On Monday, February 10, 2014 4:45:19 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 09 Feb 2014, at 22:47, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Sunday, February 9, 2014 8:23:21 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> >> On 09 Feb 2014, at 12:35, Craig Weinberg wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sunday, February 9, 2014 5:39:58 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 09 Feb 2014, at 05:25, Craig Weinberg wrote: >>> >>> How do you know that you are really reading these words? >>> >>> >>> The question is ambiguous. If "really reading these words" refer to the >>> quale of reading those words, then I agree I can know that. But if it means >>> that there is a some 3p "real reality" in which I read those "real 3p >>> words", then I cannot know that, as I might be dreaming. >>> >>> >>> >>> People misread things all the time. Maybe it just feels like you are >>> reading them? You could be having a brain aneurism. Logically, there is no >>> way to prove that you are reading these words right now. >>> >>> >>> OK. >>> >>> >>> >>> The fact that you might not really be reading these words correctly (if >>> at all) might be offensive to the real words. To avoid passing judgment on >>> those other words, we must assume that it is no more likely that we are >>> reading these words as it is that we are not. >>> >>> >>> This I do not understand. We don't need to be sure to act. Our belief >>> can be true, even when we can't be sure. We can develop some trust in >>> reality and our means to evaluate plausibilities. >>> >>> I cannot know that I am awake, and that I will send you this mail, but I >>> can be pretty sure. >>> >> >> What is the logical proof that our belief can be true though? >> >> >> That does not exist. >> >> We just cannot know that our beliefs are true. We can hope, but that's >> all. Only the insane people can "know" that they are sane. The sane people >> cannot get rid of some doubt. >> > > I'm not so interested in whether our beliefs *are* true, > > > I guess you are, at some level. If not, I don't see why we are discussing. >
I'm discussing because I'm interested in descriptions and understandings that make more sense. > > > > but in the fact that logic cannot even conceive that beliefs could be > true. > > > You believe that, but if you are not interested in the truth of that > belief ... By the way, I agree with you on this, except that you are > thinking to logic + arithmetic, in which case I disbelieve this. > I see arithmetic and logic as branches of the same tree, which I think could be described as 'the sense of insensitivity'. It's not a belief, it is an observation of the shortcomings of that insensitivity. > > > > > > The whole notion that there can be a belief, a truth, a relation, and a > relation which relates the two is beneath all forms of logic or arithmetic. > It's an expectation within sense. > > > Logic + arithmetic can explain the beliefs. > But they can't explain why something like a "belief" can exist. > Logic + arithmetic + truth can explain the relation between truth, belief > and knowledge, at a place where your "explanation" beg the question and > take the complex notions (sense, consciousness, even matter) for granted. > I think just the opposite. Logic, arithmetic, and truth can't explain what logic, arithmetic, or truth are without taking sense for granted. By placing itself before sense (through insensitivity to its insensitivity), it uses the tools of aesthetic relation from sense (polarity, sequence, context switching, etc) to map a toy model of sense to its own conceits. > > > > > >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> What is the logical way out of this? >>> >>> >>> We can hope, pray, bet, that reality is kind enough to make us wrong >>> when we are wrong, and hope to progress toward a big picture we can also >>> hope for. >>> >>> If you start to have public certainties, you are doomed. We can start by >>> agreeing on assumptions, only. That is science or good philosophy. I think. >>> >> >> Aren't all agreements and assumptions in science or good philosophy >> expectations of public certainties (even the prohibition of public >> certainty)? >> >> >> Yes, but we can't know that, >> > > Then by the same logic, we can't know that we can't know that either. > > > In science it is simple. Only God can know when our beliefs are knowledge. > We never knowingly know for sure when we know anything. > We never know that we never know either though. There may be numerous times when we do actually know, and we know that we know, and we know that it feels different than when we don't actually know but it feels like it. The truth has a feeling which may be unmistakable but also has a shadow feeling which is mistakable. There may be no possible protocol to tell the difference between the two, but that may not dilute the reality of the genuine feeling. > > > We can't begin with a logic of disbelief, because that supervenes on the > expectation that we can trust our ability to believe in disbelief in the > first place. > > > Between belief []p and disbelieve []~p, there are also the absence of > beliefs: ~[]p and ~[]~p, that is: agnosticism. > I would not put the absence of beliefs between belief and (belief in) disbelief. Agnosticism is not an absence of belief, it is a belief in the intentional suspension of belief and (belief in) disbelief. Absence of belief is just that, a context in which belief is not a possibility. > > > > > >> and that if why we make the assumption explicit, even the "obvious one", >> like the fact that if A is true, and if A -> B is true, then B is true. >> > > Making the assumption explicit may have unexpected effects though. > Confining > > > O0n the contrary. Explicit definition does not confine anything. > What purpose does explicit definition have other than to confine the variability of sense to a formal constant? Define and confine are almost synonymous in this context. > It gives the means to try other definitions and theories. remaining fuzzy > can be exploited for any means, and that results in the confinement of > thought. > To say that something which is not limited to a single definition is 'fuzzy' is a 3p prejudice. By having multiple definitions, and multiple meanings which resonate intuitively beyond definition, we can have both the benefits of logical truth-seeking as well as the benefits of sensible wisdom-seeking. It's not fuzzy, it's whole and connected to the totality. Being able to see the big picture does not preclude new theories within it that modify the whole. If you begin with a whole which is already confined to a logical device, then it cannot be modified, and all new theories must inbreed pathologically (like QM, Dark Matter, etc). > > > and defining sense so that it is generic and repeatable may strip out the > intrinsic flexibility of all concepts and expressions. That figurative > promiscuity which is amputated by explicit definition may accumulate until > it becomes overwhelming when it comes to consideration of sense/awareness > itself. > > > You vindicate bad philosophy. > If philosophy insists upon reducing all phenomena to repeatable, generic templates, then it is philosophy which is bad. > In fact your motivation for non-comp seems to proceed from a motivation > against science and study. > Not at all. I'm motivated by the rehabilitation of science, philosophy, and religion. Progress means adding to the tools that science and study have, not just pushing every new question into the same old machine. > > Being rigorous is the inverse of confinement. It free the minds of the > (not always conscious) prejudices. > Yes, but it also confines the mind of the (not always appreciated) freedoms. rigor (n.) late 14c., from Old French rigor "strength, hardness" (13c., Modern French rigueur), from Latin rigorem (nominative rigor) "numbness, stiffness, hardness, firmness; roughness, rudeness," from rigere "be stiff" (see rigid). confine (n.) c.1400, "boundary, limit" (usually as confines), from Old French confins "boundaries," from Medieval Latin confines, from Latin confinium (plural confinia) "boundary, limit," from confine, neuter of confinis "bordering on, having the same boundaries," from com- "with" (see com-) + finis "an end" (see finish (n.)). Certainly not the inverse. One theme that they share is death. The numb, stiff, qualities of the absence of life. Finis. De-finite. If you want to study a live cat, you can't do it by cutting it into different sections. Not everything can be reduced analytically - there is a whole other half of the universe which is irreducible but also not indifferent. It's the parent of math, truth, and logic, not the child. > > > > > > >> >> >> >> That's why I like sense. It doesn't have to be a final truth, >> >> >> Well, I have less problem with sense being the final truth, than with >> sense being the starting assumption in the possibly final TOE. >> > > I don't think there is any other way to have a final TOE that is open > ended enough to be true. > > > By starting from sense, you close the ends. Indeed you even made possible > beings into zombies or dolls. > Now you are arguing from exactly the opposite perspective as you did earlier. When you are the one making definitions clear, it is only good, but when I am closing the loophole of exploitation for any means, and can confine thought. Like Monsanto's GM seeds, they can invade your crops but you have no right to stop them and furthermore must pay Monsanto for the privilege. In the future, maybe you will not be able to evict malware from your home so easily. As living things, programs might have a right to reproduce at your expense, just as corporate personhood allows business programs to grow at the expense of human life. > > > > >> >> >> >> but neither does it have to be an arbitrary fiction that only seems to >> coincide with the truth. >> >> >> It cannot be. In the AUDA theory, sense and consciousness cannot be >> fiction, and have (by definition) to coincide with truth, but of course, >> that is what will make them non 3p-justifiable. >> > > How then do you get sense which corresponds veridically to 3p? > > > Never. > Then how do you know that there is a 3p? Maybe 3p and arithmetic is all within your own 1p, since you are a machine? > > For machines, sense comes exclusively in their 1p view. > Since you are a machine, what makes you think that there is anything outside of your 1p view? If you have no veridical 3p intuitions, then the whole of arithmetic must also be local to your mind (and its projections of other minds, books, histories, reasonings, etc). I don't see how you can have it both ways. If sense is only local, then everything that you have ever made sense of can only be local, including the possible effectiveness of theory of comp. > > That is why comp asks for some courage (to say "yes" to the doctor). > Similar to how the vampire has to be asked to enter your home. Funny, but actually quite literal. The impostor must be accepted as genuine by a genuine non-comp participant. The proprietor must invite the generic stranger. It's an interesting metaphor, not? Why can't the powerful vampire just walk through the door like a regular person? Why doesn't he see his reflection? I think the answer is that the vampire already is only a reflection. He has no real power to force himself on us, we must do it to ourselves. We must accept the authority of the imposter in order to affirm our lack of authority. In our fear and confusion, we have signed away the aesthetic treasure of our birthright for a hall of rigorous mechanical mirrors. > The 1p of the machine is non computationalist at the start. The machine > has to bet on something transcendent to believe she might survive with > another body. > Isn't Comp is such a transcendent bet as well? > > > > > >> >> >> Sense can appreciate itself directly, without having to define and encode. >> >> >> >> And that's enough for the practical 1p-life. The apes do not need a >> theory of respiration to be able to respire, and nobody needs to understand >> the functioning of a brain to use it, or the origin of consciousness, to be >> conscious. But this does not mean that a theory explaining consciousness >> without assuming it, is *necessarily* false, like you seem to imply very >> often. >> > > The problem though is we posit something other than sense as the generator > of consciousness, then we have a mechanism which has no possibility of > appreciating itself - no *sense* of participation, and no *sense* of > aesthetic acquaintance. > > > But that is the point on which we ask you an argument. You just iterate > again and again your assumption, like if it was obvious, but it is clearly > not. We would discuss this if it was. > It's absolutely not obvious, it's a wildly iconoclastic conjecture. All I say is that it makes more sense, given the reality of theory rather than the theory of reality, than any other possibility. > > > > Even if we accept this implausible scenario of a completely numb, > invisible, intangible, unconscious, silent void hosting a UD's non-output > output, the scenario that follows, where at some arbitrary point > non-unconsciousness is invented, is even more implausible. Why would a > machine that can make consciousness without being conscious itself have any > use for it? > > > > To explain where consciousness, and matter, comes from, without assuming > them at the start. > Consciousness exists so that an unconscious process can explain where consciousness comes from? It sounds like you are answering a different question than what I'm asking. I'm asking (mostly rhetorically, because its absurd) why something that does not require consciousness ever create the possibility of any consciousness? If numbers were somehow entities that were both unconscious but able to function without sense, why wouldn't they just keep doing that? Why and how could they want sense on top of that? > > > > > > > >> And then we need local encoding to communicate some sense to others, and >> that's why brain are handy to do exactly that. I hope you agree that brain >> does some (at least) encodings. >> > > Sure, the brain does encoding, although a lot of it may not have have as > much to do with our personal awareness as we assume. What we are looking at > as activities within neurons and molecules may be more about encoding from > the inside out, as a single trans-temporal human experience is distributed > across trillions of semi-redundant locations over trillions of nested, > scale-calibrated moments. > > > ? > Sense uses codes, but codes do not use sense. Craig > > Bruno > > > > > Craig > > >> Bruno >> >> >> >> >> Craig >> >> >> >>> Bruno >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >>> >>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ >> >> >> >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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