Dear Arturo,
There were some reports in clinical psychology, about 30 years ago, that relate to the question whether a machine can pretend to be a therapist. That was the time as computers could newly be used in an interactive fashion, and the Rogers techniques were a current discovery. (Rogers developed a dialogue method where one does not address the contents of what the patient says, but rather the emotional aspects of the message, assumed to be at work in the patient.) They then said, that in some cases it was indistinguishable, whether a human or a machine provides the answer to a patient's elucidations. Progress since then has surely made possible to create machines that are indistinguishable in interaction to humans. Indeed, what is called "expert systems ", are widely used in many fields. If the interaction is rational, that is: formally equivalent to a logical discussion modi Wittgenstein, the difference in: "who arrived at this answer, machinery or a human", becomes irrelevant. Artistry, intuition, creativity are presently seen as not possible to translate into Wittgenstein sentences. Maybe the inner instincts are not yet well understood. But!: there are some who are busily undermining the current fundamentals of rational thinking. So there is hope that we shall live to experience the ultimate disillusionment, namely that humans are a combinatorial tautology. Accordingly, may I respectfully express opposing views to what you state: that machines and humans are of incompatible builds. There are hints that as far as rational capabilities go, the same principles apply. There is a rest, you say, which is not of this kind. The counter argument says that irrational processes do not take place in organisms, therefore what you refer to belongs to the main process, maybe like waste belongs to the organism's principle. This view draws a picture of a functional biotope, in which the waste of one kind of organism is raw material for a different kind. Karl <tozziart...@libero.it> schrieb am Do., 10. Mai 2018 15:24: > Dear Bruno, > You state: > "IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science, > THEN “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. > “physical” becomes a mathematical notion. > ...Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of > description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel any > change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating the > brain/body at that level of description". > > The problem of your account is the following: > You say "IF" and "indexical digital mechanism is the HYPOTHESIS". > Therefore, you are talking of an HYPOTHESIS: it is not empirically tested > and it is not empirically testable. You are starting with a sort of > postulate: I, and other people, do not agree with it. The current > neuroscience does not state that our brain/body is (or can be replaced by) > a digital machine. > In other words, your "IF" stands for something that possibly does not > exist in our real world. Here your entire building falls down. > > -- > Inviato da Libero Mail per Android > giovedì, 10 maggio 2018, 02:46PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be > : > > (This mail has been sent previously , but without success. I resend it, > with minor changes). Problems due to different accounts. It was my first > comment to Mark Burgin new thread “Is information physical?”. > > > Dear Mark, Dear Colleagues, > > > Apology for not answering the mails in the chronological orders, as my new > computer classifies them in some mysterious way! > This is my first post of the week. I might answer comment, if any, at the > end of the week. > > > On 25 Apr 2018, at 03:47, Burgin, Mark <mbur...@math.ucla.edu> wrote: > > Dear Colleagues, > > I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion > > Is information physical? > > > That is an important topic indeed, very close to what I am working on. > > My result here is that > > *IF* indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science, > > *THEN* “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. > “physical” becomes a mathematical notion. > > The proof is constructive. It shows exactly how to derive physics from > Arithmetic (the reality, not the theory. I use “reality” instead of “model" > (logician’s term, because physicists use “model" for “theory"). > > Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of > description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel any > change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating the > brain/body at that level of description. > > Not only information is not physical, but matter, time, space, and all > physical objects become part of the universal machine phenomenology. > Physics is reduced to arithmetic, or, equivalently, to any Turing-complete > machinery. Amazingly Arithmetic (even the tiny semi-computable part of > arithmetic) is Turing complete (Turing Universal). > > The basic idea is that: > > 1) no universal machine can distinguish if she is executed by an > arithmetical reality or by a physical reality. And, > > 2) all universal machines are executed in arithmetic, and they are > necessarily undetermined on the set of of all its continuations emulated in > arithmetic. > > That reduces physics to a statistics on all computations relative to my > actual state, and see from some first person points of view (something I > can describe more precisely in some future post perhaps). > > Put in that way, the proof is not constructive, as, if we are machine, we > cannot know which machine we are. But Gödel’s incompleteness can be used to > recover this constructively for a simpler machine than us, like Peano > arithmetic. This way of proceeding enforces the distinction between first > and third person views (and six others!). > > I have derived already many feature of quantum mechanics from this > (including the possibility of quantum computer) a long time ago. I was > about sure this would refute Mechanism, until I learned about quantum > mechanics, which verifies all the most startling predictions of Indexical > Mechanism, unless we add the controversial wave collapse reduction > principle. > > The curious “many-worlds” becomes the obvious (in arithmetic) many > computations (up to some equivalence quotient). The weird indeterminacy > becomes the simpler amoeba like duplication. The non-cloning of matter > becomes obvious: as any piece of matter is the result of the first person > indeterminacy (the first person view of the amoeba undergoing a > duplication, …) on infinitely many computations. This entails also that > neither matter appearance nor consciousness are Turing emulable per se, as > the whole arithmetical reality—which is a highly non computable notion as > we know since Gödel—plays a key role. Note this makes Digital Physics > leaning to inconsistency, as it implies indexical computationalism which > implies the negation of Digital Physics (unless my “body” is the entire > physical universe, which I rather doubt). > > My opinion is presented below: > > > Why some people erroneously think that information is physical > > The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong > belief of many people, especially, scientists that there is only physical > reality, which is studied by science. At the same time, people encounter > something that they call information. > When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is information > because with the letter they receive information. The letter is physical, > i.e., a physical object. As a result, people start thinking that > information is physical. When people receive an e-mail, they comprehend > that it is information because with the e-mail they receive information. > The e-mail comes to the computer in the form of electromagnetic waves, > which are physical. As a result, people start thinking even more that > information is physical. > However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical > objects are only carriers or containers of information. > To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is possible to > say that this book is knowledge? Any reasonable person will tell that the > textbook contains knowledge but is not knowledge itself. In the same way, > the textbook contains information but is not information itself. The same > is true for letters, e-mails, electromagnetic waves and other physical > objects because all of them only contain information but are not > information. For instance, as we know, different letters can contain the > same information. Even if we make an identical copy of a letter or any > other text, then the letter and its copy will be different physical objects > (physical things) but they will contain the same information. > Information belongs to a different (non-physical) world of knowledge, > data and similar essences. In spite of this, information can act on > physical objects (physical bodies) and this action also misleads people who > think that information is physical. > > > OK. The reason is that we can hardly imagine how immaterial or non > physical objects can alter the physical realm. It is the usual problem > faced by dualist ontologies. With Indexical computationalism we recover > many dualities, but they belong to the phenomenologies. > > > > One more misleading property of information is that people can measure > it. This brings an erroneous assumption that it is possible to measure only > physical essences. Naturally, this brings people to the erroneous > conclusion that information is physical. However, measuring information is > essentially different than measuring physical quantities, i.e., weight. > There are no “scales” that measure information. Only human intellect can do > this. > > > OK. I think all intellect can do that, not just he human one. > > Now, the reason why people believe in the physical is always a form of the > “knocking table” argument. They knocks on the table and say “you will not > tell me that this table is unreal”. > > I have got so many people giving me that argument, that I have made dreams > in which I made that argument, or even where I was convinced by that > argument … until I wake up. > > When we do metaphysics with the scientific method, this “dream argument” > illustrates that seeing, measuring, … cannot prove anything ontological. A > subjective experience proves only the phenomenological existence of > consciousness, and nothing more. It shows that although there are plenty of > strong evidences for a material reality, there are no evidences (yet) for a > primitive or primary matter (and that is why, I think, Aristotle assumes it > quasi explicitly, against Plato, and plausibly against Pythagorus). > > Mechanism forces a coming back to Plato, where the worlds of ideas is the > world of programs, or information, or even just numbers, since very > elementary arithmetic (PA without induction, + the predecessor axiom) is > already Turing complete (it contains what I have named a Universal > Dovetailer: a program which generates *and* executes all programs). > > So I agree with you: information is not physical. I claim that if we > assume Mechanism (Indexical computationalism) matter itself is also not > *primarily* physical: it is all in the “head of the universal > machine/number” (so to speak). > > And this provides a test for primary matter: it is enough to find if there > is a discrepancy between the physics that we infer from the observation, > and the physics that we extract from “the head” of the machine. This took > me more than 30 years of work, but the results obtained up to now is that > there is no discrepancies. I have compared the quantum logic imposed by > incompleteness (formally) on the semi-computable (partial recursive, > sigma_1) propositions, with most quantum logics given by physicists, and it > fits rather well. > > Best regards, > > Bruno > _______________________________________________ > Fis mailing list > Fis@listas.unizar.es > http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > > _______________________________________________ > Fis mailing list > Fis@listas.unizar.es > http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis >
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