Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Rex Allen 
On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 2:47 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
> On 7/8/2011 11:35 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
>>>
>>> In other words:  What do we make of the fact that these predictions were
>>> >  successful (or not)?  What does this mean with respect to our beliefs
>>> > about
>>> >  what kinds of things exist?
>>> >
>>> >  The things we take to exist are the elements of our successful models.
>>>
>>
>> "We" who?  Not me.
>>
>
> Really?  Do you not have a model of your home and don't you take the
> contents of that home as things that exist?  Do you not suppose the beer in
> your refrigerator exists - even when the door is closed?  If not you must
> have trouble getting through the day.

Tu quoque fallacy.  Sad.

But seriously, it's not that hard.  I do fine.


Rex

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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Russell Standish 
On Fri, Jul 08, 2011 at 11:04:56PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> On 08 Jul 2011, at 03:39, B Soroud wrote:
> 
> >I mean if you went back to classical greece... or classical
> >india could it have been predicted or shown to deduced?
> 
> Excellent question. China was close. Reading the treatise "number"
> by Plotinus, and having a bit study Diophantus, I am not sure that
> in the world were Plato academia lasted longer they could have find
> it.  Nature found it before (quantum vaccum, DNA, Brain, humans,
> Human thought, computers, ...).
> It is the little God. The one you can named (Like FORTRAN, Java,
> c++, LISP, game of life, etc.) but when you name it, its names
> multiplies.

David Deutsch has an interesting discussion about this in his
"Beginning of Infinity". He actually introduces several notions of
universality, one of which is universality of the numbering
system. Our numbering system is universal, since the discovery of the
zero, but ancient Greek & Roman systems were not. Archimedes came
close to a universal numbering system in the "Sand Reckoner", but
mysteriously shied away from true universality (his system included
some rather arbitrary restrictions preventing it from true
universality). Similarly, Babbage and Lovelace came very close to the Turing
universality concept, but again mysteriously shied away from
it. Deutsch remarks that we as a species seem to have a reluctance to
making systems universal, which is quite curious.

So in answer to this question, even if Plato's academy had continued,
it probably still would not have discovered Turing universality.


-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Bruno's blasphemy.

2011-07-09 Thread Bruno Marchal 

Dear Marty,


On 08 Jul 2011, at 18:46, m.a. wrote:


Dear Bruno,
   Can you imagine any way to test whether a higher  
intelligence is monitoring the UD and occasionally modifying  
it?   marty a.




As much as I can imagine a higher intelligence monitoring the prime  
numbers, and occasionally modifying them. Like if sunday, numbers get  
new divisors.


In another word: hardly. (just remember than the UD, and its running,  
is part of arithmetic).


Best,

Bruno





- Original Message - From: "Bruno Marchal" 
To: 
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2011 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: Bruno's blasphemy.




On 08 Jul 2011, at 01:59, Russell Standish wrote:


On Wed, Jul 06, 2011 at 10:12:45PM -0700, meekerdb wrote:

One that happens to be incompatible with
theory that our minds are computer programs.


Can you explain that?  It seems to be Bruno's central claim, but so
far as I can see he only tries to prove that a physical reality is
otiose.

Brent


Here's my take on it. I guess you read the version I wrote 6 years  
ago

in ToN.

Once you allow the existence of a universal dovetailer, we are far
more likely to be running on the dovetailer (which is a simple
program) than on a much more complicated program (such as simulating
the universe as we currently see it).


I am in a good mood, so I will respect that. I don't want to go in  
the "details". Let just mention that I am not sure the size of the  
UD code matter so much. If we assume the *physical* existence of a  
forever running UD, then what counts is the number of computational  
histories going in my current state. That the UD itself wins might  
play a role.  But the way I isolate a computer science isolation of  
a formulation of  the mind-body, even what you say, if correct, has  
to be deduced from  the self-introspecting discourse of the machine.






Under COMP, the dovetailer is
capable of generating all possible experiences (which is why it is
universal). Therefore, everything we call physics (electrons,  
quarks,
electromagnetic fields, etc) is phenomena caused by the running of  
the

dovetailer.


That's correct. Yet, I guess many people will suppose that this  
comes from the fact that the UD will emulate some physical  
phenomenon, like  the computation of the heisenberg gigantic matrix  
describing the  observable evolution of the entire Milky Way +  
Magellan and Co. Now,  despite the UD does that indeed (trivially),  
that computation itself  is only playing an infinitesimal part in  
*our* experience of the  galaxy. A priori we have to take into  
account *all* computations going  through our actual 3-version of  
our actual mind state. So the real  physics, the one with the  
"real" quanta and the qualia, results from  the statistical  
interference of a priori a vastly bigger set of  computations.






By Church-Turing thesis, the dovetailer could be running
on anything capable of supporting universal computation. To use
Kantian terminology, what the dovetailer runs on is the noumenon,
unknowable reality, which need have no connection which the  
phenomenon

we observe. In fact with the CT-thesis, we cannot even know which
noumenon we're running on, in the case there may be more than one.  
We

might just as well be running on some demigod's child's playstation,
as running on Platonic arithmetic. It is in principle unknowable,  
even

by any putative omniscient God - there is simply no matter of fact
there to know.


All UDs are equivalent, and physics, nor the whole theology, can't   
depend of the initial choice.
We can take elementary arithmetic, the combinators, or any Turing  
complete formalism.
So we can even take the (rational, not real) Newton laws (but that   
would be confusing!), or a rational topological computer (but that   
would be treachery with respect to the "correct" extraction of the  
consciousness/matter coupling from the introspecting universal  
machine discourse.






So ultimately, this is why Bruno eliminates the concrete dovetailer,
in the manner of Laplace eliminating God "Sire, je n'ai besoin de  
cet

hypothese".


No, it is much worst, it is more like "Sire, Your hypothesis   
(primitive matter) can't be used, and might only prevents the  
finding  of the solution to the mind body problem.





Anyway, Bruno will no doubt correct any mistaken conceptions  
here :).


The impulse is stronger than me :)

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 08 Jul 2011, at 23:33, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/8/2011 2:04 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


The usual analogy is that your mind is your software, and your  
brain is the main operating system. It is obviously Turing  
universal (once you know the definition and think a little bit),  
and the comp assumption is that it is not more than Turing universal.


It's not obvious to me.  My "tape" seems quite finite.


All universal machine are finite. This is explicit in Turing's  
discovery paper of the universal machine. The universal machine  
discovered by Turing is the finite number that we can put on a tape  
making the Turing machine behave like a universal one.


A universal machine or number is a u such phi_u(x,y) = phi_x(y).

Look at wolfram competition: finding the least finite table for a  
universal cellular automata.


The infinite tape used in Turing machine is ... a error in pedagogy.

Universal machine, like cells, brains, and computers are finite being.  
By their nature, they will look for bigger memory, but their  
universality is a feature of their code/programs/description.


Secondly: you don't know if your tape is finite, and with comp you  
know it is not. But this is irrelevant for being universal.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 09 Jul 2011, at 06:06, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/8/2011 8:57 PM, B Soroud wrote:

I'm saying that perhaps the philosophic foundations and presupps of
physics are erroneous and something alternative is needed...

I am saying we need to ground physics in an idealist metaphysics
That's where my thoughts currently at.



That's what a lot of philosophers have said.  I say, "Have at it!"   
Let me know what you come up with.


You talk like if it was a matter of choice. But to have anything  
different from idealism you have to speculate on things that nobody  
has ever seen, and which escapes the computable. Idealism is not a  
belief in ideas, it is a skepticism in matter. Comp explains why we  
have to be skeptic on matter. Materialism will die like vitalism. It  
is just a big 'animal' extrapolation which appears to be inconsistent.  
Science is born from a departure of the idea that what we see is what  
is real. Aristotle just bring that idea, a very popular idea indeed,  
back.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 09 Jul 2011, at 07:07, Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:


Down the bottom if you dare there be dragons...   :-)

-Original Message-
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com on behalf of Jason Resch
Sent: Sat 7/9/2011 1:23 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 1:56 AM, Colin Geoffrey Hales  wrote:

> Hi,
>
>  
>
> You have missed the point. When you feel pain in your hand your  
are feeling
> it because the physics of specific specialized small regions of  
the cranial
> central nervous system are doing things. This includes (1) action  
potentials
> mutually resonating with (2) a gigantic EM field system in  
extremely complex

> ways. *Exactly how and why this specific arrangement of atoms and
> behaviour delivers it is irrelevant. It is enough to know that it  
does*.
> More than that it is the ONLY example of natural cognition we  
have.

>
>  
>
> The whole point of this argument is that unlike any other time in  
the
> history of science, we are expecting the particular physics (that  
we know
> delivers  cognition) can be totally replaced (by the physics of a  
computer

> or even worse, a non-existent Turing machine) , yet still result in
> cognition. 
>
>
> It's not the "totally" that is the problem.  Bruno asks if you can  
replace
> a part of a brain with something that does the same computation  
(at some
> level) and have no effect on the conscious (or unconscious) life  
of that
> person.  This certainly seems plausible.  But it relies on the  
remaining
> world to continue interacting with that person.  So in his idea of  
replacing
> physics with computation he has to suppose replacing all of the  
brain plus
> everything that interacts with the brain.  In other words a  
simulation of
> the person(s) and the universe.  Then within the simulation EM  
fields are
> computed and supply computed illumination to computed eyes and  
brains.  He
> invites us to consider all this computation done by a universal  
dovetailer,
> a computer which also computes all possible computable universes  
as it
> goes.  But to me it seems a great leap from computing what a piece  
(or even
> all) of a brain does to computing a whole (quantum) universe.  I'm  
not at
> all sure that the universe is computable; and it's certainly a  
different

> question than whether I would say yes to the doctor.
>
> *This entire scenario has nothing to do with what I am talking  
about.
> Bruno is talking about the universe AS abstract computation.  
Ontology. I am
> talking about a completely different area: the computation of  
descriptions
> of a universe; descriptions  compiled  by observers within  it  
called 'laws

> of nature'. ***
>
> ** **
>
> *This is the main problem. We are speaking at cross purposes.  
Computation
> by computers made of bits of our universe is not the same is  
describing of a
> universe of ontological primitives interacting. I find the latter  
really
> interesting, but completely irrelevant to the task at hand, which  
is to
> create artificial cognition using the real world of humans and the  
stuff

> they are made of. *
>
>  
>
> If you believe that computed physics equations is  
indistinguishable from
> physics, to the point that a computed model of the physics of  
cognition is
> cognition, then why don't you expect a computed model of  
combustion physics
> to burst into flames and replace your cooker? Why can't you go to  
work in a
> computed model of a car that spontaneously springs into your life?  
Why don't
> you expect to be able to light your room with a computed model of  
the
> physics of a lightbulb? Why can't you compute Maxwell's equations  
and create

> a power station?
>
>
> You can within a simulation.
>
> ** **
>
> *At last, someone takes the magical step. This is the problem writ- 
large.
> What you are saying, in effect, is that computation about X is  
only some
> kind of simulation of X. My whole point is that I do not want a  
simulation
> of X. I want an X. Like artificial fire is still fire. Like  
artificial light
> is light. Like artificial lightning is lightning.  Like artificial  
cognition
> is cognition. Like an artificial round rollything (wheel) is a  
wheel. 
> like a million other artificial versions of a natural phenomenon  
created by

> humans for millennia.*
>
> * *
>
> *In using a computer, all the original physics is gone. Yet the 100%
> expectation is (apart from yourself, apparently... or.not... we  
have found
> the inconsistency at last)  that computers will lead to AGI is the  
state of
> the game. Yet it involves entirely disposing of the natural  
phenomenon that
> we know originates it. It replaces the entire physics with the  
physics of a
> computer ... and then expects to get the natural  phenomenon out  
of it!*

>

Ultimately physics is just  set of well defined rules (algorithms) and
matter and energy is just i

Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 09 Jul 2011, at 09:10, Russell Standish wrote:


On Fri, Jul 08, 2011 at 11:04:56PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 08 Jul 2011, at 03:39, B Soroud wrote:


I mean if you went back to classical greece... or classical
india could it have been predicted or shown to deduced?


Excellent question. China was close. Reading the treatise "number"
by Plotinus, and having a bit study Diophantus, I am not sure that
in the world were Plato academia lasted longer they could have find
it.  Nature found it before (quantum vaccum, DNA, Brain, humans,
Human thought, computers, ...).
It is the little God. The one you can named (Like FORTRAN, Java,
c++, LISP, game of life, etc.) but when you name it, its names
multiplies.


David Deutsch has an interesting discussion about this in his
"Beginning of Infinity". He actually introduces several notions of
universality, one of which is universality of the numbering
system. Our numbering system is universal,


Well, carefull. It is unidversal in some sense, but is not Turing  
universal.






since the discovery of the
zero, but ancient Greek & Roman systems were not.


But they are universal in some other sense.




Archimedes came
close to a universal numbering system in the "Sand Reckoner", but
mysteriously shied away from true universality (his system included
some rather arbitrary restrictions preventing it from true
universality).


But they were way far from Turing universality.




Similarly, Babbage and Lovelace came very close to the Turing
universality concept, but again mysteriously shied away from
it.


Here I disagree. I have made research, and I am convinced that babbage  
has been aware of the Turing universality, of, its notation system to  
describe its machine. He said that this was his real big discovery,  
but none understand it.


Then Emil Post is the second one, but nobody will listen (nor will  
Post really insist). Only with Church and Turing will the notion be  
admitted by the many. But still very badly understood, despite the  
concrete computers, which when programmed, hides their universality.





Deutsch remarks that we as a species seem to have a reluctance to
making systems universal, which is quite curious.

So in answer to this question, even if Plato's academy had continued,
it probably still would not have discovered Turing universality.


I think it would have taken some more centuries. They might have  
discovered it in the 12 or 13th century. They would not have been able  
to miss it, especially with the development of math and calculus,  
which they would have developed much faster than Newton and Leibniz.  
OK, that is just my current opinion. We can't change history.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Bruno's blasphemy.

2011-07-09 Thread Craig Weinberg 
> Why?  Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons
> just like computer chips.  Why should anything other than their
> input/output function matter?

A cadaver is made out of the same thing too. You could pump food into
it and fit it with an artificial gut, even give it a synthesized voice
to make pre-recorded announcements and string it up like a marionette.
That doesn't mean it's a person. Life does not occur on the atomic
level, it occurs on the molecular level. There may be a way of making
inorganic molecules reproduce themselves, but there's no reason to
believe that their sensation or cognition would be any more similar
than petroleum is to plutonium. The i/o function is only half of the
story.

> Just assertions.  The question is whether something other than you can
> have them?

Why couldn't it? As you say, I am made of the same protons, neutrons,
and electrons as everything else. You can't have it both ways. Either
consciousness is a natural potential of all material phenomena or it's
a unique special case. In the former you have to explain why more
things aren't conscious, and the latter you have to explain why
consciousness could exist. My alternative is to see that everything
has a private side, which behaves in a sensorimotor way rather than
electromagnetic, so that our experience is a massive sensorimotor
aggregate of nested organic patterns.

> A computer flying an airliner is not very smart, but it would know what
> a runway is, what a storm is, the shape of the Earth.  A computer that
> runs a hospital would know whether there were patients, doctors, or nurses.

Nah, a computer like that wouldn't know anything about runways,
storms, shapes, or Earth or whether there were patients, doctors, or
nurses. Computers are just mazes of semiconductors which know when
they are free to complete some circuits and not others. A computer
autopilot knows less what a plane is than a cat does. Computers are
automated microelectronic sculptures through which we compute human
sense. They have no actual sense of their own beyond microelectronic
sense.

> You beg the question by specifying "human meaning".  Do you suppose that
> there is something unique about humans, or can there be dog meaning and
> fish meaning and computer meaning?

There is certainly something unique about humans in the minds of
humans. Of course there is dog meaning, fish meaning, liver cell
meaning, neuron meaning, DNA meaning, carbon meaning. There isn't
computer meaning though because it's only a computer to a person that
can use a computer. To a cat, it's just a warm box. A cat, however,
makes sense to mice as one thing (monster?), to humans as another
(pet? pest? lunch?), to fleas (home?). Etc. A computer is just a glove
for certain functions of our cognitive/cortical faculties.

Craig

On Jul 8, 10:44 pm, meekerdb  wrote:
> On 7/8/2011 6:40 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> > Conscious is an informal term, so it depends how you want to use it. I
> > think of consciousness as the top level meta-awareness of a hierarchy
> > of levels which might be called awareness, perception, sensation, and
> > detection, where another person's idea of consciousness would equate
> > all of those terms. In my usage, the awareness that one is aware,
> > which would include something like dreaming or hallucinating. A more
> > medical use of the word might distinguish consciousness as the ability
> > to respond to external stimuli or produce electrical activity in
> > particular areas of the brain, etc.
>
> I agree that there are different kinds and degrees of consciousness.  
> Also it seems that a lot of our thinking takes place with consciousness,
> c.f. Poincare' effect.
>
> > Replacing parts of the brain depends what the artificial circuits are
> > made of. For them to be experienced as something like human
> > consciousness then I think they would have to be made of biological
> > tissue.
>
> Why?  Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons
> just like computer chips.  Why should anything other than their
> input/output function matter?
>
> > Awareness isn't calculation, 'information', or
> > 'interpretations'. Those are high-level cognitive abstractions.
> > Awareness is visceral, concrete, low level sense experience - a
> > primary presentation rather than a representation.
>
> Just assertions.  The question is whether something other than you can
> have them?
>
> > I'm only using computer screens as an example, but if you extend the
> > example to include other human devices like an airliner or hospital,
> > those things still have to be filled with human beings to give them
> > human meaning. A computer autopiloting an empty plane in a post-
> > apolcalypse world devoid of life would only have electronic and
> > physical meaning - circuits pushing toward equilibrium, meaningless
> > bodies of mass hurtling through the atmosphere. It doesn't know what a
> > plane is. A hospital without any people is an

Re: Bruno's blasphemy.

2011-07-09 Thread Craig Weinberg 
Sure, it would be great to have improved synthetic bodies, but I have
no reason to believe that depth and quality of consciousness is
independent from substance. If I have an artificial heart, that
artificiality may not affect me as much as having an artificial leg,
however, an artificial brain means an artificial me, and that's a
completely different story. It's like writing a computer program to
replace computer users. You might find out that digital circuits are
unconscious by definition.

On Jul 9, 12:14 am, Kim Jones  wrote:
> Indeed, why? Any talk of 'artificial circuits' might risk the patient saying 
> 'No' to the doctor. I want real, digital circuits. Meat circuits are fine, 
> though there might be something better. I mean, if something better than 
> 'skin' comes along, I'll swap my skin for that. Probably need the brain 
> upgrade anyway to read the new skin. You could even make me believe I had a 
> new skin via the firmware in the brain upgrade. No need to change skin at all.
>
> I could even sell you a brain upgrade that looked like it was composed of 
> meat when in fact it was a bunch of something else. You only have to believe 
> what your brain presents you.
>
> Kim Jones
>
> On 09/07/2011, at 12:44 PM, meekerdb wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >> Replacing parts of the brain depends what the artificial circuits are
> >> made of. For them to be experienced as something like human
> >> consciousness then I think they would have to be made of biological
> >> tissue.
>
> > Why?  Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons 
> > just like computer chips.  Why should anything other than their 
> > input/output function matter?

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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Constantine Pseudonymous 
Bruno, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by vitalism but if its
what I have in mind. then it "died" erroneously. I don't think
notions of qi and prana are without foundation far from it. There
is a sense in which, if vitalism died, that was a mistake but I am
not exactly sure of the specificity in which you refer to vitalism.

On Jul 9, 5:26 am, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> On 09 Jul 2011, at 09:10, Russell Standish wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Fri, Jul 08, 2011 at 11:04:56PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> >> On 08 Jul 2011, at 03:39, B Soroud wrote:
>
> >>> I mean if you went back to classical greece... or classical
> >>> india could it have been predicted or shown to deduced?
>
> >> Excellent question. China was close. Reading the treatise "number"
> >> by Plotinus, and having a bit study Diophantus, I am not sure that
> >> in the world were Plato academia lasted longer they could have find
> >> it.  Nature found it before (quantum vaccum, DNA, Brain, humans,
> >> Human thought, computers, ...).
> >> It is the little God. The one you can named (Like FORTRAN, Java,
> >> c++, LISP, game of life, etc.) but when you name it, its names
> >> multiplies.
>
> > David Deutsch has an interesting discussion about this in his
> > "Beginning of Infinity". He actually introduces several notions of
> > universality, one of which is universality of the numbering
> > system. Our numbering system is universal,
>
> Well, carefull. It is unidversal in some sense, but is not Turing  
> universal.
>
> > since the discovery of the
> > zero, but ancient Greek & Roman systems were not.
>
> But they are universal in some other sense.
>
> > Archimedes came
> > close to a universal numbering system in the "Sand Reckoner", but
> > mysteriously shied away from true universality (his system included
> > some rather arbitrary restrictions preventing it from true
> > universality).
>
> But they were way far from Turing universality.
>
> > Similarly, Babbage and Lovelace came very close to the Turing
> > universality concept, but again mysteriously shied away from
> > it.
>
> Here I disagree. I have made research, and I am convinced that babbage  
> has been aware of the Turing universality, of, its notation system to  
> describe its machine. He said that this was his real big discovery,  
> but none understand it.
>
> Then Emil Post is the second one, but nobody will listen (nor will  
> Post really insist). Only with Church and Turing will the notion be  
> admitted by the many. But still very badly understood, despite the  
> concrete computers, which when programmed, hides their universality.
>
> > Deutsch remarks that we as a species seem to have a reluctance to
> > making systems universal, which is quite curious.
>
> > So in answer to this question, even if Plato's academy had continued,
> > it probably still would not have discovered Turing universality.
>
> I think it would have taken some more centuries. They might have  
> discovered it in the 12 or 13th century. They would not have been able  
> to miss it, especially with the development of math and calculus,  
> which they would have developed much faster than Newton and Leibniz.  
> OK, that is just my current opinion. We can't change history.
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 09 Jul 2011, at 19:06, Constantine Pseudonymous wrote:


Bruno, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by vitalism but if its
what I have in mind. then it "died" erroneously. I don't think
notions of qi and prana are without foundation far from it. There
is a sense in which, if vitalism died, that was a mistake but I am
not exactly sure of the specificity in which you refer to vitalism.


Vitalism is the belief, in the 19th century, by some biologist, in a  
vital principle which would not follow the known laws of physics and  
chemistry, other that higher level laws explainable at lower levels.  
It was notably based on results obtained on self-regeneration, and on  
the fact that biologist did not succeed in explaining conceptually the  
possibility of self-reproduction without falling in an infinite  
regress (Descartes-Driesch problem).
The Kleene recursion theorem (in arithmetic) solves that problem. It  
is a key point, and I wrote a paper on that  "amoeba, planaria and  
dreaming machine". And it is the basic block of the self-reference  
uses in AUDA (but hidden in Solovay Theorems, which encapsulate the  
many application of Kleene's theorem in the logic G and G*).
Deep principles are at play in the life phenomenon, no doubt, but none  
seem to require a new physics, and still less non Turing emulable  
phenomenon. There is an abstract biology which does not depend on  
matter and which works in all bases of the phi_i (the computable  
functions), i.e. with respect to any choice of the initial universal  
system.


If you defend vitalism, you will still be under the consequence of  
comp, unless you believe that the vital principle is not Turing  
emulable, but then just say "no" to the doctor. You can still  
understand that IF mechanism is correct then the correct physics is  
the one by Plato-Plotinus, and not the naturalistic one developed by  
taking Aristotle too much literally.


Bruno





On Jul 9, 5:26 am, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

On 09 Jul 2011, at 09:10, Russell Standish wrote:










On Fri, Jul 08, 2011 at 11:04:56PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 08 Jul 2011, at 03:39, B Soroud wrote:



I mean if you went back to classical greece... or classical
india could it have been predicted or shown to deduced?



Excellent question. China was close. Reading the treatise "number"
by Plotinus, and having a bit study Diophantus, I am not sure that
in the world were Plato academia lasted longer they could have find
it.  Nature found it before (quantum vaccum, DNA, Brain, humans,
Human thought, computers, ...).
It is the little God. The one you can named (Like FORTRAN, Java,
c++, LISP, game of life, etc.) but when you name it, its names
multiplies.



David Deutsch has an interesting discussion about this in his
"Beginning of Infinity". He actually introduces several notions of
universality, one of which is universality of the numbering
system. Our numbering system is universal,


Well, carefull. It is unidversal in some sense, but is not Turing
universal.


since the discovery of the
zero, but ancient Greek & Roman systems were not.


But they are universal in some other sense.


Archimedes came
close to a universal numbering system in the "Sand Reckoner", but
mysteriously shied away from true universality (his system included
some rather arbitrary restrictions preventing it from true
universality).


But they were way far from Turing universality.


Similarly, Babbage and Lovelace came very close to the Turing
universality concept, but again mysteriously shied away from
it.


Here I disagree. I have made research, and I am convinced that  
babbage

has been aware of the Turing universality, of, its notation system to
describe its machine. He said that this was his real big discovery,
but none understand it.

Then Emil Post is the second one, but nobody will listen (nor will
Post really insist). Only with Church and Turing will the notion be
admitted by the many. But still very badly understood, despite the
concrete computers, which when programmed, hides their universality.


Deutsch remarks that we as a species seem to have a reluctance to
making systems universal, which is quite curious.


So in answer to this question, even if Plato's academy had  
continued,

it probably still would not have discovered Turing universality.


I think it would have taken some more centuries. They might have
discovered it in the 12 or 13th century. They would not have been  
able

to miss it, especially with the development of math and calculus,
which they would have developed much faster than Newton and Leibniz.
OK, that is just my current opinion. We can't change history.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread meekerdb 

On 7/9/2011 12:00 AM, Rex Allen wrote:

On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 2:47 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
   

On 7/8/2011 11:35 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
 

In other words:  What do we make of the fact that these predictions were
 

  successful (or not)?  What does this mean with respect to our beliefs
about
  what kinds of things exist?

  The things we take to exist are the elements of our successful models.
   
 

"We" who?  Not me.

   

Really?  Do you not have a model of your home and don't you take the
contents of that home as things that exist?  Do you not suppose the beer in
your refrigerator exists - even when the door is closed?  If not you must
have trouble getting through the day.
 

Tu quoque fallacy.  Sad.
   


A confusing response from someone who claimed "Not me."   Are you 
claiming you don't do it, or that the fact that you do it too is not a 
valid argument?


Brent

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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 09 Jul 2011, at 06:02, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/8/2011 8:08 PM, Rex Allen wrote:




On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 11:01 PM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 7/8/2011 7:35 PM, Constantine Pseudonymous wrote:
it makes so much sense.

the doctrine of physicalism is in the least on the same plane as any
idealistic metaphysics, especially some form of objective idealism.
But in my eye… the fairer judgment is that some form of idealistic
metaphysics is in fact situated a step above physicalism in
probability and satisfactory of coherence.


And has idealistic metaphysics ever made a successful prediction or  
informed a useful product?



Metaphysics has nothing to do with prediction.  Metaphysics is  
about interpretation and meaning.


But the metaphysics of materialism has been the philosophical guide  
of science since the renaissance.  Idealism has been the metaphysics  
of mystics and charlatans.


This is debatable. Idealism was just an option for those who invented  
the sciences, and materialism has been without doubt an excellent  
methodological assumption, but it might be the bullet of the mind-body  
problem. And I don't think it makes sense at all once we bet on  
mechanism.
But even without mechanism, we can be skeptical on the interpretation  
of the physical laws. Those are amazing relations between measurable  
numbers, but where does those relations come from, and how do they  
related to experiences, including the experience of the experimenters?


Bruno








In other words:  What do we make of the fact that these predictions  
were successful (or not)?  What does this mean with respect to our  
beliefs about what kinds of things exist?


The things we take to exist are the elements of our successful models.

Brent

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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread B Soroud 
if you really believe in reality you should commit suicide... if a
reality remains there is reality

if no reality remains... well then all is base stupidity.


On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 5:10 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 09 Jul 2011, at 06:06, meekerdb wrote:
>
>  On 7/8/2011 8:57 PM, B Soroud wrote:
>>
>>> I'm saying that perhaps the philosophic foundations and presupps of
>>> physics are erroneous and something alternative is needed...
>>>
>>> I am saying we need to ground physics in an idealist metaphysics
>>> That's where my thoughts currently at.
>>>
>>>
>> That's what a lot of philosophers have said.  I say, "Have at it!"  Let me
>> know what you come up with.
>>
>
> You talk like if it was a matter of choice. But to have anything different
> from idealism you have to speculate on things that nobody has ever seen, and
> which escapes the computable. Idealism is not a belief in ideas, it is a
> skepticism in matter. Comp explains why we have to be skeptic on matter.
> Materialism will die like vitalism. It is just a big 'animal' extrapolation
> which appears to be inconsistent. Science is born from a departure of the
> idea that what we see is what is real. Aristotle just bring that idea, a
> very popular idea indeed, back.
>
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ 
>
>
>
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Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 09 Jul 2011, at 14:26, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 09 Jul 2011, at 09:10, Russell Standish wrote:


On Fri, Jul 08, 2011 at 11:04:56PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 08 Jul 2011, at 03:39, B Soroud wrote:


I mean if you went back to classical greece... or classical
india could it have been predicted or shown to deduced?


Excellent question. China was close. Reading the treatise "number"
by Plotinus, and having a bit study Diophantus, I am not sure that
in the world were Plato academia lasted longer they could have find
it.  Nature found it before (quantum vaccum, DNA, Brain, humans,
Human thought, computers, ...).
It is the little God. The one you can named (Like FORTRAN, Java,
c++, LISP, game of life, etc.) but when you name it, its names
multiplies.


David Deutsch has an interesting discussion about this in his
"Beginning of Infinity". He actually introduces several notions of
universality, one of which is universality of the numbering
system. Our numbering system is universal,


Well, carefull. It is unidversal in some sense, but is not Turing  
universal.






since the discovery of the
zero, but ancient Greek & Roman systems were not.


But they are universal in some other sense.




Archimedes came
close to a universal numbering system in the "Sand Reckoner", but
mysteriously shied away from true universality (his system included
some rather arbitrary restrictions preventing it from true
universality).


But they were way far from Turing universality.




Similarly, Babbage and Lovelace came very close to the Turing
universality concept, but again mysteriously shied away from
it.


Here I disagree. I have made research, and I am convinced that  
babbage has been aware of the Turing universality, of, its notation  
system to describe its machine. He said that this was his real big  
discovery, but none understand it.


Then Emil Post is the second one, but nobody will listen (nor will  
Post really insist). Only with Church and Turing will the notion be  
admitted by the many. But still very badly understood, despite the  
concrete computers, which when programmed, hides their universality.





Deutsch remarks that we as a species seem to have a reluctance to
making systems universal, which is quite curious.

So in answer to this question, even if Plato's academy had continued,
it probably still would not have discovered Turing universality.


I think it would have taken some more centuries. They might have  
discovered it in the 12 or 13th century. They would not have been  
able to miss it, especially with the development of math and  
calculus, which they would have developed much faster than Newton  
and Leibniz. OK, that is just my current opinion. We can't change  
history.



Let me tell you why I think so. Basically it is the text by Plotinus  
on Numbers which makes me think like that. This is not numerology,  
which annoyed Plotinus, but a deep reflection on the infinite, and the  
question if there is a number of numbers, and the dialectic between  
the ONE and the Many. This prefigures Cantor. But mathematicians have  
inherit Aristotle fears on the infinite, and it is only by a  
reflection on the infinite which can lead, through the diagonalization  
technic, to the discovery that the "numberable" (enumerable) functions  
(computable functions) own a universal function, and thus an  
(infinity) of universal numbers. Plotinus was the first to see the  
infinite as a possible positive attribute of "God", and not as a  
defect like for the ealier platonicians.
When you "see" the quality of Hypatia research and teaching on  
Plotinus and Diophantus, I think that if Platonism would have been  
able to continue a little longer, may be we would be farer in the  
field, although the Platonists would have perhaps consider the  
building of such machine a sort of blasphemy too, so it is impossible  
to know.
The notion of universal machine is, with Church thesis, a precise  
discovery in math, and it is changing the world, more than the zero,  
more than the logarithm (which initiated the computation revolution),  
more than calculus (which initiated the industrial revolution).
To be sure, I have few doubt that without the fire of Alexandra  
library, we would also be far away.
And without some asteroïds hurting our planet ... "we" might still be  
dinosaurs.


Bruno








Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Bruno's blasphemy.

2011-07-09 Thread Craig Weinberg 
Consider that even though the internet is pretty complex, we don't
have to worry about it developing an allergy to it's users and locking
them out. Cartoon characters can't think or feel, regardless of how
faithfully they are illustrated. We should not confuse the capacity of
a living thing to have coherent experiences as a single entity with
the capacity of human consciousness to impose it's own coherence and
see it reflected in inorganic matter.

On Jul 9, 12:14 am, Kim Jones  wrote:
> Indeed, why? Any talk of 'artificial circuits' might risk the patient saying 
> 'No' to the doctor. I want real, digital circuits. Meat circuits are fine, 
> though there might be something better. I mean, if something better than 
> 'skin' comes along, I'll swap my skin for that. Probably need the brain 
> upgrade anyway to read the new skin. You could even make me believe I had a 
> new skin via the firmware in the brain upgrade. No need to change skin at all.
>
> I could even sell you a brain upgrade that looked like it was composed of 
> meat when in fact it was a bunch of something else. You only have to believe 
> what your brain presents you.
>
> Kim Jones
>
> On 09/07/2011, at 12:44 PM, meekerdb wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >> Replacing parts of the brain depends what the artificial circuits are
> >> made of. For them to be experienced as something like human
> >> consciousness then I think they would have to be made of biological
> >> tissue.
>
> > Why?  Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons 
> > just like computer chips.  Why should anything other than their 
> > input/output function matter?

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Re: Bruno's blasphemy.

2011-07-09 Thread Jason Resch 
On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

> > Why?  Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons
> > just like computer chips.  Why should anything other than their
> > input/output function matter?
>
> A cadaver is made out of the same thing too. You could pump food into
> it and fit it with an artificial gut, even give it a synthesized voice
> to make pre-recorded announcements and string it up like a marionette.
> That doesn't mean it's a person. Life does not occur on the atomic
> level, it occurs on the molecular level. There may be a way of making
> inorganic molecules reproduce themselves, but there's no reason to
> believe that their sensation or cognition would be any more similar
> than petroleum is to plutonium. The i/o function is only half of the
> story.
>
> > Just assertions.  The question is whether something other than you can
> > have them?
>
> Why couldn't it? As you say, I am made of the same protons, neutrons,
> and electrons as everything else. You can't have it both ways. Either
> consciousness is a natural potential of all material phenomena or it's
> a unique special case. In the former you have to explain why more
> things aren't conscious, and the latter you have to explain why
> consciousness could exist.


This is like having to argue why more atoms aren't alive.  The difference
between a life form and a mixture of chunks of coal and water won't be found
in comparing the chemicals, the difference is in their organization.  That
is all that separates living matter from non-living matter.  Mechanism says
the same thing regarding intelligent entities vs. non-intelligent entities.
It comes down to their organization, not any material difference.  Addition
can be performed by collections of cells and by logic gates etched on
silicon.

Most neurologists consider the retina part of the brain, since processing is
performed there.  Could we not build an artificial retina which sent the
right signals down the optic nerve and allow someone to see?  Such cyborgs
already exist: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20038162-10391704.html



> My alternative is to see that everything
> has a private side, which behaves in a sensorimotor way rather than
> electromagnetic, so that our experience is a massive sensorimotor
> aggregate of nested organic patterns.
>
> > A computer flying an airliner is not very smart, but it would know what
> > a runway is, what a storm is, the shape of the Earth.  A computer that
> > runs a hospital would know whether there were patients, doctors, or
> nurses.
>
> Nah, a computer like that wouldn't know anything about runways,
> storms, shapes, or Earth or whether there were patients, doctors, or
> nurses. Computers are just mazes of semiconductors which know when
> they are free to complete some circuits and not others.


And brains are just gelatinous tissue with cells squirting juices back and
forth.  If you are going to use reductionism when talking about computers,
then to be fair you must apply the same reasoning when talking about minds
and brains.



> A computer
> autopilot knows less what a plane is than a cat does. Computers are
> automated microelectronic sculptures through which we compute human
> sense. They have no actual sense of their own beyond microelectronic
> sense.
>
> > You beg the question by specifying "human meaning".  Do you suppose that
> > there is something unique about humans, or can there be dog meaning and
> > fish meaning and computer meaning?
>
> There is certainly something unique about humans in the minds of
> humans. Of course there is dog meaning, fish meaning, liver cell
> meaning, neuron meaning, DNA meaning, carbon meaning. There isn't
> computer meaning though because it's only a computer to a person that
> can use a computer.


Do you need another person to look at and interpret the firings of neurons
in your brain in order for there to be meaning for your thoughts?  If not,
why must be a user of the computer to impart meaning to its states?

 Jason

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Re: Bruno's blasphemy.

2011-07-09 Thread Craig Weinberg 
> The difference between a life form and a mixture of chunks of coal and water 
> won't be found
> in comparing the chemicals, the difference is in their organization.  That
> is all that separates living matter from non-living matter

Organization is only part of it. You could try to to make DNA out of
something else - substituting sulfur for carbon for instance, and it
won't work. It goes beyond mathematical considerations, since there is
nothing inherently golden about the number 79 or carbon-like about the
number 6. We can observe that in this universe these mathematical
organizations correlate with particular behaviors and qualities, but
that doesn't mean that they have to, in all possible universes,
correlate in that way. Mercury could look gold to us instead. Life
could be based on boron. In this universe, however, there is no such
thing as living matter, there are only living tissues. Cells. Not
circuits.

> Could we not build an artificial retina which sent the right signals down the 
> optic nerve and allow someone to see?

Sure, but it's still going to be a prosthetic antenna. You can
replicate the physical inputs from the outside world but you can't
necessarily replicate the psychic outputs from the visual cortex to
the conscious Self. It's no more reasonable than expecting the
fingernails on an artificial hand to continue to grow and need
clipping. We don't have the foggiest idea how to create a new primary
color from scratch. IMO, until we can do that - one of the most
objective and simple examples of subjective experience, we have no
hope of even beginning to synthesize consciousness from inorganic
materials.

>And brains are just gelatinous tissue with cells squirting juices back and
>forth.  If you are going to use reductionism when talking about computers,
>then to be fair you must apply the same reasoning when talking about minds
>and brains.

Exactly. If we didn't know for a fact that our brain was hosting
consciousness through our first hand experience there would be
absolutely no way of suspecting that such a thing could exist. This is
what I'm saying about the private topology of the cosmos. We can't
access it directly because we are stuck in our own private topology.

So to apply this to computers and planes - yes they could have a
private topology, but judging from their lack of self-motivated
behaviors, it makes more sense to think of them in terms of purely
structural and electronic interiority rather than imagining that their
assembly into anthropological artifacts confer some kind of additional
subjectivity.

A living cell is more than the sum of it's parts. A dead cell is made
of the same materials with the same organization as a living cell, it
just doesn't cohere as an integrated cell anymore, so lower level
processes overwhelm the whole. Decay is entropy for a body or a piece
of fruit, but a bonanza of biological negentropy for bacteria and
insects.

>Do you need another person to look at and interpret the firings of neurons
>in your brain in order for there to be meaning for your thoughts?  If not,
>why must be a user of the computer to impart meaning to its states?

I'm not saying that there is no meaning to the states of
semiconductors acting in concert within a microprocessor, I'm just
saying that it's likely to be orders of magnitude more primitive than
organic life. To me, it's obvious that the interior experience of
neurons firing is the important, relevant phenomenon while the neuron
side is the generic back end.

Since computers are a reflection of our own cognitive abilities rather
than a self-organizing phenomenon, their important, relevant phenomena
are the signifying side which faces the user. The guts of the computer
are just means to an end. They don't know that they are computers, and
they never will. Computation is not awareness. If it were, you could
invent a new primary color simply by having someone understand a
formula. It's a category error to conflate the two.

Craig

btw, these ideas are not what I have always believed. I have been
thinking about these issues all of my life. My original orientation
was as a strict materialist, so I know very well how to make sense out
of the world that way. I'm just saying that it's missing half of the
story based on an idea of the self as a transparent logical entity
separate from the cosmos that it observes, which is not. Consciousness
is an extension of perception and awareness, not a disembodied logical
essence. Logic is metaphysical. Sense is physics.

On Jul 9, 6:08 pm, Jason Resch  wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Why?  Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons
> > > just like computer chips.  Why should anything other than their
> > > input/output function matter?
>
> > A cadaver is made out of the same thing too. You could pump food into
> > it and fit it with an artificial gut, even give it a synthesized voice
> > to make pre-rec

Re: Bruno's blasphemy.

2011-07-09 Thread Jason Resch 
On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 7:42 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

> > The difference between a life form and a mixture of chunks of coal and
> water won't be found
> > in comparing the chemicals, the difference is in their organization.
>  That
> > is all that separates living matter from non-living matter
>
> Organization is only part of it.


How is it you are so sure that the organization is only part of it?


> You could try to to make DNA out of
> something else - substituting sulfur for carbon for instance, and it
> won't work.


Sulfur is not functionally equivalent to carbon, it will behave differently
and thus it is not the same organization.


> It goes beyond mathematical considerations, since there is
> nothing inherently golden about the number 79 or carbon-like about the
> number 6. We can observe that in this universe these mathematical
> organizations correlate with particular behaviors and qualities, but
> that doesn't mean that they have to, in all possible universes,
> correlate in that way. Mercury could look gold to us instead. Life
> could be based on boron. In this universe, however, there is no such
> thing as living matter, there are only living tissues. Cells. Not
> circuits.
>

The special thing about carbon is that it has four free electrons to use to
bond with other atoms (it serves as a glue for holding large molecules
together).  While Silicon also has 4 free electrons, it is much larger, and
doesn't hide away between the atoms it is holding together, it would get in
the way.  Anything that behaves like a carbon atom in all the same ways
could serve as a replacement for the carbon atom, it wouldn't have to be
carbon.  For example, lets say we discovered a new quark that could be put
together into a super proton with a positive charge of 3, and also it had
the mass of 3 protons.  A nucleus made of two of these super protons and six
neutrons could not rightfully be called carbon, yet it would have the same
mass and chemical properties, and the same electron shells.  Do you think it
would be impossible to make a life form using these particles in place of
carbon (assuming they behaved the same in all the right conditions) or is
there something special about the identity of carbon?


>
> > Could we not build an artificial retina which sent the right signals down
> the optic nerve and allow someone to see?
>
> Sure, but it's still going to be a prosthetic antenna.


No, it is more than an antenna.  The retina does processing.  I chose the
retina example as opposed to replacing part of the optic nerve precisely
because the retina is more than an antenna.


> You can
> replicate the physical inputs from the outside world but you can't
> necessarily replicate the psychic outputs from the visual cortex to
> the conscious Self.


So the "psychic outputs" from the retina are reproducible, but not those of
the visual cortex?  Why not?  The idea of these psychic outputs sounds
somewhat like substance dualism or vitalism.


> It's no more reasonable than expecting the
> fingernails on an artificial hand to continue to grow and need
> clipping. We don't have the foggiest idea how to create a new primary
> color from scratch.


We have done this to monkeys already:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/sep/16/colour-blindness-monkeys-gene-therapy
The interesting thing is that the brain was apparently able to automatically
adapt to the new signals received from the retina and process it for what it
was, a new primary color input.  It only took the brain five months or so to
rewire itself to process this new color.

"It was as if they woke up and saw these new colours. The treated animals
unquestionably responded to colours that had been invisible to them," said
Jay Neitz, a co-author on the study at the University of Washington in
Seattle.

It is even thought that some small percentage of women see four primary
colors: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06256/721190-114.stm
It is not that they have different genes for processing colors differently,
they just have genes for a fourth type of light-sensitive cone, their brain
software adapts accordingly.  (Just as those with color blindness do not
have defective brains)


> IMO, until we can do that - one of the most
> objective and simple examples of subjective experience, we have no
> hope of even beginning to synthesize consciousness from inorganic
> materials.
>

I think it is wrong to say the subjective visual experience is simple.  It
seems simple to us, but it has gone through massive amounts of processing
and filters before you are made aware of it.  Some 30% of the gray matter in
your brain is used to process visual data.

Given that, I would argue we have already implemented consciousness in
in-organic materials.  Consider that Google's self driving cars must
discriminate between red and green street lights.  Is the self-driving car
not aware of the color the street light is?


>
> >And brains are just gelatinous tissue with cells squirting juices b

Re: Bruno's blasphemy.

2011-07-09 Thread Craig Weinberg 
> How is it you are so sure that the organization is only part of it?

Because it makes sense to me that organization cannot create functions
which are not inherent potentials of whatever it is you are
organizing. It doesn't matter how many ping pong balls you have or how
you organize them, even if you put velcro or grease on them, you're
not going to ever get a machine that feels or thinks or tries to kill
you when you threaten it's organization. Life or consciousness does
not follow logically from mechanical organizations of any kind. Those
qualities can only be perceived by a subjective participant.

> Sulfur is not functionally equivalent to carbon, it will behave differently
> and thus it is not the same organization.

That's why I'm saying that to assume inorganic matter will behave in a
way that is functionally equivalent to organic cells, let alone
neurological networks, is not supported by any evidence. I think it's
a fantasy. Just because we can make a puppet seem convincingly
anthropomorphic to us doesn't mean that it can feel something.

> Do you think it
> would be impossible to make a life form using these particles in place of
> carbon (assuming they behaved the same in all the right conditions) or is
> there something special about the identity of carbon?

There is only something special about the identity of carbon because
organic chemistry relies upon it to perform higher level biochemical
acrobatics. There's no logical reason why sentience should occur in
one molecular arrangement and not another if you were designing a
cosmos from scratch. You could make a universe that makes sense where
noble gases stack up like cells and write symphonies. Consciousness
makes no more sense in a strictly physical universe than would time
travel, teleportation, or omnipotence. Less actually. Those magical
kinds of categories are at least variations on physical themes,
whereas feeling and awareness are wholly unprecedented and impossible
under purely mathematical and physical definitions. There is simply no
place for subjectivity to take place.

> No, it is more than an antenna.  The retina does processing.  I chose the
> retina example as opposed to replacing part of the optic nerve precisely
> because the retina is more than an antenna.

A living retina is more than an antenna because it is composed of a
microbiological community of living cells. An electronic retina is a
prosthetic extension of the optic nerve that may or may not serve as a
functional equivalent to the person using it. Just as a prosthetic
limb may be the functional equivalent in whatever ways it's designer
deems feasible, important, etc, it doesn't mean that it's the same
thing, even if we can't consciously tell the difference.

Who knows, it may turn out that someone with an artificial eye has
more emotional distance toward the images they see, or maybe they will
have enhanced acuity for certain categories of things and not others,
etc. It's still not like replacing someone's amygdala or something.

> So the "psychic outputs" from the retina are reproducible, but not those of
> the visual cortex?  Why not?  The idea of these psychic outputs sounds
> somewhat like substance dualism or vitalism.

With the retina (or the cochlea, skin receptors, olfactory bulb, etc)
you are dealing with specialized tissues which, IMO, have concentrated
and centralized the sensorimotor functions inherent in all animal
cells into an organ for the larger organism. As such, their i/o is
more isomorphic to the physical phenomena they are interfacing with.
As with all tissues in the nervous system, they play a dual role,
subjugating their own psychic output as single celled organisms and
animal tissues to some degree in order to facilitate a psychic i/o at
the organism level. A nervous system is like an organism within an
organism. So yes, the output of the retina that we make sense of can
be reproduced, but you're not fooling the rest of the nervous system
and body.

>The interesting thing is that the brain was apparently able to automatically
>adapt to the new signals received from the retina and process it for what it
>was, a new primary color input.

Making existing colors accessible to an individual monkey or person's
nervous system is completely different from inventing a new primary
color in the universe. Even tetrachromats do not perceive a new
primary color, they just perceive finer distinction between existing
hue combinations. Not that a new color couldn't be achieved
neurologically, maybe it could, but we have no idea how to conceive of
what that color could look like. We can't think of a replacement for
yellow. We don't know where yellow comes from, or what it's made of,
or what other possible spectrum could be created. It's literally
inconceivable, like a square circle, not a matter of technical skill,
but an understanding that color is a visual feeling that has no
mechanical logic which invokes it by necessity. It has it's own logic
which is ju

RE: COMP refutation paper - finally out

2011-07-09 Thread Colin Geoffrey Hales 



-Original Message-
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com on behalf of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Sat 7/9/2011 10:14 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out
 

On 09 Jul 2011, at 07:07, Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:

> Down the bottom if you dare there be dragons...   :-)
>
> -Original Message-
> From: everything-list@googlegroups.com on behalf of Jason Resch
> Sent: Sat 7/9/2011 1:23 AM
> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out
>
> On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 1:56 AM, Colin Geoffrey Hales  > wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> >  
> >
> > You have missed the point. When you feel pain in your hand your  
> are feeling
> > it because the physics of specific specialized small regions of  
> the cranial
> > central nervous system are doing things. This includes (1) action  
> potentials
> > mutually resonating with (2) a gigantic EM field system in  
> extremely complex
> > ways. *Exactly how and why this specific arrangement of atoms and
> > behaviour delivers it is irrelevant. It is enough to know that it  
> does*.
> > More than that it is the ONLY example of natural cognition we  
> have.
> >
> >  
> >
> > The whole point of this argument is that unlike any other time in  
> the
> > history of science, we are expecting the particular physics (that  
> we know
> > delivers  cognition) can be totally replaced (by the physics of a  
> computer
> > or even worse, a non-existent Turing machine) , yet still result in
> > cognition. 
> >
> >
> > It's not the "totally" that is the problem.  Bruno asks if you can  
> replace
> > a part of a brain with something that does the same computation  
> (at some
> > level) and have no effect on the conscious (or unconscious) life  
> of that
> > person.  This certainly seems plausible.  But it relies on the  
> remaining
> > world to continue interacting with that person.  So in his idea of  
> replacing
> > physics with computation he has to suppose replacing all of the  
> brain plus
> > everything that interacts with the brain.  In other words a  
> simulation of
> > the person(s) and the universe.  Then within the simulation EM  
> fields are
> > computed and supply computed illumination to computed eyes and  
> brains.  He
> > invites us to consider all this computation done by a universal  
> dovetailer,
> > a computer which also computes all possible computable universes  
> as it
> > goes.  But to me it seems a great leap from computing what a piece  
> (or even
> > all) of a brain does to computing a whole (quantum) universe.  I'm  
> not at
> > all sure that the universe is computable; and it's certainly a  
> different
> > question than whether I would say yes to the doctor.
> >
> > *This entire scenario has nothing to do with what I am talking  
> about.
> > Bruno is talking about the universe AS abstract computation.  
> Ontology. I am
> > talking about a completely different area: the computation of  
> descriptions
> > of a universe; descriptions  compiled  by observers within  it  
> called 'laws
> > of nature'. ***
> >
> > ** **
> >
> > *This is the main problem. We are speaking at cross purposes.  
> Computation
> > by computers made of bits of our universe is not the same is  
> describing of a
> > universe of ontological primitives interacting. I find the latter  
> really
> > interesting, but completely irrelevant to the task at hand, which  
> is to
> > create artificial cognition using the real world of humans and the  
> stuff
> > they are made of. *
> >
> >  
> >
> > If you believe that computed physics equations is  
> indistinguishable from
> > physics, to the point that a computed model of the physics of  
> cognition is
> > cognition, then why don't you expect a computed model of  
> combustion physics
> > to burst into flames and replace your cooker? Why can't you go to  
> work in a
> > computed model of a car that spontaneously springs into your life?  
> Why don't
> > you expect to be able to light your room with a computed model of  
> the
> > physics of a lightbulb? Why can't you compute Maxwell's equations  
> and create
> > a power station?
> >
> >
> > You can within a simulation.
> >
> > ** **
> >
> > *At last, someone takes the magical step. This is the problem writ- 
> large.
> > What you are saying, in effect, is that computation about X is  
> only some
> > kind of simulation of X. My whole point is that I do not want a  
> simulation
> > of X. I want an X. Like artificial fire is still fire. Like  
> artificial light
> > is light. Like artificial lightning is lightning.  Like artificial  
> cognition
> > is cognition. Like an artificial round rollything (wheel) is a  
> wheel. 
> > like a million other artificial versions of a natural phenomenon  
> created by
> > humans for millennia.*
> >
> > * *
> >
> > *In using a computer, all the original physics is gone. Yet the 100%
> > expectation is (apart