Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 21 Jul 2011, at 20:30, meekerdb wrote: On 7/21/2011 11:03 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:54 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 2:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Axiomatics are already in Platonia so of course that forces computation to be there. The computations are concrete relations. If the are concrete then we should be able to point to them. If your mind is a computer, you don't even need to point to them, everything you see and experience is direct evidence of the existence of the computation implementing your mind. Also, I don't think the point test works for everything that has a concrete existence. How would a many-worlder point to the other branches of the wave function, or an eternalist point to the past? How would an AI or human in a virtual environment point to the concrete computer that is rendering its environment? They don't need axioms to exist. Then the numbers relation can be described by some axiomatic. And one can regard the numbers as defined by their relations. So the fundamental ontology of numbers is reduced to a description of relations. Is a chair the same thing as a description of a chair, or an idea of a chair? The is no need to suppose they exist in the sense of tables and chairs. Assume both matter and number relations exist. With comp, the existence of number relations explains the existence of matter, That's the question. It seems that comp requires more than the existence of number relations, it requires the existence of a UD or equivalent. Not at all. The UD is a collection of number relation, and its existence is a theorem in elementary arithmetic. It requires the existence of all computation. That is Sigma_1 truth. That is contained in a tiny fragment of provable truth in elementary arithmetic. I see no reason to suppose these exist, at least not in any conventional meaning of 'exist'. It exists in the sense of even numbers exist. It certainly doesn't follow from my saying Yes to the doctor that I believe they exist. It does follow. It also has the problem that it explains too much - the white rabbit problem. But that is *the* interesting things. Matter become a mathematical problem. You can refute comp by showing that there is too much white rabbits. But the logic of self-reference shows that it is not trivial. The logic S4Grz1, X1* and Z1* explains already why the white rabbits might be very rare, perhaps even more rare than with QM. but the existence of matter does not explain the existence of number relations. It may not explain them, but it exemplifies them. And in fact that's how we learn what numbers are and how to count - long before we learn Peano's axioms and Cantor's diagonalization. That is normal. We are embedded in the reality of numbers, and cannot see the numbers before seeing matter. This is explain in the theory. It is therefore a simpler theory to suppose the existence of number relations is fundamental and the appearance of matter is a consequence, than to suppose both exist independently of each other. Simpler, yes. But then, God did it and Everything exists. are simple too. An explanation with no predictive power isn't much of an explanation. It predicts physics and consciousness. Quantitively and qualitatively. OK, it has not YET find a new particle, and that might take time. But the theory explains much more than physics has ever explain, and this with much fewer assumptions. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 22 Jul 2011, at 11:24, Stephen P. King wrote: Hi Bruno and Craig, On 7/22/2011 4:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Jul 2011, at 16:08, Craig Weinberg wrote: if you think molecules are needed, that is, that the level of substitution includes molecular activity, this too can be emulated by a computer But it can only be emulated in a virtual environment interfacing with a computer literate human being though. Why. That's begging the question. Bruno has a strong point here. So long as one is dealing with a system that can be described such that that description can be turned into a recipe to represent all aspects of the system, then it is, by definition computable! A real mouse will not be able to live on virtual cheese. But a virtual mouse will (I will talk *in* the comp theory). Virtual mice eat virtual cheese and get virtual calories from it! And you can prove that virtual mice exists in arithmetic. Be careful that your not forcing a multi-leveled concept into a single conceptual level. ? Why can't consciousness be considered exactly the same way, as an irreducible correlate of specific meta- meta-meta-elaborations of matter? What do you mean by matter? Primitive matter does not exist. A TOE has to explain where the belief in matter comes from without assuming it. OK, Bruno, would you stop saying that unless you explicitly explain what you mean by primitive matter? The object of the ontological commitment of materialist or naturalist or physicalist. It is not assumed in comp, but its appearance is explained by the competition amoong infiniie of universal numbers acting below the substitution level (that is a consequence of already just UDA1-7). The point that A TOE has to explain where the belief in matter comes from without assuming it is very important, though, but you might agree that that kind of multi-leveled TOE is foreign to most people. Not many people consider that a Theory of Everything must contain not only a representation of waht is observed but also the means and methods of the observations there of, or else it is not a theory of *Everything*. OK. This actually makes the concept of a TOE subject to Incompleteness considerations! Assuming comp, OK. All what consciousness (and matter) needs is a sufficiently rich collection of self-referential relations. It happens that the numbers, by the simple laws of addition and multiplication provides already just that. Adding some ontological elements can only make the mind body problem more complex to even just formulate. Information is not consciousness. Energy is the experience of being informed and informing, but it is not information. I agree. Indeed! This is why a brain must be alive and conscious (not in a coma) to be informed or inform, and why a computer must be turned on to execute programs, or a mechanical computing system has to have kinetic initialization, etc. Not at all. All you need are relative genuine relations. That does explain both the origin of quanta and qualia, including the difference of the quantitative and the qualitative. But Bruno, you are side-stepping the vital question of persistance and transitivity in that notion of genuine relations. One's TOE has to account for the appearance of time, even it it is not primitive. That has been done for subjectime. It is a construct in the S4Grz1 modality, or the X1* modality. Is there a physical time? That is a comp open problem. (as it is with most physicalist theory too). It is not enough to show that matter is not primitive, we have to show how the image of an evolving matter universe is possible. The possibility is provides by the internal arithmetical hypostases. So far we are implying it via diamonds, but diamonds do not map in ways that are necessary to code interactions. Not yet. If you can prove it cannot, then comp is refuted. The path that energy takes determines the content of the experience to some extent, but it is the physical nature of the materials through which the continuous sense of interaction occurs which determine the quality or magnitude of possible qualitative elaboration (physical, chemo, bio, zoo-physio, neuro, cerebral) of that experience. How? Umm, Craig, no. Energy is defined by the path of events of the interaction. This is why the word action is used. We have a notion of least action which relates to the minimum configuration of a system, the content of the experience *is* the inside view of the process that strives always for that minimum. Careful. You reintroduce some physics here. Physical will take you to detection, chemo to sense, bio to feeling, zoo to emotion, neuro to cognition, cerebral to full abstraction (colloquial terms here, not asserting a formal taxonomy). You say so, but my point is that if you assume matter, your theory needs very
Re: bruno list
Regardless of what the nerve cells experience individually, if it can't be communicated it to other nerve cells, it can't be talked about, thought about, or wondered about. I think it could be shared between nerve cells, I'm saying it's not shared with us. We are a political partition of a living organism. The experiences which get kicked up to us are heavily filtered, but that filtering can be modified. Everything that we know about how the nervous system functions is based upon our assumptions that they are not feeling anything, and that feeling is metaphysically manifested at some point, somehow as an 'interpretation' or 'emergent property'. My view is that since we know for a fact that we would not be able to detect subjectivity outside of ourselves, and we know for a fact that we have subjectivity, and that our nervous system is made of neurons, and that we feel through our nervous system, there is absolutely no reason to presume that the feelings we experience do not originate from the feelings of neurons themselves, and not only through neurological biochemistry. The biochemistry reflects the feelings, sure, but they operate in completely different ways. The feelings have much more latitude in how they are propagated and stored. Craig http://s33light.org On Jul 21, 9:28 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: I agree there would be a level at which digital recording is indistinguishable from analog recording, but I think that it's due to the intentional gating of the sense through the psyche and media path rather than the limitations of nerve cells firing. The nerve cells themselves may experience a huge range of sensitivity which we have no conscious access to - the cochlea, maybe even more. Talking about raw sensation here, not depth/richness of interpretative qualia. Regardless of what the nerve cells experience individually, if it can't be communicated it to other nerve cells, it can't be talked about, thought about, or wondered about. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
No doubt it would be technically difficult to make an artificial replacement for a neuron in a different substrate, but there is no theoretical reason why it could not be done, since there is no evidence for any magical processes inside neurons. Subjectivity is the magic processes inside living neurons that is unknown outside of that context. Life is the magic processes going on through all cells and tissues that are unknown outside of organic chemistry. The argument is that IF an artificial neuron could be made which would replicate the behaviour of a biological neuron well enough to slot into position in a brain unnoticed THEN the consciousness of that brain would be unaffected. If not, a bizarre situation would arise where consciousness could change or disappear (eg., going blind) without the subject noticing. Can you address this particular point? I have already addressed this point - you can have a living person with a prosthetic limb but you can't replace a person's brain with a prosthetic and have it still be that person. The limb only works because there is enough of the body left to telegraph sensorimotive action through/around the prosthetic obstacle. On one level, the more neurons you replace, the more obstacles you introduce. If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained, but the experience of the functionality I would expect to be truncated increasingly. The living neurons will likely be able to compensate for quite a bit of this loss, as it is likely massively fault tolerant and redundant, but if you keep replacing the live cells with pegs, eventually I think you're going to get decompensation, dementia, and catatonia or some zombie like state which will likely be recognizable to other human beings. On Jul 21, 10:58 pm, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: It depends entirely on the degree to which the neurons are modified or artificial. If you replace some parts of a care with ones made out of chewing gum or ice, they may work for a while under particular conditions, temperatures, etc. Think of how simple an artificial heart is by comparison to even a single neuron, let alone a brain. It's a pump with a regular beat. Yet, the longest anyone has survived with one is seven years. All I'm saying is that for something to function identically to a neuron, it must in all likelihood be a living organism, and to be a living organism, it's likely that it needs to be composed of complex organic molecules. Not due to the specific magic of organic configurations but due to the extraordinary level of fidelity required to reproduce the tangible feelings produced by living organisms, and the critical role those feelings likely play in the aggregation of what we consider to be consciousness. Consciousness is made of feelings themselves, and their behaviors, their internal consistency and not just the neurological behaviors which are associated with them. It is a first person experience, completely undetectable in third person. Or, to use your car analogy, would the replaceable parts of a car include a driver? Are all drivers capable of driving the car in the same way? A blind person can physically drive the car, push the pedals, turn the wheel. Can a blind or unconscious nucleus drive a neuron? No doubt it would be technically difficult to make an artificial replacement for a neuron in a different substrate, but there is no theoretical reason why it could not be done, since there is no evidence for any magical processes inside neurons. The argument is that IF an artificial neuron could be made which would replicate the behaviour of a biological neuron well enough to slot into position in a brain unnoticed THEN the consciousness of that brain would be unaffected. If not, a bizarre situation would arise where consciousness could change or disappear (eg., going blind) without the subject noticing. Can you address this particular point? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On Jul 22, 1:53 am, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 7:43 PM, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Jul 21, 11:55 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 4:55 PM, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Assume both matter and number relations exist. With comp, the existence of number relations explains the existence of matter, but the existence of matter does not explain the existence of number relations. Yes it does. Any number relation that has ever been grasped by anybody exists in their mind, and therefore in their brain. And as for the ungrasped ones...so what? It can make no difference if they are there or not. Perhaps if those ungrasped ones did not exist then we might not exist. It is premature to say their existence does not make a difference to us. The existence of matter can explain the existence of numbers. The reverse might also be the case, but that is not a disproof. I think may also be incorrect to say we need to grasp numbers or their relations for them to matter. Consider this example: I generate a large random number X, with no obvious factors (I think it is prime), but when I compute (y^(X - 1)) and divide by X (where y is not a multiple of X), I find the remainder is not 1. This means X is not prime: it has factors other than 1 and X, but I haven't grasped what those factors are. Nor is there any efficient method for finding out what they are. Now the existence of these ungrasped numbers does make a difference. If I attempted to build an RSA key using X and another legitimately prime number (instead of two prime numbers), then the encryption won't work properly. I won't be able to determine a private key because I don't know all the factors. The contingent fact that is your failure to grasp a mathematical truth is makes a difference. Just above you said mathematical objects only exist if they exist physically in some brain. This is a case where the factors are not only unknown by me, but likely unknown by anyone in the observable universe. Mathematical truths are not contingent, so what difference can they make? If they are not contingent then you accept they exist even without the existence of the physical universe? No. They are epistemically necessary. That says nothing about their existence. The argument is that since they can make no difference, they should be assumed to have no mind independent existence. If so, then see my post in the other thread where I explain how mathematical truth can explain the existence of life and consciousness. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On Jul 22, 4:08 am, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 9:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: ** On 7/21/2011 1:16 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 1:30 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 11:03 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:54 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 2:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Axiomatics are already in Platonia so of course that forces computation to be there. The computations are concrete relations. If the are concrete then we should be able to point to them. If your mind is a computer, you don't even need to point to them, everything you see and experience is direct evidence of the existence of the computation implementing your mind. Also, I don't think the point test works for everything that has a concrete existence. How would a many-worlder point to the other branches of the wave function, or an eternalist point to the past? How would an AI or human in a virtual environment point to the concrete computer that is rendering its environment? They don't need axioms to exist. Then the numbers relation can be described by some axiomatic. And one can regard the numbers as defined by their relations. So the fundamental ontology of numbers is reduced to a description of relations. Is a chair the same thing as a description of a chair, or an idea of a chair? The is no need to suppose they exist in the sense of tables and chairs. Assume both matter and number relations exist. With comp, the existence of number relations explains the existence of matter, That's the question. It seems that comp requires more than the existence of number relations, it requires the existence of a UD or equivalent. The Fibonacci sequence is, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144... It is defined by the simple number relation Fib(n) = Fib(n-1) + Fib(n-2). This is a simple recursive definition. You might even say the number line has a simple recursive definition, where Number(n) = Number(n-1) + 1. Different recursive definitions result in different sequences of numbers (different ways of progressing through the integers). In some of these definitions, bits patterns (within the number) may move around in well defined ways, There's the rub. Nothing changes in Platonia. Nothing moves around or computes. Bit patterns are physical things, like 101101. Numbers are not. Nothing changes in physics either. Block time is the only consistent view given relativity. Things don't need to move to compute, there just need to be well defined relations between the bits. And every computation either stops or doens't? There seems to me a mismatch between timelessness and computation. some of these bit patterns become self-reproducing, and may even evolve into more complex bit patterns, which are better able to reproduce themselves. Some of these bit patterns may even evolve consciousness, as they build brains which attempt to discern and predict future observations of bit patterns within the number. Let's call this function Universe. There may be bit patterns (life forms) in Universe(n) which improve their survival or reproductive success by correctly predicting parts of Universe(n+x). There are number relations which define such sequences of numbers; you cannot deny their existence without denying the Fibonacci sequence or the number line (these are just simpler instances of recursive relations). I can deny that the numbers exist the way tables and do and still accept that certain relations are true of them; just like I can accept that John Watson was a friend of Sherlock Holmes. Numbers, unlike fictional characters, are co-eternal with the universe, Meaning they end with the universe? Why assume that? What difference does it make. if not the cause of the universe. Causation requires events. Maths is timeless. In that sense, they are just as concrete if not more concrete than any physical object. Your view is like that of a being who has spent its whole life in a simulated virtual environment: It believes the virtual reality and items in it are more real than the actual computer which implements the virtual environment. The beings only justification for this belief is that he can't access that computer using his senses, nor point is he able to point to it. Jason I think we all have a pretty strong justification for the Real Reality theory in the shape of Occam's razor. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On Jul 22, 6:24 am, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 11:30 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: ** On 7/21/2011 8:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 9:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 1:16 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 1:30 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 11:03 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:54 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 2:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Axiomatics are already in Platonia so of course that forces computation to be there. The computations are concrete relations. If the are concrete then we should be able to point to them. If your mind is a computer, you don't even need to point to them, everything you see and experience is direct evidence of the existence of the computation implementing your mind. Also, I don't think the point test works for everything that has a concrete existence. How would a many-worlder point to the other branches of the wave function, or an eternalist point to the past? How would an AI or human in a virtual environment point to the concrete computer that is rendering its environment? They don't need axioms to exist. Then the numbers relation can be described by some axiomatic. And one can regard the numbers as defined by their relations. So the fundamental ontology of numbers is reduced to a description of relations. Is a chair the same thing as a description of a chair, or an idea of a chair? The is no need to suppose they exist in the sense of tables and chairs. Assume both matter and number relations exist. With comp, the existence of number relations explains the existence of matter, That's the question. It seems that comp requires more than the existence of number relations, it requires the existence of a UD or equivalent. The Fibonacci sequence is, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144... It is defined by the simple number relation Fib(n) = Fib(n-1) + Fib(n-2). This is a simple recursive definition. You might even say the number line has a simple recursive definition, where Number(n) = Number(n-1) + 1. Different recursive definitions result in different sequences of numbers (different ways of progressing through the integers). In some of these definitions, bits patterns (within the number) may move around in well defined ways, There's the rub. Nothing changes in Platonia. Nothing moves around or computes. Bit patterns are physical things, like 101101. Numbers are not. Nothing changes in physics either. Block time is the only consistent view given relativity. Different t == different g_ab. Different N == different Fib(N) That's change in physics. Anyway, GR must be incomplete since it's not compatible with QM. All the relevant parts of relativity which imply block time have been confirmed. The above is like arguing against gravity because Newton's theory wasn't compatible with the observations of Mercury's orbit. Things don't need to move to compute, there just need to be well defined relations between the bits. some of these bit patterns become self-reproducing, and may even evolve into more complex bit patterns, which are better able to reproduce themselves. Some of these bit patterns may even evolve consciousness, as they build brains which attempt to discern and predict future observations of bit patterns within the number. Let's call this function Universe. There may be bit patterns (life forms) in Universe(n) which improve their survival or reproductive success by correctly predicting parts of Universe(n+x). There are number relations which define such sequences of numbers; you cannot deny their existence without denying the Fibonacci sequence or the number line (these are just simpler instances of recursive relations). I can deny that the numbers exist the way tables and do and still accept that certain relations are true of them; just like I can accept that John Watson was a friend of Sherlock Holmes. Numbers, unlike fictional characters, are co-eternal with the universe, if not the cause of the universe. That assumes numbers exist. It is no worse than assuming the physical universe exists. Both theories are consistent with observation. In that sense, they are just as concrete if not more concrete than any physical object. Your view is like that of a being who has spent its whole life in a simulated virtual environment: It believes the virtual reality and items in it are more real than the actual computer which implements the virtual environment. The beings only justification for this belief is that he can't access that computer using his senses, nor point is he able to point to it. That's logically possible and maybe nomologically possible - but there's also
Re: Block Time confirmed?
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 3:30 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 7/22/2011 2:11 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 12:44 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 7/22/2011 1:24 AM, Jason Resch wrote: All the relevant parts of relativity which imply block time have been confirmed. The above is like arguing against gravity because Newton's theory wasn't compatible with the observations of Mercury's orbit. Hi Jason, Could you be more specific? Exactly which relevant parts which imply block time have been confirmed and how? Special relativity, time dilation due to speed, non simultaneity of events reported by observers in different reference frames, and so on. And to Brent's point, regarding the conflict between relativity and QM, that issue is with GR, SR is not in conflict with QM. This paper explains it well: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2408/ Jason Hi Jason, I will check that paper, thanks! But here is the thing about the implications of relativity of simultaneity: Since it prohibits any form of absolute synchronization of events, this in turn restricts how the entire space-time manifold can be considered as parceled up into space-like and time like regions. Imagine that spacetime is a 3 dimensional instead of four dimensional. Now take any object's velocity through that space time, and consider a plane perpendicular to the direction of that velocity. The content of that plane is considered the present for that reference frame. This is more clear if you consider euclidean space time rather than Minkowski space. The only difference you need to make to convert spacetime to Euclidean is to imagine that every object's velocity through space time is c. *Relativity Visualized* is a good book which explains this view, but this site also explains it: http://www.relativitysimplified.com/ . It enables an intuitive understanding of all the strange effects like time dilation and length contraction. Since we see only the three dimensional shadow of objects, an object with a different velocity is rotated in space time. It is like having an umbrella pointed straight at the sun vs. it being tilted, if it is tilted its shadow becomes compressed along the direction it is tilted. In other words, there cannot exist a single Cauchy hypersurface what acts as the set of initial (or final) conditions for a GR field equation for the entire universe. The fact that relativity iplies a unique present for every reference frame is one of the main arguments for block time. How can the car driving past you have a present containing different real objects than yours? Presentism assumes the present is the set of real objects at a given period of time, but what is real to you now in this moment is different from what is real to me in the same moment if we are moving relative to each other (even if we are at the same location). See: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Rietdijk%E2%80%93Putnam_argument The paper I cited also goes on to counter objections made to that argument. Thanks, Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 7:01 AM, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Things don't need to move to compute, there just need to be well defined relations between the bits. And every computation either stops or doens't? There seems to me a mismatch between timelessness and computation. Not at all. Consider the analogy with a universe: It either is infinitely long in the time dimension or finite. This doesn't preclude block time. some of these bit patterns become self-reproducing, and may even evolve into more complex bit patterns, which are better able to reproduce themselves. Some of these bit patterns may even evolve consciousness, as they build brains which attempt to discern and predict future observations of bit patterns within the number. Let's call this function Universe. There may be bit patterns (life forms) in Universe(n) which improve their survival or reproductive success by correctly predicting parts of Universe(n+x). There are number relations which define such sequences of numbers; you cannot deny their existence without denying the Fibonacci sequence or the number line (these are just simpler instances of recursive relations). I can deny that the numbers exist the way tables and do and still accept that certain relations are true of them; just like I can accept that John Watson was a friend of Sherlock Holmes. Numbers, unlike fictional characters, are co-eternal with the universe, Meaning they end with the universe? Why assume that? What difference does it make. The universe doesn't end (time as something we move through) only appears to observers. This is true with both the block universe view, and the I exist in some number relation view. It is easy to see how this view arises if you consider the example I gave earlier with a life form developing through the successive states of a recursive function. if not the cause of the universe. Causation requires events. Maths is timeless. In that sense, they are just as concrete if not more concrete than any physical object. Your view is like that of a being who has spent its whole life in a simulated virtual environment: It believes the virtual reality and items in it are more real than the actual computer which implements the virtual environment. The beings only justification for this belief is that he can't access that computer using his senses, nor point is he able to point to it. Jason I think we all have a pretty strong justification for the Real Reality theory in the shape of Occam's razor. As I already said, both theories consequences math exists primarily or physics exists primarily are equally verified by observation. They are equally scientific and make the same number of assumptions. The question then becomes: Is it redundant to assume a primary existence in the physical universe, if one accepts math exists independently of the physical world? Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 7:08 AM, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Jul 22, 6:24 am, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 11:30 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: ** On 7/21/2011 8:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 9:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 1:16 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 1:30 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 11:03 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:54 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/21/2011 2:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Axiomatics are already in Platonia so of course that forces computation to be there. The computations are concrete relations. If the are concrete then we should be able to point to them. If your mind is a computer, you don't even need to point to them, everything you see and experience is direct evidence of the existence of the computation implementing your mind. Also, I don't think the point test works for everything that has a concrete existence. How would a many-worlder point to the other branches of the wave function, or an eternalist point to the past? How would an AI or human in a virtual environment point to the concrete computer that is rendering its environment? They don't need axioms to exist. Then the numbers relation can be described by some axiomatic. And one can regard the numbers as defined by their relations. So the fundamental ontology of numbers is reduced to a description of relations. Is a chair the same thing as a description of a chair, or an idea of a chair? The is no need to suppose they exist in the sense of tables and chairs. Assume both matter and number relations exist. With comp, the existence of number relations explains the existence of matter, That's the question. It seems that comp requires more than the existence of number relations, it requires the existence of a UD or equivalent. The Fibonacci sequence is, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144... It is defined by the simple number relation Fib(n) = Fib(n-1) + Fib(n-2). This is a simple recursive definition. You might even say the number line has a simple recursive definition, where Number(n) = Number(n-1) + 1. Different recursive definitions result in different sequences of numbers (different ways of progressing through the integers). In some of these definitions, bits patterns (within the number) may move around in well defined ways, There's the rub. Nothing changes in Platonia. Nothing moves around or computes. Bit patterns are physical things, like 101101. Numbers are not. Nothing changes in physics either. Block time is the only consistent view given relativity. Different t == different g_ab. Different N == different Fib(N) That's change in physics. Anyway, GR must be incomplete since it's not compatible with QM. All the relevant parts of relativity which imply block time have been confirmed. The above is like arguing against gravity because Newton's theory wasn't compatible with the observations of Mercury's orbit. Things don't need to move to compute, there just need to be well defined relations between the bits. some of these bit patterns become self-reproducing, and may even evolve into more complex bit patterns, which are better able to reproduce themselves. Some of these bit patterns may even evolve consciousness, as they build brains which attempt to discern and predict future observations of bit patterns within the number. Let's call this function Universe. There may be bit patterns (life forms) in Universe(n) which improve their survival or reproductive success by correctly predicting parts of Universe(n+x). There are number relations which define such sequences of numbers; you cannot deny their existence without denying the Fibonacci sequence or the number line (these are just simpler instances of recursive relations). I can deny that the numbers exist the way tables and do and still accept that certain relations are true of them; just like I can accept that John Watson was a friend of Sherlock Holmes. Numbers, unlike fictional characters, are co-eternal with the universe, if not the cause of the universe. That assumes numbers exist. It is no worse than assuming the physical universe exists. Both theories are consistent with observation. In that sense, they are just as concrete if not more concrete than any physical object. Your view is like that of a being who has spent its whole life in a simulated virtual environment: It believes the virtual reality and items in it are more real than the actual computer which implements the virtual environment. The beings only
Re: bruno list
Unless you believe in zombie, the point is that there *is* enough phenomenological qualia and subjectivity, and contingencies, in the realm of numbers. The diffrent 1-views (the phenomenology of mind, of matter, etc.) are given by the modal variant of self-reference. This has been done and this does explain the shape of modern physics (where physicists are lost in a labyrinth of incompatible interpretations). Most of the quantum weirdness are theorem in arithmetic. I believe in zombies as far as it would be possible to simulate a human presence with a YouTube flip book as I described, or a to simulate a human brain digitally which would be zombies as far as having any internal awareness beyond the semiconductor experience of permittivity/permeability/wattage, etc. so that we may not only have restricted access by virtue of our own separation from each other, but qualia itself may somehow present the experience of entities which we would consider to be in the future as well as the past. Non sense with comp. We just cannot *assume* things like past and future. I'm saying that we human beings consider them to be in the future and the past, not that there is a future or past. That is their error. You don't need to copy them. You think that asserting a hypothesis that feeling is not quantifiable is the same thing as rationalizing genocide and slavery? I think it's just the opposite. It's the belief in arithmetic over subjectivity that is leading the planet down the primrose path to asphyxiation and madness. Only persons can think. I thought the point of comp was that digital simulation is sufficient to simulate thought. That is tautological. I agree of course. But the question is about the nature of that system. You seem to want it described by physics. This is logically OK, but you have to abandon comp. That's all. If comp cannot embrace physics, and physics cannot embrace comp, then we have to turn to something which reconciles both. I am not convinced by argument of impossibility pointing on actual technology. Not sure what you mean. On Jul 22, 5:27 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Jul 2011, at 00:42, Craig Weinberg wrote: that doesn't need any complex logic behind it, Why? This is just like saying we can't explain it. I am OK with that, but then I look for better definitions and assumptions, with the goal of at least finding an explanation of why it seems like that, or why there is no explanation. Without this, it is like invoking the will of God, and adding don't search for an explanation. Right, I totally agree. I just think there's a significant chance that we will be looking in the wrong place if we restrict ourselves to digital-analytic logic. Not saying that we should abandon all hope of producing insights from that area too, I'm just wanting to know if anyone has any objections to me planting a flag on this new continent to explore. My thinking at this point is that why it seems so difficult to explain is that : 1) since we, the subjective observer is in my opinion a phenomena of a category which is identical to qualia, the sameness leads to an ontological problem of not being able to examine qualia from outside of the realm of qualia. 2) the nature of qualitative phenomenon itself is the opposite (interior, perhaps trans-terior) of quantitative phenomenology so we may have to control our scientific impulses toward deterministic theory to allow for more flexible and intuitive apprehensions to embrace the nuances of how it works. Unless you believe in zombie, the point is that there *is* enough phenomenological qualia and subjectivity, and contingencies, in the realm of numbers. The diffrent 1-views (the phenomenology of mind, of matter, etc.) are given by the modal variant of self-reference. This has been done and this does explain the shape of modern physics (where physicists are lost in a labyrinth of incompatible interpretations). Most of the quantum weirdness are theorem in arithmetic. 3) the qualitative principle is identical to privacy in an ontological sense of being self-sequestering from public exterior access. The privacy itself is what defines the locus of qualitative phenomena. OK. 4) this 'stuff' may be ultimately originating through non-local, a- temporal axiom of the Singularity, ? so that we may not only have restricted access by virtue of our own separation from each other, but qualia itself may somehow present the experience of entities which we would consider to be in the future as well as the past. Non sense with comp. We just cannot *assume* things like past and future. As far as 3 goes, we may actually be able to overcome our separateness using technology. To be able to experiment with a neural prosthetic which could extend our visual cortex to access multiple visual systems - insect, bird, dog, etc.. To be able to
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On Jul 22, 3:59 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 7:01 AM, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Things don't need to move to compute, there just need to be well defined relations between the bits. And every computation either stops or doens't? There seems to me a mismatch between timelessness and computation. Not at all. Consider the analogy with a universe: It either is infinitely long in the time dimension or finite. This doesn't preclude block time. What are computations *for*, if their results timeless exist somewhere? some of these bit patterns become self-reproducing, and may even evolve into more complex bit patterns, which are better able to reproduce themselves. Some of these bit patterns may even evolve consciousness, as they build brains which attempt to discern and predict future observations of bit patterns within the number. Let's call this function Universe. There may be bit patterns (life forms) in Universe(n) which improve their survival or reproductive success by correctly predicting parts of Universe(n+x). There are number relations which define such sequences of numbers; you cannot deny their existence without denying the Fibonacci sequence or the number line (these are just simpler instances of recursive relations). I can deny that the numbers exist the way tables and do and still accept that certain relations are true of them; just like I can accept that John Watson was a friend of Sherlock Holmes. Numbers, unlike fictional characters, are co-eternal with the universe, Meaning they end with the universe? Why assume that? What difference does it make. The universe doesn't end (time as something we move through) only appears to observers. This is true with both the block universe view, and the I exist in some number relation view. It is easy to see how this view arises if you consider the example I gave earlier with a life form developing through the successive states of a recursive function. if not the cause of the universe. Causation requires events. Maths is timeless. In that sense, they are just as concrete if not more concrete than any physical object. Your view is like that of a being who has spent its whole life in a simulated virtual environment: It believes the virtual reality and items in it are more real than the actual computer which implements the virtual environment. The beings only justification for this belief is that he can't access that computer using his senses, nor point is he able to point to it. Jason I think we all have a pretty strong justification for the Real Reality theory in the shape of Occam's razor. As I already said, both theories consequences math exists primarily or physics exists primarily are equally verified by observation. Nope. The things we see seem to be things, not numbers. They are equally scientific and make the same number of assumptions. The question then becomes: Is it redundant to assume a primary existence in the physical universe, if one accepts math exists independently of the physical world? Jason Before that question, you need the question: does maths exist independently. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 11:31 AM, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Jul 22, 3:59 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 7:01 AM, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Things don't need to move to compute, there just need to be well defined relations between the bits. And every computation either stops or doens't? There seems to me a mismatch between timelessness and computation. Not at all. Consider the analogy with a universe: It either is infinitely long in the time dimension or finite. This doesn't preclude block time. What are computations *for*, if their results timeless exist somewhere? A result out of context is meaningless information, what is needed is a relation. some of these bit patterns become self-reproducing, and may even evolve into more complex bit patterns, which are better able to reproduce themselves. Some of these bit patterns may even evolve consciousness, as they build brains which attempt to discern and predict future observations of bit patterns within the number. Let's call this function Universe. There may be bit patterns (life forms) in Universe(n) which improve their survival or reproductive success by correctly predicting parts of Universe(n+x). There are number relations which define such sequences of numbers; you cannot deny their existence without denying the Fibonacci sequence or the number line (these are just simpler instances of recursive relations). I can deny that the numbers exist the way tables and do and still accept that certain relations are true of them; just like I can accept that John Watson was a friend of Sherlock Holmes. Numbers, unlike fictional characters, are co-eternal with the universe, Meaning they end with the universe? Why assume that? What difference does it make. The universe doesn't end (time as something we move through) only appears to observers. This is true with both the block universe view, and the I exist in some number relation view. It is easy to see how this view arises if you consider the example I gave earlier with a life form developing through the successive states of a recursive function. if not the cause of the universe. Causation requires events. Maths is timeless. In that sense, they are just as concrete if not more concrete than any physical object. Your view is like that of a being who has spent its whole life in a simulated virtual environment: It believes the virtual reality and items in it are more real than the actual computer which implements the virtual environment. The beings only justification for this belief is that he can't access that computer using his senses, nor point is he able to point to it. Jason I think we all have a pretty strong justification for the Real Reality theory in the shape of Occam's razor. As I already said, both theories consequences math exists primarily or physics exists primarily are equally verified by observation. Nope. The things we see seem to be things, not numbers. That they seem to be things is explained by the theory. Again, consider the example of a life form in a progression of numbers. They are a pattern which may receive information about other patterns, which exist within that number. They are equally scientific and make the same number of assumptions. The question then becomes: Is it redundant to assume a primary existence in the physical universe, if one accepts math exists independently of the physical world? Jason Before that question, you need the question: does maths exist independently. If you want to debate this question I am happy to. It is the assumption made by most mathematicians and scientists. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out
Hey Bruno, I have done some thinking and reformulated my thoughts about our ongoing discussion. To sum up my (intuitive) objection, I have struggled to understand how you make the leap from the consciousness of abstract logical machines to human consciousness. I now have an argument that I think formalizes this intuition. First, I grant that the computation at the neuron-level is at least universal, since neurons are capable of addition and multiplication, and as you say, these are the only operations a machine is required to be able to perform to be considered universal. I could even see how neural computation may be Löbian, where the induction operations are implemented in terms of synaptic strengths (as 'confidence' in the synaptic connections that mediate particular 'beliefs'). Furthermore, I grant that a kind of consciousness might be associated with Löbianity (and perhaps even universality). I will argue however that that is not the consciousness we as humans experience, and we cannot know - solely on the basis of abstract logical machines - how to characterize human consciousness. The critical point is that human psychology (which I will refer to henceforth as 'psy') emerges from vast assemblages of neurons. When we talk about emergence, we recognize that there is a higher-order level that has its own dynamics which are completely independent (what I refer to as 'causally orthogonal') to the dynamics of the lower-order level. The Game of Life CA (cellular automata) has very specific dynamics at the cell level, and the dynamics that emerges at the higher-order level cannot be predicted or explained in terms of those lower-order dynamics. The higher order is an emergence of a new 'ontology'. The neural correlates of psy experiences can indeed be traced down to the firings of (vast numbers of) individual neurons, in the same way that a hurricane can be traced down to the interactions of (vast numbers of) water and air molecules. But I'm saying the dynamics of human psychology will never be understood in terms of the firings of neurons. Psy can be thought of as 'neural weather'. True understanding of psy may one day be enabled by an understanding of the dynamics of the structures that emerge from the neuronal level, in the same way that weather forecasters understand the weather in terms of the dynamics of low/high pressure systems, fronts, troughs, jet-streams, and so on. To put this in more mathematical terms, propositions about psy are not expressible in the 'machine language' of neurons. Propositions about 'psy' are in fact intrinsic to the particular 'program' that the neural machinery runs. It is a form of level confusion, in other words, to attribute the human consciousness that is correlated with emergent structures to the consciousness of neural machinery. What I think is most likely is that there are several levels of psychological emergence related to increasingly encompassing aspects of experience. Each of these levels are uniquely structured, and in a form follows function kind of way, each correspond with a different character of consciousness. Human consciousness is a sum over each of those layers (including perhaps the base neuronal level). Given that the only kind of consciousness we have any direct knowledge of is human consciousness, we cannot say anything about the character of the consciousness of abstract logical machines. To truly explain consciousness, we're going to have to understand the dynamics that emerge from assemblages of (large) groups of neurons, and how psy phenomenon correlate to those dynamics. A little more below... Bruno Marchal wrote: If no, do you think it is important to explain how biological machines like us do have access to our beliefs? That is crucial indeed. But this is exactly what Gödel did solve. A simple arithmetical prover has access to its belief, because the laws of addition and multiplication can define the prover itself. That definition (the Bp) can be implicit or explicit, and, like a patient in front of the description of the brain, the machine cannot recognize itself in that description, yet the access is there, by virtue of its build in ability. The machine itself only identifies itself with the Bp p, and so, will not been able to ever acknowledge the identity between Bp and Bp p. That identity belongs to G* minus G. The machine will have to bet on it (to say yes to the doctor). This seems like an evasive answer because Gödel only proved this for the logical machine. I am saying that we can assume comp but still not have access to the propositions of a level that emerges from the computed substrate. Bruno Marchal wrote: For the qualia, I am using the classical theory of Theaetetus, and its variants. So I define new logical operator, by Bp p, Bp Dt, Bp Dt p. The qualia appears with Bp p (but amazingly enough those qualia are communicable, at least between Löbian
Re: bruno list
On 7/22/2011 2:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But what is a world? Also, assuming computationalism, you need only to believe that you interact with a world/reality, whatever that is, like in dream. If not you *do* introduce some magic in both consciousness and world. So I need to believe some magic or I have to introduce some magic. That seems a distinction without a difference. With comp the only magic is 0, 1, 2, 3, + addition + multiplication. But is that the *only* magic. It seems to me that your argument includes the magic of the UD. If I understand it, it says that if a UD is running it executes all possible programs. Among those programs are ones that are simulations of Everett's multiverse, such as we may inhabit, including the simulations of ourselves. Consciousness is some part of the information processing in those simulations of us; where the the same conscious state is realized in many different programs and so has many different continuations and predecessors. But all this is a hypothetical depending on a UD. And aside from the problem that prima facie it will produce more chaotic non-lawlike experiences than law-like ones, there is no reason to suppose a UD exists. This explanation of the world is very much like Boltzmann's brain. It generates everything and then tries to pick out this. Brent With non-comp the magic is primitive matter + primitive physical laws + primitive consciousness + non intelligible links between all those things. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 7/22/2011 2:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Jul 2011, at 17:54, meekerdb wrote: On 7/21/2011 2:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But I think you beg the question by demanding an axiomatic definition and rejecting ostensive ones. Why? The point is that ostensive definition does not work for justifying an ontology. That seems to be a non-sequitur. How can any kind of definition justify an ontology? Because a definition or an axiomatization refer to an intended model, of a theory which handle existential quantifier. The theory of group requires the existence of a neutral elements, for example. The theory of number requires zero, etc. Satisfying an existentially quantified proposition implies existence within that model. It doesn't justify the model or its ontology. Definitions are about the meaning of words. If I point to a table and say Table. I'm defining table, not justifying an ontology. OK. And then what? You are just pointing on some pattern. That's what the dream argument shows. Being axiomatic does not beg the question. You can be materialist and develop an axiomatic of primitive matter. The whole point of an axiomatic approach consists in being as neutral as possible on ontological commitment. But what you demanded was a *physical* axiomatic definition. Which seems to be a demand that the definition be physical, yet not ostensive. I think that's contradictory. I did not asked for a physical axiomatic definition, but for an axiomatic definition of physical (and this without using something equivalent to the numbers, to stay on topic). An axiomatic definition isn't possible except within an axiomatic system. The whole argument is over the question of whether the physical world is an axiomatic system. I think it very doubtful. The model of physics takes x exists to mean we can interact with x through our senses (including indirectly through instruments which exist), but this is not an axiom. Axiomatics are already in Platonia so of course that forces computation to be there. The computations are concrete relations. If the are concrete then we should be able to point to them. Either by concrete you mean physical, and that beg the question. It was your word. If not, I can point on many computations is arithmetic. No, you can only point to physically realized representations. This needs Gödel's ariothmetization, and so is a bit tedious, but it is non-controversial that such things exist. Indeed RA and PA proves their existence. They don't need axioms to exist. Then the numbers relation can be described by some axiomatic. And one can regard the numbers as defined by their relations. So the fundamental ontology of numbers is reduced to a description of relations. The is no need to suppose they exist in the sense of tables and chairs. Indeed. This means only that we *can* agree on simple (but very fertile) basic number relations. For primitive matter, that does not exist, and that is why people recourse to ostensive definition. They knock the table, and say you will not tell me that this table does not exist. The problem, for them, is that I can dream of people knocking tables. So for the basic fundamental ontology, you just cannot use the ostensive move (or you have to abandon the dream argument, classical theory of knowledge, or comp). But this moves seems an ad hoc non-comp move, if not a rather naive attitude. What dream argument? That all we think of as real could be a dream? I think that is as worthless as solipism. This is the recurring confusion between subjective idealism and objective idealism. Objective idealism is not a choice, but a consequence of the comp assumption and the weak Occam razor. And the assumption that the UD exists (?) Brent Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 7/22/2011 4:16 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have already addressed this point - you can have a living person with a prosthetic limb but you can't replace a person's brain with a prosthetic and have it still be that person. The limb only works because there is enough of the body left to telegraph sensorimotive action through/around the prosthetic obstacle. On one level, the more neurons you replace, the more obstacles you introduce. If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained, I think your theory is incoherent. If the neurons can talk to each other thru the pegs then all the neurons except the afferent neurons of perception and the efferent neurons of action could be replaced and the person would *behave* exactly the same, including reporting that they felt the same. They would be a philosophical zombie. They would not *exhibit* dementia, catatonia, or any other symptom. Brent but the experience of the functionality I would expect to be truncated increasingly. The living neurons will likely be able to compensate for quite a bit of this loss, as it is likely massively fault tolerant and redundant, but if you keep replacing the live cells with pegs, eventually I think you're going to get decompensation, dementia, and catatonia or some zombie like state which will likely be recognizable to other human beings. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On Jul 22, 3:49 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: There is no objective quality of resemblance without a subjective intepreter says who? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Block Time confirmed?
On 7/22/2011 10:46 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 3:30 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 7/22/2011 2:11 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 12:44 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 7/22/2011 1:24 AM, Jason Resch wrote: All the relevant parts of relativity which imply block time have been confirmed. The above is like arguing against gravity because Newton's theory wasn't compatible with the observations of Mercury's orbit. Hi Jason, Could you be more specific? Exactly which relevant parts which imply block time have been confirmed and how? Special relativity, time dilation due to speed, non simultaneity of events reported by observers in different reference frames, and so on. And to Brent's point, regarding the conflict between relativity and QM, that issue is with GR, SR is not in conflict with QM. This paper explains it well: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2408/ Jason Hi Jason, I will check that paper, thanks! But here is the thing about the implications of relativity of simultaneity: Since it prohibits any form of absolute synchronization of events, this in turn restricts how the entire space-time manifold can be considered as parceled up into space-like and time like regions. Imagine that spacetime is a 3 dimensional instead of four dimensional. Now take any object's velocity through that space time, and consider a plane perpendicular to the direction of that velocity. The content of that plane is considered the present for that reference frame. This is more clear if you consider euclidean space time rather than Minkowski space. The only difference you need to make to convert spacetime to Euclidean is to imagine that every object's velocity through space time is c. /Relativity Visualized/ is a good book which explains this view, but this site also explains it: http://www.relativitysimplified.com/ . It enables an intuitive understanding of all the strange effects like time dilation and length contraction. Since we see only the three dimensional shadow of objects, an object with a different velocity is rotated in space time. It is like having an umbrella pointed straight at the sun vs. it being tilted, if it is tilted its shadow becomes compressed along the direction it is tilted. In other words, there cannot exist a single Cauchy hypersurface what acts as the set of initial (or final) conditions for a GR field equation for the entire universe. The fact that relativity iplies a unique present for every reference frame is one of the main arguments for block time. How can the car driving past you have a present containing different real objects than yours? Presentism assumes the present is the set of real objects at a given period of time, but what is real to you now in this moment is different from what is real to me in the same moment if we are moving relative to each other (even if we are at the same location). See: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Rietdijk%E2%80%93Putnam_argument The paper I cited also goes on to counter objections made to that argument. Thanks, Jason -- Hi Jason, None of those papers address the concern of narratability that I am considering. In fact they all assume narratability. I am pointing out that thinking of time as a dimension has a big problem! It only works if all the events in time are pre-specifiable. This also involves strong determinism which is ruled out by QM. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#StaDetPhyThe for a general overview and tph.tuwien.ac.at/~svozil/publ/1994-calude.pdf for a discussion that involves computationalism. The idea that time is a dimension assumes that the events making up the points of the dimension are not only isomorphic to the positive Reals but also somehow can freely borrow the well order of the reals. Please do not think that I am trying to knock Special or General Relativity, they both represent time in terms of local readings of clocks and therefore bypass the question that I am considering. The block universe idea assumes a unique and global ordering of events, the actual math of SR and GR do not! My claim is that the idea that time is a quantity like space only works in the conceptual sense where we are assuming that all events are chained together into continuous world lines. We get this idea from the way that we consider a history of events, much like the layers of strata of stone studied by paleontologist with its embedded fossils. The point is that none of that reasoning follows given the facts that I laid out. It is impossible to define a unique Cauchy hyper-surface of initial (final) data that completely
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 7/22/2011 9:40 AM, Jason Resch wrote: Before that question, you need the question: does maths exist independently. If you want to debate this question I am happy to. It is the assumption made by most mathematicians and scientists. Jason Actually I was friends with two professors of mathematics (one now deceased). One helds that numbers exist - but in some way different from tables and chairs. The other denies that they exist. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
I'm saying that if you kept randomly replaced neurons it would eventually look like dementia or some other progressive brain wasting disease. If it were possible to spare certain areas or categories of neurons then I would expect more of a fragmented subject whose means of expression are intact, but who may not know what they are about to express. A partial zombie, being fed meaningless instructions but carrying them out consciously, if involuntarily. Of course, there may be all kinds of semantic dependencies which would render someone comatose before it ever got that far. If i remove all vowels from my writing there is a certain effect. If i remove all of the verbs there is another, if i switch to 50% chinese it's different from going 50% binary, etc. You would have to experiment to find out but i think the success would hinge as much on reraining organic composition as reproducing logical characteristics. On Jul 22, 3:19 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/22/2011 4:16 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have already addressed this point - you can have a living person with a prosthetic limb but you can't replace a person's brain with a prosthetic and have it still be that person. The limb only works because there is enough of the body left to telegraph sensorimotive action through/around the prosthetic obstacle. On one level, the more neurons you replace, the more obstacles you introduce. If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained, I think your theory is incoherent. If the neurons can talk to each other thru the pegs then all the neurons except the afferent neurons of perception and the efferent neurons of action could be replaced and the person would *behave* exactly the same, including reporting that they felt the same. They would be a philosophical zombie. They would not *exhibit* dementia, catatonia, or any other symptom. Brent but the experience of the functionality I would expect to be truncated increasingly. The living neurons will likely be able to compensate for quite a bit of this loss, as it is likely massively fault tolerant and redundant, but if you keep replacing the live cells with pegs, eventually I think you're going to get decompensation, dementia, and catatonia or some zombie like state which will likely be recognizable to other human beings. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
Are you positing a universal substance of resemblance? How does it work? If i see two mounds of dirt they might look the same to me, but maybe they host two different ant colonies. Is the non-subjective resemblance more like mine or the ants? On Jul 22, 4:41 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Jul 22, 3:49 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: There is no objective quality of resemblance without a subjective intepreter says who? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 7/22/2011 2:55 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: I'm saying that if you kept randomly replaced neurons it would eventually look like dementia or some other progressive brain wasting disease. But that's contradicting your assumption that the pegs are transparent to the neural communication: If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained Whatever neurons remain, even it it's only the afferent/efferent ones, they get exactly the same communication as if there were no pegs and the whole brain was neurons. If it were possible to spare certain areas or categories of neurons then I would expect more of a fragmented subject whose means of expression are intact, but who may not know what they are about to express. A partial zombie, being fed meaningless instructions but carrying them out consciously, if involuntarily. Of course, there may be all kinds of semantic dependencies which would render someone comatose before it ever got that far. If i remove all vowels from my writing there is a certain effect. If i remove all of the verbs there is another, if i switch to 50% chinese it's different from going 50% binary, etc. You would have to experiment to find out but i think the success would hinge as much on reraining organic composition as reproducing logical characteristics. You're evading the point by changing examples. It does raise in my mind an interesting pont though. These questions are usually considered in terms of replacing some part of the brain (a neuron, or a set of neurons) by an artificial device that implements the same input/output function. It then seems, absent some intellect vitale, that the behavior of that brain/person would be unchanged. But wouldn't it be likely that the person would suffer some slight impairment in learning/memory simply because the artificial device always computes the same function, whereas the biological neurons grow and change in response to stimuli. And those stimuli are external and cannot be forseen by the doctor. So what he needs to implant is not just a fixed function but a function that depends on the history of its inputs (i.e. a function with memory). Brent On Jul 22, 3:19 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/22/2011 4:16 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have already addressed this point - you can have a living person with a prosthetic limb but you can't replace a person's brain with a prosthetic and have it still be that person. The limb only works because there is enough of the body left to telegraph sensorimotive action through/around the prosthetic obstacle. On one level, the more neurons you replace, the more obstacles you introduce. If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained, I think your theory is incoherent. If the neurons can talk to each other thru the pegs then all the neurons except the afferent neurons of perception and the efferent neurons of action could be replaced and the person would *behave* exactly the same, including reporting that they felt the same. They would be a philosophical zombie. They would not *exhibit* dementia, catatonia, or any other symptom. Brent but the experience of the functionality I would expect to be truncated increasingly. The living neurons will likely be able to compensate for quite a bit of this loss, as it is likely massively fault tolerant and redundant, but if you keep replacing the live cells with pegs, eventually I think you're going to get decompensation, dementia, and catatonia or some zombie like state which will likely be recognizable to other human beings. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 22 Jul 2011, at 20:52, meekerdb wrote: On 7/22/2011 2:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But what is a world? Also, assuming computationalism, you need only to believe that you interact with a world/reality, whatever that is, like in dream. If not you *do* introduce some magic in both consciousness and world. So I need to believe some magic or I have to introduce some magic. That seems a distinction without a difference. With comp the only magic is 0, 1, 2, 3, + addition + multiplication. But is that the *only* magic. It seems to me that your argument includes the magic of the UD. If I understand it, it says that if a UD is running it executes all possible programs. Among those programs are ones that are simulations of Everett's multiverse, such as we may inhabit, including the simulations of ourselves. Consciousness is some part of the information processing in those simulations of us; where the the same conscious state is realized in many different programs and so has many different continuations and predecessors. But all this is a hypothetical depending on a UD. The UD is a collection of number relations, and its existence is a theorem in elementary arithmetic. I did recall you this some hours ago, I think. There is nothing hypothetical in the existence of the UD. It is already part of the proofs in non Löbian universal machine. It is a computer scientist description of Sigma_1 truth. Even intuitionist have a UD. The theory of everything is less demanding than the UD argument which presuppose you are conscious, and there is some consensual reality, with doctor and brains, for example. But the UDA should convince you that the TOE is just: 0 is different for s(x) s(x) = s(y) - x = y x + 0 = x x + s(y) = s(x + y) x*0 = 0 x*s(y) = x * y + x That's all. People who does not like number can take: Kxy = x Sxyz = xz(yz). It is equivalent. And aside from the problem that prima facie it will produce more chaotic non-lawlike experiences than law-like ones, there is no reason to suppose a UD exists. This explanation of the world is very much like Boltzmann's brain. It generates everything and then tries to pick out this. The UD exists independently of you like 777 is odd independently of you. Don't confuse the UD with the 'concrete UD' needs at step seven in the UDA. The universe does not need to disappear for having most consequences already available, and it does not need to be emulated at all by step 8. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 22 Jul 2011, at 14:17, 1Z wrote: On Jul 22, 10:08 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Jul 2011, at 17:54, meekerdb wrote: On 7/21/2011 2:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But I think you beg the question by demanding an axiomatic definition and rejecting ostensive ones. Why? The point is that ostensive definition does not work for justifying an ontology. That seems to be a non-sequitur. How can any kind of definition justify an ontology? Because a definition or an axiomatization refer to an intended model, of a theory which handle existential quantifier. The theory of group requires the existence of a neutral elements, for example. The theory of number requires zero, etc. But the ontology of a model need not be real, or be intended to be. The intended model could be a fictional world. for instance. The question is: do you believe really that Fermat theorem is fiction? Definitions are about the meaning of words. If I point to a table and say Table. I'm defining table, not justifying an ontology. OK. And then what? You are just pointing on some pattern. That's what the dream argument shows. Being axiomatic does not beg the question. You can be materialist and develop an axiomatic of primitive matter. The whole point of an axiomatic approach consists in being as neutral as possible on ontological commitment. But what you demanded was a *physical* axiomatic definition. Which seems to be a demand that the definition be physical, yet not ostensive. I think that's contradictory. I did not asked for a physical axiomatic definition, but for an axiomatic definition of physical (and this without using something equivalent to the numbers, to stay on topic). Numbers aren't intended to be real (or unreal) in physics That protons are really made of three quarks is asserted, but that is asserting the real exsistence of quarks, not of 3. What do you mean by real existence? If you mean primitive existence then you just contradict comp. Axiomatics are already in Platonia so of course that forces computation to be there. The computations are concrete relations. If the are concrete then we should be able to point to them. Either by concrete you mean physical, and that beg the question. If not, I can point on many computations is arithmetic What would make them concrete, if not being physical? If physical means concrete, then comp is false, or you have to point on a flaw in the UD Argument. . This needs Gödel's ariothmetization, and so is a bit tedious, but it is non- controversial that such things exist. Indeed RA and PA proves their existence. They don't need axioms to exist. Then the numbers relation can be described by some axiomatic. And one can regard the numbers as defined by their relations. So the fundamental ontology of numbers is reduced to a description of relations. The is no need to suppose they exist in the sense of tables and chairs. Indeed. This means only that we *can* agree on simple (but very fertile) basic number relations. For primitive matter, that does not exist, and that is why people recourse to ostensive definition. They knock the table, and say you will not tell me that this table does not exist. The problem, for them, is that I can dream of people knocking tables. So for the basic fundamental ontology, you just cannot use the ostensive move (or you have to abandon the dream argument, classical theory of knowledge, or comp). But this moves seems an ad hoc non-comp move, if not a rather naive attitude. What dream argument? That all we think of as real could be a dream? I think that is as worthless as solipism. This is the recurring confusion between subjective idealism and objective idealism. Objective idealism is not a choice, but a consequence of the comp assumption and the weak Occam razor. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 22 Jul 2011, at 16:49, Craig Weinberg wrote:
Bruno has a strong point here. So long as one is dealing with a
system
that can be described such that that description can be turned into a
recipe to represent all aspects of the system, then it is, by
definition
computable!
The recipe is computable, (as is the menu, description, chemical
analysis), but the meal isn't. A recipe for virtual molecules isn't
sufficient to develop actual molecules that would be perceived as such
by microorganisms, other actual molecules, dogs, cats, etc. Only we
know how to access the simulation that we imagine resembles a
molecule. There is no objective quality of resemblance without a
subjective intepreter, there's just separate phenomena. One iron atom
has nothing do with another iron atom unless there is some perceiver
to recognize a common pattern. A does not equal A unless we perceive
pattern and similarity. These things are not a given. A cat doesn't do
A = A. Maybe {tuna} = {tuna}.
The path that energy takes determines the content of the
experience to
some extent, but it is the physical nature of the materials through
which the continuous sense of interaction occurs which determine
the
quality or magnitude of possible qualitative elaboration (physical,
chemo, bio, zoo-physio, neuro, cerebral) of that experience.
How?
Umm, Craig, no. Energy is defined by the path of events of the
interaction. This is why the word action is used. We have a
notion of
least action which relates to the minimum configuration of a
system, the
content of the experience *is* the inside view of the process that
strives always for that minimum.
What I'm saying though is that an animated sculpture of a cell made
from plaster is not a cell. Each plaster organelle and every plaster
cast of a chromosome wired up with finely articulated servo motors or
whatever - filled with microbeads of clear plastic or whatever... that
thing is never going to go through mitosis. It's not made of units
that know how to do that. Even if it's built to produce more plaster
and beads, to create more copies of itself (which would still be going
outside of the level on which the simulation would formally have to be
compared to be analogous to emulating feeling), it's not having an
experience of survival or sense, it's having an experience of plaster
and plastic. There may not be an absolutely objective difference
between a living cell and the molecules that compose it, but our
perception is that there is a significant difference, which only gets
more significant the further an embryo gets from a sand castle. There
is no point where a sand castle is so complex that it becomes capable
of meta-sand castelry. It won't ever come to life by itself, even if
it's the size of the Andromeda galaxy.
it is as if we dissolve
everything into a soup and say: See, Existence is soup!
Right, that's how I see my understanding of comp as well. If you
disqualify everything that isn't computable, then what you are left
with is computable.
Comp embraces the non computable. If you study the work you will
understand that both matter and mind arise from the non computable,
with comp.
Comp explains completely why feelings are NOT numbers. You don't
study
the theory, and you criticize only your own prejudice about numbers
and machines.
You can use non-comp, as you seem to desire, but then tell us what
is
not Turing emulable in organic matter?
Bruno
Craig, Bruno has a point there. Be sure that you are not arguing
against
a straw man unintesionally!
Yeah, I would need to know how comp explains feelings exactly.
See the second part of sane04. Ask question if there are problems.
I'm
just going by my observation that numbers are in many ways everything
that feeling is not. To get to the feeling of numbers, you have to
look at something like numerology.
I doubt that very much. Lol.
All you need is computer science. Actually all you need is addition
and multiplication (and working a little bit, well, a lot probably).
Bruno
On Jul 22, 5:24 am, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote:
Hi Bruno and Craig,
On 7/22/2011 4:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 21 Jul 2011, at 16:08, Craig Weinberg wrote:
if you think molecules are needed, that is, that the level of
substitution includes molecular activity, this too can be
emulated by
a computer
But it can only be emulated in a virtual environment interfacing
with
a computer literate human being though.
Why. That's begging the question.
Bruno has a strong point here. So long as one is dealing with a
system
that can be described such that that description can be turned into a
recipe to represent all aspects of the system, then it is, by
definition
computable!
A real mouse will not be able
to live on virtual cheese.
But a virtual mouse will (I will talk *in* the comp theory).
Virtual mice eat virtual cheese and get virtual calories from it! Be
careful
Re: Block Time confirmed?
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 4:54 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: Hi Jason, None of those papers address the concern of narratability that I am considering. In fact they all assume narratability. I am pointing out that thinking of time as a dimension has a big problem! It only works if all the events in time are pre-specifiable. This also involves strong determinism which is ruled out by QM. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#StaDetPhyThe for a general overview But the link notes that strong determinism is *not* ruled out by QM: So goes the story; but like much popular wisdom, it is partly mistaken and/or misleading. Ironically, quantum mechanics is one of the best prospects for a genuinely deterministic theory in modern times! Even more than in the case of GTR and the hole argument, everything hinges on what interpretational and philosophical decisions one adopts. The fundamental law at the heart of non-relativistic QM is the Schrödinger equation. The evolution of a wavefunction describing a physical system under this equation is normally taken to be perfectly deterministic.[7] If one adopts an interpretation of QM according to which that's it—i.e., nothing ever interrupts Schrödinger evolution, and the wavefunctions governed by the equation tell the complete physical story—then quantum mechanics is a perfectly deterministic theory. There are several interpretations that physicists and philosophers have given of QM which go this way. The many-worlds interpretation, which many on this list are presumably sympathetic to, is an example of a deterministic interpretation of QM. In fact many-worlds advocates often argue that not only is it deterministic, but it's also a purely local interpretation, which doesn't violate Bell's theorem because the theorem makes the assumption that each measurement yields a single unique result, something that wouldn't be true in the many-worlds interpretation. For more on how MWI can be local, see these papers: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0103079 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0204024 The idea that time is a dimension assumes that the events making up the points of the dimension are not only isomorphic to the positive Reals but also somehow can freely borrow the well order of the reals. Not sure what you mean by this, events at a spacelike separation aren't well-ordered in time, are they? Only if one event is in the light cone of the other (a timelike or lightlike separation) will all frames agree on the time-ordering, that's just a consequence of the relativity of simultaneity. The block universe idea assumes a unique and global ordering of events, the actual math of SR and GR do not! Why do you think the block universe idea assumes a unique ordering? It doesn't, not for pairs of events with a spacelike separation. For such events, the question of which event occurs at a later time depends entirely on what coordinate system you use, with no coordinate system being preferred over any other. Similarly, on a 2D plane the question of which of two points has a greater x-coordinate depends entirely on how you orient your x and y coordinate axes, even if you restrict yourself to Cartesian coordinate systems. And the whole idea of block time is that time is treated as a dimension analogous to space, so it's not surprising that there could be situations where different coordinate systems disagree about which of two events has a greater t-coordinate, with no coordinate system's answer being more correct than any other's. My claim is that the idea that time is a quantity like space only works in the conceptual sense where we are assuming that all events are chained together into continuous world lines. Not really, just as you can have a collection of points on a 2D plane without continuous lines joining them, so you could potentially have a collection of events in spacetime that are causally related but don't have a continuous series of similar events between them. Sort of like if you took vertices on a Feynman diagram to be events, and understood the lines joining them to just express causal relationships, not worldlines. It is impossible to define a unique Cauchy hyper-surface of initial (final) data that completely determines all of the world lines in the space-time block in a way that is consistent with QM. What specific source are you getting that claim from? I checked the first link you posted after it: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-einstein-wrong-about-relativity ...but it didn't say anything like that. I'd rather not read through all your links to find the basis for this particular statement, so can you tell me exactly where I should look? When we add to this difficulty the fact that QM does not allow us to consider all observables as simultaneously definable, because of non-commutativity and non-distributivity of observables; the idea that
Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out
Hi Terren, On 22 Jul 2011, at 20:51, terren wrote: I have done some thinking and reformulated my thoughts about our ongoing discussion. To sum up my (intuitive) objection, I have struggled to understand how you make the leap from the consciousness of abstract logical machines to human consciousness. Well, this should follow (intuitively) from the UDA. Humans are abstract being themselves. I now have an argument that I think formalizes this intuition. First, I grant that the computation at the neuron-level is at least universal, since neurons are capable of addition and multiplication, and as you say, these are the only operations a machine is required to be able to perform to be considered universal. I could even see how neural computation may be Löbian, where the induction operations are implemented in terms of synaptic strengths (as 'confidence' in the synaptic connections that mediate particular 'beliefs'). Furthermore, I grant that a kind of consciousness might be associated with Löbianity (and perhaps even universality). I will argue however that that is not the consciousness we as humans experience, and we cannot know - solely on the basis of abstract logical machines - how to characterize human consciousness. I agree with this. No machine can know its level of substitution. Löbian consciousness is to human consciousness like the Escherichia Coli genome is to human genome. Humans and mammals are *much* more complex. The critical point is that human psychology (which I will refer to henceforth as 'psy') emerges from vast assemblages of neurons. But vast assemblage of neurons are still Turing emulable, and that is what counts in the reasoning. When we talk about emergence, we recognize that there is a higher-order level that has its own dynamics which are completely independent (what I refer to as 'causally orthogonal') to the dynamics of the lower-order level. Yes. Bp is already at a higher level than numbers and + and *. There are many levels. The logic does not depend on the level, but of the correct choice of *some* level. The Game of Life CA (cellular automata) has very specific dynamics at the cell level, and the dynamics that emerges at the higher-order level cannot be predicted or explained in terms of those lower-order dynamics. The higher order is an emergence of a new 'ontology'. The neural correlates of psy experiences can indeed be traced down to the firings of (vast numbers of) individual neurons, in the same way that a hurricane can be traced down to the interactions of (vast numbers of) water and air molecules. But I'm saying the dynamics of human psychology will never be understood in terms of the firings of neurons. That's comp! You are completely right. Note that this is already true for the chess player machine DEEP BLUE. It makes no sense to explain its high level strategy, heuristic and program in terms of NAND gates behavior. Psy can be thought of as 'neural weather'. Yes. Or much above. Psy is not anything capable of being entirely described by 3-things in general, given that it refers to person points of view, like the Bp p is not describable in the whole of arithmetic. True understanding of psy may one day be enabled by an understanding of the dynamics of the structures that emerge from the neuronal level, in the same way that weather forecasters understand the weather in terms of the dynamics of low/high pressure systems, fronts, troughs, jet-streams, and so on. That is what psychologists try to do. They are 100% right in their critics of neuronal reductionism. To put this in more mathematical terms, propositions about psy are not expressible in the 'machine language' of neurons. Nor is any of the arithmetical hypostases, except for Bp and Bp Dt. Those are exceptional, and no machine can recognize them in those views. That is why the 1-I (Bp p) has to make a risky bet when saying yes to the doctor. The machine will bet on some level where Bp is equivalent with Bp p. That bet is probably counter-intuitive for the machine. Propositions about 'psy' are in fact intrinsic to the particular 'program' that the neural machinery runs. It is a form of level confusion, in other words, to attribute the human consciousness that is correlated with emergent structures to the consciousness of neural machinery. The neural machinery is not conscious, and if it is, such consciousness might have nothing to do with my consciousness. What I think is most likely is that there are several levels of psychological emergence related to increasingly encompassing aspects of experience. Each of these levels are uniquely structured, and in a form follows function kind of way, each correspond with a different character of consciousness. Human consciousness is a sum over each of those layers (including perhaps the base neuronal
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 22 Jul 2011, at 21:08, meekerdb wrote: On 7/22/2011 2:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Jul 2011, at 17:54, meekerdb wrote: On 7/21/2011 2:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But I think you beg the question by demanding an axiomatic definition and rejecting ostensive ones. Why? The point is that ostensive definition does not work for justifying an ontology. That seems to be a non-sequitur. How can any kind of definition justify an ontology? Because a definition or an axiomatization refer to an intended model, of a theory which handle existential quantifier. The theory of group requires the existence of a neutral elements, for example. The theory of number requires zero, etc. Satisfying an existentially quantified proposition implies existence within that model. It doesn't justify the model or its ontology. That is true in general, but not, by definition, for a theory which aspires as being a TOE. Obviously your argument here is correct for any theory. Also for a theory of matter. If it assumes matter, matter will exist in its model. Definitions are about the meaning of words. If I point to a table and say Table. I'm defining table, not justifying an ontology. OK. And then what? You are just pointing on some pattern. That's what the dream argument shows. Being axiomatic does not beg the question. You can be materialist and develop an axiomatic of primitive matter. The whole point of an axiomatic approach consists in being as neutral as possible on ontological commitment. But what you demanded was a *physical* axiomatic definition. Which seems to be a demand that the definition be physical, yet not ostensive. I think that's contradictory. I did not asked for a physical axiomatic definition, but for an axiomatic definition of physical (and this without using something equivalent to the numbers, to stay on topic). An axiomatic definition isn't possible except within an axiomatic system. ? The whole argument is over the question of whether the physical world is an axiomatic system. It is not, provably so in comp. Nor is consciousness. Both matter and consciousness can be entirely axiomatized (nor can be arithmetic!). I think it very doubtful. Good. The model of physics takes x exists to mean we can interact with x through our senses (including indirectly through instruments which exist), but this is not an axiom. You are right. But I want a starting axiomatic for the TOE, just to avoid philosophy. Axiomatics are already in Platonia so of course that forces computation to be there. The computations are concrete relations. If the are concrete then we should be able to point to them. Either by concrete you mean physical, and that beg the question. It was your word. OK. I shoud avoid that; but I am used to consider the arithmetical relations as the most concrete things I can imagine. Concrete physical object are abstract token, but we are so programmed that we feel them as concrete. If not, I can point on many computations is arithmetic. No, you can only point to physically realized representations. You beg the question. I can point on computation in arithmetic. It is a bit tedious, because I need the arithmetization of Gödel. But a physician needs a primitive universe, and that is treachery and hides the mind-body problem, and furthermore misses the quale. This needs Gödel's ariothmetization, and so is a bit tedious, but it is non-controversial that such things exist. Indeed RA and PA proves their existence. They don't need axioms to exist. Then the numbers relation can be described by some axiomatic. And one can regard the numbers as defined by their relations. So the fundamental ontology of numbers is reduced to a description of relations. The is no need to suppose they exist in the sense of tables and chairs. Indeed. This means only that we *can* agree on simple (but very fertile) basic number relations. For primitive matter, that does not exist, and that is why people recourse to ostensive definition. They knock the table, and say you will not tell me that this table does not exist. The problem, for them, is that I can dream of people knocking tables. So for the basic fundamental ontology, you just cannot use the ostensive move (or you have to abandon the dream argument, classical theory of knowledge, or comp). But this moves seems an ad hoc non-comp move, if not a rather naive attitude. What dream argument? That all we think of as real could be a dream? I think that is as worthless as solipism. This is the recurring confusion between subjective idealism and objective idealism. Objective idealism is not a choice, but a consequence of the comp assumption and the weak Occam razor. And the assumption that the UD exists (?) It is not an assumption but a theorem in arithmetic. Bruno
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 22 Jul 2011, at 22:54, meekerdb wrote: On 7/22/2011 9:40 AM, Jason Resch wrote: Before that question, you need the question: does maths exist independently. If you want to debate this question I am happy to. It is the assumption made by most mathematicians and scientists. Jason Actually I was friends with two professors of mathematics (one now deceased). One helds that numbers exist - but in some way different from tables and chairs. OK. Like me and the LUMs. The other denies that they exist. During the math course or the week-end? I don't believe that he does not believe in the existence of numbers. He meant something else, I think. People sometimes put to much metaphysics in the term existence. I think they are just doing non genuine Sunday philosophy. I try to avoid the term existence and use instead the notion of being true independently of me, or of the hulans, etc.. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 23 Jul 2011, at 00:25, meekerdb wrote: On 7/22/2011 2:55 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: I'm saying that if you kept randomly replaced neurons it would eventually look like dementia or some other progressive brain wasting disease. But that's contradicting your assumption that the pegs are transparent to the neural communication: If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained Whatever neurons remain, even it it's only the afferent/efferent ones, they get exactly the same communication as if there were no pegs and the whole brain was neurons. If it were possible to spare certain areas or categories of neurons then I would expect more of a fragmented subject whose means of expression are intact, but who may not know what they are about to express. A partial zombie, being fed meaningless instructions but carrying them out consciously, if involuntarily. Of course, there may be all kinds of semantic dependencies which would render someone comatose before it ever got that far. If i remove all vowels from my writing there is a certain effect. If i remove all of the verbs there is another, if i switch to 50% chinese it's different from going 50% binary, etc. You would have to experiment to find out but i think the success would hinge as much on reraining organic composition as reproducing logical characteristics. You're evading the point by changing examples. It does raise in my mind an interesting pont though. These questions are usually considered in terms of replacing some part of the brain (a neuron, or a set of neurons) by an artificial device that implements the same input/output function. It then seems, absent some intellect vitale, that the behavior of that brain/person would be unchanged. But wouldn't it be likely that the person would suffer some slight impairment in learning/memory simply because the artificial device always computes the same function, whereas the biological neurons grow and change in response to stimuli. And those stimuli are external and cannot be forseen by the doctor. So what he needs to implant is not just a fixed function but a function that depends on the history of its inputs (i.e. a function with memory). That would just mean that the neuronal level is too much high for being the substitution level. Better to chose the DNA and metabolic level. Bruno On Jul 22, 3:19 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/22/2011 4:16 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have already addressed this point - you can have a living person with a prosthetic limb but you can't replace a person's brain with a prosthetic and have it still be that person. The limb only works because there is enough of the body left to telegraph sensorimotive action through/around the prosthetic obstacle. On one level, the more neurons you replace, the more obstacles you introduce. If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained, I think your theory is incoherent. If the neurons can talk to each other thru the pegs then all the neurons except the afferent neurons of perception and the efferent neurons of action could be replaced and the person would *behave* exactly the same, including reporting that they felt the same. They would be a philosophical zombie. They would not *exhibit* dementia, catatonia, or any other symptom. Brent but the experience of the functionality I would expect to be truncated increasingly. The living neurons will likely be able to compensate for quite a bit of this loss, as it is likely massively fault tolerant and redundant, but if you keep replacing the live cells with pegs, eventually I think you're going to get decompensation, dementia, and catatonia or some zombie like state which will likely be recognizable to other human beings. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On Jul 22, 6:25 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But that's contradicting your assumption that the pegs are transparent to the neural communication: If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained Neurological functionality is retained but there are fewer and fewer actual neurons to comprise the network, so the content of the conversations are degraded, even though that degradation is preserved with high fidelity. Whatever neurons remain, even it it's only the afferent/efferent ones, they get exactly the same communication as if there were no pegs and the whole brain was neurons. Think of them like sock puppet/bots multiplying in a closed social network. If you have 100 actual friends on a social network and their accounts are progressively replaced by emulated accounts posting even slightly unconvincing status updates, you rapidly lose interest in those updates and either route around them, focusing on the diminishing group of your original non-bots, or check out of the network altogether. A neuron is more than it's communication. A communicating peg cannot communicate feelings that it doesn't have, it can only emulate computations that are based upon feeling correlates. You're evading the point by changing examples. Not intentionally. It's just that example is built on fundamental assumptions which I think are not only untrue, but buried in the gap between our understanding of consciousness and our understanding of everything else. The assumption being that our consciousness must work like everything else that our consciousness can examine objectively, whereas my working assumption is to suppose that our consciousness works in exactly the opposite way, and that opposition itself is critically important and fundamental to any understanding of consciousness. Observing our neurons behaviors is like chasing billions of our tails, and assuming that their heads must be our head. Replacing the tails alone doesn't make our head happen magically. The neurons that we see are only the outer half of the neurons that we are. The inside looks like our lives, our society, our evolution as organisms. It does raise in my mind an interesting pont though. These questions are usually considered in terms of replacing some part of the brain (a neuron, or a set of neurons) by an artificial device that implements the same input/output function. It then seems, absent some intellect vitale, that the behavior of that brain/person would be unchanged. But wouldn't it be likely that the person would suffer some slight impairment in learning/memory simply because the artificial device always computes the same function, whereas the biological neurons grow and change in response to stimuli. And those stimuli are external and cannot be forseen by the doctor. So what he needs to implant is not just a fixed function but a function that depends on the history of its inputs (i.e. a function with memory). Now you're getting closer to what I'm looking at. A flat model of a neuron is not a neuron. It's a living thing. It has respiration. It learns and grows. It's us. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On Jul 22, 7:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Comp embraces the non computable. If you study the work you will understand that both matter and mind arise from the non computable, with comp. See the second part of sane04. Ask question if there are problems. I know you must have gone over it too many times already in other places, so I'm not expecting you to reiterate comp for me, but I haven't been able to see how comp embraces the non computable. To me, any time you say that comp explains something or direct me to your work, it's the same as someone saying 'The Bible explains that'. Not trying to disparage your way of teaching or motivating, just saying that I can't seem to do anything with it. To me, if it can't be made understandable within the context of the discussion at hand, it's better left to another discussion. I'm just going by my observation that numbers are in many ways everything that feeling is not. To get to the feeling of numbers, you have to look at something like numerology. I doubt that very much. Lol. All you need is computer science. Actually all you need is addition and multiplication (and working a little bit, well, a lot probably). What are your doubts based upon? Craig http://s33light.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On Jul 22, 8:40 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: That would just mean that the neuronal level is too much high for being the substitution level. Better to chose the DNA and metabolic level. Right. If you make tweaked real cells out of real atoms that are arranged as an alternative to DNA, I think you'd have a good chance of emulating an organism that is conscious. I don't think that you could control it's behavior deterministically though, it would just be a clone by another means. The question then becomes, why bother with the synthetic DNA when natural DNA is already available. If you're talking about emulating DNA in silicon, I think you still come out with a convincing sculpture. A glass brain. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 7/22/2011 6:35 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Jul 22, 6:25 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: But that's contradicting your assumption that the pegs are transparent to the neural communication: If the living cells are able to talk to each other well through the prosthetic network, then functionality should be retained Neurological functionality is retained but there are fewer and fewer actual neurons to comprise the network,/so the content of the conversations are degraded, even though that degradation is preserved with high fidelity./ Well at least we've got the contradiction compressed down into one sentence: Degradation is preserved with high fidelity. Whatever neurons remain, even it it's only the afferent/efferent ones, they get exactly the same communication as if there were no pegs and the whole brain was neurons. Think of them like sock puppet/bots multiplying in a closed social network. If you have 100 actual friends on a social network and their accounts are progressively replaced by emulated accounts posting even slightly unconvincing status updates, you rapidly lose interest in those updates and either route around them, focusing on the diminishing group of your original non-bots, or check out of the network altogether. A neuron is more than it's communication. Not to the next neuron it isn't...and not to the efferent neurons. If there is something that isn't communicated, it can't make a difference to behavior because we know that muscles are moved by what the neurons communicate to them. A communicating peg cannot communicate feelings that it doesn't have, it can only emulate computations that are based upon feeling correlates. You're evading the point by changing examples. Not intentionally. It's just that example is built on fundamental assumptions which I think are not only untrue, but buried in the gap between our understanding of consciousness and our understanding of everything else. The assumption being that our consciousness must work like everything else that our consciousness can examine objectively, whereas my working assumption is to suppose that our consciousness works in exactly the opposite way, and that opposition itself is critically important and fundamental to any understanding of consciousness. Observing our neurons behaviors is like chasing billions of our tails, and assuming that their heads must be our head. Replacing the tails alone doesn't make our head happen magically. The neurons that we see are only the outer half of the neurons that we are. The inside looks like our lives, our society, our evolution as organisms. It does raise in my mind an interesting pont though. These questions are usually considered in terms of replacing some part of the brain (a neuron, or a set of neurons) by an artificial device that implements the same input/output function. It then seems, absent some intellect vitale, that the behavior of that brain/person would be unchanged. But wouldn't it be likely that the person would suffer some slight impairment in learning/memory simply because the artificial device always computes the same function, whereas the biological neurons grow and change in response to stimuli. And those stimuli are external and cannot be forseen by the doctor. So what he needs to implant is not just a fixed function but a function that depends on the history of its inputs (i.e. a function with memory). Now you're getting closer to what I'm looking at. A flat model of a neuron is not a neuron. It's a living thing. It has respiration. It learns and grows. It's us. Or as Bruno suggests, just model it at a lower level. Of course if you have to model it at the quark level, you might as well make your artificial neuron out of quarks and it won't be all that artificial. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On Jul 22, 10:18 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Well at least we've got the contradiction compressed down into one sentence: Degradation is preserved with high fidelity. Is it a contradiction to say that someone is having a bad conversation over clear telephones? ...A neuron is more than it's communication. Not to the next neuron it isn't...and not to the efferent neurons. If there is something that isn't communicated, it can't make a difference to behavior because we know that muscles are moved by what the neurons communicate to them. Muscles aren't moved by neurons, muscles move themselves in sympathy with neuronal motivation. Behavior isn't everything, especially a third person observation of a behavior on an entirely different scale of physical activity. Or as Bruno suggests, just model it at a lower level. Of course if you have to model it at the quark level, you might as well make your artificial neuron out of quarks and it won't be all that artificial. Exactly what I've been saying. If you model only the superficial behaviors, you can't expect the meaningful roots of those behaviors to appear spontaneously. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On Jul 22, 10:18 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Of course if you have to model it at the quark level, you might as well make your artificial neuron out of quarks and it won't be all that artificial. Actually, I think it would have to be a real quark (if quarks even 'exist'). The bottom line is that silicon is already made of something. We can project our own sense and motives through silicon, but whatever we project is only an exterior that faces our observation. It's interior remains a silicon interior, unable to precipitate a larger structure that has a biological spectrum of feeling. The behavior of a quark isn't mathematically inevitable in all possible universes, it's math is forensically reverse engineered from our observations. To simulate those observations doesn't bring the unobservable interiority of the original into simulated existence. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 7/22/2011 8:52 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Jul 22, 10:18 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: Well at least we've got the contradiction compressed down into one sentence: Degradation is preserved with high fidelity. Is it a contradiction to say that someone is having a bad conversation over clear telephones? Where does the badness come from? The afferent neurons? ...A neuron is more than it's communication. Not to the next neuron it isn't...and not to the efferent neurons. If there is something that isn't communicated, it can't make a difference to behavior because we know that muscles are moved by what the neurons communicate to them. Muscles aren't moved by neurons, muscles move themselves in sympathy with neuronal motivation. Behavior isn't everything, especially a third person observation of a behavior on an entirely different scale of physical activity. But that's the crux of the argument. If behavior isn't everything then, according to you, a person whose brain has been replaced by artificial, but functionally identical elements, could be a philosophical zombie. One who's every behavior is exactly like a person with a biological brain - including reporting the same feelings. Yet that is contrary to your assertion that they would exhibit dementia. Or as Bruno suggests, just model it at a lower level. Of course if you have to model it at the quark level, you might as well make your artificial neuron out of quarks and it won't be all that artificial. Exactly what I've been saying. If you model only the superficial behaviors, you can't expect the meaningful roots of those behaviors to appear spontaneously. No you've been saying more than that. You've been saying that even if the artificial elements emulate the biological ones at a very low level they won't work unless they *are* biological. When I said that if you have to model at the quark level you might as well make up real neurons that was a recommendation of efficiency. According to Bruno, and functionalist theory, it might be very inefficient to emulate the quarks with a Turing machine but it is in principle equally effective. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 7/22/2011 9:05 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Jul 22, 10:18 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: Of course if you have to model it at the quark level, you might as well make your artificial neuron out of quarks and it won't be all that artificial. Actually, I think it would have to be a real quark (if quarks even 'exist'). The bottom line is that silicon is already made of something. We can project our own sense and motives through silicon, but whatever we project is only an exterior that faces our observation. It's interior remains a silicon interior, unable to precipitate a larger structure that has a biological spectrum of feeling. The behavior of a quark isn't mathematically inevitable in all possible universes, it's math is forensically reverse engineered from our observations. To simulate those observations doesn't bring the unobservable interiority of the original into simulated existence. Forensically?? Do we need a Weinberg-English dictionary? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
