Re: Math Question
On 7/31/2011 7:40 PM, Pzomby wrote: The following quote is from the book “What is Mathematics Really?” by Reuben Hersh “0 (zero) is particularly nice. It is the class of sets equivalent to the set of all objects unequal to themselves! No object is unequal to itself, so 0 is the class of all empty sets. But all empty sets have the same members….none! So they’re not merely equivalent to each other…they are all the same set. There’s only one empty set! (A set is characterized by its membership list. There’s no way to tell one empty membership list from another. Therefore all empty sets are the same thing!) Once I have the empty sets, I can use a trick of Von Neumann as an alternative way to construct the number 1. Consider the class of all empty sets. This class has exactly one member: the unique empty set. It’s a singleton. ‘Out of nothing’ I have made a singleton set…a “canonical representative” for the cardinal number 1. 1 is the class of all singletons…all sets but with a single element. To avoid circularity: 1 is the class of all sets equivalent to the set whose only element is the empty set. Continuing, you get pairs, triplets, and so on. Von Neumann recursively constructs the whole set of natural numbers out of sets of nothing. ….The idea of set…any collection of distinct objects…was so simple and fundamental; it looked like a brick out of which all mathematics could be constructed. Even arithmetic could be downgraded (or upgraded) from primary to secondary rank, for the natural numbers could be constructed, as we have just seen, from nothing…ie., the empty set…by operations of set theory.” Any comments or opinions on whether this theory is the basis for the natural numbers and their relations as is described in the quote above? Thanks Hi Pzomby, Nice post, but I need to point out that that von Neumann's construction depends on the ability to bracket the singleton an arbitrary number of times to generate the pairs, triplets, etc. which implies that more exists than just the singleton. What is the source of the bracketing? I have long considered that this bracketing is a primitive form of 'making distinctions' which is one of the necessary (but not sufficient) properties of consciousness. Onward! Stephen -- 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: Math Question
On Aug 1, 5:24 am, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 7/31/2011 7:40 PM, Pzomby wrote: The following quote is from the book What is Mathematics Really? by Reuben Hersh 0 (zero) is particularly nice. It is the class of sets equivalent to the set of all objects unequal to themselves! No object is unequal to itself, so 0 is the class of all empty sets. But all empty sets have the same members .none! So they re not merely equivalent to each other they are all the same set. There s only one empty set! (A set is characterized by its membership list. There s no way to tell one empty membership list from another. Therefore all empty sets are the same thing!) Once I have the empty sets, I can use a trick of Von Neumann as an alternative way to construct the number 1. Consider the class of all empty sets. This class has exactly one member: the unique empty set. It s a singleton. Out of nothing I have made a singleton set a canonical representative for the cardinal number 1. 1 is the class of all singletons all sets but with a single element. To avoid circularity: 1 is the class of all sets equivalent to the set whose only element is the empty set. Continuing, you get pairs, triplets, and so on. Von Neumann recursively constructs the whole set of natural numbers out of sets of nothing. .The idea of set any collection of distinct objects was so simple and fundamental; it looked like a brick out of which all mathematics could be constructed. Even arithmetic could be downgraded (or upgraded) from primary to secondary rank, for the natural numbers could be constructed, as we have just seen, from nothing ie., the empty set by operations of set theory. Any comments or opinions on whether this theory is the basis for the natural numbers and their relations as is described in the quote above? Thanks Hi Pzomby, Nice post, but I need to point out that that von Neumann's construction depends on the ability to bracket the singleton an arbitrary number of times to generate the pairs, triplets, etc. which implies that more exists than just the singleton. What is the source of the bracketing? I have long considered that this bracketing is a primitive form of 'making distinctions' which is one of the necessary (but not sufficient) properties of consciousness. Onward! Stephen- Hide quoted text - - Stephen: The full three paragraphs are from the book. The sentence ‘Once I have the empty sets, I can use a trick of Von Neumann as an alternative way to construct the number 1.’ is Hersh’s words. I was looking for opinions, as you have given, on Hersh’s conclusions. Your comment on ‘making distinctions’ is the direction I was heading in understanding the role of primitive mathematics (sets, numbers) underlying human consciousness. Thanks Pzomby -- 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: bruno list
If the experience of understanding the idea of comp can be emulated by reproducing the brain function associated with thinking about it, wouldn't that mean that the neurological patterns used are just as primitive as the arithmetic represented by them? -- 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: COMP refutation paper - finally out
On 31 Jul 2011, at 19:31, benjayk wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: The notion of a TOE usually is used in a reductionist sense, as a theory that can be used to predict everything. A TOE should do that, in principle at least. Of course it should be able to predict everything which is predictible, in the right condition. No one asks for a TOE which can predict things which are not predictible. No TOE can predict that you will feel to be, just after the duplication, in W or in M. OK. But what is predictable may be quite limited in the end. Predicting is not the goal of the TOE. It is just a little obligation to be accepted as a scientific theory, so as to be refutable. The goal is more like searching a bigger picture, rational, and which help, first in formulating the mind-body problem, and then in solving it as far as possible. Is there a result showing that it is possible at all to derive precise physical laws from COMP and a bet on our substitution level? Yes. And you don't need to know the substitution level, although a comparison of the physics derived from comp, and the physics inferred from measurement might suggest higher bounds for our substitution level. Bruno Marchal wrote: I am critical of the very notion of a TOE. It doesn't make much sense. Even current physics clearly shows that results of experiments can't be predicted precisely. So is the TOE supposed to give a perfect probability distribution? But what is this even supposed to mean? The exact contrary. Comp is not just a change in 'perspective' (Aristotle - Plato), but the discovery of a creative bomb (the UM). With comp we begin to know that we don't know what we are doing. We can (machines can) understand that by trying to control it, we make it less controllable. A bit like a mother with a baby. That is not something entirely new, but here it appears in the 3-theories. Right. That's why we could almost say COMP is an anti-TOE. Comp leads first to a ROE (Realm of everything: the ontologic part of the TOE, which here is given by the truth of elementary (sigma_1) statements). Then it shows that we can only scratch the truth, concerning that ROE. Concerning the UMs and the LUMs, they are born universal dissident: they can refute *all* theories about themselves, unless they are too fuzzy (which makes them allergic to fuzzy theories too). Bruno Marchal wrote: So no theory can explain everything. But we can show the necessity of there being a gap. OK. You are right. I will abandon the label TOE, for TOAE. Theory of almost everything. Well, but the part that is unexplainable doesn't seem to be small at all. Frankly it explains almost nothing (which is the most we will ever explain, as there is infinitely much to explain!). Well, you have admitted not having study the details, but normally it explains a lot: indeed God, belief, knowledge, observation and sensation, and all this including all reason why we cannot completely understand what happens to be introspectively unexplainable. Ad normally, in principle, it explains the origin of the physical laws, without assuming anything physical. If anything, it shows there is an infinite hierarchy of ever more efficient theories. Theories, or machines. Those are terrestrial finite creatures. It is he tree of arithmetical life, if you want. It is transfinite, very big. Which is quite an astounding result, don't get me wrong, but let's not make the mistake of adjusting to the immodesty of the reductionist materialists. This way you may not be taken as seriously, but being modest and honest seems more important to me. The modesty is in the reiterared act of faith of saying yes to the doctor, and accepting the classical Church thesis. All the rest follows from that: from the explainable to the ineffable. Bruno Marchal wrote: But *that* fact, that there are mysteries, is no more a mystery. At the cost that the very foundation of our theory is mysterious! We use a mystery to explain that there are more mysteries. Which is the best we can ever do - how exciting! You are right. It is like that. Numbers hides and partially single out a very deep mystery. Bruno Marchal wrote: And in that sense, comp provides, I think, the first coherent picture of almost everything, from God (oops!) to qualia, quanta included, and this by assuming only seven arithmetical axioms. I tend to agree. But it's coherent picture of everything includes the possibility of infinitely many more powerful theories. Theoretically it may be possible to represent every such theory with arithmetic - but then we can represent every arithmetical statement with just one symbol and an encoding scheme, still we wouldn't call . a theory of everything. So it's not THE theory of everything, but *a* theory of everything. Not really. Once you assume comp, the numbers (or equivalent) are enough, and very
Re: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: What machine attributes are not Turing emulable? I thought Church says that all real computations are Turing emulable. But for Church the real computations are what can do a finite mind with a finite set of transparent instructions, in a finite time, but with as much memory and time he needs. It is the intuitively computable functions. There is no reference at all with any idea of real in the sense of physically real, which is something never defined. David Deutsch has introduced a physical version of Church thesis, but this has no bearing at all with Church thesis. Actually I do think that Church thesis makes Deutsch thesis false, but I am not sure (yet I am sure that Church thesis + yes doctor leads to the existence of random oracle and local violation of Church thesis by some physical phenomena (akin to iterated self-multiplication). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: You are right, but this only means that we fail on the correct substitution level. If we are machine, we cannot know which machine we are, nor really which computations go through, but we still face something partially explainable. Yes, substitution level is the thing. I don't see the level as a simple point on a one dimensional continuum though. That's correct (in the comp theory). It is a very complex lattice, but once you say yes to the doctor, it can be described as a number. The lattice becomes more complex, if you weaken the comp hypothesis, and allow extension in the reals. But in the reals, there is no equivalent of Church thesis, and it looks like you can prove everything, which I take as a defect of the theories based on the reals. It's punctuated by qualitative paradigmatic leaps of synergy. Thus the big deal between an organism being alive or not. If only you could give evidences for making the theory so complex at the start. Consciousness is no evidence for that. The entropy cost is not uniform, just as the different hues in the visible spectrum seem to appear to us as qualitative regions of color despite the uniform arithmetic of frequency on the band. Let's say that human consciousness spans the spectrum from red (sensation) to violet (abstract thought) with phenomena such as emotion, ego, etc in the orange-yellow-green zone. I think that a computer chip is like taking something which is pre- sensation (silicon detection = infra-red) and reverse engineering around the back of the spectrum to ultra-violet: abstraction without thought. If we want to go further backward into our visible spectrum from the end, I think we would have to push forward more from the beginning. You need something more sensitive than stone semiconductors to get into the visible red wavelengths in order to have the 1p experience get into the violet level of actual thought. Or maybe that wouldn't work and you would have to build through each level from the bottom (red) up. I believe that babbage machine, if terminated, can run a program capable to see a larger spectrum than us. Infinities and non Turing emulability does not need to be added, there are enough of these in the arithmetical realm, as viewed from inside. If front of complex questions, I think it is better to start with simple hypothesis and to add axioms only if strictly needed. Especially that today, we know how simple things can lead to very high complexity and very sophisticated views on that complexity. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On Aug 1, 1:55 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: What machine attributes are not Turing emulable? I thought Church says that all real computations are Turing emulable. But for Church the real computations are what can do a finite mind with a finite set of transparent instructions, in a finite time, but with as much memory and time he needs. It is the intuitively computable functions. I didn't realize it was that limited. I wasn't thinking of real in the sense of only physical, but if Church posits a finite 'mind' with transparent 'instructions' then it would seem useless for emulating qualia. Does a mind include sensation and perception? It seems very narrow and special case begging. There is no reference at all with any idea of real in the sense of physically real, which is something never defined. David Deutsch has introduced a physical version of Church thesis, but this has no bearing at all with Church thesis. Actually I do think that Church thesis makes Deutsch thesis false, but I am not sure (yet I am sure that Church thesis + yes doctor leads to the existence of random oracle and local violation of Church thesis by some physical phenomena (akin to iterated self-multiplication). So if there are machine aspects that are not Turing emulable, why aren't they primitive? Craig http://s33light.org -- 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: Math Question
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:40, Pzomby wrote: The following quote is from the book “What is Mathematics Really?” by Reuben Hersh “0 (zero) is particularly nice. It is the class of sets equivalent to the set of all objects unequal to themselves! No object is unequal to itself, so 0 is the class of all empty sets. But all empty sets have the same members….none! So they’re not merely equivalent to each other…they are all the same set. There’s only one empty set! (A set is characterized by its membership list. There’s no way to tell one empty membership list from another. Therefore all empty sets are the same thing!) Once I have the empty sets, I can use a trick of Von Neumann as an alternative way to construct the number 1. Consider the class of all empty sets. This class has exactly one member: the unique empty set. It’s a singleton. ‘Out of nothing’ I have made a singleton set…a “canonical representative” for the cardinal number 1. 1 is the class of all singletons…all sets but with a single element. To avoid circularity: 1 is the class of all sets equivalent to the set whose only element is the empty set. Continuing, you get pairs, triplets, and so on. Von Neumann recursively constructs the whole set of natural numbers out of sets of nothing. ….The idea of set…any collection of distinct objects…was so simple and fundamental; it looked like a brick out of which all mathematics could be constructed. Even arithmetic could be downgraded (or upgraded) from primary to secondary rank, for the natural numbers could be constructed, as we have just seen, from nothing…ie., the empty set…by operations of set theory.” Any comments or opinions on whether this theory is the basis for the natural numbers and their relations as is described in the quote above? To use set theory for studying the numbers is like taking an airbus 380 to go to the grocery. Set theory is too big, and it flatten the concepts (unlike categories which sharpen them, when used carefully). Now, ZF, the Zermelo-Fraenkel formal set theory, is a cute example of (arithmetical) little Löbian Universal Machine, and is handy as an example of a very imaginative machine capable of handling most of PA's theology. PA is much weaker than ZF, but like the guy in the chinese room which can simulate a chinese talking person, PA can simulate (emulate, even) ZF. Well, even RA can do that. But set theories and most toposes give too much larger ontology, when you assume comp. They do have epistemological roles, to be sure, and they do prove *much* more arithmetical truth than PA. But then many other theories do. There is no real problem if you prefer to adopt set theoretical realism, instead of arithmetical realism, when assuming comp. This will not change anything in the extraction of theology and physics from comp, except you will meet even more people criticizing your ontology (as being too much big!). If you like set, you can take the theory of hereditary finite sets, which can be shown equivalent with PA. Well, to be sure, putting infinite sets in the ontology can inadvertently leads to treachery in the explanation of why machines (finite beings) can believe in infinite sets. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: What would be the part of a burning log that you need to emulate to preserve it's fire? What you call fire is a relation between an observer and fire, and what you need consists in emulating the fire and the observers at his right substitution level (which comp assumes to exist). Jason and Stathis have already explain this more than one time, I think. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: I think that the act of not committing himself to anything beyond the terms of his theory is an unscientific, and arbitrarily sentimental commitment. Not in science. We put the cart of the table. This does not mean we can believe in many other things, except than in a the seravh of a fundamental theory, we will distinguish the basic term of the ontology (like 0, s(0), s(s(0)), ... in arithmetic) and the epistemology, described by more complex relation between numbers (from being prime to being the Gödel number of Craig Weinberg's instantaneous computational state at some level when reading this post). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: Meh. 'Can't be applied in practice' = unicornlandia to me That is engineering, not fundamental science. Also, you cannot know in advance the applications. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: But to justify that you believe that comp is false, you have to introduce some special non Turing emulable components. And this looks a bit like invoking UFO to explain global warming. You just told me that On the contrary, some machine's attributes are not Turing emulable Yes; That is why we don't need to add not Turing emulable elements, and it is the reason you have to add very special one, not those we can already explain the appearance from the theory of computations or self-reference (like the random oracles that you get when you iterate the self-duplication). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: I do strive for rigorous clarity, but I think that the nature of the subject matter itself is oceanic and paradoxical. It is a reason to be as clear as possible. In front of paradox or contradiction, if we are clear, we can discuss which axiom to withdraw or to weaken, until we find the culprit, and then we can build again new axioms. If you don't do that you will not even convince yourself, and nobody will able to show you wrong (and thus you will not learn). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: I'm not sure, I just have a hunch. Must there not be an opposite of a Turing machine? That's what I would use to emulate the material filter. That happens with comp too, if you grasp the seventh UDA step. Our first person experience are distributed in a non computable way in the universal dovetailing. You have a good intuition, but you assume much to much. The goal is to explain the sense and matter without assuming sense nor matter (but accepting the usual phenomenology of it, which is what we need to search an explanation for). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On Aug 1, 2:55 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: That happens with comp too, if you grasp the seventh UDA step. Our first person experience are distributed in a non computable way in the universal dovetailing. You have a good intuition, but you assume much to much. The goal is to explain the sense and matter without assuming sense nor matter (but accepting the usual phenomenology of it, which is what we need to search an explanation for). Searching for an explanation is phenomenological too though, as are numbers. Arithmetic is part of sense. A sensorimotive circuit, to detect, model, and control. It's an experience which requires a very specific intelligence to participate in. We can control and detect by arithmetic modeling, but that doesn't mean the object of it's modeling is arithmetic. I think that I'm actually assuming much less - my primitive universe doesn't require any epiphenomena or disqualification of appearances. Craig -- 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: bruno list
On Aug 1, 2:49 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: If you don't do that you will not even convince yourself, and nobody will able to show you wrong (and thus you will not learn). I'm not trying to convince anyone or be right, even myself. I'm trying to explain an integrated set of ideas which seem to me to resolve some of the big philosophical and physical issues. If people disagree then I'm interested to see whether they have a reason beyond the ones which I've already heard many times. Otherwise I just continue in case anyone reading is interested in the ideas. My hypothesis explains why it's not always possible for people to accept perspectives outside of their range of familiarity, so I don't expect others to ever realize that I'm right ;) -- 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: bruno list
On Aug 1, 2:33 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Aug 2011, at 01:12, Craig Weinberg wrote: What would be the part of a burning log that you need to emulate to preserve it's fire? What you call fire is a relation between an observer and fire, and what you need consists in emulating the fire and the observers at his right substitution level (which comp assumes to exist). Jason and Stathis have already explain this more than one time, I think. The explanations I've heard so far are talking about something like virtualized fire and a virtualized observer. I'm asking about how would you emulate fire so that it burns like fire to all observers that fire exists for. It needs to burn non-virtualized paper. Heat homes, etc. How does arithmetic do that, and if it can't why is that not directly applicable to consciousness? -- 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: bruno list
On Aug 1, 2:08 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: That's correct (in the comp theory). It is a very complex lattice, but once you say yes to the doctor, it can be described as a number. What if you say yes to the doctor, and then realize that you've made a terrible mistake later on? The lattice becomes more complex, if you weaken the comp hypothesis, and allow extension in the reals. But in the reals, there is no equivalent of Church thesis, and it looks like you can prove everything, which I take as a defect of the theories based on the reals. It's punctuated by qualitative paradigmatic leaps of synergy. Thus the big deal between an organism being alive or not. If only you could give evidences for making the theory so complex at the start. Consciousness is no evidence for that. A cell is a synergistic leap above the molecules that it's made of. An organism is a leap above cells. The entropy cost is not uniform, just as the different hues in the visible spectrum seem to appear to us as qualitative regions of color despite the uniform arithmetic of frequency on the band. Let's say that human consciousness spans the spectrum from red (sensation) to violet (abstract thought) with phenomena such as emotion, ego, etc in the orange-yellow-green zone. I think that a computer chip is like taking something which is pre- sensation (silicon detection = infra-red) and reverse engineering around the back of the spectrum to ultra-violet: abstraction without thought. If we want to go further backward into our visible spectrum from the end, I think we would have to push forward more from the beginning. You need something more sensitive than stone semiconductors to get into the visible red wavelengths in order to have the 1p experience get into the violet level of actual thought. Or maybe that wouldn't work and you would have to build through each level from the bottom (red) up. I believe that babbage machine, if terminated, can run a program capable to see a larger spectrum than us. Why do you, or why should I believe that though? Infinities and non Turing emulability does not need to be added, there are enough of these in the arithmetical realm, as viewed from inside. Don't really understand. Are we on a non Turing-completeness diet? I don't get the difference it makes whether we add to it or not, or why you say my view adds to it. If front of complex questions, I think it is better to start with simple hypothesis and to add axioms only if strictly needed. Especially that today, we know how simple things can lead to very high complexity and very sophisticated views on that complexity. I don't approach questions in terms of syntactic architecture. I'm starting with nothing and adding only what appears to be necessary to understanding the cosmos without leaving out anything important (like life, consciousness, subjectivity). Craig Craig -- 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: bruno list
On 01 Aug 2011, at 21:50, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Aug 1, 2:08 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: That's correct (in the comp theory). It is a very complex lattice, but once you say yes to the doctor, it can be described as a number. What if you say yes to the doctor, and then realize that you've made a terrible mistake later on? Too bad. The lattice becomes more complex, if you weaken the comp hypothesis, and allow extension in the reals. But in the reals, there is no equivalent of Church thesis, and it looks like you can prove everything, which I take as a defect of the theories based on the reals. It's punctuated by qualitative paradigmatic leaps of synergy. Thus the big deal between an organism being alive or not. If only you could give evidences for making the theory so complex at the start. Consciousness is no evidence for that. A cell is a synergistic leap above the molecules that it's made of. An organism is a leap above cells. The entropy cost is not uniform, just as the different hues in the visible spectrum seem to appear to us as qualitative regions of color despite the uniform arithmetic of frequency on the band. Let's say that human consciousness spans the spectrum from red (sensation) to violet (abstract thought) with phenomena such as emotion, ego, etc in the orange-yellow-green zone. I think that a computer chip is like taking something which is pre- sensation (silicon detection = infra-red) and reverse engineering around the back of the spectrum to ultra-violet: abstraction without thought. If we want to go further backward into our visible spectrum from the end, I think we would have to push forward more from the beginning. You need something more sensitive than stone semiconductors to get into the visible red wavelengths in order to have the 1p experience get into the violet level of actual thought. Or maybe that wouldn't work and you would have to build through each level from the bottom (red) up. I believe that babbage machine, if terminated, can run a program capable to see a larger spectrum than us. Why do you, or why should I believe that though? Well, it is a consequence of digital mechanism, alias computationalism. Infinities and non Turing emulability does not need to be added, there are enough of these in the arithmetical realm, as viewed from inside. Don't really understand. Are we on a non Turing-completeness diet? Ontologically only. I don't get the difference it makes whether we add to it or not, or why you say my view adds to it. We explain, or try to explain, the complex (matter, mind, gods and goddesses, and all that) from the simple principles on which many agree, like addition and multiplication. I will explain step by step the UDA on another forum. If you are willing to assume comp, if only for the sake of the hypothesis, you can understand the theoretical point. Not now because I am busy (well I work so well today that I sacrifice at my every-thing list addiction :) If front of complex questions, I think it is better to start with simple hypothesis and to add axioms only if strictly needed. Especially that today, we know how simple things can lead to very high complexity and very sophisticated views on that complexity. I don't approach questions in terms of syntactic architecture. I'm starting with nothing and adding only what appears to be necessary to understanding the cosmos without leaving out anything important (like life, consciousness, subjectivity). I have no doubt you try to understand something, but you seems to have no idea of what is a scientific approach, to be frank. We always try to assume the less, derive things, and compare with data. What I say, in a nutshell, is what all mystics say: that the cosmos is in your head. UDA explains that comp leads to a sort of equivalent, and the Arithmetical UDA, takes this literally and show how to extract physics by looking in the head of a universal machine. We can extract physics, but not particular geography, nor particular history. But we can extract both the qualia and the quanta in this approach, for the inhabitants and heros of the geographies/histories. On some question the machine will remain silent, but later on, can justify by itself her silence, sometimes using some hypothesis herself. From what I (hardly) understand of your approach, you bury the Mind- Body problem in an infinitely low substitution level. At least you acknowledge that you have to say no to the doctor, and that *is* your right. beware the crazy doctor (pro-life like) who might not ask for your opinion. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
Re: bruno list
On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 9:59 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Nice. You're making my point though. We would have no clue that our brains could think by the exterior behavior of the neurons it's made of. It's only because we are our brains that we know it is the case that groups of neurons do think and feel. Therefore, designing something based upon only what our brain appears to us to be doing (not much... just another interesting organ in the body doing it's cell/organ things) doesn't mean that the thinking and feeling is going to show up by itself. If we could modify our own minds first to be able to see and feel the thoughts and feelings of another brain, then we would be more likely to be able to tell whether we were on the right track in designing a deep AGI. Without that sense, we're like blind people comparing the beauty of the pictures we've painted - insisting that if it feels like the Mona Lisa to touch then there's no reason why it couldn't look exactly like the Mona Lisa. You need the right brushstrokes, definitely, but if you can't see the color of the paint and do it all in black it doesn't much matter. 1. You agree that is possible to make something that behaves as if it's conscious but isn't conscious. 2. Therefore it would be possible to make a brain component that behaves just like normal brain tissue but lacks consciousness. 3. And since such a brain component behaves normally the rest of the brain should be have normally when it is installed. 4. So it is possible to have, say, half of your brain replaced with unconscious components and you would both behave normally and feel that you were completely normal. If you accept the first point, then points 2 to 4 necessarily follow. If you see an error in the reasoning can you point out exactly where it is? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to 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: bruno list
On 8/1/2011 5:07 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 9:59 PM, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Nice. You're making my point though. We would have no clue that our brains could think by the exterior behavior of the neurons it's made of. It's only because we are our brains that we know it is the case that groups of neurons do think and feel. That's just your assertion and it is doubtful. We have a clue that other people think because of their exterior behavior; and we know experimentally that that behavior is controlled by afferent and efferent neurons and that it is dependent on neurons in the brain. We have this clue purely by external observation and do not require introspection to arrive at it. In fact it was once thought that the locus of thinking was the gut, before further study found it to be the brain. Therefore, designing something based upon only what our brain appears to us to be doing (not much... just another interesting organ in the body doing it's cell/organ things) doesn't mean that the thinking and feeling is going to show up by itself. If the behavior shows up then that means that thinking and feeling are showing up as surely as your dog thinks and feels. If we could modify our own minds first to be able to see and feel the thoughts and feelings of another brain, then we would be more likely to be able to tell whether we were on the right track in designing a deep AGI. Without that sense, we're like blind people comparing the beauty of the pictures we've painted - insisting that if it feels like the Mona Lisa to touch then there's no reason why it couldn't look exactly like the Mona Lisa. You need the right brushstrokes, definitely, but if you can't see the color of the paint and do it all in black it doesn't much matter. You're ignoring the generality of the Church-Turing thesis which shows that computation is generic and doesn't depend on the medium. You argue purely by analogy. Analogies can be helpful, but they aren't arguments. Brent If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. --- David Hume (1711-1776), Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals *If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. * (David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher. Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals 1. You agree that is possible to make something that behaves as if it's conscious but isn't conscious. 2. Therefore it would be possible to make a brain component that behaves just like normal brain tissue but lacks consciousness. 3. And since such a brain component behaves normally the rest of the brain should be have normally when it is installed. 4. So it is possible to have, say, half of your brain replaced with unconscious components and you would both behave normally and feel that you were completely normal. If you accept the first point, then points 2 to 4 necessarily follow. If you see an error in the reasoning can you point out exactly where it is? -- 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: bruno list
On Aug 1, 8:07 pm, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: 1. You agree that is possible to make something that behaves as if it's conscious but isn't conscious. N. I've been trying to tell you that there is no such thing as behaving as if something is conscious. It doesn't mean anything because consciousness isn't a behavior, it's a sensorimotive experience which sometimes drives behaviors. If you accept that, then it follows that whether or not someone is convinced as to the consciousness of something outside of themselves is based entirely upon them. Some people may not even be able to accept that certain people are conscious... they used to think that infants weren't conscious. In my theory I get into this area a lot and have terms such as Perceptual Relativity Inertial Frame (PRIF) to help illustrate how perception might be better understood (http:// s33light.org/post/8357833908). How consciousness is inferred is a special case of PR Inertia which I think is based on isomorphism. In the most primitive case, the more something resembles what you are, in physical scale, material composition, appearance, etc, the more likely you are to identify something as being conscious. The more time you have to observe and relate to the object, the more your PRIF accumulates sensory details which augment your sense-making of the thing, and context, familiarity, interaction, and expectations grow to overshadow the primitive detection criteria. You learn that a video Skype of someone is a way of seeing and talking to a person and not a hallucination or talking demon in your monitor. So if we build something that behaves like Joe Lunchbox, we might be able to fool strangers who don't interact with him, and an improved version might be able to fool strangers with limited interaction but not acquaintances, the next version might fool everyone for hours of casual conversation except Mrs. Lunchbox cannot be fooled at all, etc. There is not necessarily a possible substitution level which will satisfy all possible observers and interactors, pets, doctors, etc and there is not necessarily a substitution level which will satisfy any particular observer indefinitely. Some observers may just think that Joe is not feeling well. If the observers were told that one person in a lineup was an android, they might be more likely to identify Joe as the one. In any case, it all has nothing to do with whether or not the thing is actually conscious, which is the only important aspect of this line of thinking. We have simulations of people already - movies, TV, blow up dolls, sculptures, etc. Computer sims add another layer of realism to these without adding any reality of awareness. 2. Therefore it would be possible to make a brain component that behaves just like normal brain tissue but lacks consciousness. Probably not. Brain tissue may not be any less conscious than the brain as a whole. What looks like normal behavior to us might make the difference between cricket chirps and a symphony and we wouldn't know. 3. And since such a brain component behaves normally the rest of the brain should be have normally when it is installed. The community of neurons may graciously integrate the chirping sculpture into their community, but it doesn't mean that they are fooled and it doesn't mean that the rest of the orchestra can be replaced with sculptures. 4. So it is possible to have, say, half of your brain replaced with unconscious components and you would both behave normally and feel that you were completely normal. It's possible to have half of your cortex disappear and still behave and feel relatively normally. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17489-girl-with-half-a-brain-retains-full-vision.html http://www.pnas.org/content/106/31/13034 If you accept the first point, then points 2 to 4 necessarily follow. If you see an error in the reasoning can you point out exactly where it is? If you see an error in my reasoning, please do the same. Craig -- 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: bruno list
On Aug 1, 4:31 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I believe that babbage machine, if terminated, can run a program capable to see a larger spectrum than us. Why do you, or why should I believe that though? Well, it is a consequence of digital mechanism, alias computationalism. It seems like circular reasoning to me. If you believe in comp, then you believe math can have human experiences. I ask why I should believe that, and you say that comp compels the belief. We explain, or try to explain, the complex (matter, mind, gods and goddesses, and all that) from the simple principles on which many agree, like addition and multiplication. That's what I'm doing. Sensorimotive experience is clearly simpler than addition and multiplication to me, and with my hypothesis, it can be seen that this experiential principle may very well be universal. I don't approach questions in terms of syntactic architecture. I'm starting with nothing and adding only what appears to be necessary to understanding the cosmos without leaving out anything important (like life, consciousness, subjectivity). I have no doubt you try to understand something, but you seems to have no idea of what is a scientific approach, to be frank. We always try to assume the less, derive things, and compare with data. Even more than always trying to do particular things, a scientific approach should not always do what it always does. You can do both. I have a clear vision of how these phenomena fit together and I think it makes sense. I feel that it's up to others to test it in whatever way they like. From what I (hardly) understand of your approach, you bury the Mind- Body problem in an infinitely low substitution level. To me, otherwise knows as solving the Mind-Body problem. At least you acknowledge that you have to say no to the doctor, and that *is* your right. beware the crazy doctor (pro-life like) who might not ask for your opinion. I'd go to the doctor that has had alternate halves of his brain replaced for a year each. Craig -- 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.
