On 23 May 2015, at 11:23, Pierz wrote:
Some time ago on this list I had a fascinating exchange with Bruno
that has stayed with me, fuelling some attacks of 4am philosophical
insomnia - an affliction I imagine I'm not the only person on this
list to suffer from! If you try to nail Bruno down on some aspects
of his theory, he has a tendency to get all Sg Grz* and p[]<>p on
you at a certain point, making it difficult to progress without a
PhD in modal logic - despite the fact that I suspect that the ideas
are fundamentally simple.
It is not difficult, but Gödel's theorem, without Church's thesis,
needs some tedious work done at least one times, to get the "real"
thing.
Then modal logic happens to summarize the logic of (simple, but with
rich introspective abilities) machine self-reference.
The important idea is self-reference. Modal logic is the tool. Modal
logic is to self-reference what Tensor analysis is the General
Relativity.
Nevertheless in the course of the discussion, Bruno did acknowledge
that his theory predicts that the laws of physics are invariant
across space and time, because they are supposed to arise out of
pure arithmetic (being the hypostases of the FPI bla blas). Indeed,
for the dissolution of the material within the arithmetical to go
through (logically), then the regularities that we call physical law
cannot depend on geography, since ex hypothesi they arise from
number relations which are prior to time and space.
Due to the invariance of the first person experience for all the
infinitely many delays in the infinitely redundant self-representation
in the UD*, or the sigma_1 reality.
Yet physics - or cosmology - seems to be headed full-steam in a
different direction, towards the conclusion that physical law is
indeed dependent on geography, the laws we observe being dependent
upon an observer selection process. That is, we see physical laws
finely honed for life, because life can only exist in those regions
where the laws are conducive to life. I'm less sure about this, but
I think it might still be OK for physical law to geographically
determined in this sense, so long as there are no other observers in
different parts of the multiverse who see different laws, but to
assume such a thing seems foolish. Why should we believe that of all
the possible permutations of the parameters which determined
physical, there is only a single solution which permits life? There
might be many different
There are many different, but below our substitution level, we must
find the burred sum of all computation leading to "my" (first person)
experience.
Those laws have thus a theoretical computer science origin, reflected
in the mind of the "thinking universal machine", and indeed reflected
by the intensional modal variant of consistency/provability (in the
ideal a case e need to find the correct laws of physics).
So on the face of it, the recent measurements of the mass of the
Higgs boson, which are strongly suggestive of a multiverse might be
seen as empirical evidence against 'comp'.
On the contrary/ A mutitverse is the only way to diminish the white
rabbits probability. As we cannot makes them disappearing, arithmetic
can only multiply the "normal history" to diminish they relative
appearances.
Only evidence for a collapse of the wave packet would be a problem for
computationalism.
Yet there is a way - namely an extremely low substitution level.
You'll recall that the substitution level is the level at which a
digital substitute can be made for a brain such that the self
(whatever that is) survives the substitution. This might be quite
high - perhaps its sufficient to mimic neuronal interconnections in
software? Or it might be very low - maybe we need to go down to the
molecular level and simulate chemistry. However, it would be a big
surprise I imagine for the digital survival enthusiasts if the
required level was the entire multiverse! Yet that conclusion seems
inescapable if the emerging multiverse cosmology (and comp) is
correct.
Why would a low substitution level save the day for comp? Because,
as stated before, if the physics observed by some conscious being is
dependent solely on number relations (as UDA purports to prove),
and number relations are pure abstractions prior to matter, space
and time, then physics cannot be contingent on geography, because it
is contingent on matter, space and time. So if comp is correct, and
it is also correct that we live in a multiverse such that observers
see different apparent laws in different parts of that structure,
then the only solution (ISTM) is to make the observer large enough
to encompass the geographical variation.
But the laws of physics are the same in the entire multiverse. I
suppose here a theory like Dwitt-Wheeler, or just Everett Universal
wave.
But the hamiltonian can varies, and some parameters which can play a
role in gravitation, etc.
But such a low substitution level seems counter to most of the
common sense assumptions about consciousness that are the basis for
the logic of UDA seeming plausible at all.
It is used to make step 1-6 more easy, but step 7 shows that the
reasoning will not depend on the choice of the level, even if that is
the level of an tire physical universe (which I doubt ...). Of course,
in that case the "entire physical universe" has to be Turing emulable,
and will appears infinitely often in the UD, but will, for some
reason, gives the right measure on all computations.
Possible. We just don't know.
It would commit us to the idea that teleportation of the 'same'
consciousness from Washington to Helsinki is impossible, because we
couldn't isolate the person's consciousness within any reasonable
physical limits, such as their brain or body. We'd need to
substitute the entirety of everything, including Helsinki and
Washington themselves! But what then is the status of a teleported
person, if such a thing could be achieved? If we reassemble the
exact same organization of molecules such that nobody, not even the
person, could tell the difference, then how has the substitution
level *not* been achieved?
Perhaps the answer to the conundrum lies in the definition of
physical law? Perhaps things like the cosmological constant, the
masses and charges of particles and so on, which I would normally
regard as aspects of the laws of physics (and which recent results
suggest may not be the same in all parts of the multiverse) are not
the real laws of physics. Rather it is the deeper laws which underly
those geographically contingent apparent laws which are the true
laws of physics, and which derive from number relations. However,
that manoeuvre won't save us, because then in order for an observer
to experience a certain set of apparent physical laws, I need to
specify within which branch of computations (multiverse region) I am
instantiating that observer. That is the same as saying that the
substitution level is very, very low, because in order to duplicate
an observer, I need to duplicate the entire universe-generating
computational branch that they are in, not just their personal
memories and so on.
Then again, maybe I should not be surprised by this substitution
level, because if the wave function is the manifestation of my
computational duplicates and their relative measure, then any
genuine duplicate of me would be part of that quantum wave function
measure, and making a copy of me in the same universe would not have
that effect. Only if I could make a fungible duplicate of the
universe and insert it into the deck would I be able to influence
physics and make a real substitution rather than a poor copy.
This suggests to me that either comp has overlooked something about
the nature of consciousness and is wrong, or that cosmology is wrong
and there is only one physics everywhere, or that, even though comp
is right, the artificial duplication of consciousness is impossible
because consciousness is determined by its relationship with the
entirety of existence, perhaps in much the same way that the wave
function of an electron has to "know about" all the other electrons
in existence in order to obey the exclusion principle. The whole
within the part and all that jazz.
Or I missed something, not that that has ever happened before... ;)
To have our type of consciousness, we need long histories making us
relatively rare, and "linear-tensorial" relations which
multiply:entangled those histories.
But, eventually, you might be the decider, and it can depend of who
you choose to be, from the first person ways.
Comp has a tool to distinguish the physical from the geographical (and
indeed, it has the same for the more genera theological, and the
effective). The physical is (re)defined by the laws of the observable
(which is the "bettable" making consciousness invariant).
The relative computational states have a complex perspectives from the
^person supported by those states. The different points of view of the
self with itself leads to different topological and geometrical
structure on those states.
The problem is that it is hard to explain those structure without a
bit of theoretical computer science.
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-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
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-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
