> On 18 Apr 2019, at 15:36, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote: > > > > On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, at 18:45, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >>> On 17 Apr 2019, at 08:08, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net >>> <mailto:te...@telmomenezes.net>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, at 05:03, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> On 4/16/2019 6:10 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019, at 03:44, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: >>>>>> You seem to make self-reference into something esoteric. Every Mars >>>>>> Rover knows where it is, the state of its batteries, its instruments, >>>>>> its communications link, what time it is, what its mission plan is. >>>>> >>>>> I don't agree that the Mars Rover checking "it's own" battery levels is >>>>> an example of what is meant by self-reference in this type of discussion. >>>>> The entity "Mars Rover" exists in your mind and mine, but there is no >>>>> "Mars Rover mind" where it also exists. The entity "Telmo" exists in your >>>>> mind and mine, and I happen to be an entity "Telmo" in whose mind the >>>>> entity "Telmo" also exists. This is real self-reference. >>>>> >>>>> Or, allow me to invent a programming language where something like this >>>>> could me made more explicit. Let's say that, in this language, you can >>>>> define a program P like this: >>>>> >>>>> program P: >>>>> x = 1 >>>>> if x == 1: >>>>> print('My variable x s holding the value 1') >>>>> >>>>> The above is the weak form of self-reference that you allude to. It would >>>>> be like me measuring my arm and noting the result. Oh, my arm is x cm >>>>> long. But let me show what could me meant instead by real self-reference: >>>>> >>>>> program P: >>>>> if length(P) > 1000: >>>>> print('I am a complicated program') >>>>> else: >>>>> print('I am a simple program') >>>>> >>>>> Do you accept there is a fundamental difference here? >>>> >>>> I take your point. But I think the difference is only one of degree. In >>>> my example the Rover knows where it is, lat and long and topology. That >>>> entails having a model of the world, admittedly simple, in which the Rover >>>> is represented by itself. >>>> >>>> I would also say that I think far too much importance is attached to >>>> self-reference. It's just a part of intelligence to run "simulations" in >>>> trying to foresee the consequences of potential actions. The simulation >>>> must generally include the actor at some level. It's not some mysterious >>>> property raising up a ghost in the machine. >>> >>> With self-reference comes also self-modification. The self-replicators of >>> nature that slowly adapt and complexify, the brain "rewiring itself"... >>> Things get both weird and generative. I suspect that it goes to the core of >>> what human intelligence is, and what computer intelligence is not (yet). >>> But if you say that self-reference has not magic property that explains >>> consciousness, I agree with you. >> >> >> You need some magic, but the magic of the truth of “2+3=5” is enough. >> >> >> >> >>> >>> On consciousness I have nothing interesting to say (no jokes about ever >>> having had, please :). I think that: >>> >>> consciousness = existence >> >> >> Hmm… That looks like God made it. Or like “it is”. >> >> Are you OK with the ideas that from the point of view of a conscious entity, >> consciousness is something: >> >> Immediately knowable, and indubitable, (in case the machine can reason) >> Non definable, and non provable to any other machine. > > I agree. Would this not also apply to the concept of "existance”?
I am not sure what you mean by “existence” when used alone. It might be a “professional deformation”, but to me existence is a logical quantifier, and is not a intrinsic property. I think that may be consciousness is a fixed point of existence, in the sense that “existence of consciousness” is equivalent with “consciousness”. If you are using “existence” is a more sophisticated sense, then this should be elaborated? We cannot prove the existence of anything, without assuming the existence of something. With mechanism, we have to assume the existence of numbers (or to derive from something Turing equivalent, like I did with the combinators), so I doubt that existence is immediately knowable, etc. Unless again, you meant “existence of consciousness”, but then this cannot apply to define consciousness. You might need to elaborate about what you mean by “existence”, when used alone. > >> >> Then the mathematical theory of self-reference explains why machine will >> conclude that they are conscious, in that sense. They will know that they >> know something that they cannot doubt, yet cannot prove to us, or to anyone. >> And they can understand that they can test mechanism by observation. >> >> >> >> >>> >>> Existence entails self-referential machines, self-referential evolutionary >>> processes, the whole shebang. But not the other way around. >> >> Existence of the natural numbers + the laws of addition and multiplication >> does that, and also justify what you don’t get any of that with any weaker >> theory, having less axioms, than Robinson Arithmetic. >> >> We have to assume numbers if we want just define precisely what a machine >> is, but we cannot assume a physical universe: that is the price, we have to >> derive it from arithmetic “seen from inside”. > > I agree. > > My point is much less sophisticated. It is such a trivial observation that I > would call it a Lapalissade. And yet, in out current culture, you risk being > considered insance for saying it: > > Our first-person experience of the world is what exists, as far as we know. Yes, but as far as we know it for sure, we know only our own personal experience here-and-now. We have no other certainties. OK. > Everything else is a model, including the third-person view. Yes. (Of course a logician would call that a theory, as a model = a reality, like the painters used that word). > There was no Big Bang at the same ontological level that there is a blue pen > in my desk, because the Big Bang is nobody's experience (or is it?). With resect to Mechanism, the pen of he desk is similar to the Big Bang. We believe in them from indirect evidence. It does not seem so for the pen, because our brain make the relevant computation mostly unconsciously. For the Big Bang, we have used much more brains (using indirectly the brain of colleagues, Hubble, Einstein, and using telescope, making the computations more consciously, but it is just a matter of degree. > The Big Bang is something that the machine has to answer if you ask it > certain questions. As you say, if the machine is consistent then the big bang > is "true" in a sense, if the macine is malevolent all bets are off. Gödel proved that “consistent” is the same as having a model (in the logician sense of reality, not a theory). So the notion of truth is always relative to a model, the reality we are pointing too. In our local reality, there are evidence of personal birth, star, galaxies, and the Big Bang. Now if the logic of the material modes where contradicted by nature, that would be an evidence that the Big Bang, and some physical stuff, is ontologically real, but thanks to quantum mechanics, we have the contrary evidences, which means the Big Bang is more like a percept in some video games (which all exist in arithmetic). Below the substitution level, mechanism predict that we can “see” (indirectly) the presence of the infinitely many computations which support us, and that explain the quantum from the machine’s theory of consciousness/knowledge/observation. The fundamental science is theology, or metaphysics. Physics is a statistics deducible from the logic of the first person plural view ([]p & <>t, you can read it “p is true in all models é there is one model”): that give the probability one for p. ([]p alone cannot work, because of the cul-de-sac worlds where []p is vacuously true). The malevolent machine must be invoked, for being logically correct, even if that can be judged non reasonable. I mean, if Z1* departs from nature observation, it means that mechanism is false OR we are in a malevolent simulation. But up to now, thanks to “many-world QM”, nature confirms Mechanism, and thus indirectly the whole theory of consciousness or theology. Bruno > > Telmo. > >> >> Bruno >> >> >> >> >>> >>> Telmo. >>> >>>> >>>> Brent >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Telmo >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Whether it is "formalizable" or not would seem to depend on choosing >>>>>> the right formalization to describe what engineers already create. >>>>>> >>>>>> Brent >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On 4/15/2019 11:28 AM, za_wishy via Everything List wrote: >>>>>>> Hmm... the thing is that what I'm arguing for in the book is that >>>>>>> self-reference is unformalizable, so there can be no mathematics of >>>>>>> self-reference. More than this, self-reference is not some concept in a >>>>>>> theory, but it is us, each and everyone of us is a form of >>>>>>> manifestation of self-reference. Self-reference is an eternal logical >>>>>>> structure that eternally looks-back-at-itself. And this >>>>>>> looking-back-at-itself automatically generates a subjective ontology, >>>>>>> an "I am". In other words, the very definition of the concept of >>>>>>> "existence" is the looking-back-at-itself of self-reference. So, >>>>>>> existence can only be subjective, so all that can exists is >>>>>>> consciousness. I talk in the book how the looking-back-at-itself >>>>>>> implies 3 properties: identity (self-reference is itself, x=x), >>>>>>> inclusion (self-reference is included in itself, x<x) and transcendence >>>>>>> (self-reference is more than itself, x>x). And all these apparently >>>>>>> contradictory properties are happening all at the same time. So, x=x, >>>>>>> x<x, x>x all at the same time. But there is no actual contradiction >>>>>>> here, because self-reference is unformalizable. The reason why I get to >>>>>>> such weird conclusions is explored throughout the book where a >>>>>>> phenomenological analysis of consciousness is done and it is shown how >>>>>>> it is structured on an emergent holarchy of levels, a holarchy meaning >>>>>>> that a higher level includes the lower levels, and I conclude that this >>>>>>> can only happen if there is an entity called "self-reference" which has >>>>>>> the above mentioned properties. So as you can see, there pretty much >>>>>>> cannot be a mathematics of self-reference. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I will also present about self-reference at The Science of >>>>>>> Consciousness conference this year at Interlaken, Switzerland, so if >>>>>>> you are there we can talk more about these issues. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Thursday, 11 April 2019 02:55:55 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>>>>>> Hi Cosmin, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It seems your conclusion fits well with the conclusion already given by >>>>>>> the universal machine (the Gödel-Löbian one which are those who already >>>>>>> knows that they are Turing universal, like ZF, PA, or the combinators + >>>>>>> some induction principle). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Self-reference is capital indeed, but you seem to miss the mathematical >>>>>>> theory of self-reference, brought by the work of Gödel and Löb, and >>>>>>> Solovay ultimate formalisation of it at the first order logic level. >>>>>>> You cite Penrose, which is deadly wrong on this. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> In fact incompleteness is a chance for mechanism, as it provides almost >>>>>>> directly a theory of consciousness, if you are willing to agree that >>>>>>> consciousness is true, indubitable, immediately >>>>>>> knowable, non provable and non definable, as each Löbian machine is >>>>>>> confronted to such proposition all the “time”. But this enforces also, >>>>>>> as I have shown, that the whole of physics has to be justified by some >>>>>>> of the modes of self-reference, making physics into a subbranch of >>>>>>> elementary arithmetic. This works in the sense that at the three places >>>>>>> where physics should appear we get a quantum logic, and this with the >>>>>>> advantage of a transparent clear-cut between the qualia (not sharable) >>>>>>> and the quanta (sharable in the first person plural sense). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> You seem to have a good (I mean correct with respect to Mechanism) >>>>>>> insight on consciousness, but you seem to have wrong information on the >>>>>>> theory of the digital machines/numbers and the role of Gödel. Gödel’s >>>>>>> theorem is really a chance for the Mechanist theory, as it explains >>>>>>> that the digital machine are non predictable, full of non communicable >>>>>>> subjective knowledge and beliefs, and capable of defeating all >>>>>>> reductionist theory that we can made of them. Indeed, they are >>>>>>> literally universal dissident, and they are born with a conflict >>>>>>> between 8 modes of self-apprehension. In my last paper(*) I argue that >>>>>>> they can be enlightened, and this shows also that enlightenment and >>>>>>> blasphemy are very close, and that religion leads easily to a >>>>>>> theological trap making the machine inconsistent, except by staying >>>>>>> mute, or referring to Mechanism (which is itself highly unprovable by >>>>>>> the consistent machine). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> 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 everyth...@googlegroups.com <>. >>>>>>>> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com <>. >>>>>>>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list >>>>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. >>>>>>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout >>>>>>>> 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