On 12 Oct 2013, at 07:33, freqflyer07281972 wrote:
Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but I think I'd like to
respond here:
On Saturday, November 10, 2012 4:32:16 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 10 Nov 2012, at 10:11, freqflyer07281972 wrote:
> Hey all on the list,
>
> Bruno, I must say, thinking of the UDA. The key assumption is this
> teleportation business, and wouldn't it really be quite Ockham's
> Razorish to simply conclude from the entire argument that the
> correct substitution level is, in principle, not only not knowable,
> but not achievable, which means:
>
> congratulations, you have found a convincing thought experiment
> proof that teleportation is impossible in any cases greater than,
> say, 12 atoms or so (give me a margin of error of about plus/minus
> 100) ...
No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions: (MAT is weak
materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical reality)
COMP -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP
I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really MAT
means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a weirdness
close to quantum Everett.
> this is very reminiscent of the way that time travel theorists use
> some of godel's closed timelike curve (CTC) solutions to einstein's
> relativity to argue that time travel to the past is possible. The
> problem is, the furthest back you can go is when you made the CTC,
> and yet in order to make the CTC, the formal and physical conditions
> require that you already have to have a time machine. This, of
> course, leads to paradox, because in order to travel in the time
> machine in the first place, you have to have had a time machine to
> use as a kind of mechanism for the whole project.
But such loop can exist consistently in solution of the GR equation.
that's what Gödel showed. I don't think this was really a problem for
Einstein, as he said more than once, that time is an illusion. We
would say now that it is a machine mental construction, which obeys
the laws of machines.
But here we have the essence of the problem, I think. Simply because
the mathematics or the logics of a given
problem happens to state that something CAN occur, this is
absolutely no imposition upon nature that such things
MUST occur... we find certain things in mathematics that may or may
not correspond to reality.
Which reality? What are your assumptions?
To give sense to the word "comp" (and Church thesis), we must agree
that the artithmetical propositions are true or not independently of us.
In particular, the statement "freqflyer07281972 believes that he has
sent a post to the everything list on the 12 october 2013" is
(amazingly enough) provable in arithmetic (modulo acceptable
definition, acceptable in the comp theory, to be sure).
(Now the real consciousness of freqflyer07281972 does not only depends
on that proposition, but on all proofs (in the mathematical sense)
which exist in arithmetic).
It is the very basic idea defended in the everything list that
everything consistent exist. Comp forces us to extend Everett
multiplication of worlds into a multiplication of dreams (and nothing
else is real, in that theory).
It is truly uncanny in the
ways that mathematics does correspond, absolutely no doubt or
argument. But what of all that stuff where
the math simply has nothing to say?
Some mathematical truth are beyond the saying of some machines.
How can you possibly derive qualia from math without a bunch of basic
handwaving -- which is really what you are doing when you cite such
arguments as Bp & p.... etc etc.... it is
really a lot of handwaving nonsense that never gets close to the
issue at all...
You are a bit quick here. Are you sure you grasp the math and the
notion involved?
The Bp & p idea occurred to Theaetetus, and in many Indians analyses.
If you have some better definition, capable of formalizing the antic
dream argument for doubting reality, I might appreciate.
If not, it looks like saying qualia are not mathematically
representable (which is true) and thus cannot be mathematically
explained (which does not follow, as the Bp & p can be proved to be
non mathematically representable too by the machine to which it
applies, and there are many examples of this, notably appearing when
machines looks at themselves.
Note that even if comp is false, the hypostases describe real self-
referential discourse by machines, existing in arithmetic. It makes
your point being like saying, "oh, but those are only machine, and
thus are zombies".
I really love the idea of your theory of everything Bruno, I really
do, but when it comes to my next meal, or what I need to do with my
life, or what my next big decision is going to be, this is of no help.
All right. The idea is to contemplate possible truth. It is not
necessarily practical.
Yet, I do think comp has a (meta) practical role: to remind us our
ignorance, especially in theology. To illustrate that we can do
theology scientifically, and that we are abyssally ignorant. We can
use comp to just measure how big that ignorance is. It might help
human to harbor less certainties on those issues, and that could be
good, as those certainties are the roots of much of the human suffering.
Comp explains that the correct machine are universal dissident. Like I
explained to John Mike, and Craig, comp is a quasi universal vaccine
against the reduction or elimination of the person.
BTW, if it's of any console, Craig's theory of everything doesn't
help me in the
same basic ways, so there... the thing is... all this stuff is about
abstraction, and yet life as lived is anything but abstraction...
all particularities matter, at every level, shouldn't a theory of
everything really be a theory of particularities and contingencies,
as they have been produced?
and not a theory of general particularities that no one is really
concerned about?
It is the same. Pure math get applied all the time.
Also, computationalism is fundamentally very concrete: as it is a
question of life and death when dying and in front of accepting an
artificial brain. And then my point is that if we can survive such
substitution, then reality might be like Plato and the mystics said,
and unlike Aristotle and the naturalists pretend. (I fight against all
dogma).
Understanding this can be life changing, if only because it introduce
new fears, like afterlife.
You can also smoke salvia, which sums pretty well the dream-argument
and enlarges it in a life changing way.
It does it in less than 8 minutes, which is much shorter than a life
of study of computer science.
That plant is stealing my job somehow!
Fortunately it becomes illegal, so comp keeps its role :)
(Well ... as long as comp is not illegal ...)
Best, thanks for the kind words,
Bruno
cheers,
Dan
>
> In the same way, I think, does your ingenious UDA lead not to the
> conclusion you want it to, (i.e. we are eternal numbers contained in
> the computation of some infinite computer) but rather the less
> appealing conclusion that, perhaps, the teleportation required in
> your entire thought experiment is simply impossible, for much of the
> same reasons as time travel is impossible.
But then we cannot be even quantum computer, because they can emulate
by a classical machine, and they too exist in the arithmetical realm.
Any way, I don't defend comp, I just show that comp makes physics
derivable in arithmetic, and that if you do it in some way, (using the
logic of self-reference) you can extract a general theory of qualia,
with its quanta part that you can compare with nature, and so test
comp. And up to now, it fits well with the facts.
>
> It's still an important result, but perhaps not as profound as you
> think if we admit that the teleportation required in your thought
> experiment is simply not possibly for purely naturalistic (and
> therefore not computational, or mechanistic) reasons.
But the you need to assume non comp. The non clonability is also easy
to derive from comp, as the matter which constitutes us is eventually
defined by the entire, non computable dovetaling.
But puuting the subst level so low that comp is false, force you to
use a strong form of non comp, where matter is not just infinite, but
have to be a very special infinite not recoverable in the limiting
first person indeterminacy. What you do is a bit like introducing an a
priori unintelligible notion of matter to just avoid the consequence
of a theory. Bilogy and its extreme redundancy and metabolic exchange
pleas for comp, as such redundancy and metabolisation would be
miraculous if not comp emulable. In fact we don't know in nature any
process not emulable by a computer, except for the consciousness
selection, like in the WM duplication, or in quantum everett.
You are logically right, but abandoning comp is premature, before
listening to the machine (AUDA).
I know that some aristotelians are ready for all means, to avoid the
neoplatonist consequences, but that is normal given the 1500 years of
authoritative arguments.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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