RE: The Time Deniers
Stathis writes I wasn't very clear in my last post. What I meant was this: (a) A conscious program written in C is compiled on a computer. The C instructions are converted into binary code, and when this code is run, the program is self-aware. (b) The same conscious program is written in some idiosyncratic programming language, created by a programmer who has since died. He has requested in his will that the program be compiled, then all copies of the compiler and all the programmer's notes be destroyed before the program is run. Once these instructions are carried out, the binary code is run, and the program is self-aware as before - although it is difficult or impossible for an outsider to work out what is going on. (c) A random string of binary code is run on a computer. There exists a programming language which, when a program is written in this language so that it is the same program as in (a) and (b), then compiled, the binary code so produced is the same as this random string. Is this nonsense? No, not to me. All that seems to be making perfect sense. Is (c) fundamentally different from (b)? If not, doesn't it mean that any random string implements any program? Well, this is obviously a very *special* random string! :-) But no, (c) is fundamentally the same as (b). But perhaps I can help make your point (though I'm not sure what your point is). It may be that there is some sequence of 1's and 0's that when run on a machine performs some operation (say it implements a conscious friend), but which is not the compiled output of *any* human readable code. Vernor Vinge in A Fire Upon the Deep mentioned some Beyond technology that didn't seem to be modular: it was just spaghetti from our viewpoint. This is of a kind---in my opinion---with the weird 322 King+Rook+Bishop vs. K+N+N chess ending which evidently isn't made up of any concepts or building blocks: all one has is a series of bewildering chess positions that *just by sheer chance* it seems lead to checkmate. (Normally in chess, any process that leads to checkmate does so for clear reasons. Not this. It's just a set of random looking arrangements of pieces that get closer and closer to checkmate.) Of course, taken literally, your last sentence is false: it is *not* (of course) true that any random string implements a program. We might not know what it says, but if the program is self-aware, then by definition *it* knows. Yes, I think so. Whether it's the result of a compilation, or it's just a raw machine code that is self-aware (and, say passes the Turing Test), then he seems just as good as you or me. Sorry, but where are you going with this? :-) Lee
RE: The Time Deniers
Jesse writes So again, is it enough to look at the natural laws of our universe in order to decide whether the consciousnesses within it are real? Or do we need more? Can we imagine a universe like ours, which follows exactly the same natural laws, but where time doesn't really exist (in some sense), where there is no actual causality? I have trouble with this idea, but I'd be interested to hear from those who think that such a distinction exists. For me, it's not that I think it's meaningful to imagine a universe just like ours but without causality, rather it's that I think causality is probably important to deciding whether a particular system in our universe counts as a valid instantiation of some observer-moment, and thus contributes to the measure of that observer-moment (which in turn affects the likelihood that I will experience that observer-moment in the future). But here you use the word system. Isn't that by definition a process (obeying, for example, in our universe the Schrödinger equation)? I wouldn't know, in other words, what kind of system would *not* be a valid instantiation of an observer-moment if it actually computed a sequence of states that emulated a person. I think if you run a simulation of an observer, and record the output and write it down in a book which you then make thousands of copies of, the static description in all the books most likely would not have any effect on the measure of that observer, since these descriptions lack the necessary causal structure. Yes, I'd agree. When you use the word static then I get the picture. A warehouse full of stacks of paper with symbols written on it for example. But it's not *doing* anything. I sort of vaguely imagine all of spacetime as an enormous graph showing the causal links between primitive events, with the number of instantiations basically being the number of spots you could find a particular sub-graph representing an observer-moment embedded in the entire graph; the graphs corresponding to the physical process that we label a book would not have the same structure as graphs corresponding to the physical process that we label as a simulation of a particular observer. Here I am not sure that I am following you. Let's say somewhere in spacetime we have a spot, as you say, where we could find a particular sub-graph representing an observer moment. But a book COULD NOT have the same kind of structure? (If the answer is yes, then I'm following you. Lee
Re: The Time Deniers
On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 03:48:48PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: (c) A random string of binary code is run on a computer. There exists a programming language which, when a program is written in this language so that it is the same program as in (a) and (b), then compiled, the binary code so produced is the same as this random string. Is this nonsense? Is (c) fundamentally different from (b)? If not, doesn't it mean that any random string implements any program? We might not know what it says, but if the program is self-aware, then by definition *it* knows. The space of all binary strings is vastly larger than the space of strings constituting a valid program, and the space of aware (AI) programs is again a tiny subset. It's a pretty sterile (and very rugged) fitness landscape. The probability of finding a nontrivial program by pure chance is about the same as a pebble in Gobi hopping through a fluke in Brownian noise. (More abstract machines can be more forgiving, in regards of what is well-formed). -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE signature.asc Description: Digital signature
RE: The Time Deniers
Stathis Papaioannou writes: (c) A random string of binary code is run on a computer. There exists a programming language which, when a program is written in this language so that it is the same program as in (a) and (b), then compiled, the binary code so produced is the same as this random string. I don't know what you mean by random in this context. If you mean a string selected at random from among all strings of a certain length, the chance that it will turn out to be the same program functionally is so low as to be not worth considering. But ignoring that, here is how I approach the more general problem of whether a given string creates or instantiates a given observer. I made a long posting on this a few weeks ago. In my opinion it follows simply from assuming the Universal Distribution (UD). In this model, all information objects are governed by this probability distribution, the UD. One way to think of it is to imagine all possible programs being run; then the fraction of programs which instantiate a given information object is that object's measure. So to solve the problem of whether your program instantiates an observer is a two step process. First write down a description of the information pattern that equals that observer. More specifically, write the description of the information pattern that defines that observer experiencing the particular moments of consciousness that you want to know if your program is instantiating. Doing this will require a much stronger and more detailed theory of conciousness than we now possess, but I don't think there is any inherent obstacle that will keep us from gaining this ability. The second step is to consider your program's output and see if it is reasonably similar to the information pattern you just defined. The simplest case is where the output is identical. Then you can say that the program does instantiate that consciousness. However it could be that the program basically creates the same pattern but it is represented somewhat differently. How can we consider all possible alternate ways of representing an information pattern and still let them count, without opening the door so wide that all patterns count? The solution follows rigorously from the definition of the UD. We append a second interpretation program to the first one, the one which ran the putative conscious program. This second program turns the output from the first one into the canonical form we used to define the conscious information pattern. The concatenation of the two programs then outputs the pattern in canonical form and we can recognize it. The key point now is that the contribution to the measure of the observer moments being simulated is, by the definition of the Universal Distribution, based on the size of the program which outputs the information pattern in question. And the size of that program will be the size of its two component parts: the first one, that you were wondering about, which may have generated a consciousness; and the second one, which took the output of the first one and turned it into the canonical form which matched the OM pattern in question. In other words, the contribution which this program makes to the measure of a given observer's experience will be based on the size of the program (smaller is better) and on the size of the interpretation program which turns the output of the first program into canonical form (again, smaller is better). Obviously a sufficiently large interpretation program can turn any output into what we want. The question is whether a small one can do the trick. That is what tells us that the pattern is really there and not something which we are forcing by our interpretation. Standard considerations of the UD imply that the exact nature of the canonical form used is immaterial, however it does matter how precisely you need to specify the information pattern that truly does represent a set of conscious observer moments. That second question is a matter of psychology and as we improve our understanding of consciousness we will have a better handle on it. Once we do, this approach will provide an in-principle technique to calculate how much contribution to measure any given program string makes to any given conscious experience. Most importantly, this follows entirely from the assumption of the Universal Distribution. No other assumptions are needed. It is a simple assumption yet it provides a very specific process and rule to answer this kind of question. Hal Finney
Re: where do copies come from?
On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 10:31:56AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Perhaps, perhaps not. For one thing, in the brain's case we are relying on the laws of chemistry and physics, which in the real world are invariable; we don't know what would happen if these laws were slightly off in a A systematic error or noise beyond the homeostatic capability of the simulation would generate nonsense, of course. So, stay below the error threshold. simulation. For another, we do know that tiny chemical changes, such as a few molecules of LSD, can make huge behavioural changes, suggesting that the brain is exquisitely sensitive to at least some parameters. It is So, don't put LSD in the simulated brain. Don't zap the CMOS junction with electrostatics. Don't put the system nearby a Co-60 source. Do not mutate bits randomly. Do not change the meaning of a primitive randomly every few ticks. If it hurts, don't do it. likely that multiple error correction and negative feedback systems are in place to ensure that small changes are not chaotically amplified to cause gross mental changes after a few seconds, and all these systems would have to be simulated as well. The end result may be that none of the cellular Of course. And your point is? machinery can be safely ignored in an emulation, which is very far from modelling the brain as a neural net. I may be wrong, and it may be simpler Strawman, again. than I suggest, but as a general rule, if there were a simpler and more economical way to do things, evolution would have found it. Biological tissues are not evolved to e.g. work with EM radio, or electron spin for information processing, or nuclear fission for power sources, or an enzyme to deposit diamond. Regardless how many gigayears you spend evolving, this will never be discovered due to kinetic blocks, fitness crevices, and sterile areas in fitness space which can't be crossed incrementally. Human design doesn't have that limitation. We can in principle do whatever evolution can do (by explicitly invoking the process, in an accelerated model), and more. The fitness function of discrete information processing in solid state is entirely different from CNS. Most of what the genome does is not devoted to neural information processing, and, frankly anisotropically excitable nonlinear medium is a control paradigm from hell. There are simpler and more economical ways to do things, and we'll be there in about 20-30 years. Meanwhile, biology reigns supreme in crunch/Joule, integration density, error tolerance and a few other things, but we're gaining on it rapidly. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: UDA, Am I missing something?
Le 09-juil.-05, à 08:56, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : As such, I appreciate your willingness to have a discourse on the assumptions in the UDA. Thanks. And to derive conclusions is a way to discuss hypotheses. I have always been willing to discover that comp is contradictory. Until now I have only find out that comp is weird, but not so much more than QM. Instead of conscious brain I should have said consciousness. The yes-doctor hypothesis in comp tells me that you are assuming the existence of consciousness. Yes. Under the form of a minimal amount of what is called (in philosophy of mind/cognitive science) grandmother or folk psychology. Now (to cut the air a little bit) assuming does not seem right to me. I just hope people can understand in a mundane way question like will I survive the operation in the hospital etc. Also I don't like expression like a conscious brain or a conscious program. It is Searles' error. Only a person can be conscious. No doubt the brain plays some role but a brain is not conscious, nor a program, nor a string. Also, is not the psychology that you are reducing physics to consciousness (or an equivalent approximation)? I don't understand the sentence. Is not your use of the word discourse, even though it is a correct-by-definition discourse, and also your use of the words observable and verifiable, meant to portray something that can be observed by, imagined by, and encoded into our consciousness? So is not your assumption that we can fit this fundamental/perfect physics into our consciousness? Yes if by our you refer to the lobian machines. But if you mean by it human then it is a big anthropomorphism. Also I avoid the term consciousness. Eventually consciousness will be linked to automatic (unconscious!) inference of self-consistency from some 1 person point of view. >> So if A=“physical reality” and B=“consciousness”, then the assumption is A=B. > This is much too vague. You identify physics and discourse. But I said correct discourse and this includes the semantics (meaning) of the discourse. (Actually I should have said that the assumption seems to be that A is a subset of B.) That's better. Are you saying that correct-by-definition discourse refers to a discourse that does not necessarily fit into our consciousness? A priori, at the first steps of the UDA. We just cannot know. If so, then why call it discourse? Because it can be presented by strings of symbols. Like any papers written by a physicist. It can refer to things which a priori could well not fit in our consciousness. we cannot know before proceeding from assumptions. I am not assuming that our consciousness is necessarily physical, but again I still don't see why you use the term discourse if it does not refer to something that can be grasped by our consciousness. Why not just say correct physics or the way things really are, independent of our consciousness? But then, if you did that, wouldn't you lose any chance of coming to the conclusion of the UDA? No problem at all. Also consciousness is vaster than all possible discourse (provably so for loebian machine). I've read the UDA but not the second part of the SANE paper where you interview the machine. Is not the result from the UDA needed to start the second half? I am wary of being persuaded by an argument further down the line where the UDA is assumed. It would seem that I should be able to understand the assumptions/axioms of the UDA first. I think so. I would even encourage you to be sure of a step before going to the next step. Only (some) mathematicians understand more easily the interview than the UD Argument. But it is formal understanding without motivation then. And the real proof is the UDA. The interview just shows that by interviewing the machine on the UD we can get non trivial information on the measure problem. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Rép : Thought Experiment #269-G (Duplicat es)
Le 10-juil.-05, à 04:11, Lee Corbin a écrit : Bruno writes You are asked to bet on your immediate and less immediate future feeling. Precisely: we ask you to choose among the following bets: Immediate: A. I will see 0 on the wall. B. I will see 1 on the wall. C. I will see 0 on the wall and I will see 1 on the wall. D. I will see 0 on the wall or I will see 1 on the wall. As I said I have no problem with accepting Lee = Lee' = Lee'' (although I think this will entail Lee = Bruno at some point, but I have no problem with that and we can come back to this notion later). But I was not argumentating on personal identity, only on the problem you face when predicting your immediate future (or less future) experience. It is a different matter. You asked me to *predict*. I did. I asked you to predict your immediate first person experience, not a bird's view of the situation. This explain why if I'm in good move you just win nothing, and if I'm in bad mood you and all the Lees own me five dollars! I duplicate you iteratively, by annihilating (painlessly!) you and reconstituting you in the 0-room and the 1-room which differs from having a 0 (resp. 1) painted on a wall. And I let you choose between the bets A, B, C, D described above. You choose C, that is: I will see 0 on the wall and I will see 1 on the wall. Now, as I said this is ambiguous. So if I am in a bad mood, asking the first 0-Lee' about its immediate apprehension if he answers me I am seeing 0 and I am seeing 1 I consider it as false (0-Lee' sees only 0!), and the same for the other Lee, so all the 2^n Lee must give 5$. Now you are asking an instance a question (since there are two of me), and it seems that you are playing on the ambiguity of the term you. When you ask an instance---now, *after* the copying has been done---whether he is seeing a 1 or seeing a 0 or seeing both, he has to stop you (I mean I have to stop you) and ask exactly what kind of information you are after. Clearly, if you are talking to one instance (so far as that instance knows) he'll say that he is seeing a 1 or he will say that he is seeing a 0. This is because he'll take the usual meaning of terms. OK. When you then inform him that he has actually been copied and that there is another instance of him in the other room, then naturally he should say Okay, here I am seeing a 0 and in the other room the opposite. Precisely: here I see without much doubt a 0, and I believe intellectually, by trusting you, that another Lee see the opposite in the other room. Do you agree it is very different sort of knowledge? The question was concerning the first notion of knowledge. We know all the facts. What we want are two things: (1) we want to speak clearly. (2) we want to know whether or not to regard our duplicates as selves. (2) is another thread. It is an interesting question, but it has nothing to do with the question of betting experiences. I think that you've heard all my arguments. Why not choose D, that is I will see 0 on the wall OR I will see 1 on the wall. Okay, now you have switched back to the prior (prediction) level. I have not switch back. I always ask you the question before the duplication. And then, I ask for confirmation of the bet after the duplication. It is really like, in the MWI, to ask someone what he predict when he send trillions of electrons in a state like up+down in a up/down measuring Stern-Gerlach apparatus. Apparently you answer is I will see only up electron + I will see one down electron and all others up + etc. (all possibilities). Here is the reason not to say that. As the person who is about to be duplicated knows all the facts, he is aware (from a 3rd person point of view) that scientifically there will be *two* processes both of which are very, very similar. Right. It will be false that one of them will be more him than the other. Right. Therefore he must identify equally with them. Therefore, it is wrong to imply that he I will be one of them but not the other of them. This is a matter of choice and personal opinion. It does not address the question I asked. The question is not who you will be, but what will be your immediate feeling. Given that we assume comp it is easy to predict that you will either see 0 or see 1. You will not see a zero blurred with a one. You can in advance bet you will see only a zero (resp. one), and just intellectually know some other you will see a one (resp. zero). But if you answer I will see 0 on the wall OR I will see 1 on the wall then it makes it sound as though one of those cases will obtain but not the other. Actually I was using the non-exclusive OR! But I do think that the first person experiences of seeing 1 and 0 *are* indeed alternative experience. After one duplication, those experience will be exclusive of each other. You are not able to know the experience of the doppelganger in the same sense that
Re: where do copies come from?
Eugen Leitl writes: likely that multiple error correction and negative feedback systems are in place to ensure that small changes are not chaotically amplified to cause gross mental changes after a few seconds, and all these systems would have to be simulated as well. The end result may be that none of the cellular Of course. And your point is? machinery can be safely ignored in an emulation, which is very far from modelling the brain as a neural net. I may be wrong, and it may be simpler Strawman, again. than I suggest, but as a general rule, if there were a simpler and more economical way to do things, evolution would have found it. Biological tissues are not evolved to e.g. work with EM radio, or electron spin for information processing, or nuclear fission for power sources, or an enzyme to deposit diamond. Regardless how many gigayears you spend evolving, this will never be discovered due to kinetic blocks, fitness crevices, and sterile areas in fitness space which can't be crossed incrementally. Human design doesn't have that limitation. We can in principle do whatever evolution can do (by explicitly invoking the process, in an accelerated model), and more. The fitness function of discrete information processing in solid state is entirely different from CNS. Most of what the genome does is not devoted to neural information processing, and, frankly anisotropically excitable nonlinear medium is a control paradigm from hell. There are simpler and more economical ways to do things, and we'll be there in about 20-30 years. Meanwhile, biology reigns supreme in crunch/Joule, integration density, error tolerance and a few other things, but we're gaining on it rapidly. There is a fundamental difference between copying evolution's version of, say, a pump, and a brain. The whole complex business of excitable cardiac muscle cells beating in synchrony with a pacemaker need not be emulated, of course, if you are just trying to build an efficient artificial heart. If the purpose is just to pump, what may have been necessary for nature is superfluous for an engineer. On the other hand, with a brain, all the elaborate detail is intrinsically important: the engineer doesn't just want to build an efficient processor which will keep the human body going, but to copy the *actual* processor, however needlessly complex. But perhaps I should end this thread by admitting that I was not aware that there were mind uploaders out there seriously contemplating the emulation of a brain down to the molecular level, and express my astonishment, which hopefully will turn into admiration, at your 20-30 year time span for completing such a project. --Stathis Papaioannou _ REALESTATE: biggest buy/rent/share listings http://ninemsn.realestate.com.au
Re: The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a dimension
Hi Stephen; I suppose we can think of time as a dimension. However, there are provisos. Time is not like x, y, or z in so far as we have no ability to freely navigate the axis in any direction we choose. We are embedded in time and it moves onwards in a single direction without anyones consent. Furthermore, where it possible to move around in time all sorts of paradoxes would appear to ensue that just dont when I traverse the spatial dimensions. Id appeal to an asymmetry between time and space, it is a dimension of sorts, but not one that can conceptually swapped with a spatial dimension easily. I dont think the a priori requirements for space will be necessarily the same as those for time. Therefore, whilst our prior notions of space might be fairly complex, it seems to me that our a priori notion of time is in fact very simple. It is just the notion of succession. That time exists if there is a successor event to this event. I can imagine a succession of events that are repetitions of one another, and whilst I can agree that duration would not be measurable, that time might not be noticed, our a priori notion of time is not contradicted despite that. 'What is a clock if not an means to measure change?' A clock changes in order to measure time. Change is the measure of time, but is not necessary for time to occur. Changes do not occur just because time passes. Change is just necessary for measurement. I agree that time carries with it the possibility of change, but that is not the same. It cannot be both necessary and just possible, and the notion of change being a possibility entails that there is no contradiction in the notion of time in which there is no change. As to how we extract notions of transitivity from series of events, I would imagine it similar to how we extract notions of causation from sets of constant conjunctions. 'Does a history include values that can be associated with either of McTaggart's A or B series?' There is a strong argument to suppose it can be. The B series seems to carry all the information needed to judge truth conditions of reflexive statements such as 'event E is past' (from the A Series). The statement is true so long as it is occurs after event E. A B Series can then at least take a part in our conception of a history. What is needed is a sense of 'now'. A change of time rather than a change in time, a succession of events. So temporal becoming has to be invoked somehow - but also, it shouldnt be identified with conscious experience, there is no requirement for transitivity 'within the frame' so to speak. The danger with associating temporal becoming with our personal experience of time is that it is this that appears to deny time. To conclude that our experience of time is somehow fundamental to time itself, is to deny time exists when there is no observation of it. Are you not open to the charge you are levelling at others? Are you not at least partially a time denier? I accept that in a sense we always imagine time from a temporal perspective, that we can not leap out of the temporal view so to speak, but whether that should lead to a conclusion that makes experience of time fundamental is not so clear. I prefer to think that temporal becoming is in some way an objective property of time. I think of it as conceived by Aristotle, as the now that stays the same, as 'what is now' changes. We experience time as we do with a future past and present, because of the way time in fact is. Where I think computational models might break down regards what process they invoke to run the B series in order to stamp each event with future, now and past, - what is their incarnation of 'now' - and whether the adoption of such a process involves a pernicious infinite regress. regards Chris. From: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: chris peck [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: Re: The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a dimension Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 11:26:45 -0400 Dear Chris, Thank you for this post! Interleaving... - Original Message - From: chris peck [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 7:34 AM Subject: Re: The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a dimension Hi Stephen; I have a couple of quesitions. [SPK] Emulations involve some notion of a process and such are temporal. The idea that a process, of any kind, can occur requires some measure of both transitivity and duration. The mere *existence* of a process only speaks to its potential for occurrence. Im not quite sure what you mean by this. Possibly you mean that to coherently describe time it isnt enough to have laid out in succession a series of moments, or events, described by real numbers or however. There must also be something running through the series in order for the concept of time to make any sense. If you like, there
The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a dimension
chris peck wrote: Hi Stephen; I suppose we can think of time as a dimension. However, there are provisos. Time is not like x, y, or z in so far as we have no ability to freely navigate the axis in any direction we choose. We are embedded in time and it moves onwards in a single direction without anyones consent. Furthermore, where it possible to move around in time all sorts of paradoxes would appear to ensue that just dont when I traverse the spatial dimensions. Id appeal to an asymmetry between time and space, it is a dimension of sorts, but not one that can conceptually swapped with a spatial dimension easily. I dont think the a priori requirements for space will be necessarily the same as those for time. Actually, this is not correct; but a presumption of experiential pre-bias. While it is true that we can calculate negative spatial values and not identify negative temporal values easily - or at all in some cases - let me describe motion in this alternative way for you: 1. All action/motion is never a single dimension but instead, a net-vector. (be it spatially evaluated or temporally or both). therefore, it is quite possible to say that the impression of time as a positive single vector is masking its composite dimensional structure which it is really made of. 2. Negative spatial distances are calculation illusions, usable only because we can visually identify a sequence reversal and label the suquences alternatively - even though - in a relativistic universe, ALL actions and traversals of 'distance' are and can only be done ... positively. Negative dimension values are conditional computational handwavings. And again, even spatial traversals are net-vectors. A body in true motion through space is ALWAYS in a positive net-vector; the same as presumptively ascribed only to time. Therefore, Time can and undoubtably does have, internal dimesional structuring; contrary to the conventional view of it not. James Rose ref: Understanding the Integral Universe (1972;1992;1995)
RE: The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a dimension
Hi James; I suspected that this part of my argument to Stephen would raise objections from other members of this board. 'Actually, this is not correct; but a presumption of experiential pre-bias.' It may be. Nevertheless, without the experience to hand at all, I maintain that the asymetry exists in the sense that my movement in spatial dimensions is second nature, movement in time - other than the apparantly inevitable next step forward - is theoretical at best. It is not something I can just do, I am in the 'now' in a stronger sense than I am 'here'. But, say time travel is possible, we have a futher asymetry in so far as the idea that time is a dimension in the same sense that x,y,z leads to paradoxes if we attempt to move around it. Spatial movement does not involve paradoxes. I think this is enough to establish an asymetry in nature rather than just experience. Regards Chris. From: James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com CC: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a dimension Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 07:11:55 -0700 chris peck wrote: Hi Stephen; I suppose we can think of time as a dimension. However, there are provisos. Time is not like x, y, or z in so far as we have no ability to freely navigate the axis in any direction we choose. We are embedded in time and it moves onwards in a single direction without anyones consent. Furthermore, where it possible to move around in time all sorts of paradoxes would appear to ensue that just dont when I traverse the spatial dimensions. Id appeal to an asymmetry between time and space, it is a dimension of sorts, but not one that can conceptually swapped with a spatial dimension easily. I dont think the a priori requirements for space will be necessarily the same as those for time. Actually, this is not correct; but a presumption of experiential pre-bias. While it is true that we can calculate negative spatial values and not identify negative temporal values easily - or at all in some cases - let me describe motion in this alternative way for you: 1. All action/motion is never a single dimension but instead, a net-vector. (be it spatially evaluated or temporally or both). therefore, it is quite possible to say that the impression of time as a positive single vector is masking its composite dimensional structure which it is really made of. 2. Negative spatial distances are calculation illusions, usable only because we can visually identify a sequence reversal and label the suquences alternatively - even though - in a relativistic universe, ALL actions and traversals of 'distance' are and can only be done ... positively. Negative dimension values are conditional computational handwavings. And again, even spatial traversals are net-vectors. A body in true motion through space is ALWAYS in a positive net-vector; the same as presumptively ascribed only to time. Therefore, Time can and undoubtably does have, internal dimesional structuring; contrary to the conventional view of it not. James Rose ref: Understanding the Integral Universe (1972;1992;1995) _ Want to block unwanted pop-ups? Download the free MSN Toolbar now! http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/
Re: UDA, Am I missing something?
Tom Instead of conscious brain I should have said consciousness. The yes-doctor hypothesis in comp tells me that you are assuming the existence of consciousness. Bruno Yes. Under the form of a minimal amount of what is called (in philosophy of mind/cognitive science) grandmother or folk psychology. Now (to cut the air a little bit) assuming does not seem right to me. I just hope people can understand in a mundane way question like will I survive the operation in the hospital etc. Also I don't like expression like a conscious brain or a conscious program. It is Searles' error. Only a person can be conscious. No doubt the brain plays some role but a brain is not conscious, nor a program, nor a string. Tom: OK Tom Also, is not the psychology that you are reducing physics to consciousness (or an equivalent approximation)? Bruno I don't understand the sentence. Tom: My sentence was poorly worded. I'll try again: The UDA argues that fundamental physics is necessarily reducible to fundamental psychology. I've read a statement by you somewhere (I think on this list) that this fundamental psychology basically talking about consciousness. Here it is one such quote: The reversal will be epistemological: the branch physics will be a branch of machine's psychology, and ontological: matter will emerge from consciousness, in some sense, hopefully clearer after reading the proof. http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m1726.html Actually this particular quote seems to present consciousness as the ontological counterpart to the epistemological fundamental psychology, just as matter is considered the ontological counterpart to epistemological fundamental physics. So psychology is our way of thinking about consciousness, just as physics is our way of thinking about matter. So the statement ...physics is...reducible to psychology is basically saying our way of thinking about matter is reducible to our way of thinking about consciousness, or physics is reducible to our way of thinking about consciousness. Tom Is not your use of the word discourse, even though it is a correct-by-definition discourse, and also your use of the words observable and verifiable, meant to portray something that can be observed by, imagined by, and encoded into our consciousness? So is not your assumption that we can fit this fundamental/perfect physics into our consciousness? Bruno Yes if by our you refer to the lobian machines. But if you mean by it human then it is a big anthropomorphism. Also I avoid the term consciousness. Eventually consciousness will be linked to automatic (unconscious!) inference of self-consistency from some 1 person point of view. Tom: I guess I'll have to ponder this more. In general I am uncomfortable with having terms like physics and psychology/consciousness defined (redefined?) later on in an argument rather than at the beginning. In such a setting, I find it very difficult (impossible?) to get a grasp of what your hypotheses are. In parallel, I guess I have another question: It seems that in the UDA you artificially limit all of physics to be the solution to one particular thought experiment. This seems narrow to me. Tom
What if computation is unrepeatable?
http://arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0506030 shows the following abstract, suggesting that complex computations are not precisely repeatable. Doesn't Bruno's Computation Hypothesis imply that computations ARE precisely repeatable? Modern computer microprocessors are composed of hundreds of millions of transistors that interact through intricate protocols. Their performance during program execution may be highly variable and present aperiodic oscillations. In this paper, we apply current nonlinear time series analysis techniques to the performances of modern microprocessors during the execution of prototypical programs. While variability clearly stems from stochastic variations for several of them, we present pieces of evidence strongly supporting that performance dynamics during the execution of several other programs display low-dimensional deterministic chaos, with sensibility to initial conditions comparable to textbook models. Taken together, these results confirm that program executions on modern microprocessor architectures can be considered as complex systems and would benefit from analysis with modern tools of nonlinear and complexity science.
RE: What if computation is unrepeatable?
Norman Samish wrote: http://arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0506030 shows the following abstract, suggesting that complex computations are not precisely repeatable. Doesn't Bruno's Computation Hypothesis imply that computations ARE precisely repeatable? Modern computer microprocessors are composed of hundreds of millions of transistors that interact through intricate protocols. Their performance during program execution may be highly variable and present aperiodic oscillations. In this paper, we apply current nonlinear time series analysis techniques to the performances of modern microprocessors during the execution of prototypical programs. While variability clearly stems from stochastic variations for several of them, we present pieces of evidence strongly supporting that performance dynamics during the execution of several other programs display low-dimensional deterministic chaos, with sensibility to initial conditions comparable to textbook models. Taken together, these results confirm that program executions on modern microprocessor architectures can be considered as complex systems and would benefit from analysis with modern tools of nonlinear and complexity science. I don't think that paper is talking about computations being nonrepeatable--they say that they're not talking about stochastic variations (which I think refers to genuine physical sources of randomness), but instead about some type of deterministic chaos. Since it's deterministic, presumably that means if you feed exactly the same input to exactly the same program it will give the same results, the sensibility to initial conditions probably just means if you change a single bit in the input the output will be very different, something along those lines. And when they say the performance is variable, I think they're talking about some measure of performance during a single execution of a given program, not about repeating the execution of the same program multiple times and finding variations from one run to another. Jesse
Re: What if computation is unrepeatable?
On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 04:45:21PM -0400, Jesse Mazer wrote: I don't think that paper is talking about computations being nonrepeatable--they say that they're not talking about stochastic variations (which I think refers to genuine physical sources of randomness), but instead about some type of deterministic chaos. Since it's deterministic, presumably that means if you feed exactly the same input to exactly the same program it will give the same results, the sensibility to It is quite common that even different compiler optimization flags (nevermind different architectures) result in very different trajectories in numerical simulation (e.g. MD is very susceptible to a nonlinear/butterfly effect). initial conditions probably just means if you change a single bit in the input the output will be very different, something along those lines. And when they say the performance is variable, I think they're talking about some measure of performance during a single execution of a given program, not about repeating the execution of the same program multiple times and finding variations from one run to another. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE signature.asc Description: Digital signature
RE: where do copies come from?
-Original Message- From: Stathis Papaioannou [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 6:33 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: RE: where do copies come from? Brent Meeker writes: I find it hard to believe that something as stable as memories that last for decades is encoded in a way dependent on ionic gradients across cell membranes and the type, number, distribution and conformation of receptor and ion channel proteins. What evidence is there for this? It seems much more likely that long term memory would be stored as configuration of neuronal connections. You have to keep in mind that every living organism is being continually remodelled by cellular repair mechanisms. Jesse Mazer recently quoted an article which cited radiolabelling studies demonstrating that the entire brain is turned over every couple of months, and the synapses in particular are turned over in a matter of minutes. The appearance of permanent anatomical structures is an illusion due to the constant expenditure of energy rebuilding that which is constantly falling apart. So? I don't see the point of this observation. If the structure is maintained, then the structure *is* permanent and is suitable for storing long term memories. The fact that the physical elements of the structure are replaced every five seconds or every ten years is neither here or nor there. If anything, parameters such as ionic gradients and protein conformation are more closely regulated over time than gross anatomy. Gradients where? Surely you aren't saying that there is a pattern of gradients in the brain that is relative to (x,y,z) coordinates and is independent of the neuronal structures. Cancer cells may forget who they are, what their job is, what they look like and where they live, but if an important enzyme curled up a little tighter than usual due to corruption of intracellular homeostasis mechanisms, the cell would instantly die. I doubt that any memories are stored in intracelluar chemistry. Recent theory based on the work of Eric Kandel is that long term memory is mediated by new protein synthesis in synapses, which modulates the responsiveness of the synapse to neurotransmitter release; that is, it isn't just the wiring diagram that characterises a memory, but also the unique properties of each individual connection. I would not have supposed otherwise. I would guess that memories are stored as they are in artificial neural networks: in the wiring diagram PLUS the strength of the connections. But let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that each distinct mental state were encoded by the simplest possible mechanism: the on or off state of each individual neuron. This would allow 2^10^11 possible different mental states - more than enough for trillions of humans to live trillions of lifetimes and never repeat a thought. Yes, I'm well aware that a brain is really really complicated. In theory, it should be possible to scan a brain in vivo using some near-future MRI analogue and determine the state of each of the 10^11 neurons, and store the information as a binary srtring on a hard disk. Once we had this data, what would we do with it? The details of ionic gradients, type, number and conformation of cellular proteins, But what is the evidence that these play are part in long term memory? anatomy and type of synaptic connections, That's wiring diagram and strength of connections. etc. etc. etc., would be needed for each neuron, along with an accurate model of how they all worked and interacted, in order to calculate the next state, and the state after that, and so on. But calculating the next state corresponds to continuing consciousness without a gap. That I agree would require simulating all the gradients, etc, down to near molecular level. But my original contention was that you could simulate a person, with a memory gap such as incurred under anesthesia, by just the wiring diagram plus strength of connnections. This would be difficult enough to do if each neuron were considered in isolation, but in fact, there may be hundreds of synaptic connections between neurons, and the activity of each connected neuron needs to be taken into account, along with the activity of each of the hundreds of neurons connected to each of *those* neurons, and so on. Sure - but that's still wiring diagram. I didn't say it was simple; but it's a lot simpler than trying to capture the instantaneous chemistry. Brent Meeker
Re: What if computation is unrepeatable?
Eugen Leitl wrote: On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 04:45:21PM -0400, Jesse Mazer wrote: I don't think that paper is talking about computations being nonrepeatable--they say that they're not talking about stochastic variations (which I think refers to genuine physical sources of randomness), but instead about some type of deterministic chaos. Since it's deterministic, presumably that means if you feed exactly the same input to exactly the same program it will give the same results, the sensibility to It is quite common that even different compiler optimization flags (nevermind different architectures) result in very different trajectories in numerical simulation (e.g. MD is very susceptible to a nonlinear/butterfly effect). I don't know what compiler optimization flags are, but if the trajectories are different, presumably that means that you are not really running exactly the same algorithm, if you include the compiler as part of the whole algorithm (ie if you wanted to emulate what the computer is doing using a universal Turing machine, the input strings would have to be different for different compilers). Jesse
RE: What if computation is unrepeatable?
Norman Samish writes: http://arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0506030 shows the following abstract, suggesting that complex computations are not precisely repeatable. Doesn't Bruno's Computation Hypothesis imply that computations ARE precisely repeatable? Modern computer microprocessors are composed of hundreds of millions of transistors that interact through intricate protocols. Their performance during program execution may be highly variable and present aperiodic oscillations. In this paper, we apply current nonlinear time series analysis techniques to the performances of modern microprocessors during the execution of prototypical programs. While variability clearly stems from stochastic variations for several of them, we present pieces of evidence strongly supporting that performance dynamics during the execution of several other programs display low-dimensional deterministic chaos, with sensibility to initial conditions comparable to textbook models. Taken together, these results confirm that program executions on modern microprocessor architectures can be considered as complex systems and would benefit from analysis with modern tools of nonlinear and complexity science. Isn't the noise in the system (with ensuing unpredictable behaviour) one of the main limits to how densely packed circuits on a chip can be? If computations are not precisely repeatable, then what is to stop my computer from garbling this email and sending it to some random destination? Now, in the case of complex analogue systems like human brains, it would be a different matter: you would expect classical chaos to have an effect, and different brain states might result even given the same inputs (or no inputs). We expect this unpredictability from people, but if our machines start behaving in a similar fashion, we assume that they're broken or incompetently designed. Is this an unfair double standard? --Stathis Papaioannou _ Dating? Try Lavalife get 7 days FREE! Sign up NOW. http://www.lavalife.com/clickthru/clickthru.act?id=ninemsncontext=an99a=20233locale=en_AU_t=33473
RE: where do copies come from?
Brent Meeker writes: I find it hard to believe that something as stable as memories that last for decades is encoded in a way dependent on ionic gradients across cell membranes and the type, number, distribution and conformation of receptor and ion channel proteins. What evidence is there for this? It seems much more likely that long term memory would be stored as configuration of neuronal connections. If anything, parameters such as ionic gradients and protein conformation are more closely regulated over time than gross anatomy. Gradients where? Surely you aren't saying that there is a pattern of gradients in the brain that is relative to (x,y,z) coordinates and is independent of the neuronal structures. The ionic gradients across cell membranes determine the transmembrane potential and how close the neuron is to the voltage threshold which will trigger an action potential by opening transmembrane ion channels. Other factors influencing this include the exact geometry of the neuron and composition of the cell membrane (which determines capacitance and the shape and speed of propagation of the action potential), the number, type and location of voltage-activated ion channels, the number, type and location of various neurotransmitter receptors, the local concentration of enzymes that break down neurotransmitters, and many other things besides. The ionic gradients across cell membranes (all cell membranes, not just neurons) are actively maintained within tight limits by energy-requiring transmembrane proteins, such as Na/K ATPase, and if this suddenly stops working, the cell will quickly die. The moment to moment variations in ion fluxes and membrane potential may be allowed to collapse and the neuron will remain structurally intact, so to this extent the exact cellular chemistry may not be necessary for long term memories. However, all the other things I have mentioned are important in determining the wiring diagram and strength of connections, and could easily be maintained over decades. Look up action potential in Wikipedia, and think about how you would design an equivalent circuit for even one neuron. It may be a ridiculously complex way to design a computer that would be able to run and maintain a human body, but whereas I would happily trade my heart or my kidneys for more efficiently engineered models, I would like any brain replacement to be an exact functional analogue of my present one. --Stathis Papaioannou _ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
Re: where do copies come from?
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: The ionic gradients across cell membranes determine the transmembrane potential and how close the neuron is to the voltage threshold which will trigger an action potential by opening transmembrane ion channels. Other factors influencing this include the exact geometry of the neuron and composition of the cell membrane (which determines capacitance and the shape and speed of propagation of the action potential), the number, type and location of voltage-activated ion channels, the number, type and location of various neurotransmitter receptors, the local concentration of enzymes that break down neurotransmitters, and many other things besides. The ionic gradients across cell membranes (all cell membranes, not just neurons) are actively maintained within tight limits by energy-requiring transmembrane proteins, such as Na/K ATPase, and if this suddenly stops working, the cell will quickly die. The moment to moment variations in ion fluxes and membrane potential may be allowed to collapse and the neuron will remain structurally intact, so to this extent the exact cellular chemistry may not be necessary for long term memories. However, all the other things I have mentioned are important in determining the "wiring diagram and strength of connections", and could easily be maintained over decades. Look up "action potential" in Wikipedia, and think about how you would design an equivalent circuit for even one neuron. It may be a ridiculously complex way to design a computer that would be able to run and maintain a human body, but whereas I would happily trade my heart or my kidneys for more efficiently engineered models, I would like any brain replacement to be an exact functional analogue of my present one. Stathis, you don't have to get down to that level of complexity. As long as the high level function remains the same, you can still say "yes doctor" to a substitution experiment. Example: artificial eye lenses made of plastic and not of tissue, prostheses made of titanium steel and not of bone. George
