Re: Confirmed: Reality is the dream of NUMBERS
Tom Caylor wrote: > On Nov 23, 4:29 pm, Colin Hales <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> "According to this article, the best we can do is to VIRTUALLY CONFIRM >> something. But since reality is VIRTUAL, according to this VIRTUAL >> CONFIRMATION, is not VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION equivalent, in reality, to >> CONFIRMATION?" >> >> 'Confirmation' (insofar as consistency with a model does that) of >> virtual particles as a model of appearances cannot be confused with a >> 'virtual' or 'AS-IF' confirmation. Scientists don't act 'as if' they do >> science. They actually do it, even if it's only the 'appearances' half >> of the pair of possible science models). So the above sentence conflates >> terms, which is why I thought you weren't serious. >> >> > > Yeah, that was me (really) with my virtual tongue in my virtual cheek > trying to be really funny (in reality), whether successful or not. > > gotcha! > >> Reality can be made of interacting 'somethings', where that 'something' >> has not even been uttered yet in any physics ever, and the results in >> the paper would still be as they are because all the scientists are >> doing is organising appearances. >> >> > > I'm just trying to wax philosophical here, but do you think that our > goal should actually be to utter that 'something'? Do you think we > could? Would we be able to understand it if we uttered it? Or is > this simply the realm of faith? As in Bruno's definition of reality, > it's the un-totally-explainable reason why we keep doing science? > *(a) Appearance Aspect* We utter all existing "laws of appearances" as 'laws of nature' knowing they are not actually proven. An alien with a totally different P-consciousness would have a completely different collection of "laws of appearances" which would be equally predictive (human and Alien agree on predictions, not laws of nature). *(b) Structure Aspect* OTOH, if we also allow ourselves to hypothesise 'structural primitives and their appropriate rule sets of interaction such that (a) an observer emerged and became a scientist with a P-consciousness and that simultaneously was consistent with (b) all the "laws of appearances". The 'structural primitives' and rules are no better known than. Human and Alien 'laws of structure' must converge, for both human and alien are made of it. You'd have to translate them into each other's syntax, but once translated they must be identical. *-* (a) is NOT reality, but about it. (b) is NOT reality, but about it. In both cases we have ambiguity and lack of certainty (in the sense of ultimate truth). So in what sense can anyone claim that in (a) we have accessed anything proven, ultimate or unique? They are all interim hypotheses of status "thus far not wrong" and predictive. Likewise in (b). So yes we can most certainly 'utter that something'we have no lesser grounds than we have to 'utter the existing appearances'. What we don't have any sane right to continue to do is install arbitrary beliefs based on maths rapture that (a) and (b) are identical or to install metabelief in (a) that enshrines (a) by assuming a structural role to certain (a) maths ... where both and have failed chronically for 2000 years to predict P-consciousness, which must clearly be the responsibility of (b), the noumenon for (a) science presupposes P-consciousness and scientists. *So yeah!. Let there be LOTS of such utterances and no more religious metabelief about (a)!* This result has come from years of forensic metascience on my part. Here's an extract from the 'Dual Aspect Science' paper: "A final contextual note. The idea of non-uniqueness of the knowledge bases (T and T') of human science is quite resonant with other shifts in perspective in the past. Human science must be a little sobered under the dual aspect framework because the laws originally constructed under a single aspect framework are recognised as non-unique and human-centric under a dual aspect framework. In going to dual aspect, human 'laws of nature' are displaced from the 'centre of knowledge' in the same way that the earth was displaced from the centre of the universe in the science of days gone by. On reflection it is impossible not to notice that if the transformation to dual aspect science is to have its objectors, those objectors can be seen to have the role of the church in the original scientific upheavals. The notional '/church of metabeliefs Figure 2(a) and 2(b)/' will provide us much food for thought!" /Figure 2(a) and 2(b) is a diagram pointing at metabeliefs / and above. T is the (a) aspect 'laws' and T' is the (b) aspect 'laws'. *Here's my abstract from the same paper:* "Our chronically impoverished explanatory capacity in respect of P-consciousness is used as a vehicle for exploration of the idea that the problem may be a problem with science itself, rather than its lack of acquisition of some
Re: Confirmed: Reality is the dream of NUMBERS
On Nov 23, 4:29 pm, Colin Hales <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "According to this article, the best we can do is to VIRTUALLY CONFIRM > something. But since reality is VIRTUAL, according to this VIRTUAL > CONFIRMATION, is not VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION equivalent, in reality, to > CONFIRMATION?" > > 'Confirmation' (insofar as consistency with a model does that) of > virtual particles as a model of appearances cannot be confused with a > 'virtual' or 'AS-IF' confirmation. Scientists don't act 'as if' they do > science. They actually do it, even if it's only the 'appearances' half > of the pair of possible science models). So the above sentence conflates > terms, which is why I thought you weren't serious. > Yeah, that was me (really) with my virtual tongue in my virtual cheek trying to be really funny (in reality), whether successful or not. > Reality can be made of interacting 'somethings', where that 'something' > has not even been uttered yet in any physics ever, and the results in > the paper would still be as they are because all the scientists are > doing is organising appearances. > I'm just trying to wax philosophical here, but do you think that our goal should actually be to utter that 'something'? Do you think we could? Would we be able to understand it if we uttered it? Or is this simply the realm of faith? As in Bruno's definition of reality, it's the un-totally-explainable reason why we keep doing science? > Getting back in boat, assuming merrily mode. It's as if I am rowing, > downstream. :-) > > cheers, > colin hales > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Confirmed: Reality is the dream of NUMBERS
Kim Jones wrote: > > On 24/11/2008, at 10:29 AM, Colin Hales wrote: > >> OK. I was rowing my apparently virtual boat merrily down the stream. >> But apparently that's not interesting enough. :-) > > > It's more interesting when you get a barbershop quartet to sing it as > a round - then you get polyphony! > > he he. >> >> >> VIRTUAL is just a word. "AS-IF" would be a good synonym. The >> physicists in question are trying to make sense of a *model* of >> appearances (how the world appears to them when they look). They can >> be 100% predictive (in the article now, 98% predictive) and be 100% >> not talking about what reality is made of. > > > Agreed - you have explained this very well in many of your other > posts. I'm not even a physicist's or a logician's or even a humble > mathematician's bootlace, so if I can understand you, that's a big > complement on the clarity of your exposition I think I might be a physicist's armpit or maybe the itchy bit that you just can't get at. :-) > >> The reason is that they build the phenomenal consciousness of the >> scientists into all laws whilst creating a set of laws of appearances >> that entirely and permanently fail to predict phenomenal >> consicousness. A system I am entirely fed up with and choose mostly >> to resign myself to (in the sense of I give up arguing about it). >> > > > So here I may need some help. Aren't you some kind of latter-day > Copenhagenist in this? Or are you saying scientists introduce the > observer as if real and then fail to see his reality in the data (as > somehow affecting the data?) I know this list has been pummelling away > at this issue for years, but I was just hoping that somebody for once > may have actually damped down the dust a little - as this article > suggests. Psychologist Carl Jung got very excited in the late 50s > after he gained a rudimentary understanding of particle physics from > Wolfgang Pauli and was completely over the moon about Heisenberg's > Uncertainty Principle because he had always believed in his heart of > hearts that reality was God's "dream" (he was a bit of a closet > theologian as well) and was seeing in all this confirmation of the > central place in the universe of human consciousness (the "psyche" as > he and Freud called it) > > He saw this as God's hand at work. Maybe this is tangential to the > point; I don't know I choose this: *Or are you saying scientists introduce the observer as if real and then fail to see his reality in the data (as somehow affecting the data?) *as me (ish) QM goes this far: (a) The human scientist is inside the system described. (b) In a scientific act the human is involved in the particular outcome. (c) The observation then acts in support of the QM model. QM's XYZ interpetation then says "reality if made of my flavour of math XYZ". and then runs off into the implications of the *math*, rather than what reality actually is. In other words they all attribute a QM "law of appearance" in some way as structural. The thing is that this mis-attribution fails because it fails in all ways to predict phenomenal (P-)consciousness. Prediction (c) is merely "contents of P-consciousness" = particular observation. I mean it (QM) fails to predict the existence of P-consciousness.which is EXACTLY the failure you would predict would occur if appearances were NOT structural in any way (or better - that descriptions of structure and descriptions of appearances are NOT the same thing). I am not saying that there is a discovery to be made in the existing paradigm of physics. I am saying that the discovery to be made is about OURSELVESwe must discover how to do science, rather than accept hand-me-down dogma from our ignorant forbears via the mentor/novice system, which is what actually happens. > > > >> Reality can be made of interacting 'somethings', where that >> 'something' has not even been uttered yet in any physics ever, and >> the results in the paper would still be as they are because all the >> scientists are doing is organising appearances. > > > I have absolutely no problem with that thought. Who would have even > DREAMED of Dark Matter and Dark Energy before they turned up? Your > separation of the two "systems" of thinking into the subjective world > of appearances and the phenomenal (virtual/"as-if") world strikes me > as extremely useful and simplifies a lot of the angels-on-pinheads > aspect to much of the relentless discussion going on. Once again, > we've been talking about "observer moments" for years. I imagine > there's a lot more talk still to come. > > I only ask (muse?) - can't they BOTH be true (the psychical/subjective > phenomenality AND the substratum - whatever that is: numbers, > mathematical objects, a primitive physical materiality, whatever?) > Considering most people are now entertaining serious notions of higher > dimensions, parallel universes and the like - it would seem there is
Re: MGA 2
On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 03:59:02PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > > I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious > > activity is not conscious. > > > > I agree with you. The point here is just that MEC+MAT implies it. > This I don't follow. I would have thought it implies the opposite. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Confirmed: Reality is the dream of NUMBERS
On 24/11/2008, at 10:29 AM, Colin Hales wrote: > OK. I was rowing my apparently virtual boat merrily down the stream. > But apparently that's not interesting enough. :-) It's more interesting when you get a barbershop quartet to sing it as a round - then you get polyphony! > > > VIRTUAL is just a word. "AS-IF" would be a good synonym. The > physicists in question are trying to make sense of a model of > appearances (how the world appears to them when they look). They can > be 100% predictive (in the article now, 98% predictive) and be 100% > not talking about what reality is made of. Agreed - you have explained this very well in many of your other posts. I'm not even a physicist's or a logician's or even a humble mathematician's bootlace, so if I can understand you, that's a big complement on the clarity of your exposition > The reason is that they build the phenomenal consciousness of the > scientists into all laws whilst creating a set of laws of > appearances that entirely and permanently fail to predict phenomenal > consicousness. A system I am entirely fed up with and choose mostly > to resign myself to (in the sense of I give up arguing about it). > So here I may need some help. Aren't you some kind of latter-day Copenhagenist in this? Or are you saying scientists introduce the observer as if real and then fail to see his reality in the data (as somehow affecting the data?) I know this list has been pummelling away at this issue for years, but I was just hoping that somebody for once may have actually damped down the dust a little - as this article suggests. Psychologist Carl Jung got very excited in the late 50s after he gained a rudimentary understanding of particle physics from Wolfgang Pauli and was completely over the moon about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle because he had always believed in his heart of hearts that reality was God's "dream" (he was a bit of a closet theologian as well) and was seeing in all this confirmation of the central place in the universe of human consciousness (the "psyche" as he and Freud called it) He saw this as God's hand at work. Maybe this is tangential to the point; I don't know > Reality can be made of interacting 'somethings', where that > 'something' has not even been uttered yet in any physics ever, and > the results in the paper would still be as they are because all the > scientists are doing is organising appearances. I have absolutely no problem with that thought. Who would have even DREAMED of Dark Matter and Dark Energy before they turned up? Your separation of the two "systems" of thinking into the subjective world of appearances and the phenomenal (virtual/"as-if") world strikes me as extremely useful and simplifies a lot of the angels-on-pinheads aspect to much of the relentless discussion going on. Once again, we've been talking about "observer moments" for years. I imagine there's a lot more talk still to come. I only ask (muse?) - can't they BOTH be true (the psychical/subjective phenomenality AND the substratum - whatever that is: numbers, mathematical objects, a primitive physical materiality, whatever?) Considering most people are now entertaining serious notions of higher dimensions, parallel universes and the like - it would seem there is room for both (dare I say) realities to co-exist (and associate via interference phenomena?) What that could possibly mean is up to someone with more clout than I to say > > > So in terms of the use of the word 'virtual' you seem to want to > discuss ... yes, it is 'as-if' the universe were made of fave from the zoo of particle/antiparticle pairs>. But the universe > could actually be made of something completely different and they'll > never know because they never let them consider the possibility of > separation of "appearance" and "structure"(that creates appearances > in humans made of the structure). So But that underscores the need for something like Bruno's comp hyp, surely. We can only BET on the higher realities. Goedel has kind of proven that we can never prove anything about them We are stuck on the inside of Nothing, as Russell says. > > > "According to this article, the best we can do is to VIRTUALLY CONFIRM > something. But since reality is VIRTUAL, according to this VIRTUAL > CONFIRMATION, is not VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION equivalent, in reality, to > CONFIRMATION?" > > 'Confirmation' (insofar as consistency with a model does that) of > virtual particles as a model of appearances cannot be confused with > a 'virtual' or 'AS-IF' confirmation. But you are saying scientists are regularly doing just that. Hence your ongoing frustration, yes? > Scientists don't act 'as if' they do science. They actually do it, > even if it's only the 'appearances' half of the pair of possible > science models). So the above sentence conflates terms, which is why >
Re: Confirmed: Reality is the dream of NUMBERS
OK. I was rowing my apparently virtual boat merrily down the stream. But apparently that's not interesting enough. :-) VIRTUAL is just a word. "AS-IF" would be a good synonym. The physicists in question are trying to make sense of a *model* of appearances (how the world appears to them when they look). They can be 100% predictive (in the article now, 98% predictive) and be 100% not talking about what reality is made of. The reason is that they build the phenomenal consciousness of the scientists into all laws whilst creating a set of laws of appearances that entirely and permanently fail to predict phenomenal consicousness. A system I am entirely fed up with and choose mostly to resign myself to (in the sense of I give up arguing about it). Reality can be made of interacting 'somethings', where that 'something' has not even been uttered yet in any physics ever, and the results in the paper would still be as they are because all the scientists are doing is organising appearances. So in terms of the use of the word 'virtual' you seem to want to discuss ... yes, it is 'as-if' the universe were made of . But the universe could _actually_ be made of something completely different and they'll never know because they never let them consider the possibility of separation of "appearance" and "structure"(that creates appearances in humans made of the structure). So "According to this article, the best we can do is to VIRTUALLY CONFIRM something. But since reality is VIRTUAL, according to this VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION, is not VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION equivalent, in reality, to CONFIRMATION?" 'Confirmation' (insofar as consistency with a model does that) of virtual particles as a model of appearances cannot be confused with a 'virtual' or 'AS-IF' confirmation. Scientists don't act 'as if' they do science. They actually do it, even if it's only the 'appearances' half of the pair of possible science models). So the above sentence conflates terms, which is why I thought you weren't serious. Getting back in boat, assuming merrily mode. It's as if I am rowing, downstream. :-) cheers, colin hales Kim Jones wrote: > Oh, somebody will stick their head up soon and disagree. Where would > all the fun and games be if some rash, working scientist actually > confirmed something? > > Counting angels on pinheads is a very satisfying intellectual pastime > for some - always was, always will be... > > K > > On 24/11/2008, at 7:18 AM, Tom Caylor wrote: > > >> I posted a comment to this article: >> >> "According to this article, the best we can do is to VIRTUALLY CONFIRM >> something. But since reality is VIRTUAL, according to this VIRTUAL >> CONFIRMATION, is not VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION equivalent, in reality, to >> CONFIRMATION?" >> >> On Nov 22, 6:45 pm, Colin Hales <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> I knew it >>> >>> "Row row row your boat >>> Gently down the stream >>> Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily >>> Life is but a dream." >>> >>> Is actually a law of nature... >>> >>> cheers >>> >>> Colin Hales >>> >>> >>> >>> Kim Jones wrote: >>> >>> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-m ... What's your definition of "reality"? It is whatever it is. It should be the roots of our knowledge and beliefs. It is what makes us bet on the physical realities, on the psychological realities, on the arithmetical realities and many other related realities, ... (Bruno Marchal) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://web.mac.com/kmjcommp/Plenitude_Music Phone: (612) 9389 4239 or 0431 723 001- Hide quoted text - >>> - Show quoted text - >>> >>> > > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 1 - (to B.M)
Bruno, right before my par on 'sharing a 3rd pers. opinion: >> more or less (maybe) resembling the original 'to >> be shared' one. In its (1st) 'personal' variation. (Cf: perceived >> reality). you included a remark not too dissimilar in essence, but with one word in it I want to reflect on: > The third person part is what the first person variant is a variant of. > I don't pretend we can know it. But if we don't bet on it, we become > solipsist. "Solipsist" !! I don't consider it a 'dirty word'. WE ARE solipsists, only our 1st person understanding represents the world for us, nothing else. I got that (and accepted) from Colin and use ever since the term (see above as well): "perceived reality" (I did not refer to that to Kim's question - sorry, Kim). Our "variant" is a manipulated version of the portion we indeed received - in any way and quality - by our 'mindset': the previous experience we collected, the genetic makeup of reacting to ideas, the actual state of our psyche (Stathis could tell all that much more professional...). Yet THAT variant is our (mini?) solipsism: that's what we are. So we should not fight being called a solipsist. Without such there would be no discussion, just zombies' acceptance. Respectfully John M On 11/23/08, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 23 Nov 2008, at 17:41, John Mikes wrote: > >> >> On 11/23/08, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>> >>> About mechanism, the optimist reasons like that. I love myself >>> because >>> I have a so interesting life with so many rich experiences. Now you >>> tell me I am a machine. So I love machine because machine *can* have >>> rich experiences, indeed, myself is an example. >>> The pessimist reasons like that. I hate myself because my life is >>> boringly uninteresting without any rich experiences. Now you tell >>> me I >>> am a machine. I knew it! My own life confirms that rumor according to >>> which machine are stupid automata. No meaning no future. >> >> (JM): thanks Bruno, for the nice metaphor of 'machine' - > > > It was the "pessimist metaphor". I hope you know I am a bit more > optimist, ... with regard to machines. > > > >> In my vocabulary >> a machine is a model exercising a mechanism, but chacquun a son gout. > > We agree on the definition. > > > >>> >>> > > > >> (JM): Bruno, in my opinion NOTHING is 'third person sharable' - only a >> 'thing' (from every- or no-) can give rise to develop a FIRST personal >> variant of the sharing, > > The third person part is what the first person variant is a variant of. > I don't pretend we can know it. But if we don't bet on it, we become > solipsist. > > > >> more or less (maybe) resembling the original 'to >> be shared' one. In its (1st) 'personal' variation. (Cf: perceived >> reality). > > Building theories help to learn how false we can be. We have to take > our theories seriously, make then precise and clear enough if we want > to see the contradiction and learn from there. Oh we can also > contemplate, meditate, or listen to music; or use (legal) entheogen, > why not, there are many paths, not incompatible. But reasoning up to a > contradiction, pure or with the facts, is the way of the researcher. > > 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 [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: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 22:09, Günther Greindl wrote: > > Bruno, > >> From this we can extract a logic of the observable proposition and >> compare with the empirical quantum logic, making comp testable, and >> already tested on its most weird consequences, retrospectively. > > you could refute COMP (MEC) if it would contradict empirical QM, but > QM > (and especially many worlds) is also compatible with MAT (and NOT > COMP). I think you are correct, but allowing the observer to be mechanically described as obeying the wave equation (which solutions obeys to comp), is the main motivation for the Many-World. Why not saying directly that the mind collapse the wave then? I mean Everett is really SWE+COMP. (or weakening of COMP). I think that the wave collapse has been invented for both keeping the physical universe unique, but also making the observer beyond science. > > > These would be Tegmark's Level I and II universes - infinite physical > (or mathematical physicalist as defined by Kory) universes with matter > permuting in all possible ways. If you then let consciousness > supervene > on matter (but not in a COMP way (see MGA) - maybe because of local > infinities or whatever) and with UNIFICATION you would also get a many > worlds scenario (also in the sense that for a 1st person one would > have > to look at the MAT-histories running through every OM) > > In your posts you do seem to have a preference for COMP (although you > say you don't have a position ;-) but I think you definitely lean more > to COMP than to MAT - are there reasons for this or is it only a > personal predilection? It is the same reason why someone in the dark can be searching its key only under the lamp. Elsewhere there is no chance he finds it. With comp we do have a theory of mind. With MAT we haven't (except bibles, myth, etc.). There is no standard notion of mat histories, no satisfying notion of wholeness (like the deployment with comp). To have MAT correct, you have to accept not only actual infinities, but concrete actual infinities that you cannot approximate with Turing machine, nor with Turing Machine with oracle. You are a bit back to literal angels and fairies ... Of course MAT + not COMP is consistent. Many catholic theological reading of Aristotelian based Matter theory propose similar idea making the soul "material" at some point. To my knowledge, Penrose is the only scientist which endorses this kind of views, allowing gravitation to play a role in the collapse. Its motivation from Godel's theorem are not correct, but its main "NON COMP or NOT MAT" starting intuition is valid with respect to MGA-UDA. As I said many times, COMP is my favorite working *hypothesis*. It is my bread (or should be ...). I like it because it makes a part of philosophy or theology a science. We can doubt it, discuss it, and even refute it, with some chance, or confirme. MAT has been a wonderful methodological assumption, but it has always being incoherent, or eliminativist on the mind. > > p.s.: I am looking forward to your further MGA posts (how far will > they > go, you have hinted up to MGA 5?) and the ensuing discussion, I have > very much enjoyed reading all this stuff. Thanks. And so you believe that MAT+MEC makes Alice conscious through the projection of its brain movie! You really want me to show this is absurd. It is not so easy, and few people find this necessary, but I will do asap (MGA 3). MGA 4 is for those who make a special sort of objection which has not yet appeared, or those who will make a special objection to MGA 3, so ..., well I will do it because it puts more light on the meaning of the computational supervenience thesis. But MGA 4 is really ... Maudlin. And MGA 5 should be just a form of OCCAM razor, but I don't think this will be necessary, except perhaps for some last Advocate's devils and theoreticians of the Conspiracies :) I will due this hopefully this week. Thanks for the patience. 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 [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: MGA 2
Hi, Le dimanche 23 novembre 2008 à 22:09 +0100, Günther Greindl a écrit : > Bruno, > > > From this we can extract a logic of the observable proposition and > > compare with the empirical quantum logic, making comp testable, and > > already tested on its most weird consequences, retrospectively. > > you could refute COMP (MEC) if it would contradict empirical QM, but QM > (and especially many worlds) is also compatible with MAT (and NOT COMP). It is. > These would be Tegmark's Level I and II universes - infinite physical > (or mathematical physicalist as defined by Kory) universes with matter > permuting in all possible ways. That was my point about finite "block" of universe... even if the universe is infinite every finite block of it contains finite numbers of matter hence a finite numbers (however big it is) of possible permutations of the matter within it (even if you take the maximal permutations of fully filled "block" of matters). That's what I call the divx arguments :) What you see (or what any human could see) however big is the resolution of the picture is still finite data. Example, imagine that our eyes resolution is 10⁵x10⁵ and we are able to "see" 10³ pictures per second... then a human lifetime of seeing is encodable in a string of 10⁵x10⁵x3x10³x60x60x24x365x~100 bits (3 for 3 bytes per pixel for 16.5 millions color not even discernable by us, 100 for a 100 years of lifetime) not taking "compression" in account.. it's (very⁵) big but finite (and I did take a very⁵ high resolution) and all humans seeing will be encodable with all permutations available on a string of this length. Which is even bigger but still finite. > If you then let consciousness supervene > on matter (but not in a COMP way (see MGA) - maybe because of local > infinities or whatever) and with UNIFICATION you would also get a many > worlds scenario (also in the sense that for a 1st person one would have > to look at the MAT-histories running through every OM) If infinities are at play... what is a MAT-history ? it can't even be "written". > In your posts you do seem to have a preference for COMP (although you > say you don't have a position ;-) but I think you definitely lean more > to COMP than to MAT - are there reasons for this or is it only a > personal predilection? > > Cheers, > Günther > > p.s.: I am looking forward to your further MGA posts (how far will they > go, you have hinted up to MGA 5?) and the ensuing discussion, I have > very much enjoyed reading all this stuff. > > Regards, Quentin -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
Bruno, > From this we can extract a logic of the observable proposition and > compare with the empirical quantum logic, making comp testable, and > already tested on its most weird consequences, retrospectively. you could refute COMP (MEC) if it would contradict empirical QM, but QM (and especially many worlds) is also compatible with MAT (and NOT COMP). These would be Tegmark's Level I and II universes - infinite physical (or mathematical physicalist as defined by Kory) universes with matter permuting in all possible ways. If you then let consciousness supervene on matter (but not in a COMP way (see MGA) - maybe because of local infinities or whatever) and with UNIFICATION you would also get a many worlds scenario (also in the sense that for a 1st person one would have to look at the MAT-histories running through every OM) In your posts you do seem to have a preference for COMP (although you say you don't have a position ;-) but I think you definitely lean more to COMP than to MAT - are there reasons for this or is it only a personal predilection? Cheers, Günther p.s.: I am looking forward to your further MGA posts (how far will they go, you have hinted up to MGA 5?) and the ensuing discussion, I have very much enjoyed reading all this stuff. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Confirmed: Reality is the dream of NUMBERS
Oh, somebody will stick their head up soon and disagree. Where would all the fun and games be if some rash, working scientist actually confirmed something? Counting angels on pinheads is a very satisfying intellectual pastime for some - always was, always will be... K On 24/11/2008, at 7:18 AM, Tom Caylor wrote: > > I posted a comment to this article: > > "According to this article, the best we can do is to VIRTUALLY CONFIRM > something. But since reality is VIRTUAL, according to this VIRTUAL > CONFIRMATION, is not VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION equivalent, in reality, to > CONFIRMATION?" > > On Nov 22, 6:45 pm, Colin Hales <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> I knew it >> >> "Row row row your boat >> Gently down the stream >> Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily >> Life is but a dream." >> >> Is actually a law of nature... >> >> cheers >> >> Colin Hales >> >> >> >> Kim Jones wrote: >> >>> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-m >>> ... >> >>> What's your definition of "reality"? >> >>> It is whatever it is. >>> It should be the roots of our knowledge and beliefs. It is what >>> makes >>> us bet on the physical realities, on the psychological realities, on >>> the arithmetical realities and many other related realities, ... >>> (Bruno >>> Marchal) >> >>> Email: >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> >>> Web: >>> http://web.mac.com/kmjcommp/Plenitude_Music >> >>> Phone: >>> (612) 9389 4239 or 0431 723 001- Hide quoted text - >> >> - Show quoted text - > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 21:21, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> On 23 Nov 2008, at 15:48, Kory Heath wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your
objection to saying that the looked up computation is also
conscious?
How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical
contradiction?
>>> I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's "Duplication" or
>>> "Unification" question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life
>>> universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run
>>> is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and
>>> iterate
>>> the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you
>>> think
>>> "yes", you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say
>>> "no", you accept Unification.
>>>
>>> Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my
>>> thought
>>> experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't
>>> understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should
>>> create
>>> another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life
>>> computations are being performed. We could just print them out on
>>> (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this
>>> supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out
>>> all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay
>>> them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. I argue
>>> that if running the original computation a second time would
>>> create a
>>> second experience of pain, we can generate a "partial zombie".
>>>
>>> Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no
>>> "partial
>>> zombie" problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept
>>> Unification? Or am I missing something else?
>>
>>
>> Unification, I would say. But we have to be careful, unification
>> becomes duplication or n-plication if the computations diverge. This
>> does not change the content of the experience of the person, which
>> remains unique, but it can change the relative personal probabilities
>> of such content. I wrote once: Y = || ("multiplication" of the future
>> secures the past). Third person bifurcation of histories/
>> computations
>> = first person differentiation of consciousness. But to go in the
>> detail here would confront us with the not simple task of defining
>> more precisely what is a computation, or what we will count has two
>> identical computations in the deployment. Eventually I bypass this
>> hard question by asking directly what sound Lobian machines can
>> "think" about that ... leading to AUDA (arithmetical uda). But
>> unification, in Bostrom's sense, is at play, from the first person
>> experience. Alice dreamed of the Mushroom only once. But if we wake
>> up
>> by projecting the end of the movie on an operational optical boolean
>> graph, simultaneously (or not) in Washington and in Moscow, then,
>> although the experience of the dreams remains unique, the experience
>> of remembering the dream will be multiplied by two. Indeed one in
>> Moscow, once in Washington.
>
> Why do they count as two instances? Because they supervene on
> physical
> processes that are spacially distinct? That would assume that
> spacetime is
> fundamental. Or is it because you assume that remembering the dream
> isn't
> distinct process but must be mixed with other experiences related to
> the location?
The last one. Unless the person has not yet opened the door of the
"reconstitution box", the experience of remembering the dream in
Washington is a different experience of the remembering the dream in
Moscow. For reason of climate, people to who relating the dream, etc.
The two "computations" executed by Alice brain diverge because they
have different inputs.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: MGA 2
Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 23 Nov 2008, at 15:48, Kory Heath wrote:
>
>>
>> On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>> Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your
>>> objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious?
>>> How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical
>>> contradiction?
>> I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's "Duplication" or
>> "Unification" question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life
>> universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run
>> is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and iterate
>> the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you think
>> "yes", you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say
>> "no", you accept Unification.
>>
>> Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my thought
>> experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't
>> understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should create
>> another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life
>> computations are being performed. We could just print them out on
>> (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this
>> supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out
>> all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay
>> them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. I argue
>> that if running the original computation a second time would create a
>> second experience of pain, we can generate a "partial zombie".
>>
>> Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no "partial
>> zombie" problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept
>> Unification? Or am I missing something else?
>
>
> Unification, I would say. But we have to be careful, unification
> becomes duplication or n-plication if the computations diverge. This
> does not change the content of the experience of the person, which
> remains unique, but it can change the relative personal probabilities
> of such content. I wrote once: Y = || ("multiplication" of the future
> secures the past). Third person bifurcation of histories/computations
> = first person differentiation of consciousness. But to go in the
> detail here would confront us with the not simple task of defining
> more precisely what is a computation, or what we will count has two
> identical computations in the deployment. Eventually I bypass this
> hard question by asking directly what sound Lobian machines can
> "think" about that ... leading to AUDA (arithmetical uda). But
> unification, in Bostrom's sense, is at play, from the first person
> experience. Alice dreamed of the Mushroom only once. But if we wake up
> by projecting the end of the movie on an operational optical boolean
> graph, simultaneously (or not) in Washington and in Moscow, then,
> although the experience of the dreams remains unique, the experience
> of remembering the dream will be multiplied by two. Indeed one in
> Moscow, once in Washington.
Why do they count as two instances? Because they supervene on physical
processes that are spacially distinct? That would assume that spacetime is
fundamental. Or is it because you assume that remembering the dream isn't
distinct process but must be mixed with other experiences related to the
location?
Brent
Brent
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Re: Confirmed: Reality is the dream of NUMBERS
I posted a comment to this article: "According to this article, the best we can do is to VIRTUALLY CONFIRM something. But since reality is VIRTUAL, according to this VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION, is not VIRTUAL CONFIRMATION equivalent, in reality, to CONFIRMATION?" On Nov 22, 6:45 pm, Colin Hales <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I knew it > > "Row row row your boat > Gently down the stream > Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily > Life is but a dream." > > Is actually a law of nature... > > cheers > > Colin Hales > > > > Kim Jones wrote: > > >http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-m... > > > What's your definition of "reality"? > > > It is whatever it is. > > It should be the roots of our knowledge and beliefs. It is what makes > > us bet on the physical realities, on the psychological realities, on > > the arithmetical realities and many other related realities, ...(Bruno > > Marchal) > > > Email: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Web: > >http://web.mac.com/kmjcommp/Plenitude_Music > > > Phone: > > (612) 9389 4239 or 0431 723 001- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
Kory Heath wrote: > > On Nov 22, 2008, at 1:10 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: >> So why should it make a difference >> whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a >> huge look-up table? > > The difference is in the number of times that the relevant computation > was physically implemented. When you query the lookup table to get a > bit, you are not performing the computation again. You're just viewing > the result of the computation you did earlier. It seems to me that > this matters for Duplicationists, but maybe not for Unificationists. > > Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, > when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as > performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time? Why shouldn't it? Suppose your recording device uses a compression algorithm and suppose the compression algorithm is so efficient the compressed recording is no bigger than the Conway's Life program plus the initial state information. Brent >In > that case there would be nothing problematic about this thought > experiment for Duplicationists or Unificationists. But I don't see how > playing back the lookup table can count as implementing the Conway's > Life computations. > > -- Kory > > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 17:23, A. Wolf wrote:
>
>>> Since when can consciousness be an instantaneous event?
>>
>> Oops! replace with (Dx,Dt). I have no deltas.
>
> Yeah, but still. I don't think consciousness can be freeze-framed
> mathematically like this. I haven't been reading the conversation,
> though...I should probably try to catch up.
You are welcome.
You seem to know a bit of logic, so you could read the paper UDA +
AUDA paper here:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html
Well you arrive at the end (of the first part?) of a more than 10
years conversation but it is NEVER too late :)
I am currently explaining the Movie Graph Argument, which is the 8th
step of the Universal Dovetailer Argument. The UDA is supposed to
show, or shows, that mechanism and physicalism (or materialism,
naturalism) are incompatible. It shows that if mechanism is true,
physics has to be derived from numbers and logic.
The AUDA is about the same explained to, or by, a lobian machine,
which is a universal machine knowing she is universal (or if you know
logic: a Sigma_1 theorem prover which can prove all sentences of the
shape S -> Bew('S'), S Sigma_1. Peano Arithmetic, the formal theory,
can readily be transformed into such a finitely presentable machine.
From this we can extract a logic of the observable proposition and
compare with the empirical quantum logic, making comp testable, and
already tested on its most weird consequences, retrospectively.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: MGA 1
On 23 Nov 2008, at 17:41, John Mikes wrote: > > On 11/23/08, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> About mechanism, the optimist reasons like that. I love myself >> because >> I have a so interesting life with so many rich experiences. Now you >> tell me I am a machine. So I love machine because machine *can* have >> rich experiences, indeed, myself is an example. >> The pessimist reasons like that. I hate myself because my life is >> boringly uninteresting without any rich experiences. Now you tell >> me I >> am a machine. I knew it! My own life confirms that rumor according to >> which machine are stupid automata. No meaning no future. > > (JM): thanks Bruno, for the nice metaphor of 'machine' - It was the "pessimist metaphor". I hope you know I am a bit more optimist, ... with regard to machines. > In my vocabulary > a machine is a model exercising a mechanism, but chacquun a son gout. We agree on the definition. >> >> > (JM): Bruno, in my opinion NOTHING is 'third person sharable' - only a > 'thing' (from every- or no-) can give rise to develop a FIRST personal > variant of the sharing, The third person part is what the first person variant is a variant of. I don't pretend we can know it. But if we don't bet on it, we become solipsist. > more or less (maybe) resembling the original 'to > be shared' one. In its (1st) 'personal' variation. (Cf: perceived > reality). Building theories help to learn how false we can be. We have to take our theories seriously, make then precise and clear enough if we want to see the contradiction and learn from there. Oh we can also contemplate, meditate, or listen to music; or use (legal) entheogen, why not, there are many paths, not incompatible. But reasoning up to a contradiction, pure or with the facts, is the way of the researcher. 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 [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: QTI & euthanasia (brouillon)
On 23 Nov 2008, at 17:46, John Mikes wrote: > > And how much is that "2 kg" in that 'other' universe? Like two kg, when weighted on Earth. I was literal for the sake of the reasoning. 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 [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: QTI & euthanasia (brouillon)
And how much is that "2 kg" in that 'other' universe? JM On 11/23/08, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 20 Nov 2008, at 19:08, m.a. wrote: > >> >> >> Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>> Let us go back to the point. The point of MGA is to show that MEC + >>> MAT implies a contradiction. You can see that it is equivalent with >>> - the proposition saying that MEC implies NON MAT (mechanism >>> refutes materialism). >>> - the proposition saying that MAT implies NON MECH (materialism >>> refutes mechanism) >>> >>> Now, MECH implies " NON MAT" can be made constructive. This means >>> MECH provides the complete constraints of how a physical laws looks >>> like and come from, meaning physics is a branch of computationalist >>> theory of mind (itself a branch of number theory, in a slightest >>> more general sense of "number"). >>> >>> Now, imagine that luckily we arrive at a proof that the >>> "arithmetical" electron weights two kg. Then we will know that >>> mechanism is false. >> >> But only in our universe, right. In some other universe couldn't >> electrons actually weigh 2kg? > > > Not really. If we prove that electrons (assuming we can defined them > in the physics extracted from comp) weigh 2 kg, then they have 2 kg in > all possible universes. If there is an 1,9 kg electron in some > universe, that could be used as a counter-example showing that the > proof was not valid, or that comp is false. > > 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 [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: MGA 1
On 11/23/08, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 20 Nov 2008, at 21:40, Gordon Tsai wrote: > >> Bruno: >>I think you and John touched the fundamental issues of human >> rational. It's a dilemma encountered by phenomenology. Now I have a >> question: In theory we can't distinguish ourselves from a Lobian >> Machine. > (JM): Dear Gordon, thanks for your consent. My reply is shorter than Bruno's (Indeed professional - long - one): "If we say so": 'We' created a "machine" as we wish and if we created it 'that way', we cannot distinguish ourselves from it. > >(Bruno): > Note that in the math part (Arithmetical UDA), I consider only > "*Sound* Lobian machine". Sound means hat they are never wrong > (talking about numbers). Now no sound Lobian machine can know that she > is sound, and I am not yet sure I will find an interesting notion of > lobianity for unsound machines, and sound Lobian Machine can easily > get unsound, especially when they begin to confuse deductive inference > and inductive inference. We just cannot know if we are (sound) Lobian > Machine. > It is more something we should hope for ... > >> But can lobian machines truly have sufficient rich experiences like >> human? > > You know, Mechanism is a bit like the half bottle of wine. The > optimist thinks that the bottle is "yet half full", and the pessimist > thinks that the bottles is "already half-empty". > About mechanism, the optimist reasons like that. I love myself because > I have a so interesting life with so many rich experiences. Now you > tell me I am a machine. So I love machine because machine *can* have > rich experiences, indeed, myself is an example. > The pessimist reasons like that. I hate myself because my life is > boringly uninteresting without any rich experiences. Now you tell me I > am a machine. I knew it! My own life confirms that rumor according to > which machine are stupid automata. No meaning no future. (JM): thanks Bruno, for the nice metaphor of 'machine' - In my vocabulary a machine is a model exercising a mechanism, but chacquun a son gout. With a mechanism I am differently: I like to expand it onto something like 'anything (process) that gets something entailed' without restrictions. But again, I do not propose this to universal acceptance. > >> For example, is it possible for a lobian machine to "still its mind' >> or "cease the computational logic" like some eastern philosophy >> suggested? Maybe any of the out-of-loop experience is still part of >> the computation/logic, just as our out-of-body experiences are >> actually the trick of brain chemicals? > > The bad news is that the singular point is, imo, behind us. The > universal machine you bought has been clever, but this has been > shadowed by your downloadling on so many particular purposes software. > And then she need to be "in a body" so that you can use it, as a if it > was a sort of slave, to send me a mail. It will take time for them > too. And once a universal machine has a body or a relative > representation, the first person and the third person get rich and > complex, but possibly confused. Its soul falls, would say Plotin. She > can get hallucinated and all that. > > With comp, to be very short and bit provocative, the notion of "out-of- > body" experience makes no sense at all because we don't have a body to > go out of it, at the start. Your body is in your head, if I can say. > > This is at least a *consequence* of the assumption of mechanism, and > I'm afraid you have to understand that by yourself, a bit like a > theorem in math. But it is third person sharable, for example by UDA, > I think. it leads I guess to a different view on Reality (different > from the usual Theology of Aristotle, but not different from Plato > Theology, roughly speaking). (JM): Bruno, in my opinion NOTHING is 'third person sharable' - only a 'thing' (from every- or no-) can give rise to develop a FIRST personal variant of the sharing, more or less (maybe) resembling the original 'to be shared' one. In its (1st) 'personal' variation. (Cf: perceived reality). > > You can ask any question, but my favorite one are the naive question :) > > Bruno Marchal > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > (JM): John Mikes > > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
>> Since when can consciousness be an instantaneous event? > > Oops! replace with (Dx,Dt). I have no deltas. Yeah, but still. I don't think consciousness can be freeze-framed mathematically like this. I haven't been reading the conversation, though...I should probably try to catch up. Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 1
On 11/22/08, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > John Mikes wrote: >> Brent, >> did your dog communicate to you (in dogese, of course) that she has - NO - >> INNER NARRATIVE? or you are just ignorant to perceive such? >> (Of course do not expect such at the complexity level of your 11b neurons) >> John M > > Of course not. It's my inference from the fact that my dog has no outer > narrative. Have you read Julian Jaynes "The Origin of Consciousness in the > Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind"? He argues, persuasively in my opinion, > that our inner narrative arises from internalizing our outer narrative, i.e. > spoken communication with other people. > > Brent Brent, I appreciate your 'consenting' reply - however - yes, I read (long ago) J. Jaynes and appreciated MOST of his ideas, do not accept him as substitute (verbal) opinion in our presently ongoing discussion. We may have ideas generated after (in spite of?) J.J. Yet - in your reply - the "spoken communication with other people" refers in the present topic to communication in 'dogese' (with other dogs?) so your argument is still in limbo. Just for the fun of it John Mikes > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 15:48, Kory Heath wrote:
>
>
> On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>> Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your
>> objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious?
>> How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical
>> contradiction?
>
> I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's "Duplication" or
> "Unification" question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life
> universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run
> is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and iterate
> the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you think
> "yes", you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say
> "no", you accept Unification.
>
> Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my thought
> experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't
> understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should create
> another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life
> computations are being performed. We could just print them out on
> (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this
> supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out
> all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay
> them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. I argue
> that if running the original computation a second time would create a
> second experience of pain, we can generate a "partial zombie".
>
> Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no "partial
> zombie" problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept
> Unification? Or am I missing something else?
Unification, I would say. But we have to be careful, unification
becomes duplication or n-plication if the computations diverge. This
does not change the content of the experience of the person, which
remains unique, but it can change the relative personal probabilities
of such content. I wrote once: Y = || ("multiplication" of the future
secures the past). Third person bifurcation of histories/computations
= first person differentiation of consciousness. But to go in the
detail here would confront us with the not simple task of defining
more precisely what is a computation, or what we will count has two
identical computations in the deployment. Eventually I bypass this
hard question by asking directly what sound Lobian machines can
"think" about that ... leading to AUDA (arithmetical uda). But
unification, in Bostrom's sense, is at play, from the first person
experience. Alice dreamed of the Mushroom only once. But if we wake up
by projecting the end of the movie on an operational optical boolean
graph, simultaneously (or not) in Washington and in Moscow, then,
although the experience of the dreams remains unique, the experience
of remembering the dream will be multiplied by two. Indeed one in
Moscow, once in Washington.
Bruno
>
>
> -- Kory
>
>
> >
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 16:06, A. Wolf wrote: > >> We have to go from consciousness at (dx,dt) > > Since when can consciousness be an instantaneous event? Oops! replace with (Dx,Dt). I have no deltas. Bruno > > > Anna > > > > 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: MGA 2
On Nov 22, 2008, at 1:10 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: > So why should it make a difference > whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a > huge look-up table? The difference is in the number of times that the relevant computation was physically implemented. When you query the lookup table to get a bit, you are not performing the computation again. You're just viewing the result of the computation you did earlier. It seems to me that this matters for Duplicationists, but maybe not for Unificationists. Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time? In that case there would be nothing problematic about this thought experiment for Duplicationists or Unificationists. But I don't see how playing back the lookup table can count as implementing the Conway's Life computations. -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
> We have to go from consciousness at (dx,dt) Since when can consciousness be an instantaneous event? Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
On 23 Nov 2008, at 04:46, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > wrote: > > 2008/11/23 Kory Heath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like > the > > creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the > > Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our > > previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the > > grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the > > cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will > > (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in > > its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled > from > > the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's > consciousness? > > Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your > objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? > How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical > contradiction? > > > I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious > activity is not conscious. I agree with you. The point here is just that MEC+MAT implies it. > My argument being that static information has no implicit meaning > because there are an infinite number of ways a bit string can be > interpreted. The point is, or will be, that as far as the string is complex enough to part of some of history, and to bet on some continuation of that history, she will not "feel" statics at all, from her point of view. > However in a running program the values of the bits do have > implicit meaning according to the rules of the state machine. Relatively to you, and relatively to most common probable history/ computation that you share with that running program. > > What makes this weird is that in one respect our universe might be > considered a 4-d recording, containing a record of computations > performed by neurons and brains across one of its dimensions. > Perhaps this is further evidence in support of Bruno's theory: mind > cannot exist in a physical universe because it is just a recording > of a computation, and only the actual computation itself can create > consciousness. I would say that all computations exist (already in "arihmetical truth"), and "actual" is a "possible computation" as seen from inside". Actuallity last as long as consistency. Consciousness differentiates on the path, as seen in the path. This is more related to the first steps than UDA than MGA. If we abandon physical supervenience, we have to define a sufficiently good notion of computational supervenience. But the UD and its deployment gives not much choice. We have to go from consciousness at (dx,dt) = physical state at (dx, dt)(sup- phys) to consciousness of (dx, dt)= computational state,(sup-comp) And we have to explain the appearance of both consciousness at (dx,dt) and physical state at (dx, dt) from sup-comp. With a naïve view on computations, there are too much white rabbits, but computer science and logic can be used to show this issue is far from simple. 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 [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: MGA 2
On Nov 22, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your > objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious? > How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical > contradiction? I can only answer this in the context of Bostrom's "Duplication" or "Unification" question. Let's say that within our Conway's Life universe, one particular creature feels a lot of pain. After the run is over, if we load the Initial State back into the array and iterate the rules again, is another experience of pain occurring? If you think "yes", you accept Duplication by Bostrom's definition. If you say "no", you accept Unification. Duplication is more intuitive to me, and you might say that my thought experiment is aimed at Duplicationists. In that context, I don't understand why playing back the lookup table as a movie should create another experience of pain. None of the actual Conway's Life computations are being performed. We could just print them out on (very large) pieces of paper and flip them like a book. Is this supposed to generate an experience of pain? What if we just lay out all the pages in a row and move our eyes across them? What if we lay them out randomly and move our eyes across them? And so on. I argue that if running the original computation a second time would create a second experience of pain, we can generate a "partial zombie". Stathis, Brent, and Bruno have all suggested that there is no "partial zombie" problem in my argument. Is that because you all accept Unification? Or am I missing something else? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 1
On 23 Nov 2008, at 03:24, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > 2008/11/23 Kory Heath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> >> >> On Nov 22, 2008, at 2:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> Yes, there must be a problem with the assumptions. The only >>> assumption >>> that I see we could eliminate, painful though it might be for >>> those of >>> a scientific bent, is the idea that consciousness supervenes on >>> physical activity. Q.E.D. >> >> Right. But the problem is that that conclusion doesn't tell me how to >> deal with the (equally persuasive) arguments that convince me there's >> something deeply correct about viewing consciousness in computational >> terms, and viewing computation in physical terms. So I'm really just >> left with a dilemma. As I've hinted earlier, I suspect that there's >> something wrong with the idea of "physical matter" and related ideas >> like causality, probability, etc. But that's pretty vague. > > We could say there are two aspects to mathematical objects, a physical > aspect and a non-physical aspect. Whenever we interact with the number > "three" it must be realised, say in the form of three objects. But > there is also an abstract three, with threeness properties, that lives > in Platonia independently of any realisation. Similarly, whenever we > interact with a computation, it must be realised on a physical > computer, such as a human brain. But there is also the abstract > computation, a Platonic object. It seems that consciousness, like > threeness, may be a property of the Platonic object, and not of its > physical realisation. This allows resolution of the apparent paradoxes > we have been discussing. I agree with you. It resolves the conceptual problems about mind and matter, but if forces us to redefine matter from how "consciousness differentiate in Platonia" (this comes from MGA + ... UDA(1..7). Comp really reduce the mind body problem to the body problem: it remains to show we don't have too much white rabbits. But the problem is a pure problem in computer science now. 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 [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: MGA 2
On Nov 22, 2008, at 1:56 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: > But how would they agree on this? If we knew the answer to that we > wouldn't > need to be considering these (nomologically) impossible thought > experiments. They would use the same criteria that they use to decide that humans are conscious in our own world, which would be a combination of observing outward behavior (Turing-Test), and observing brain states. In one sense, that would be harder, because the conscious beings in the Life universe will look very different than us. In another sense it would be easier, because they'd have access to every bit of the Life universe. Am I confusing "mechanism" with something else? "Functionalism"? "Computationalism"? -- Kory --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: MGA 2
On 22 Nov 2008, at 22:10, Brent Meeker wrote: >> If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like >> the >> creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the >> Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our >> previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the >> grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the >> cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will >> (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in >> its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from >> the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? > > I don't think it's a relevant distinction. Even when the game-of- > life is > running on the computer the adjacent cells are not physically > causing the > changes from "on" to "off" and vice versa - that function is via the > program > implemented in the computer memory and cpu. So why should it make a > difference > whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a > huge look-up table? I agree. 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 [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: MGA 2
On 22 Nov 2008, at 21:45, Brent Meeker wrote: > > Telmo Menezes wrote: >> Quentin, >> >> Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that >> potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's >> suppose >> for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building >> blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational >> process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, >> and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe >> can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can >> you store Bruno's film in such a universe? >> >> Telmo. > > > But brain functions are essentially classical (see Tegmark's > paper). Thought > would be impossible if quantum entanglement was more that a > perturbation. From > a classical viewpoint, your brain can only be causally affected by a > finite > portion of the universe. Right. And , even if the brain is a quantum computer, the argument will go through, if only because a quantum computer can be simulated by a classical computer (albeit very slowly: but this is not relevant, the UD is very "slow" but first person cannot be aware of that). As Quentin suggested you have to identify yourself completely with the entire quantum multiverse to prevent the conclusion, and even in that case, this has to be extracted from the MEC part of the MEC+MAT hypothesis, which is the point. But yes in that case you can postulate a sort of primitive matter having some relevance with your consciousness. (Making them both very mysterious, and making their link also rather mysterious, btw). MGA 1 and MGA 2 are sometimes confronted with "super ad hoc move", which, from a logical point of view have to be taken into account. I expect I will have to go up to MGA 4, but I can imagine making some MGA 5 to make such move invalid, relatively to some inductive rationality principle explicited. Sort of a vaccine against such "super ad hoc move". They appears also "against many worlds", against experience testing Bell's inequality, etc. Also if you want to use entanglement throughout the whole universe (or multiverse), you will have difficulties in relating measurements and conscious memory of experiences (but of course this is not yet solved the pure comp view), I think. So Tegmark work is not really relevant here. A good thing for me because, although I think and tend to believe that Tegmark is accurate, I don't have the personal knowledge of practical quantum mechanics to be assure personally about the meaningfulness of the chosen unities. 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 [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: MGA 1
On 22 Nov 2008, at 11:06, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Yes, there must be a problem with the assumptions. The only assumption > that I see we could eliminate, painful though it might be for those of > a scientific bent, is the idea that consciousness supervenes on > physical activity. Q.E.D. Logically you could also abandon MEC, but I guess you think, as I tend to think myself, that this could be even more painful for those of scientific bent. In the long run physicists could be very happy that their foundations relies on numbers relations (albeit statistical). 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 [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: MGA 1
On 20 Nov 2008, at 21:40, Gordon Tsai wrote: > Bruno: >I think you and John touched the fundamental issues of human > rational. It's a dilemma encountered by phenomenology. Now I have a > question: In theory we can't distinguish ourselves from a Lobian > Machine. Note that in the math part (Arithmetical UDA), I consider only "*Sound* Lobian machine". Sound means hat they are never wrong (talking about numbers). Now no sound Lobian machine can know that she is sound, and I am not yet sure I will find an interesting notion of lobianity for unsound machines, and sound Lobian Machine can easily get unsound, especially when they begin to confuse deductive inference and inductive inference. We just cannot know if we are (sound) Lobian Machine. It is more something we should hope for ... > But can lobian machines truly have sufficient rich experiences like > human? You know, Mechanism is a bit like the half bottle of wine. The optimist thinks that the bottle is "yet half full", and the pessimist thinks that the bottles is "already half-empty". About mechanism, the optimist reasons like that. I love myself because I have a so interesting life with so many rich experiences. Now you tell me I am a machine. So I love machine because machine *can* have rich experiences, indeed, myself is an example. The pessimist reasons like that. I hate myself because my life is boringly uninteresting without any rich experiences. Now you tell me I am a machine. I knew it! My own life confirms that rumor according to which machine are stupid automata. No meaning no future. > For example, is it possible for a lobian machine to "still its mind' > or "cease the computational logic" like some eastern philosophy > suggested? Maybe any of the out-of-loop experience is still part of > the computation/logic, just as our out-of-body experiences are > actually the trick of brain chemicals? The bad news is that the singular point is, imo, behind us. The universal machine you bought has been clever, but this has been shadowed by your downloadling on so many particular purposes software. And then she need to be "in a body" so that you can use it, as a if it was a sort of slave, to send me a mail. It will take time for them too. And once a universal machine has a body or a relative representation, the first person and the third person get rich and complex, but possibly confused. Its soul falls, would say Plotin. She can get hallucinated and all that. With comp, to be very short and bit provocative, the notion of "out-of- body" experience makes no sense at all because we don't have a body to go out of it, at the start. Your body is in your head, if I can say. This is at least a *consequence* of the assumption of mechanism, and I'm afraid you have to understand that by yourself, a bit like a theorem in math. But it is third person sharable, for example by UDA, I think. it leads I guess to a different view on Reality (different from the usual Theology of Aristotle, but not different from Plato Theology, roughly speaking). You can ask any question, but my favorite one are the naive question :) Bruno Marchal 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: MGA 1
On 20 Nov 2008, at 21:27, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 12:03 PM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > >> The state machine that would represent her in the case of >> injection of random noise is a different state machine that would >> represent her normally functioning brain. > > > Absolutely so. > > > > Bruno, > > What about the state machine that included the injection of "lucky" > noise from an outside source vs. one in which all information was > derived internally from the operation of the state machine itself? At which times? How? Did MGA 2 clarify this? > Would those two differently defined machines not differ and compute > something different? Even though the computations are identical the > information that is being computed comes from different sources and > so carries with it a different "connotation". But the supervenience principle and the non-prescience of the neurons makes it impossible to the machine to "feel" such connotations. > Though the bits injected are identical, they inherently imply a > different meaning because the state machine in the case of injection > has a different structure than that of her normally operating > brain. I believe the brain can be abstracted as a computer/ > information processing system, but it is not simply the computations > and the inputs into the logic gates at each step that are important, > but also the source of the input bits, otherwise the computation > isn't the same. If the source differs below the substitution level, the machine cannot be aware of it. If she was, it would mean we have been wrong with the choice of the substitution level. OK? We can come back on this. 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 [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: MGA 2
On 22 Nov 2008, at 17:27, Kory Heath wrote: > > > On Nov 22, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> Ok, but what if consciousness is a computational process that >> potentially depends on the entire state of the universe? Let's >> suppose >> for example that quantum particles are the fundamental building >> blocks, i.e. the hardware, and that consciousness is a computational >> process that emerges from their interactions. We still have MEC+MAT, >> and due to quantum entanglement, any quantum particle in the universe >> can potentially interfere in the consciousness computation. How can >> you store Bruno's film in such a universe? > > This is why I prefer to cast these thought experiments in terms of > finite cellular automata. All of the issues you mention go away. (One > can argue that finite cellular automata can't contain conscious > beings, but that's just a rejection of MEC, which we're supposed to be > keeping.) > > I'm not entirely sure I understand the details of Bruno's Movie-Graph > (yet), so I don't know if it's equivalent to the following thought > experiment: > It seems to me equivalent indeed, in the case you project a part of the movie on the broken part of the optical boolean graph. > Let's say that we run a computer program that allocates a very large > two-dimensional array, fills it with a special Initial State (which is > hard-coded into the program), and then executes the rules of Conway's > Life on the array for a certain number of iterations. Let's say that > the resulting "universe" contains creatures that any garden-variety > mechanist would agree are fully conscious. Let's say that we run the > universe for at least enough iterations to allow the creatures to move > around, say a few things, experience a few things, etc. Finally, let's > say that we store the results of all of our calculations in a (much > larger) area of memory, so that we can look up what each bit did at > each tick of the clock. > > Now let's say that we "play back" the stored results of our > calculations, like a movie. At each tick of the clock t, we just copy > the bits from time t of our our stored memory into our two-dimensional > array. There are no Conway's Life calculations going on here. We're > just copying bits, one time-slice at a time, from our stored memory > into our original grid. It is difficult for a mechanist to argue that > any consciousness is happening here. It's functionally equivalent to > just printing out each time-slice onto a (huge) piece of paper, and > flipping through those pages like a picture book and watching the > "animated playback". It's hard for a mechanist to argue that this > style of flipping pages in a picture book can create consciousness. > > Now let's imagine that we compute the Conway's Life universe again - > we load the Initial State into the grid, and then iteratively apply > the Conway's Life rule to the grid. However, for some percentage of > the cells in the grid, instead of looking at the neighboring cells and > updating according to the Conway's Life rule, we instead just pull the > data from the lookup table that we created in the previous run. > > If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like the > creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the > Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our > previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the > grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the > cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will > (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in > its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled from > the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's consciousness? > > -- Kory > > > > > 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: MGA 1
On 21 Nov 2008, at 10:45, Kory Heath wrote: > However, the materialist-mechanist still has some grounds to say that > there's something interestingly different about Lucky Kory than > Original Kory. It is a physical fact of the matter that Lucky Kory is > not causally connected to Pre-Teleportation Kory. When someone asks > Lucky Kory, "Why do you tie your shoes that way?", and Lucky Kory > says, "Because of something I learned when I was ten years old", Lucky > Kory's statement is quite literally false. Lucky Kory ties his shoes > that way because of some cosmic rays. I actually don't know what the > standard mechanist-materialist way of viewing this situation is. But > it does seem to suggest that maybe breaks in the causal chain > shouldn't affect consciousness after all. You are right, at least when, for the sake of the argument, we continue to keep MEC and MAT, if only to single out, the most transparently possible, the contradiction. Let us consider your "lucky teleportation case", where someone use a teleporter which fails badly. So it just annihilates the "original" person, but then, by an incredible luck the person is reconstructed with his right state after. If you ask him "how do you know how to tie shoes", if the person answers, after that bad but lucky "teleportation" "because I learn in my youth": he is correct. He is correct for the same reason Alice's answer to her exams were correct, even if luckily so. Suppose I send you a copy of my sane paper by the internet, and that, the internet demolishes it completely, but that by an incredible chance your buggy computer rebuild it in its exact original form. This will not change the content of the paper, and the paper will be correct or false independently of the way it has flight from me to you. In the bad-lucky teleporter case, even with MAT (and MEC) it is still the right person who survived, with the correct representation of her right memories, and so one. Even if just "luckily so". MGA 2 then shows that the random appearance of the lucky event was a red hearing, so that we have to admit that consciousness supervenes on the movie graph (the movie of the running of the boolean optical computer). Of course I don't believe that consciousness supervene on the physical activity of such movie, but this means that I have to abandon the whole physical supervenience. I will read the other posts. I think many have understood and have already concluded. But from a strict logical point of view, perhaps some are willing to defend the idea that the movie-graph is conscious, and, in that case, I will present MGA 3, which is supposed to show that, well, a movie cannot think, through MEC (there is just no computation there). Of course, the movie has still some relationship with the original consciousness of Alice, and this will help us to save the MEC part of the physical supervenience thesis, giving rise to the notion of "computational supervenience", but this form of supervenience does no more refer to anything *primarily* physical, and this will be enough preventing the use of a concrete universe for blocking the UDA conclusion. 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 [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: MGA 1 bis (exercise)
On 20 Nov 2008, at 19:38, Brent Meeker wrote: > Talk about consciousness will seem as quaint > as talk about the elan vital does now. Then you are led to eliminativism of consciousness. This makes MEC+MAT trivially coherent. The price is big: consciousness does no more exist, like the "elan vital". MEC becomes vacuoulsy true: I say yes to the doctor, without even meaning it. But it seems to me that consciousness is not like the "elan vital". I do make the, admittedly non sharable, experience of consciousness all the time, so it seems to me that such a move consists in negating the data. If the idea of keeping the notion of primitive matter, which I recall is really an hypothesis, is so demanding that I have to abandon the idea that I am conscious, I will abandon the hypothetical notion of primitive matter instead. But you make my point. 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 [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: QTI & euthanasia (brouillon)
On 20 Nov 2008, at 19:08, m.a. wrote: > > > Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> Let us go back to the point. The point of MGA is to show that MEC + >> MAT implies a contradiction. You can see that it is equivalent with >> - the proposition saying that MEC implies NON MAT (mechanism >> refutes materialism). >> - the proposition saying that MAT implies NON MECH (materialism >> refutes mechanism) >> >> Now, MECH implies " NON MAT" can be made constructive. This means >> MECH provides the complete constraints of how a physical laws looks >> like and come from, meaning physics is a branch of computationalist >> theory of mind (itself a branch of number theory, in a slightest >> more general sense of "number"). >> >> Now, imagine that luckily we arrive at a proof that the >> "arithmetical" electron weights two kg. Then we will know that >> mechanism is false. > > But only in our universe, right. In some other universe couldn't > electrons actually weigh 2kg? Not really. If we prove that electrons (assuming we can defined them in the physics extracted from comp) weigh 2 kg, then they have 2 kg in all possible universes. If there is an 1,9 kg electron in some universe, that could be used as a counter-example showing that the proof was not valid, or that comp is false. 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 [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: MGA 2
2008/11/23 Jason Resch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious activity is > not conscious. My argument being that static information has no implicit > meaning because there are an infinite number of ways a bit string can be > interpreted. However in a running program the values of the bits do have > implicit meaning according to the rules of the state machine. One part of the system has meaning relative to another part. However, what if we consider the whole system? We could then say that the left half, computer A, has meaning relative to the right half, computer B. It doesn't matter that an outside observer could come up with infinitely many meanings, any more than it matters that an alien could up with infinitely many interpretations of an English sentence. -- 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 [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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
