Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Interleaving ONE tiny question: On 4/20/07, Jason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: (Jason:) "<...Personhood becomes fuzzy and a truly object treatment of conscious experience might do well to abandon the idea of personal identity altogether. ...>" Sais WHO? John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: JACOBI (was: Evidence for the simulation argument)
Le 25-avr.-07, à 13:06, Russell Standish a écrit : > > I enjoyed the allegory used here. An amusing and also intriguing post! > > BTW, "garderobe" is "wardrobe" in English, but the French word is so > much more apt. Thanks. John Mikes wrote: > Dear Bruno: > je suis emu aux larmes. You really took your time and made it > enjoyable. > The first that came to my dirty mind was that males are heterosexual > additions of any couple, females of any homosexual combination. > Products of heterosexuals are female, of homosexuals the same gender > as multiplied. > > I have to re-read your (confessedly long) essay on numbers again, > because at Jacobi I started to sweep through paragraphs and at > Einstein my eyes got glassy. > I have to find the punctum saliens where you jumped from number-topic > into the non-number world. > > I learned about Lagrange, Euler, in 1940-42, then again for Ph.D. in > 1947 then forgot them and the others before many of the esteemed > list-members were born. > > So allow me to reflect later and thanks again You are welcome. Take your time. What I was saying, is that I can understand your skepticism in front of "numberism". I have tried to illustrate that such fear are grounded. The relation between numbers are so deep that it is not excluded that a physical TOE could be extracted directly from number theory. But the advantage of extracting physics from the theology, i.e. from the interview of the universal machine, is that we get (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay), not only the physics (quanta), but also the qualia, the persons, the mind, etc. All the things usually put under the rug or abandon to the first local authority. So you see thare are numbers and numbers. It is possible to extract physics without ever leaving the third person realm, but that would lead to reductionnism. Thanks to Godel & Co., by interviewing directly the universal machine, we can extract physics, and "metaphysics", if you want. Actually it is a whole "plotinian-like" theology which is proposed by the self-observing chatty universal machine. As you can guess, the JACOBI post has been written little bit by little bit at home. I could do the same for the interview of the machine, because at work I am struggling with times and usual job oddities. Bruno PS Mark, my comment on Tegmark's diagram will be include in the explanation of what is the interview of the L. Machine as promised to John. Thanks for your patience. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: measure problem
Hi Max, in this particular universe it's going well, thank you! As promised, I had a look at your paper. I think it is well written and fun to read. I've got a few comments though, mostly on the nature of math vs computation, and why Goedel is sexy but not an issue when it comes to identifying possible mathematical structures / universes / formally describable things. I think some of the comments are serious enough to affect the conclusions. Some come with quotes from papers in http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/computeruniverse.html where several of your main issues are addressed. Some are marked by "Serious". I am making a cc to the everythingers, although it seems they are mostly interested in other things now - probably nobody is really going to read this tedious response which became much longer than I anticipated. 1. An abstract "baggage-free" mathematical structure does not exist any more than a "baggage-free" computer - the particular axiomatic system you choose is like the set of primitive instructions of the computer you choose. Not very serious, since for general computers and general axiomatic systems there are invariance theorems: changing the baggage often does not change a lot, so to speak. But it should be mentioned. 2. p 11: you say that data sampled from Gaussian random variables is incompressible - NOT true - give short codes to probable events (close to the mean), long codes to rare events (Huffman coding). 3. same sentence: how to test what inflation predicts? How to test whether the big bang seed was really random, not pseudo-random? The second million bits of pi look random but are not. We should search for short programs compressing the apparent randomness: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/randomness.html 4. p 15: Mathematical structure (MS) "just exists". Is that so? Others will look at your symbols and say they are just heaps of chalk on a blackboard, and you need a complex, wet pattern recognition system to interpret them. Here's where beliefs enter... 5. p 18: "mathematical structures, formal systems and computations are aspects of one underlying transcendent structure whose nature we don't fully understand" But we do! I'd say there are NO serious open problems with your figure 5 - formal systems vs math vs computation is a well-explored field. More about this below. The 2000 paper (your nr 17) exploits this understanding; it turns out the most convenient way to deal with the measure problem is the computer science way (right hand corner of your figure 5). As I wrote in the 2000 paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0011122 The algorithmic approach, however, offers several conceptual advantages: (1) It provides the appropriate framework for issues of information-theoretic complexity traditionally ignored in pure mathematics, and imposes natural complexity-based orderings on the possible universes and subsets thereof. (2) It taps into a rich source of theoretical insights on computable probability distributions relevant for establishing priors on possible universes. Such priors are needed for making probabilistic predictions concerning our own particular universe. Although Tegmark suggests that ``... all mathematical structures are a priori given equal statistical weight'' [#!Tegmark:98!#](p. 27), there is no way of assigning equal nonvanishing probability to all (infinitely many) mathematical structures. Hence we really need something like the complexity-based weightings discussed in [#!Schmidhuber:97brauer!#] and especially the paper at hand. (3) The algorithmic approach is the obvious framework for questions of temporal complexity such as those discussed in this paper, e.g., ``what is the most efficient way of simulating all universes?'' 6. Serious: run the sim, or just describe its program? Are you sure you know what you want to say here? What's the precise difference between program bitstrings and output bitstrings? The bitstrings generated by the programs (the descriptions) are just alternative descriptions of the universes, possibly less compact ones. You as an external observer may need yet another program that translates the output bits (typically a less compressed description) into video or something, to obtain the description your eyes want. Note that the 2000 paper and the 2002 journal variant don't really care for time evolution, just for descriptions - within the bitstrings maybe there is an observer who thinks he knows what's time, but to the outsider his concept of time may be irrelevant. (Unlike the 1997 paper, the 2000/2002 papers do not focus on a one to one mapping between physical and computational time steps, otherwise we'd miss all the universes where the concept of time is irrelevant.) Here's what I wrote at the end: "After all, algorithmic theories of the describable do encompass everything we will ever be able to talk and write about. Other things are simply beyond description." 7. Serious: p 18 CUH: what's your def of computable? Yo
Re: JACOBI (was: Evidence for the simulation argument)
Dear Bruno: je suis emu aux larmes. You really took your time and made it enjoyable. The first that came to my dirty mind was that males are heterosexual additions of any couple, females of any homosexual combination. Products of heterosexuals are female, of homosexuals the same gender as multiplied. I have to re-read your (confessedly long) essay on numbers again, because at Jacobi I started to sweep through paragraphs and at Einstein my eyes got glassy. I have to find the punctum saliens where you jumped from number-topic into the non-number world. I learned about Lagrange, Euler, in 1940-42, then again for Ph.D. in 1947 then forgot them and the others before many of the esteemed list-members were born. So allow me to reflect later and thanks again John On 4/25/07, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi John, > > The 24 Feb 2007, à 23:59, John Mikes wrote in parts, to Jason: > > > > Don't tell me please such "Brunoistic" examples like 1+1 = 2, go out > into the 'life' of a universe (or of ourselves). > > > > > All right, let me try to give you a less 'Brunoistic" relation among > numbers, if you can imagine this possible!. > > I am afraid this will be a long post, as I will point toward the > unravelling of the origin of the multiverses---and the mess within > :-) > > And I will not be theological, nor interview any universal machine, but > this little trip in the less brunoistic (hopefully) part of platonia > could perhaps help for explaining or illustrating the interview later. > > > > > But then I have to ask you, also, to accept a deep, but not so well > known, except by the Greeks of course, truth about numbers. > > (... making this post not for children, and probably neither > politically correct ...) > > > > But numbers have gender. > > > > You have male numbers and female numbers. The rule is simple: odd > numbers are male, and even numbers are female: > > > ODD = MALE;EVEN = FEMALE > > > > [Aparte: I guess the Greeks were a bit macho by thinking that the very > *first*, its majesty the one, 1, was a male. Today we are a bit more > modern, I guess, and we know that the big 1 is really situated in > between the two most terrible female of Platonia: the number 0 (death) > and the number 2 (Life, the Pythagorean Indefinite Dyad, ...). ... and > then comes 3, oh my! it's a boy! ...] > > > > TOC, TOC, TOC! > > > What's that now? Ooooh!!! ... a categorical daemon!!!: > "--- about life and death, 0 and 2, add the arrows! add the arrows!" >(Categorical daemons always ask you to add arrows). ... > "0 -> 2 = elementary creation operator, 2 -> 0 = elementary > annihilation operator, cup and cap in quantum topological Temperley > Lieb categories, ...". > > (ok, ok, keep calm, I manage the categorical daemon..) > > > Let us go back to pure (without arrows) numbers ... > > > > SURPRISE PARTY! > > Now, if numbers have gender, it obviously follows, mainly by addition > and multiplication, that, contrary to a widespread rumor about Platonia > austerity, there are many surprise parties in Platonia. Number > theorists would talk about *surprising partitions* but let us not be > distracted by vocabulary question (see the biblio below). > > And, of course, it follows from this that numbers have clothes: you > would'nt imagine a number going naked to a party, all right? > > Now, giving that we dispose only of numbers, together with addition and > multiplication, a clothe can only be a sum of product or a product of > sums, of numbers, including, for more decoration purpose (by pure > Platonia's frivolity!), integers: ..., -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ... > > > > THE FOUR SQUARE PARTY > > A very famous and popular party has always been the *four square* party > where numbers are permitted to participate only if disguised as a sum > of four squared integers. For exemple the number eleven can put the > following clothe: (-1)^2 + (-3)^2 + 0^2 + 1^2 = 1 + 9 + 0 + 1 = 11. The > order in the sum distinguishes the clothes: 1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 + 4^2 and > 4^2 + 1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 are two different clothes of the number 30, for > example. > > > Death has only one clothe, in its garde robe: 0 = 0^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 > > > And 1 ? One has eight clothes! > > > 1^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 > 0^2 + 1^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 > 0^2 + 0^2 + 1^2 + 0^2 > 0^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 + 1^2 > > and > > (-1)^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 > 0^2 + (-1)^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 > 0^2 + 0^2 + (-1)^2 + 0^2 > 0^2 + 0^2 + 0^2 + (-1)^2 > > > > And Life? The number 2, how big is her garde-robe? I let you play with > it. > > > > [ .. (= symbolic time you are playing with it), > of course take *your* time.] > > > > Answer: 24. > > > > H. > > > POPULARITY > > Where did the popularity of the four square party come from? Because > all natural numbers have four square clothes, i.e. any natural number > can be put in the form a^2 + b^2 + c^2 +d^2 for some a, b, c, d, > integers. Why? Because > > > LAGRANGE THEOREM (say so). > > > > And what is remarka
