On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 03:17:59AM -0700, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote: > What does "self model" even mean ? Notice that any material attempt to > implement "self model" leads to infinite regress. Because let's say that a > machine has the parts A B C. To have a "self model" would mean to have another > part (A B C) which would contain the "self model". But this would be an extra > part of the "self" which would be needed to be included in the "self model" in > order to actually have a "self model", so you would need another part (A B C > (A > B C)). But then again you would need to include this part as well in the "self > model". So you will get to infinite regress. Therefore, you need a special > kind > of entity to obtained the desired effect without getting into infinite > regress. > And that's precisely why the self-reference that I'm talking about in the book > is unformalizable. And as you say, being unformalizable, allows for > bootstrapping consciousness into existence. You cannot simulate self-reference > just by playing around with atoms. Self-reference just is. It just is the > source of the entire existence. Is not up to anyone to simulate the source of > existence. You can never obtain the properties of consciousness (meaning, > purpose, free will, memory, intelligence, learning, acting, etc.) just by > playing around with a bunch of atoms. All these properties of consciousness > are > having their source in the unformalizable self-reference. >
The same argument was made in favour of vitalism - before the structure and mechanics of DNA was discovered. Self-reference is formalisable. See Löb's theorem. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Senior Research Fellow hpco...@hpcoders.com.au Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
