/physical laws.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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