Re: Dreaming On
On 07 Aug 2009, at 20:35, Brent Meeker wrote: > > Bruno Marchal wrote: >> Very important post, Peter. We are progressing. >> >> >> On 06 Aug 2009, at 19:09, 1Z wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On 31 July, 18:55, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 31 Jul 2009, at 18:05, 1Z wrote: > If it isn;t RITSIAR, it cannot be generating me. Mathematical > proofs only prove mathematical "existence", not onltolgical > existence. For a non-Platonist , 23 "exists" mathematically, > but is not RITSIAR. The same goes for the UD Is an atom RITSIAR? Is a quark RITSIAR? >>> If current physics is correct. >> >> >> Then it is not "RITSIAR" in the sense of the discussion with David. >> Real in the sense that "I" am real. is ambiguous. >> Either the "I" refers to my first person, and then I have ontological >> certainty. >> As I said on FOR, I can conceive that I wake up and realize that >> quark, planet, galaxies and even my body were not real. I cannot >> conceive that I wake up and realize that my consciousness is not >> real. > > But as Bertrand Russell, David Hume and many mystics have pointed > out you can wake up and > realize there is consciousness but the "I" that possesses it is a > fiction. Absolutely so. It corresponds to the "ego-death" that most people can live after consuming some entheogen. The so-called "breakthrough" after consuming some amount of concentrated extract of Salvia Divinorum is often described in term of ego-death or ego annihilation, but I think that it is more aptly described as a dissociation between the first person and the other hypostases with a feeling to remember who "you" really are, and which is not related to memories or bodies. That is why some describe this instead as an expansion of the "I", or an expansion of consciousness. It is related to the second form of comp-immortality I was talking about some month ago. Even in the case of the ideal self-referentially correct machine, there is a sort of competition between many (eight ?) "I". In post- Plotinus neoplatonist term, the soul "falls" when the "I" identifies itself with the material hypostases. It is the passage from an "I" defined in term of truth and/or provability only to an "I" which includes an attachment to self-consistency (Dt, or ~B~t). Assuming comp, and extending the arithmetical interpretation of the Plotinus hypostases, this seems to be the "real" logical origin of Matter and physical sensations. Much work remains to confirm 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Dreaming On
On 07 Aug 2009, at 21:27, Johnathan Corgan wrote: > > On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 11:35 -0700, Brent Meeker wrote: > >> But as Bertrand Russell, David Hume and many mystics have pointed >> out you can wake up and >> realize there is consciousness but the "I" that possesses it is a >> fiction. > > There are also many common reports of what is colloquially called "ego > loss" in the hallucinogenic literature. Users report the experience > of > being "conscious" in that they are awake, perceiving sensory data, and > performing motor functions, but they have no sense of self or "I". I did not see this post, sorry. We 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 everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental?
On 08 Aug 2009, at 05:20, ronaldheld wrote: > > As a formally trained Physicist, what do I accept? It depends of many things. Most physicists and non physicists take more or less for granted an Aristotelian picture of reality. Now, if you are willing to believe that you can survive classical teleportation, you may have to prepare yourself to be open to a different picture, where 3-reality is (say) elementary arithmetic, and 1-realities are dreams by universal machine/number(s). This is new, apparently, so this is something that you have to understand by yourself, by studying UDA, for example. You have to be open to the idea of taking the notion of person, subjective memories, consciousness, etc. seriously into account. Tell me if you say "yes" to the doctor, and I can show you what sort of reality you will be confront with. > that Physics is > well represented mathematically? I know mathematicians who have heart palpitations when seeing the math of physicists :) They don't put just mind under the rug, they put many infinities there too! But I am unfair because they do that in an more and more elegant way... Actually physicians have literally created new interesting branch in math. This is a new phenomenon. But I am not sure Physics, as a whole, can be said well represented mathematically in any global way. Some theories are more lucky than others. GR and QM are not yet well integrated, and comp does not really help in this regard, up to now. Some like Tegmark and Schmidhuber seem to believe that the physical world could be a mathematical structure, or a computation, but I argue that if comp is true, the relation is more complex. In a sense physics sums up the whole of math in any of its part, and eventually, physical reality is defined by the border of the ignorance of all possible universal machines. > That the Multiverse is composed of > mathematical structures some of which represent physical laws? Or > something else? Assuming comp, the physical world(s) emerge(s) from first person filterings on infinite set of (arithmetical) computations. Comp predict that if there is a notion of first person plural, then it defines a common level below which "we" can "detect" the parallel histories. This gives a first person plural indeterminacy, which prevents solipsism. What is your opinion on quantum mechanics? With comp, the quantum facts, by alluding indirectly, but clearly, on the superposition of the ambient computations, or just by its sharable and measurable indeterminacy, confirms comp and this in a way which protect us from solipsism. Have you read Everett, or Deutsch? They are the physicists beginning to realize the self-multiplication that comp predicts "quasi- trivially" (UDA). Universal machines cannot know which histories they go through and perhaps share (partially) with others, among a very big, yet definable, set. I have few doubts that we share a very long story. Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental? I doubt it. Bruno > > Ronald > > On Aug 6, 10:23 pm, Brent Meeker wrote: >> Colin Hales wrote: >> >>> Brent Meeker wrote: Colin Hales wrote: >> > Brent Meeker wrote: >> >> Colin Hales wrote: >> >>> Man this is a tin of worms! I have just done a 30 page detailed >>> refutation of computationalism. >>> It's going through peer review at the moment. >> >>> The basic problem that most people fall foul of is the >>> conflation of >>> 'physics-as-computation' with the type of computation that is >>> being >>> carried out in a Turing machine (a standard computer). In the >>> paper I >>> drew an artificial distinction between them. I called the >>> former NATURAL >>> COMPUTATION (NC) and the latter ARTIFICIAL COMPUTATION (AC). >>> The idea is >>> that if COMP is true then there is no distinction between AC >>> and NC. The >>> distinction should fail. >> >>> I found one an one only situation/place where AC and NC part >>> company. >>> Call this situation X. >> >>> If COMP is false in this one place X it is false as a general >>> claim. I >>> also found 2 downstream (consequential) failures that >>> ultimately get >>> their truth-basis from X, so they are a little weaker as formal >>> arguments against COMP. >> >>> *FACT*: Humans make propositions that are fundamentally of an >>> informal >>> nature. That is, the utterances of a human can be inconsistent >>> and form >>> an fundamentally incomplete set (we don't 'know everything'). >>> The >>> quintessential definition of a scientist is a 'correctable >>> liar'. When a >>> hypothesis is uttered it has the status indistinguishable of a >>> lie. >>> Humans can participate in the universe in ways which can >>> (apparently) >>> vi
Against Physics
Against Physics Let me go through my full chain of reasoning here, before I draw my conclusion: So the world that I perceive seems pretty orderly. When I drive to work, it's always where I expect it to be. The people are always the same. I pick up where I left off on the previous day, and life generally proceeds in an orderly and predictable way. Even when something unexpected happens, I can generally trace back along a chain of cause and effect and determine why it happened, and understand both why I didn't expect it and why I probably could have. In my experience thus far, there have been no "Alice in Wonderland" style white rabbits that suddenly appear in a totally inexplicable way, make a few cryptic remarks while checking their pocket watch, and then scurry off. Why do I never see such white rabbits? Well, at first glance, something like physicalism seems like the obvious choice to explain my reality's perceived order - to explain both what I experience AND what I *don't* experience. The world is reducible to fundamental particles (waves, strings, whatever) which have certain properties (mass, velocity, spin, charge, etc) that determine how they interact, and it all adds up to what I see. In this view, what I see is ultimately determined by the starting conditions of the universe, plus the physical laws that govern the interaction of the fundamental elements of the universe, applied over how-many-ever billions of years. While no explanation is given for the initial conditions, or why the fundamental laws of physics are what they are, if you get past that then from a cause-and-effect stand point physicalism offers a pretty solid explanation for why my world is orderly and predictable, and why I don't see white rabbits. And in the form of functionalism/computationalism + evolution it even offers a pretty good foundation for explaining the existence and mechanism of human behavior and ability. But physicalism has a major drawback: It doesn't obviously explain the experience of consciousness that goes with human behavior and ability. Particles, waves, mass, spin, velocity...no matter how you add them up, there doesn't seem to be any way to get conscious experience. Which is a problem, since consciousness is the portal through which we access everything else. My conscious experience is what I know. I "know" of other things only when they force themselves (or are forced) into my conscious awareness. So, physicalism does explain why we see, what we see, and why we don't see white rabbits. But it doesn't seem to explain the conscious experience OF seeing what we see. Further, by positing an independently existing and well ordered external universe to explain our orderly perceptions, we have just pushed the question back one level. The new questions are, why does this external universe exist and why is it so orderly? BUT, this initially seems justified by the fact that physicalism explains how it is possible for us to make correct predictions. BUT, actually it explains nothing. Nothing has been explained because we are PART of the system that we are trying to explain by appealing to physicalism. If the order and predictability of our experiences are due to the initial conditions of the universe and the laws of physics, then we inhabit a universe whose entire future, including our existence and all of our activities and experiences, is fixed. Frozen in place by unbreakable causal chains. Effectively (and maybe actually), the entire future of the universe can be seen as existing simultaneously with its beginning. We could just as well say that the entire past, present, and future came into being at one instant, and we are just experiencing our portion of it in slices. But there is no "explanation" here. This "block universe" just IS. It just exists. It came into being for no reason, for no purpose, with no meaning. It exists in the form that it does, and there is no answer to the question "why?". We are part of that universe, existing entirely within it and contained by it. Therefore we also just exist. For no reason, for no purpose, with no meaning, our future history also frozen in place by causal chains. What is true for the universe as a whole is true for it's contents. Any explanation we derive is purely local to our particular viewpoint. In reality there is no explanation. Explanations are as subjective as experience. Of course this doesn't mean that I get to pick my preferred explanations, BUT I don't get to pick my experiences either. To try an make what I'm saying more clear: let's imagine a real block. Say, a block of speckled granite. Now let's consider two adjacent specks of white and gray. Why are they adjacent? What caused them to be adjacent? Well, if we consider this block of granite within the context of our universe, then we can say that there is a reason in that context as to why they are adjacent. There is an explanation, which has to do with
Re: Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental?
On 08 Aug 2009, at 20:01, Bruno Marchal wrote: > Actually physicians have literally created new interesting branch in > math I mean physicists of course. So sorry. Well, actually I know a physician, Philippe Smets, the creator of IRIDIA, where I am working, who was a physician, not a physicist, and contributed in the mathematics of belief and plausibility. Physicians have to ponder evidences in order to diagnostic. That's a very complex process where usual statistical tools fail. And then remember, the ethic of comp is that you have the right to say "no" to the doctor. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Against Physics
On 08 Aug 2009, at 22:44, rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: > So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that > our conscious experience just exists. Why are my perceptions orderly > and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually > correct? Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether > you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious > experience exists uncaused. This is not against physicalism, it is again rationalism. I would say that consciousness has a reason, a purpose, and a power. A reason: the many universal numbers and the way they reflect each other. A purpose: truth quest, satisfaction quest. A power: relative self-acceleration (can lead to catastrophes, (like all power)). Physicists explain by finding elegant laws relating the quanta we can measure, but fail indeed linking those quanta to the qualia we live, and fail saying where those quanta comes from. But computer science suggest a solution, we are universal machine mirroring doing science "automatically" betting on "big picture" all the time, relatively to other possible universal machines. Then theoretical computer science can explain why we feel consciousness unexplainable and explain its reason, purpose and power. This explains the mind, but we get the problem of justifying the computability and the existence of the physical laws from a vast set of computations. The white rabbits and white noises. Those universal machine are self-multiplying and self- differencing infinitely often in arithmetic. This is a big price: if we are machine (a theory which explains consciousness as an unconscious bet on a reality), we have to explain the physical laws from computer science and logic alone. But now that explanation can be tested in nature, making that theory refutable. And this illustrates we don't have to abandon rationalism. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Against Physics
rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: > Against Physics > > Let me go through my full chain of reasoning here, before I draw my > conclusion: ... > So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that > our conscious experience just exists. If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer considerable advantage. Brent >Why are my perceptions orderly > and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually > correct? Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether > you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious > experience exists uncaused. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Against Physics
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: > > If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer considerable > advantage. If that's what the future held for me, then that's exactly what I would do. Otherwise, I wouldn't do that, since it wouldn't be in my future. Your advice is beneficial only to those who receive it and benefit from it. Please keep this in mind in the future, if that is what is in your future. On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: > > rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: >> Against Physics >> >> Let me go through my full chain of reasoning here, before I draw my >> conclusion: > ... >> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that >> our conscious experience just exists. > > If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer considerable > advantage. > > Brent > >>Why are my perceptions orderly >> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually >> correct? Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether >> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious >> experience exists uncaused. > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Against Physics
Brent, BTW, this was intended as a (mostly) sincere response to your point. On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:55 AM, Rex Allen wrote: > On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: >> >> If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer >> considerable advantage. > > If that's what the future held for me, then that's exactly what I > would do. Otherwise, I wouldn't do that, since it wouldn't be in my > future. > > Your advice is beneficial only to those who receive it and benefit > from it. Please keep this in mind in the future, if that is what is > in your future. > > > On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Brent Meeker wrote: >> >> rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: >>> Against Physics >>> >>> Let me go through my full chain of reasoning here, before I draw my >>> conclusion: >> ... >>> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that >>> our conscious experience just exists. >> >> If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer >> considerable advantage. >> >> Brent >> >>>Why are my perceptions orderly >>> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually >>> correct? Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether >>> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious >>> experience exists uncaused. >> >> >> >> > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Against Physics
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:12 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 08 Aug 2009, at 22:44, rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: > >> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that >> our conscious experience just exists. Why are my perceptions orderly >> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually >> correct? Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether >> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious >> experience exists uncaused. > > > > This is not against physicalism, it is again rationalism. Ha! Well, maybe. What is the flaw that you see in my reasoning? I think that both the argument and conclusion are rational, just not intuitive. So earlier you asked this: > By the way, what is the status of your theory with respect to comp? Which in part prompted this new thread. So I think that one of the things that we can be conscious of is a descriptive theory referred to as "comp" that attempts to map the contents of our "conscious experience over time" to mathematically/logically defined "machines". And, I will not be surprised if you or someone else is ultimately successful in doing so. But while this would be interesting, I don't think that it means anything deeper. All that it will mean is "look, here's an interesting way of representing the contents of your conscious experience over time". It would just be a way of representing what "is". By which I mean: It would just be a way of representing conscious experience. > > I would say that consciousness has a reason, a purpose, and a power. > > A reason: the many universal numbers and the way they reflect each > other. This doesn't sound like a "reason" to me. It sounds like an observation, along the lines of "adjacent gray and white veins exist within this block of granite" (from my original post). > > A purpose: truth quest, satisfaction quest. This purpose would only exist as part of someone's conscious experience. The desire for truth and/or satisfaction are things that only exist in the context of conscious experience. > > A power: relative self-acceleration (can lead to catastrophes, (like > all power)). I'm not sure what you mean by this. > > Physicists explain by finding elegant laws relating the quanta we can > measure, but fail indeed linking those quanta to the qualia we live, > and fail saying where those quanta comes from. But computer science > suggest a solution, we are universal machine mirroring doing science > "automatically" betting on "big picture" all the time, relatively to > other possible universal machines. So our machineness precedes our conscious experience? Machines are more fundamental than consciousness? Or machines are just a way of representing conscious experience? > Then theoretical computer science > can explain why we feel consciousness unexplainable and explain its > reason, purpose and power. I don't see that it explains anything. Though it may be a useful/enjoyable way of thinking about the contents of our conscious experience. > This explains the mind, but we get the > problem of justifying the computability and the existence of the > physical laws from a vast set of computations. The white rabbits and > white noises. So it seems to me that you aren't explaining the fact that we have experiences. It seems to me that you are focused entirely on finding a way of generating mathematical/logical representations of what you and I experience that doesn't also generate representations of strange white-rabbit experiences. > Those universal machine are self-multiplying and self- > differencing infinitely often in arithmetic. This is a big price: if > we are machine (a theory which explains consciousness as an > unconscious bet on a reality), we have to explain the physical laws > from computer science and logic alone. The physical laws can't be explained except in terms of other unexplained laws, as mentioned in my previous post. Though, I'd say that physical laws can't be explained because they only exist in our perceptions, which are themselves uncaused and therefore unexplainable. > But now that explanation can be > tested in nature, making that theory refutable. And this illustrates > we don't have to abandon rationalism. I think the rational conclusion from what we perceive is that conscious experience is fundamental and uncaused. You are saying that consciousness is NOT fundamental, and thus it IS caused. By...numbers? I think that you are mistaking representation for causation. Even if numbers exist in some platonic sense, and can be related in a way that can be seen as mirroring, representing, or even predicting my conscious experience...I think that all this shows is that math/logic is a really flexible tool for representing processes, relationships, patterns, etc. As far as the significance of accurate predictions, I refer you back to the last paragraph of my original post. You read the part about the gra
