RE: More on qualia of consciousness and occam's razor
I am using terms like information loosely when discussing subjective experience precisely because I cannot think of a way to formalise it. Perhaps its defining characteristic is that it cannot be formalised. One can imagine that if we made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, however alien it is, we could eventually exchange information about the natural sciences, mathematics, history, anything objective. It would effectively involve finding an algorithm to convert from one formal system to another, or one natural language to another. But although the aliens may be able to explain how their physiology has evolved so that gamma rays which are an odd multiple of a certain wavelength cause them to feel a pleasant sensation while even multiple rays cause them to feel a completely different, unpleasant sensation, we as humans would have absolutely no idea what these sensations are like to experience. So, in addition to the empirical data, there is this extra bit of information, neither contained in the data nor able to be derived from it using the laws of physics: what it actually feels like to be the one experiencing the subjective sensation. If someone can think of a better way to describe it than extra bit of information or can come up with a way to formalise it, I would be happy to hear about it. I suppose there will still be some who insist that if you know all about the physiology etc. behind the alien response to gamma rays, then you know all there is to know. I think this response is analogous to the shut up and calculate attitude to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Stathis Papaioannou From: Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: More on qualia of consciousness and occam's razor Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:34:22 -0500 ; you might even be able to read the brain, scanning for neuronal activity and deducing correctly that the subject sees a red flash. However, it is impossible to know what it feels like to see a red flash unless you have the actual experience yourself. So I maintain that there is this extra bit of information -subjective experience or qualia - that you do not automatically have even if you know everything about the brain to an arbitrary level of precision. In what sense is a quale information? formalizing this might help me to understand your hypothesis better ben _ Hot chart ringtones and polyphonics. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilemania/default.asp
Re: Request for a glossary of acronyms
Thank you Jesse for your clear answer. Your comparison
of your use of both ASSA and RSSA with Google ranking system
has been quite useful.
This does not mean I am totally convince because ASSA raises the
problem of the basic frame: I don't think there is any sense to compare
the probability of being a human or being a bacteria ..., but your
RSSA use of ASSA does not *necessarily* give a meaning to such
strong form of absolute Self Sampling Assumption, or does it?
I think also that your view on RSSA is not only compatible with
the sort of approach I have developed, but is coherent with
Saibal Mitra backtracking, which, at first I have taken
as wishful thinking. OK you make me feel COMP could be a little less
frightening I'm use to think.
Concerning consciousness theory and its use to isolate a similarity
relation on the computational histories---as seen from some first person
point of view, I will try to answer asap in a common answer to
Stephen and Stathis (and you) who asked very related questions.
Alas I have not really the time now---I would also like to find a way to
explain
the consciousness theory without relying too much on mathematical logic,
but the similarity between 1-histories *has* been derived technically in
the part
of the theory which is the most counter-intuitive ... mmh I will try soon ...
Bruno
At 00:02 01/02/04 -0500, Jesse Mazer wrote:
From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Request for a glossary of acronyms
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 16:11:39 +0100
Here is an interesting post by Jesse. Curiously I have not been able to
find it
in the archive, but luckily I find it in my computer memory.
Is that normal? I will try again later.
Thanks for reviving this post, it's in the archives here:
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m4882.html
It was part of this thread:
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/index.html?by=OneThreadt=Request%20for%20a%20glossary%20of%20acronyms
Jesse's TOE pet is very similar to the type of TOE compatible with the comp
hyp, I guess everyone can see that.
Jesse, imo, that post deserves to be developed. The way you manage to save
partially the ASSA (Absolute Self-Sampling Assumption) is not very clear
to me.
Bruno
Well, the idea I discussed was somewhat vague, I think to develop it I'd
need to have better ideas about what a theory of consciousness should look
like, and I don't know where to begin with that. But as for how the ASSA
is incorporated, I'll try to summarize again and maybe make it a little
clearer. Basically my idea was that there would be two types of measures
on observer-moments: a relative measure, which gives you answers to
questions like if I am currently experiencing observer-moment A, what is
the probability that my next experience will be of observer-moment B?,
and an absolute measure, which is sort of like the probability that my
current observer-moment will be A in the first place. This idea of
absolute measure might seem meaningless since whatever observer-moment I'm
experiencing right now, from my point of view the probability is 1 that
I'm experiencing that one and not some other, but probably the best way to
think of it is in terms of the self-sampling assumption, where reasoning
*as if* I'm randomly sampled from some group (for example, 'all humans
ever born' in the doomsday argument) can lead to useful conclusions, even
if I don't actually believe that God used a random-number generator to
decide which body my preexisting soul would be placed in.
So, once you have the idea of both a relative measure
('probability-of-becoming') and an absolute measure
('probability-of-being') on observer-moments, my idea is that the two
measures could be interrelated, like this:
1. My probability-of-becoming some possible future observer-moment is
based both on something like the 'similarity' between that observer-moment
and my current one (so my next experience is unlikely to be that of George
W. Bush sitting in the White House, for example, because his memories and
personality are so different from my current ones) but also on the
absolute probability of that observer-moment (so that I am unlikely to
find myself having the experience of talking to an intelligent white
rabbit, because even if that future observer-moment is fairly similar to
my current one in terms of personality, memories, etc., white-rabbit
observer-moments are objectively improbable). I don't know how to quantify
similarity though, or exactly how both similarity and absolute
probabilities would be used to calculate the relative measure between two
observer-moments...this is where some sort of theory of consciousness
would be needed.
2. Meanwhile, the absolute measure is itself dependent on the relative
measure, in the sense that an observer-moment A will have higher absolute
measure if a lot of other observer-moments that themselves have high
absolute measure see A as a likely next experience or a likely
Re: meta-ethics or ethology
Planet of the apes? Greetings Mike, This post I made on a parallell thread (but not in a parrallell universe -I think) speaks to your concerns here (I think): People 'want' to do what they are conditioned to do. Our behavior is not 'hard wired'. Otherwise, how did I evolve to sit here and type at a computer? Agreed. In fact nothing in your reply (or in Pinker's literature) is in conflict with my post, aside from your apparent implication that human culture is a entirely unique phenom w/o precedent in our biosphere. Hardwired is your term not mine. Indeed, not even bonobos are the mindless slaves of rigid instinct, but learn new behaviors.and even teach others. They have their own memes, and those memes, like the organisms that form them, are different in some order of complexity from ours and us. But, again, not different in kind, IMHO. More complex? yes; emergent?, yes; of a different set of things, decidedly not. Chimps did not evolve to fish termites out of a mound either, they devise it via empirical method, then teach it to others. Culture. To meet your hard-wired criteria, one would logically have to restrict ethology and ecology to groups at the neurological/behavioral level of the insects (though I would argue that the distributed swarm intelligence of the eusocials can be seen an emergent phenom greater than the constituent sum brain power). Yes our symbolic language was and is the key to much of our resultant culture, and that language is the emergent result of our emergent evermore interconnected brain etc.. But that complexity does not render in uninterpretable in the contexts that interpret less complex forms. Ethology, ecology and evolutionary theory are plenty robust and extensible enough for the job. Interestingly this reminds me a bit of the EO Wilson / SJ Gould embroglio. The nature hard-wireds vs the nurture clean-slaters. What is interesting about it is that neither giant in their fields really saw things in the simplistic way that their position was portrayed, judging by each man's subsequent writings in any case. For myself, I think that they were, and are, both correct, and that both views are robust enough to integrate and compliment the other. As is so often the case in life, the truth lies somewhere between two opposing views (even if when deconstructed, the two views aren't all that oppositional). Wilson's epi-genetics presaged dawkin's memes and Gould's spandrels evoke the emergent, self-organized systems that are the order for free provided by universal evolutionary processes in open systems. Memes are emergent, self organized adaptive systems but are also constrained and/or amplified by selective processes in feedback loops on the same, and on other, scales in a hierarchy. But, in the end, this is like the NAO/ global warming issue of a prior post. I doubt I'd ever convince you that we're in the end naked apes that have taken to fancy ways. I predict that you'll never convincingly argue to me that we're not. I believe Diamond's correct that we are in fact the third chimp and that's quite alright by me. I think we're in fine company, judging by how they treat their home in contrast to how we treat ours. And if somewhere in all possible universes there does exist a planet of the apes, let us hope that they're doing a better job of running things than us. It wouldn't be hard, I imagine. Charlton Heston: You maniacs!... You blew it up!... Ah, da(r)n you!... Go(sh) da(r)n you all to he(ck)!! (Planet of the Apes, 1968) Peace CMR -- insert gratuitous quotation that implies my profundity here --
Re: Flaw in denial of group selection principle in evolution discovered?
Eric wrote things like:
BECAUSE THE EVOLVABLE GOAL ...
THE GOAL IS TO ...
Well, THERE IS NO GOAL (excuse the caps, you started it).
Evolutional events are not in order to rather as a consequence of.
Further on Eric wrote:
The organism doesn't have to be smart enough to believe in
this wager {of risk that is}...
While I am all for Eric's stance in group-evolution, I refuse to assign
speculational deeds for evolving species (groups), or in instigating changes
in order to survive. A bacterium does not amputate the sensitive group of
its molecule to resist the antibiotic or 'grow' resistant ones - in order to
the same. It is all selection of variants, wich come in all colors/tastes in
every generation - and the environment changes constantly as well. The ones
that have the better functioning variations for the (continually changed)
conditions will prliferate stronger and we (later on) observe prudent
changes in the better surviving kinds.
The group-evolution?
I don't care how the reductionistic boundaries are cut for a unit of
our observation: it may be cutting off one member of a group or it may
include the entire 'group', the variational (mutation?) characteristics are
there, producing 'items' (callable 'singles' or 'groups', who
cares) -proliferating stronger or falling back in survival.
God did not write in his book the evolutionary path which the species
HAVE to run in order to fulfill HIS plans designed for the world.
It is all coincidential of the changes in the total, reflecting to the
functions of - what we assign as - individuals (or groups). It is all in an
open deterministic two-way interaction defined by the circumstances
which may be unpredictable (for us), not for the omniscient.
Then, when we see snapshot observations from time to time (in science) and
recognise changes therein, all for the better survival,
we have the reductionistic right to say:
IT ADAPTED.
(in a way: it did).
Words, words.
Regards
John Mikes
Re: More on qualia of consciousness and occam's razor
On Feb 3, 2004, at 3:19 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I am using terms like information loosely when discussing subjective experience precisely because I cannot think of a way to formalise it. Perhaps its defining characteristic is that it cannot be formalised. One can imagine that if we made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, however alien it is, we could eventually exchange information about the natural sciences, mathematics, history, anything objective. It would effectively involve finding an algorithm to convert from one formal system to another, or one natural language to another. But although the aliens may be able to explain how their physiology has evolved so that gamma rays which are an odd multiple of a certain wavelength cause them to feel a pleasant sensation while even multiple rays cause them to feel a completely different, unpleasant sensation, we as humans would have absolutely no idea what these sensations are like to experience. But even this goes way out in front of what we can possibly know. You say we have no idea what these feelings are like to experience--but why should we assume we even are entitled to ask this question? To borrow a bit from Wittgenstein -- imagine you have completely translated these aliens' language, and they tell you that each of them has a box with something inside it. Although they talk a lot in rather vague terms about what's in their box, they insist you can't really know what is inside it. Now what is the logical conclusion here: a) There may or may not be something in the box. b) There's definitely something in the box, and I have absolutely no idea what it is. What on earth could possibly make someone conclude (b) here? It's not logical at all. Yet this is what people conclude when they bend over backwards talking about qualia and how ineffable they are. Earlier you say: I'll grant you that the subjective experience of red etc cannot be derived from a theory of physics. But this statement just assumes one philosophical position about mind, and there are many out there. So, in addition to the empirical data, there is this extra bit of information, neither contained in the data nor able to be derived from it using the laws of physics: what it actually feels like to be the one experiencing the subjective sensation. If someone can think of a better way to describe it than extra bit of information or can come up with a way to formalise it, I would be happy to hear about it. A better way to describe what, exactly? What it actually feels like? But why do you first commit yourself to the view that this question makes any sense? I suppose there will still be some who insist that if you know all about the physiology etc. behind the alien response to gamma rays, then you know all there is to know. I think this response is analogous to the shut up and calculate attitude to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Yes, I am one of these people. You say if you know all about, and you must be taken seriously here: you would really have to know >all about it. But if you did, you would be able to entirely trace the causal pathway from the receipt of the gamma rays, to whatever internal responses go on inside the alien's body, to the subsequent report of I feel that pleasant, odd-multiple feeling. Let's say you had that entire explanation written out. And subjective experience doesn't appear anywhere on this list. So what reason on earth do you have to assert that it exists? Of course subjective experience exists in a way -- but it's just a way of talking about things. It isn't a primitive. When I see red, I have a subjective experience of red, sure -- but all this means is just that my brain has responded to a certain stimulus in the way it normally does. Stathis Papaioannou
Re: Request for a glossary of acronyms
Bruno Marchal wrote: Thank you Jesse for your clear answer. Your comparison of your use of both ASSA and RSSA with Google ranking system has been quite useful. This does not mean I am totally convince because ASSA raises the problem of the basic frame: I don't think there is any sense to compare the probability of being a human or being a bacteria ..., but your RSSA use of ASSA does not *necessarily* give a meaning to such strong form of absolute Self Sampling Assumption, or does it? No, I don't think it's *necessary* to think that way. Nick Bostrom gives a good example of the use something like the absolute self-sampling assumption in the FAQ of anthropic-principle.com, where two batches of humans would be created, the first batch containing 3 members of one sex, the second batch containing 5000 members of the opposite sex. If I know I am the outcome of this experiment but I don't know which of the two batches I am a part of, I can see that I am a male, and use Bostrom's version of the self-sampling assumption to conclude there's a 5000:3 probability that the larger batch is male (assuming the prior probability of either batch being male was 50:50). One way to look at this is that if the larger batch is male, I have a 5000/5003 chance of being male and a 3/5003 chance of of being female--but presumably since you don't think it makes sense to talk about the probability of being a bacteria vs. a human, you also wouldn't think it makes sense to talk about the probability of being a male vs. being a female. So, another way to think of this would just be as a sort of abstract mathematical assumption you must make in order to calculate the conditional probability that, when I go and ask the creators of the experiment whether the larger batch is male or female, I will have the experience of hearing them tell me it was male. This mathematical assumption tells you to reason *as if* you were randomly sampled from all humans in the experiment, but it's not strictly necessary to attach any metaphysical significance to this assumption, it can just be considered as a step in the calculation of probabilities that I will later learn various things about my place in the universe. In a similar way, one could accept both an absolute probability distribution on observer-moments and a conditional probability distribution from each observer-moment to any other, but one could view the absolute probability distribution as just a sort of abstract step in the calculation of conditional probabilities. For example, consider the two-step duplication experiment again. Say we have an observer A who will later be copied, resulting in two diverging observers B and C. A little later, C will be copied again four times, while B will be left alone, so the end result will be five observers, B, C1, C2, C3, and C4, who all remember being A in the past. Assuming the probable future of these 5 is about the same, each one would be likely to have about the same absolute probability. But according to the Google-like process of assigning absolute probability I mentioned earlier, this means that later observer-moments of C1, C2, C3 and C4 will together reinforce the first observer-moment of C immediately after the split more than later observer-moments of B will reinforce the first observer-moment of B immediately after the split, so the first observer-moment of C will be assigned a higher absolute probability than that of B. This in turn means that A should expect a higher conditional probability of becoming C than B. So again, you can say that this final answer about A's conditional probabilities is what's really important, that the consideration of the absolute probability of all those future observer-moments was just a step in getting this answer, and that absolute probabilites have no meaning apart from their role in calculating conditional probabilities. I can't think of a way to justify the conclusion that A is more likely to experiencing becoming C in this situation without introducing a step like this, though. Personally, I would prefer to assign a deeper significance to the notion of absolute probability, since for me the fact that I find myself to be a human rather than one of the vastly more numerous but less intelligent other animals seems like an observation that cries out for some kind of explanation. But I think this is more of a philosophical difference, so that even if an ultimate TOE was discovered that gave unique absolute and conditional probabilities to each observer-moment, people could still differ on the interpretation of those absolute probabilities. I think also that your view on RSSA is not only compatible with the sort of approach I have developed, but is coherent with Saibal Mitra backtracking, which, at first I have taken as wishful thinking. What is the backtracking idea you're referring to here? OK you make me feel COMP could be a little less frightening I'm
