Re: Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental?
russell standish wrote: > Nobody is suggesting that brains are Turing machines. All that is > being suggested (by COMP) is that brains perform computations (and > nothing but), hence can be perfectly emulated by a Turing machine, by > virtue of the Church-Turing thesis. > "/Nobody is suggesting that brains are Turing machines./ " _Yes they are_- /implicitly/ in an expectation that a computation of a model of the appearances of a brain can be a brain (below). To see this...note that you said: "That brains perform computations.hence can be perfectly emulated etc etc" Brains are a naturally evolving self-manipulating natural process that involves natural symbols going through continual transformations in regular ways. // And...yeswe can construct a _/model/_ X of the appearances that brain has whilst that manipulation/transformation is underway but...so what? There is /nowhere in the universe that model X is being "computed" on anything _in the sense we understand as a Turing machine_./ (This applies to models of cognition and to models of the material/space of the brain.) This is the false assumption. The C-T thesis is not wrong. /It's just not saying anything/. The 'emulation' you cite is only ever justified as of a model of a cognitive process, /not a cognitive process/. This is precisely the conflation of (a) "/the natural world as some kind of as-yet un-elaborated natural computation/" with (b) "/Turing-style computation of a _model_ of the natural world/". The COMP I refute in the paper is exactly this (b) kind: *COMP* This is the shorthand for computationalism as distilled from the various sources cited above. The working definition here: "/The operational/functional equivalence (identity, indistinguishability at the level of the model) of (a) a sufficiently embodied, computationally processed, sufficiently detailed symbolic/formal description/model of a natural thing X and (b) the described natural thing X/"/./ There is a fundamental logical error being made of the kind: "/natural thing X behaves as if abstract-scientific-formal-description is running as a program on a computer, so therefore all abstract/artificial //computations-of-formal-description//-X are (by an undisclosed, undiscussed mechanism) identical to natural thing X/". // Do you see how the C-T Thesis and the Turing machine ideas can be perfectly right and at the same time deliver absolutely no claim to be involved in or describing the origins of an actual natural cognitive process? So when you say "Nobody is suggesting that brains are Turing machines" - _this cannot be true_, because everyone is methodologically behaving as if they had. It's an act of supposition/omission a failure to properly distinguish two kinds of things. There are other options which do not make this presupposition, and which are therefore better justified as forming descriptive framework which might involve understanding /actual cognition/ instead of assuming its origins. I have been exploring these 'other options' for a long time. Their details don't matter - the very fact of the possibility is what is important - and what has been tacitly presumed out of existence by the conflation I have delineated. Our failure to consider these other options is a subscription to the conflation I have elaborated. This is the true heart of the matter. We have been rattling off paragraphs like the one you delivered above for so long that we fail to see the implicit epistemic poison of the unjustified claim hidden inside. colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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
2009/8/6 1Z : > You're doing it again. You are assuming that because the mental > is epistemically certain, it is ipso facto ontologically basic. But > that > doesn't follow at all. I have evidence that the physical is basic -- > the whole > of science. You have no evidence that the mental is basic because the > mental > does not reveal its own ontological nature. All you have is the > **epistemic*** claim > that the mental definitely exists, in some sense. The unique feature of consciousness is not - as you claim - its 'epistemic' certainty, but its status as what is *ontologically certain*. To regard consciousness itself (or in Bruno's terms the ontological first person) as merely the object of 'knowledge' is to commit the fallacy of taking 'observation' in a naively literal sense: i.e. to require there to be an 'observer'. But this, self-evidently, can only lead to infinite regress. Consequently, consciousness does not consist in the 'observation' of epistemic entities, but in their instantiation. Consciousness is, as it were, the 'ontology of epistemology'. When you say that the physical is basic, you are yourself mistaking the epistemological for the ontological. As to your evidence consisting in 'the whole of science', since the nature and significance of this evidence is precisely what is in question, it is inadequate merely to make such appeals to authority. It would be more helpful if you would address these arguments in their own terms, rather than begging various questions by appeal to 'pre-established fact', or tilting at straw men of your own making. >> > But you haven't said what the problem is in the emergence of the >> > mental >> > from the physical >> >> On the contrary, I've said it repeatedly. > > Please say it again. The problem is this: in the face of one indubitable ontology - that exemplified in consciousness - you try get physically-basic ontology for free. In other words, you simply assume that if we take ourselves to 'be' - what? - say, neural activity in 'computational' - or some yet-to-be-established - guise, then - pouf! - the ontological first person is conjured from mere description. But there is no sense in which one can simply 'be' an epistemic 'object' - a theoretical construction. *This* is the explanatory gap, and you are trying to jump it by this customary, well-worn sleight-of-intuition. But it is precisely this bit of magic that is in question. And in my view the right place to start questioning is the direction of inference, as I've - repeatedly - said. > You still haven't said what the objection is to saying that > the mental emerges from the physical. I'm saying that all that can 'emerge' from one class of description is another class of description. If that exhausts your idea of the 'mental' I say you are an eliminativist. But you say you're not. What then? > Assuming (without justification) that anything can arbitrarily be said > to have > any function. That is an argument you have made elsewhere, it is not > a particularly good argument, and it is not germane to this discussion This is a straw man of your own construction. My argument does not consist in the claim that 'anything can arbitrarily be said to have any function'. What I'm criticising, quite specifically, is the claim that the self-evidently existent category of the ontological first person is equivalent to a particular class of arrangements of ontologically-basic-in-their-own-right physical entities. This, I take it, can be construed only as a particularly odd form of dualism, or eliminativism. The 'arbitrariness' is inherent in the burden of the term 'functionalism', which is intrinsically neutral as to the details of physical implementation. This is its great strength in its legitimate sphere of application, and its fatal weakness in the present context. >>But then one must >> abjure functional-computational justifications for the 'mental': >> again, fair enough (it's probably closer to my own prejudice). But >> unless you're an eliminativist about the mental, you can't have it >> both ways. > > Of course you can! There are plenty accounts of the mental that > are neither functionalist nor elimintativist. Sheesh. Yes of course there are other accounts, but my argument at this point is specifically against functionalist accounts based on an assumed physical ontology. So I repeat: the burden of my claim is that if you want to be ontological about the physical, you must give up functionalist arguments for mind; otherwise you are an implicit dualist, or else an eliminativist, even though you may be unaware of it (as indeed an eliminativist would have to be!) You may of course disagree, but saying 'of course you can' is not an argument. Beyond that, I'm not arguing here against other accounts of the mental, though you don't indicate what you have in mind (as it were) >> But I think we can save them quite handily. First, calling something >> 'idealism' just pumps th
Re: Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental?
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 12:54:00PM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: > ronaldheld wrote: > > As a formally trained Physicist, what do I accept? that Physics is > > well represented mathematically? That the Multiverse is composed of > > mathematical structures some of which represent physical laws? Or > > something else? > > Ronald > > > This is /the/ question. It always seems to get sidestepped in > discussions that fail to distinguish between (a) "/reality as some kind > of natural computation/" and (b) "/reality represented by formal > statements(laws of nature) of regularity, //apparent in an observer, > //that may be artificially computed/ /by a Turing style machine/". The > conflation of (a) and (b) is a constant in the discussions here. > > (a) does not need an observer. It /constructs/ an observer. > (b) involves an observer and are regularities constructed by the > observer made by (a) > I confess I don't see this conflation here. a) is the sort of viewpoint advocated by Steve Wolfram, and maybe by Schmidhuber, but he seems to have left the list long ago. b) is more the viewpoint of myself or Bruno. Stuff snipped, because I didn't get that from your paper. > The following statements summarise the effects: > > (A) The fact that the natural world, to an observer, happens to have > appearances predicted by a set of formal statements (Laws of > Nature/Physics) does not entail that those statements are in any way > involved in running/driving the universe. Eg. The assumption that the > concept of a 'multiverse' is valid or relevant is another symptom of the > conflationthe reason? QM is a mathematical construct of type (b), > /not/ an example of (a). The whole concept of a multiverse is a malady > caused by this conflation. No - the Multiverse is a malady caused by the operation of Occams Razor. The appearance of a multiverse only makes the malady worse :). > > (B) The operation of a Turing Machine ( = hardware-invariant//artificial > abstract/ symbol manipulation) is /not /what is going on in the natural > world and, specifically, is /not/ what is happening in the brain (of a > scientist). Assuming 'cognition is computation' is unjustified on any level. > Nobody is suggesting that brains are Turing machines. All that is being suggested (by COMP) is that brains perform computations (and nothing but), hence can be perfectly emulated by a Turing machine, by virtue of the Church-Turing thesis. > I find the situation increasingly aggravating. It's like talking to cult > members who's beliefs are predicated on a delusion, and who a re so deep > inside it and so unable to see out of it that they are lost. Common > sense has left the building. The appropriate scientific way out of this > mess is to > > (i) let (a) descriptions and (b) descriptions be, for the purposes, > /separate scientific depictions of the natural world/ If they are not > then at some point in the analysis they will become > indistinguishable...in which case you have a /scientific/logical approach./ > (ii) Drop /all/ assumptions that any discussion involving Turing > machines as relevant to understanding the natural world. This means > accepting,/ for the purposes of sorting this mess out/, (a) as being a > form of computation fundamentally different to a Turing machine, where > the symbols and the processor are literally the same thing. If you Are you implying that thought is a form of computation that lies outside the class of Church-Turing thesis? There are such things as hypercomputations, but they remain controversial as having any relevance to the real world. Even probabilistic machines (my favourite type non-Turing machine) still only compute standard computable functions, albeit with different complexity class to standard machines. > predicate your work on (i) then if COMP is true then at some point, if > (a) and (b) become indistinguishable, /then/ COMP will be a-priori > /predicted/ to be true. > > I leave you to unpack your personalised version of the conflations. > Traditional physics/math training will automatically infect the trainee > with the affliction that conflates (a) and (b). The system of organised > thought in which an observer is a-priori predicted with suggested > sources of empirical evidence, is the system that we seek. (a) and (b) > above represent that very system. We are currently locked into (b) and > have all manner of weird assumptions operating in place of (a) which > mean, in effect, that _the /last/ thing physicists want to explain is > physicists_. Endlessly blathering on about multiverses and assuming COMP > does /nothing/ to that end. I've had 5 years of listening to this > COMP/Turing machine/Multiverse stuff. It's old/impotent/toothless/mute > (predicts nothing) and sustained only by delusion . It operates as a > cult(ure). I am the deprogrammer. :-) > What is your constructive theory then?
Re: Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental?
ronaldheld wrote: > As a formally trained Physicist, what do I accept? that Physics is > well represented mathematically? That the Multiverse is composed of > mathematical structures some of which represent physical laws? Or > something else? > Ronald > This is /the/ question. It always seems to get sidestepped in discussions that fail to distinguish between (a) "/reality as some kind of natural computation/" and (b) "/reality represented by formal statements(laws of nature) of regularity, //apparent in an observer, //that may be artificially computed/ /by a Turing style machine/". The conflation of (a) and (b) is a constant in the discussions here. (a) does not need an observer. It /constructs/ an observer. (b) involves an observer and are regularities constructed by the observer made by (a) The (roughly 5) conflations (from my paper that refutes COMP) are: Conflation #1: Deploying an artificial scientist ? Bestowing scientific knowledge Conflation #2: COMP(utation) ? experience Conflation #3:A Scientist ? Formal system Conflation #4 Rules of a rule generator ? the generated rules (except once) Conflation #5 AC Artificial Turing style abstract symbol manipulation ? NC The computation that is the natural world Note that all 5 of these permeate the discussions here. I see it all the time. The main one is #5. When you realise how many combinations of these can misdirect a discussion, you realise how screwed up things are. The following statements summarise the effects: (A) The fact that the natural world, to an observer, happens to have appearances predicted by a set of formal statements (Laws of Nature/Physics) does not entail that those statements are in any way involved in running/driving the universe. Eg. The assumption that the concept of a 'multiverse' is valid or relevant is another symptom of the conflationthe reason? QM is a mathematical construct of type (b), /not/ an example of (a). The whole concept of a multiverse is a malady caused by this conflation. (B) The operation of a Turing Machine ( = hardware-invariant//artificial abstract/ symbol manipulation) is /not /what is going on in the natural world and, specifically, is /not/ what is happening in the brain (of a scientist). Assuming 'cognition is computation' is unjustified on any level. I find the situation increasingly aggravating. It's like talking to cult members who's beliefs are predicated on a delusion, and who a re so deep inside it and so unable to see out of it that they are lost. Common sense has left the building. The appropriate scientific way out of this mess is to (i) let (a) descriptions and (b) descriptions be, for the purposes, /separate scientific depictions of the natural world/ If they are not then at some point in the analysis they will become indistinguishable...in which case you have a /scientific/logical approach./ (ii) Drop /all/ assumptions that any discussion involving Turing machines as relevant to understanding the natural world. This means accepting,/ for the purposes of sorting this mess out/, (a) as being a form of computation fundamentally different to a Turing machine, where the symbols and the processor are literally the same thing. If you predicate your work on (i) then if COMP is true then at some point, if (a) and (b) become indistinguishable, /then/ COMP will be a-priori /predicted/ to be true. I leave you to unpack your personalised version of the conflations. Traditional physics/math training will automatically infect the trainee with the affliction that conflates (a) and (b). The system of organised thought in which an observer is a-priori predicted with suggested sources of empirical evidence, is the system that we seek. (a) and (b) above represent that very system. We are currently locked into (b) and have all manner of weird assumptions operating in place of (a) which mean, in effect, that _the /last/ thing physicists want to explain is physicists_. Endlessly blathering on about multiverses and assuming COMP does /nothing/ to that end. I've had 5 years of listening to this COMP/Turing machine/Multiverse stuff. It's old/impotent/toothless/mute (predicts nothing) and sustained only by delusion . It operates as a cult(ure). I am the deprogrammer. :-) colin PS. Brent I seem to have picked up a SHOUTING habit from a relatively brain dead AGI forum, where the folk are particularly deluded about what they are doing They are so lost in (ii) above and have so little clue about science, they need therapy! I'll try and calm myself down a bit. Maybe use /italics/ instead :-) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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+unsu
Re: Dreaming On
2009/8/7 Bruno Marchal : 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. > Ontological first person does not need an "IF this or that theory is > correct". > You are reifying theoretical constructions. I think need to take a hard line on RITSIAR. I feel that the key lies in what Bruno terms the certainty of the ontological first person (OFP): i.e. the sine qua non of reality as it is uniquely available to us. Since this is inescapably the foundation of any and all judgements whatsoever, it is simultaneously both the both point of departure and the 'what-is-to-be-explained' of RITSIAR. In this light it becomes self-evident that any and all explanatory entities - physical, computational, or whatever - are severely restricted to the domain of epistemology. IOW - as Bruno says above - they are theoretical constructions. So far so obvious. But - as has again been recognised immemorially - solipsism is a dead-end and hence we seek a theory to capture the relation between the OFP and its environment. But immediately we are faced with the notorious 'explanatory gap', and it seems to me that its most precise expression is in the gap between ontology and epistemology. Indeed, what conceivable strategy could raise these theoretical constructions - to which the OFP uniquely lends existence - to the ontological certainty of their host? Is there a coherent way to conceive what it could mean to *be* a theoretical entity (as opposed to postulating or observing one)? There is something quintessential that stubbornly eludes capture, because epistemological access never tells us what an entity *is* - only what can be ascertained of its 'externalised' properties. And lest we be tempted to accept the sum of these properties as exhausting 'existence', we need only turn to the self-evident corrective of the OFP. So the gap must remain, and I think that now I see why Bruno appeals simply to the 'ordinary' mathematical sense of existence - because COMP, under this analysis, is an epistemological schema, and its entities are theoretical constructions. Hence the question of jumping the ontological gap is in abeyance, perhaps permanently, but in any case in the realm of faith. And if this is true for COMP, then mutatis mutandis it is true for physics. It's no use appealing to notions of 'what it's like to be a brain' - nor what it's like to be a COMP-quale - because we can never say that it is 'like anything to be' the stuff of epistemology. Hence we must see our theorising and observing - in physical, computational, or whatever terms - *in relation* to ontological certainty, not as constitutive of it. This necessarily weakens what can be ascertained by theory or by observation, but at least keeps us honest. The unavoidable consequence of the foregoing is that atoms, quarks and numbers cannot be RITSIAR. Rather, they stand in some theoretical relation to RITSIAR, but strictly on the epistemological side of the explanatory gap. They are 'real as far as theory takes us', or if further jargon is unavoidable: RAFATTU. >>> The point is just that IF you survive "in the RITSIAR" sense, with a >>> digital (even material, if you want) brain, then materiality has to >>> be >>> retrieved by coherence or gluing property of immaterial computation, >>> or there is an error in the UD Argument. >> >> >> It is not clear what you mean by that. If I am transferred from a >> phsycial >> brain into a physcial computer, physicalism is unscathed. Your >> argument >> against physcialism is that is unnecessary because something else >> is doing the work -- > > My argument is not that. From what you say, I infer that you > understand the seven first steps of the UD-Argument. > You seem to have a problem with the 8th step, which is the step > showing that no "work" is needed at all. The usual number relations do > the work, and this without any need to reify them. See above. >> But you have to assume Platonism to get your UDA, so you have to >> assume Platonism to refute physicalism. Without that assumption, the >> rest doesn't follow.. It is step 0. > > Do I need platonism to believe in the existence of prime numbers? I > need only the amount of arithmetical realism for saying that the > (mathematical) machine x stop or doesn't stop on input y.
Re: Against Physics
On 09 Aug 2009, at 08:41, Rex Allen wrote: > > 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. I don't see the theory. What do you ask us to agree on, if only for the sake of the argument. In the conclusion I don't understand the last sentence, which seems to me a proposition for abandoning theorizing in that field. > > > > 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". No, comp is a "theology" in which you believe that you can survive a concrete artificial brain/body transplants. comp does not attempt this, it presupposes a level where it can be done. Among the first consequences appears the fact that such an attempt provably necessitates an act of faith. > > > And, I will not be surprised if you or someone else is ultimately > successful in doing so. Being successful here means only being able to explain (physical) observations. It is already successful in explaining the existence of sensations, and in situating quanta with respect to qualia. > 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". Not at all, the comp theory, thanks to its Church Thesis part, and some mathematical logic, is particularly cautious in distinguishing the representation and the represented, and what will and will not depend on the choice of representations. By definition of comp we bet that there is a digital representation correct with respect to the most probable local universal number, or computation, but the comp theory, which is just computer science/number theory/mathematical logic will still take the many nuances into account. For example: it is a theorem, not depending of the choice of any representation that all universal machines have to have a local representation to develop a third person notion. > > > It would just be a way of representing what "is". By which I mean: > It would just be a way of representing conscious experience. Comp explains, or if you prefer, the Löbian machine can already explains, about simpler Löbian machines, why those simpler machine cannot represent their notions of truth and consciousness. Consciousness of machine M is not representable by machine M. Comp provides a theory of consciousness, and this theory prevents us to represent our consciousness, except by betting on a sufficiently low level description and making an act of faith. A Löbian machine, I recall, is a universal machine which can prove (in technical weak sense) that she is universal. Most known Löbian machine are Peano Arithmetic and Zermelo Frankel Set Theory. > > > >> >> 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). It is a theorem in arithmetic. It is a reason, in the sense that if you agree with some axioms of arithmetic, you can agree that those universal numbers exist, and contemplate a sequence of unexpected facts about them. > > > >> >> 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. OK. No problem. > > > >> >> A power: relative self-acceleration (can lead to catastrophes, (like >> all power)). > > I'm not sure what you mean by this. Hmm... I refer often to another result by Gödel, or similar discovered by Blum and others in computer science, that universal machine/number are infinity accelerable, and that lobian machine can shorten arbitrarily the length of infinities of
