Re: Autonomy?
On 05 Jul 2012, at 21:53, meekerdb wrote: On 7/5/2012 11:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Jul 2012, at 19:13, meekerdb wrote: On 7/5/2012 12:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 04 Jul 2012, at 18:29, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: if you duplicated the entire city of Washington and sent one Bruno Marchal to Washington1 and the other Bruno Marchal to Washington2 then there would only be one Bruno Marchal having a Washington experience. No problem with that. I'm glad to hear you say that but then it's even more mysterious that you can't extrapolate that fact to its logical conclusion. When the start button is pushed on that duplicating machine your brain and body may have been instantly duplicated but you, the first person perspective, has not been and will not be until there is something in the environment in Washington that makes a change to one of your sense organs that is missing in the environment of Moscow; only then, when there is a difference between the two, is your first person perspective split and it's meaningless to ask which one is really you. There is no sense to ask who is really me, but this has never been asked. On the contrary what is asked is the probability of the specific events seeing Washington , or seeing Moscow. Both are 'seen'. The question is by whom. Well, you can say that I provide the answer in AUDA, and that the answer is the inner god, alias the knower, alias Bp p, alias S4Grz. It has no name and is already NOT arithmetical. Unlike the machine, or the third person self which is arithmetical. It is only related to 1-p indeterminancy by assuming there is one person who does the seeing. But there is indeed one person who does the seeing, indeed they are two of them. There is one person in Moscow, and one person in Washington, and those are the one we interview. We just continue to use the you and me, if they are used in the first person indexical sense, in the usual way. It would no puzzle at all if Moscow were seen by Putin and Washington was seen by Obama. And there is no puzzle if we duplicate Brent either. Comp implies both Brent will see one city, that they could not have predicted to live that one in particular. For each of them subjectively the experience is the same as having one in either city by throwing a coin. You can replace Brent by machine having enough ability to be able to distinguish Moscow from Washington, and you can prove easily that such machine has no technic to predict which location she (in the usual sense) will observe in his immediate future. I know in advance that it will be only one of them from my future first person perspective. This is confirmed in all experience, as your own 1) and 2) prediction illustrates. But then there is not probability interpretation. ? John agreed that 1) and 2) are 1-pov incompatible, so here the and is an 1-pov or. It is the same as head or tail. You write, The theory is P(W) = P(M) = 1/2. the confirmation and refutation of this is isomorphic to any prediction in a Bernouilli experience (throwing of a coin), both in the iterated and non iterated cases. But P(W)=P(M)=1/2 is shorthand and it hides the implicit assumption that there is some X such that X is in Washington or X is in Moscow. That is assumed in the protocol, at steps 1-7. And that is guarantied by only a tiny part of arithmetic by step 8. (assuming comp) If W=X1 is in Washington and M=X2 is in Moscow, then there is no probability interpretation of where X0 is. Then no probability makes any sense, because if I throw a dice, I cannot know if the guy who looks at the result is still me. You can if there is only one Bruno Marchal and only one die. But if there are six Bruno's seeing six dice with spots 1 thru 6... Not from their first points of view. The Bruno who see 2 is unique. Same for each outcome here. But with comp we agree that P(W) = 1 for a simple (no duplication) teleportation. So we accept some local comp type of identity, and that it can be duplicated. So although you will be in Washington and Moscow, for a third person observer view, both of you, and any of you, will feel as having been randomly selected (as the iteration makes clearer) among Washington and Moscow. Indeed, you can't predict in advance any city you will feel to be, as that would contradict the survival of the other. If you predict Moscow, you make the Brent in Washington into a zombie, or a non- Brent. Comp says both are Brent. Right. So when asked what is the probability Brent sees Washington the answer is 1. No because the question bears on the 1-pov and they are mutually exclusive. And the probability Brent sees Moscow is 1. The probability 1/2 only comes by equivocating on you. No, it comes from the fact that all Brent feels to be unique,
Re: Autonomy?
On 05 Jul 2012, at 22:14, meekerdb wrote: On 7/5/2012 11:39 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: OK. But this happens because my computational state in Helsinki has been duplicated, and the changes you talk about is the experience of self-localization. This is a rephrasing which does not suppress in any way the fact that in Helsinki I am uncertain about the experience I will feel next. But that uncertainty could exist without the duplication - just the uncertainty of which city you would be teleported to. But in the duplication case, when you say, I am uncertain about the experience I will feel next. the second I, the I of the future, has an ambiguous reference. The uncertainty is in the ambiguity of this reference. No problem with this. AUDA explains indeed why the 1-I is equivocating/ ambiguous. Comp makes this into an indeterminacy of outcome. So, this does not change the fact that if comp is true, then physics is reduce to arithmetic. Exactly the same ambiguousness is applied in Everett. 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: Autonomy?
On 05 Jul 2012, at 20:40, David Nyman wrote: On 5 July 2012 18:05, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But we can already justify the relative indeterminacy of the relative first person perspective, from what is an entirely deterministic background. Hoyle wan't necessarily assuming comp (and nor do I when talking in this way). But the point which I have consistently tried to put to you is more basic. This is that the relative indeterminacy of the relative first person perspective already, by that very formulation, assumes without justification (albeit rather inexplicitly) some specific relative localisation within what is, more properly considered, an indifferent ensemble (e.g. UD* or alternatively some cosmological SWE). This is ambiguous. There is a know localization, as I feel to be here and now, but that feeling is distributed on the whole of the UD*, and is a priori something no local. So the localization is given by the first person view, like the fact that the one reconstituted in M knows that he is that one. The 3-localization does not need to be assumed as it follows from arithmetic. Hoyle's way of thinking makes the indeterminate localisation of experience explicit and absolute at the outset: But this is exactly what I can hardly interpret in comp. It looks like ASSA, which I have explained when I enter in this list as being non sensical when we assume comp. Even without comp, I am not sure it can make sense. What do you mean by localization exactly. With comp, physical localization is an emerging pattern, and computational localization in the UD, is defined by arithmetical relations. he just imagines, in effect, what would it be like if the ensemble of all possible occasions of sentience were unrolled stochastically in a sort of eternal recurrence. This gives, effectively, a relative-frequency interpretation of the probability of any particular occasion being presently given. In which structure is that relative-frequency defined, and to whom does it apply? How can we verify it? But then such stochastic process will interfere with the outcomes of duplication, and transportation, at least to make sense. But then it might be in conflict with computationalism. I don't see why you think so. The experiences associated with each duplication or transportation outcome are assumed to be present in the deterministic substrate in due measure, and hence to occur in the associated stream of consciousness in due course. That there is always some given occasion of experience is consequent on an absolute first-personal indeteminism; I fail to see why this would be needed, or even what it could mean, to be honest. relativisation to an episode of a particular personal history is then dependent on whatever deterministic substrate is associated with the given occasion. Relative amnesia (or selective memory) effectively compartmentalises first-personal histories from each other and is consequently transparent to reconstitution delay. The above considerations seem so basic to our disagreement that rather than comment further on your other points, I will await your response to this. It is of course perfectly possible (not to say likely) that I am missing something basic here, so I am trying to be as explicit as possible. I don't think you are enough explicit. Let me know what, if anything, is still unclear. I don't see how to define the absolute first person indeterminacy in the comp context. I am also suspicious in front of any assumed indeterminacy. That is my major critics of the collapse of the wave packet, and Everett confirmed, for me at least, that we don't need it. But even for probability in general: it is always relative to the context where we do a random experiment, and I fail to make sense of it in some absolute context, for context is a relative notion. Unless you agree that it is the first person indeterminacy of the universal machine, but here two, the machine can become any of us, but not in one step, in many steps, so that it is not just the comp- indeterminacy, but more its transitive closure on the histories/ computations. 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: Autonomy?
On 6 July 2012 10:27, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: *In which structure is that relative-frequency defined, and to whom does it apply? How can we verify it?* * * The structure, if you like, is the total state of knowledge of the knower (as you have characterised it in a post to Brent) which ex hypothesi must embrace all possible occasions of sentience. Each such occasion is here conceived as a set of spatio-temporal relations in the context of a particular personal history. Taken as a whole the structure is of course timeless and eternal. Hoyle's heuristic is then simply a way of thinking about this structure such that occasions are given (i.e. from the pov of the knower) in proportion to their measure, in mutually exclusive succession. Hence the intrinsic spatio-temporal relations of the substrate are conceived as unfolding experientially in the form of the myriad personal histories. It's a way of rationalising the experiential dynamic, if you like, from the pov of a universal knower, which as you yourself point out, cannot be an arithmetical, or indeed a physical, notion. You ask me how this could be tested; since it is a way of thinking, rather than a theory, the only relevant test is whatever power it may possess to reduce confusion and enhance conceptual clarity. I became particularly aware of this when reading some of the posts about jumping and backtracking, etc. When we reason about some divergence of my future moments in copying scenarios it is perfectly natural of course to relativise these to my personal history as given, without consideration that the relevant reference class might be any broader. Furthermore, since our reasoning here seems naturally to follow the spatio-temporal evolution of some underlying real system (as Bitbol calls it), it does not seem relevant to distinguish the logico-physical relations of next or prior from the bare notion of succession itself. Real problems of coherency in this way of thinking emerge, however, when we begin to consider future moments of low intrinsic measure, such as in quantum suicide scenarios, or extreme threats to conscious survival. At this point, we seek to avoid cul-de-sacs or occasions of extreme improbability by resorting to notions of jumping or backtracking referred to a particular personal identity, or even in extreme cases the idea of merging with the infant consciousness of a different identity entirely. But here we are no longer following - or at the very least least are forced to undertake highly non-standard excursions within - the real system. This reaches perhaps its reductio ad absurdum in Saibal Mitra's treatment of memory erasure scenarios. He is forced by this mode of reasoning to speculate, for example, that the you that escapes disaster by memory erasure has swapped histories with another you that would otherwise have avoided it! It is interesting to speculate how one would test, or even recognise, *this* eventuality! It should, I hope, be obvious that all of the above incoherencies can be resolved quite simply by adopting the heuristic under discussion. The structure under consideration, as I have said, is the total state of knowledge of the knower; all possible occasions of sentience, duly distributed amongst distinguishable personal histories in due measure, exist within it. All that is required, conceptually, is to make explicit the experiential notion of the mutually-exclusive succession of occasions of sentience; all relativisation of personal identity and past-future relations are referred to those aspects of the substrate associated with a given occasion. There is no suggestion of prior or next in the bare notion of experiential succession; no extrinsic ordering whatsoever is implied. The logical consequence is that *all* notions of personal history are referred to a singular point-of-view: that of the knower. I am fundamentally that knower, and the knowledge successively recoverable from occasions of sentience is what informs me of who, where, when, and relative to what, I am on any given occasion. David -- 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: Autonomy?
On 06 Jul 2012, at 15:07, David Nyman wrote: On 6 July 2012 10:27, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: In which structure is that relative-frequency defined, and to whom does it apply? How can we verify it? The structure, if you like, is the total state of knowledge of the knower (as you have characterised it in a post to Brent) which ex hypothesi must embrace all possible occasions of sentience. This might lead to perhaps interesting question. The knower I described to Brent, was the knower that we might associate to the universal machine. Usually (before salvia!) I would not have been open to that idea, because, well, first the math is lacking, and might not exist or be trivial. I would have said that the knower begin with the Löbian entity. But that might be a detail in our setting: the Löbian machine is basically the same as the universal machine, but having the belief in some induction axioms. This gives the reflexive loop giving them the rich and stable cognitive abilities of the Löbian machine (with the 8 hypostases). Those hypostases will never get change on all computational histories where the machine remains correct (that is enough for the derivation of the physical laws, but is quite too much simple for real life psychology. Now, such machine (the virgin universal or the Löbian which is slightly less virgin) have basically no knowledge at all, and live in a disconnected conscious state. I am not sure it makes sense to ask for such a machine if there is a probability that they become suddenly me. I would say that may be the first person indeterminacy of such a machine might have a indeterminacy domain limited to slightly more complex universal state, perhaps becoming a bacteria, before becoming a mammal, say. The idea, is that you always survived in the most normal (Gaussian) neighborhood available to you, and that normal state is given by the relative proportion of computations going into that state. So in all situations the indterminacy is relative to the actual state of the machine, as brought by the universal dovetailer (or its arithmetical equivalent). It is not impossible that a rich conscious state, like the one by a Löbian mammals, necessitates a very long computation, so that the probability to become such a Löbian mammals, directly from the universal knower, would be a very rare event (possible, but stochastically impossible). Each such occasion is here conceived as a set of spatio-temporal relations in the context of a particular personal history. Taken as a whole the structure is of course timeless and eternal. Hoyle's heuristic is then simply a way of thinking about this structure such that occasions are given (i.e. from the pov of the knower) in proportion to their measure, in mutually exclusive succession. Hence the intrinsic spatio-temporal relations of the substrate are conceived as unfolding experientially in the form of the myriad personal histories. It's a way of rationalising the experiential dynamic, if you like, from the pov of a universal knower, which as you yourself point out, cannot be an arithmetical, or indeed a physical, notion. Indeed. But it is still describable in arithmetical terms, like arithmetical truth, which is not arithmetical, but concerns only arithmetical sentences. I think that here you have a good intuition that the spatiol temporal unfold experentially from the knower, and this is confirmed, as the knower logic, with comp, is given by S4Grz (and the X logics) and this defined indeed a sort of dynamic. In my (old) opinion: this confirmed Brouwer theory of consciousness, which relates intrinsically consciousness and time (and S4Grz has indeed been used as a logic of time by some philosopher). Now, the salvia experience has refuted this for me, as it generates an hallucination which put some doubt on that perspective, and which is why I am willing to attribute a consciousness to the non Löbian universal machine. Indeed, it seems conceivable that we can be conscious in a completely non spatio-temporal way. I thought comp would prevent such possibility, even through an hallucination. Here your thought might be helpful. But I am not sure it needs to postulate an absolute indeterminacy. I am not sure it might make sense to ask: being a virgin UM, what is the probability of being David in the next instant?. But the plant salvia, I have to say, provides evidence for your idea that it might make sense, for we can apparently get the virgin state (or be close to it), and yet *it seems* that we survive. It remains possible that actually, I am correct, and that the probability to become a bacteria when smoking salvia is close to 1, from the 1-pov. Of course the third person view will not confirm this. Brrr... You ask me how this could be tested; since it is a way of thinking, rather than a theory, the
Re: Autonomy?
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote This is a rephrasing which does not suppress in any way the fact that in Helsinki I am uncertain about the experience I will feel next. But that is ALWAYS true regardless of whether identity splitting or duplicating chambers enter the picture; it's true because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the unpredictable nature of your external environment, and even without that fact and even if the world was as deterministic as Newton thought it was it would remain true that you don't know what the results of a calculation will be until you finish the calculation. If you have a better theory, you might mention it. Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. John K Clark -- 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: truth
Bruno:
*Right. I think that people believing that 1+1 can be different of 2 are
just imagining something else.* -
do you mean: imagining something else
THAN WHAT YOU WERE *IMAGINING*? sounds like a claim to some priviledge to
imagining - only YOUR WAY?
(I know you will vehemently deny that - ha ha).
To Guitarist:
*It's funny how this game keeps cropping up where people want to do stuff
like: 1 + 1 = 11*
You made my point - which was to (agnostically) expose that we have no
approved authority to a ONE AND ONLY opinion.
Not even within what we may call 'possible'.
John M
*
*
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 4:39 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
Hi Guitar boy,
On 04 Jul 2012, at 16:12, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
Hello Everythinglisters,
First post here, and seems fun to get lost reading the discussions from
time to time, so here somebody contributing with a more musical tendency.
It's funny how this game keeps cropping up where people want to do stuff
like: 1 + 1 = 11
If people are sincere about pulling whatever sums they feel like with
personal justification, then we might as well say 1 + 1 = 0, with a kind of
zen logic, where everything = nothing as a fancy justification.
Well in Z_2 = {0, 1}, we do have a law with 1+1 = 0. (modular arithmetic).
But 1 is still different from 0. But I get your point.
And anybody still willing to assert this could post their bank account
details and pin numbers and be freed from arithmetic dictatorship by having
their account cleaned out by other everything listers that DO believe in
sums, successors etc. as 0 = whatever they want, and the sum of their
balance doesn't really matter, as it's only some personal belief shared by
a few control freaks.
Right. I think that people believing that 1+1 can be different of 2 are
just imagining something else. It is not an arguent that a truth is not
absolute, but that the notation used to described it can have other
interpreations. In the Z_2 structure, which plays a key role in many
places: 2 = 0. But 2 does not represent the successor of of the successor
of zero, it represents the rest when we divide by the usual number 2. It
really means:
odd + odd = even (the rest of 1 + 1 divided by 2 = 0)
even + even = even (the rest of 2 + 2 divided by 2 = 0)
odd + even = odd (the rest of 1 + 2 divided by 2 = 1)
Guitar and composition imho, have arithmetic overlap, albeit in a less
than total sense, which is why I won't have to post my details here :)
Guitar is hardest, imo. You need good trained digits!
Looking forward to contributing from time to time.
You are welcome,
Bruno
On Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:09:53 AM UTC+2, JohnM wrote:
Bruno asked:
. Is that an absolute truth?
By no means. It is a word-flower, a semantic hint, something in MY
agnosticism and I feel like a semantic messenger only. I accept better
expressions.
(Except for absolute truth - ha ha).
And Teilhard was a great master of words.
John M
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.bewrote:
On 29 Jun 2012, at 16:21, John Mikes wrote:
Brent, thanks for the appreciation!
My point was simply that anybody's 'truth' is conditioned.
We have no (approvable?) authority for an ABSOLUTE truth. Whatever WE
accept is human.
Is that an absolute truth?
In my humble opinion, WE = human seems to me quite relative. When I
listen to the jumping spiders or the Löbian machines, most seems to
disagree.
Bruno
*We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are
spiritual beings having a human experience.*
(de Chardin).
What is Mother Nature accepting?
John M
On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 4:09 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/28/2012 12:46 PM, John Mikes wrote:
Brent:
I am the 3rd kind of the two: think not in binary, just in plain
peasant logic, when 1 and 1 make 11, nothing more.
So Bruno's absolute truth may have even more relatives.
John
Or less facetiously, (The father of Kirsten)+(The father of
Gennifer)=(One, me) and (one raindrop)+(one raindrop)=(one raindrop). So
whether successor(x)=(x+1) depends on the applicability of arithmetic to
your model.
Brent
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Re: Autonomy?
On 6 July 2012 18:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: *I am sure your analysis might help to better apprehend consciousness, and can perhaps better handle the amnesia situation. But you have not (yet) convinced me that it has to be termed into a new form of *assumed at the outset* indeterminacy. The probability of being me is a sort of Dirac distribution: it is one, for me, and zero for the others. The probability of becoming me, is perhaps close to one on the transitive closure of the computations, and is complex to compute for particular brain instantiation. * Thanks for your detailed critique up to this point, Bruno. I understand of course that you are particularly concerned to assess its consistency with comp. By contrast, as I have said, my own motivation has been more generally to find a heuristic for navigating some of the thornier conceptual puzzles presented by consciousness. I understand that the kind of global probability distribution entailed by this notion is poorly defined in a strict mathematical sense. The global distribution is simply assumed ex hypothesi by the stipulation of a class of all sentient moments, and the relative probability of any sub-class of moments is then assumed to derive from a kind of global frequency-interpretation as a consequence of the unique stochastic succession of moments. This is essentially what Hoyle had in mind with his pigeon hole metaphor, and it stands or falls in terms of its utility as a mode of thought for certain purposes; no more, no less. Consequently the **assumed at the outset* indeterminacy *just follows automatically from* *the specification of the heuristic; as moments succeed each other without extrinsic ordering, the personalised spatio-temporal characteristics associated with each successive moment have in this sense no prior determination. The notion of succession here simply grounds the bare notion of experiential transition, and the consequence of each such transition is to localise the knower in terms of an underlying real system. This system, in turn, can readily be assumed to be as complex as necessary to account for the unfolding relative scenarios thus recovered. A feature of this view is that all subsequent notions of indeterminacy are inherited from a single primitive notion, which is assumed to mediate *all*questions of who, where, when and relative to what. For example, it grounds the relative probabilities of the future outcomes of individual persons as well as more general anthropic or observer self-selection issues. One could see this as a useful conceptual simplification or a step too far, I guess. The probability of being me, seems to be, as you say, all or nothing; but in terms of the heuristic it is weird but inevitable that this must always seem to be the case in the context of a given occasion of experience. The probability of becoming me (or that there will be a me to be) depends, as I think you imply, on the entire web of relations encoded in the real system. Thank you again for the critique. I hadn't really thought to convince you, but you have helped me to test the usefulness of the view under stress, as it were. I continue to find it helpful, but I will of course always be on the look-out for cases where it might seriously mislead. We cannot hope for full illumination in such matters, but a small guiding light can often help us negotiate a conceptual obstacle in the path. David -- 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: truth
Ok then, I guess I got caught.Confession: On most days, I am agnostically
exposed ideologue of 1 + 1 = 2.
Please forgive the offense of my heresy. Maybe a prohibitive law should be
drafted to stop these kinds of irresponsible thoughts :)
But privilege to imagining? He just said something else, which implies
no judgement or privilege. Sometimes something else is just something else,
without better or privilege.
On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 10:45 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:
Bruno:
*Right. I think that people believing that 1+1 can be different of 2 are
just imagining something else.* -
do you mean: imagining something else
THAN WHAT YOU WERE *IMAGINING*? sounds like a claim to some priviledge
to imagining - only YOUR WAY?
(I know you will vehemently deny that - ha ha).
To Guitarist:
*It's funny how this game keeps cropping up where people want to do
stuff like: 1 + 1 = 11*
You made my point - which was to (agnostically) expose that we have no
approved authority to a ONE AND ONLY opinion.
Not even within what we may call 'possible'.
John M
* *
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 4:39 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
Hi Guitar boy,
On 04 Jul 2012, at 16:12, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
Hello Everythinglisters,
First post here, and seems fun to get lost reading the discussions from
time to time, so here somebody contributing with a more musical tendency.
It's funny how this game keeps cropping up where people want to do stuff
like: 1 + 1 = 11
If people are sincere about pulling whatever sums they feel like with
personal justification, then we might as well say 1 + 1 = 0, with a kind of
zen logic, where everything = nothing as a fancy justification.
Well in Z_2 = {0, 1}, we do have a law with 1+1 = 0. (modular
arithmetic). But 1 is still different from 0. But I get your point.
And anybody still willing to assert this could post their bank account
details and pin numbers and be freed from arithmetic dictatorship by having
their account cleaned out by other everything listers that DO believe in
sums, successors etc. as 0 = whatever they want, and the sum of their
balance doesn't really matter, as it's only some personal belief shared by
a few control freaks.
Right. I think that people believing that 1+1 can be different of 2 are
just imagining something else. It is not an arguent that a truth is not
absolute, but that the notation used to described it can have other
interpreations. In the Z_2 structure, which plays a key role in many
places: 2 = 0. But 2 does not represent the successor of of the successor
of zero, it represents the rest when we divide by the usual number 2. It
really means:
odd + odd = even (the rest of 1 + 1 divided by 2 = 0)
even + even = even (the rest of 2 + 2 divided by 2 = 0)
odd + even = odd (the rest of 1 + 2 divided by 2 = 1)
Guitar and composition imho, have arithmetic overlap, albeit in a less
than total sense, which is why I won't have to post my details here :)
Guitar is hardest, imo. You need good trained digits!
Looking forward to contributing from time to time.
You are welcome,
Bruno
On Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:09:53 AM UTC+2, JohnM wrote:
Bruno asked:
. Is that an absolute truth?
By no means. It is a word-flower, a semantic hint, something in MY
agnosticism and I feel like a semantic messenger only. I accept better
expressions.
(Except for absolute truth - ha ha).
And Teilhard was a great master of words.
John M
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.bewrote:
On 29 Jun 2012, at 16:21, John Mikes wrote:
Brent, thanks for the appreciation!
My point was simply that anybody's 'truth' is conditioned.
We have no (approvable?) authority for an ABSOLUTE truth. Whatever WE
accept is human.
Is that an absolute truth?
In my humble opinion, WE = human seems to me quite relative. When I
listen to the jumping spiders or the Löbian machines, most seems to
disagree.
Bruno
*We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are
spiritual beings having a human experience.*
(de Chardin).
What is Mother Nature accepting?
John M
On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 4:09 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/28/2012 12:46 PM, John Mikes wrote:
Brent:
I am the 3rd kind of the two: think not in binary, just in plain
peasant logic, when 1 and 1 make 11, nothing more.
So Bruno's absolute truth may have even more relatives.
John
Or less facetiously, (The father of Kirsten)+(The father of
Gennifer)=(One, me) and (one raindrop)+(one raindrop)=(one raindrop).
So
whether successor(x)=(x+1) depends on the applicability of arithmetic to
your model.
Brent
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Re: Autonomy?
On 7/6/2012 5:18 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 6 July 2012 18:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: /I am sure your analysis might help to better apprehend consciousness, and can perhaps better handle the amnesia situation. But you have not (yet) convinced me that it has to be termed into a new form of *assumed at the outset* indeterminacy. The probability of being me is a sort of Dirac distribution: it is one, for me, and zero for the others. The probability of becoming me, is perhaps close to one on the transitive closure of the computations, and is complex to compute for particular brain instantiation./ Thanks for your detailed critique up to this point, Bruno. I understand of course that you are particularly concerned to assess its consistency with comp. By contrast, as I have said, my own motivation has been more generally to find a heuristic for navigating some of the thornier conceptual puzzles presented by consciousness. I understand that the kind of global probability distribution entailed by this notion is poorly defined in a strict mathematical sense. The global distribution is simply assumed ex hypothesi by the stipulation of a class of all sentient moments, and the relative probability of any sub-class of moments is then assumed to derive from a kind of global frequency-interpretation as a consequence of the unique stochastic succession of moments. This is essentially what Hoyle had in mind with his pigeon hole metaphor, and it stands or falls in terms of its utility as a mode of thought for certain purposes; no more, no less. Consequently the /*assumed at the outset* indeterminacy /just follows automatically from//the specification of the heuristic; as moments succeed each other without extrinsic ordering, the personalised spatio-temporal characteristics associated with each successive moment have in this sense no prior determination. The notion of succession here simply grounds the bare notion of experiential transition, and the consequence of each such transition is to localise the knower in terms of an underlying real system. This system, in turn, can readily be assumed to be as complex as necessary to account for the unfolding relative scenarios thus recovered. A feature of this view is that all subsequent notions of indeterminacy are inherited from a single primitive notion, which is assumed to mediate _all_ questions of who, where, when and relative to what. For example, it grounds the relative probabilities of the future outcomes of individual persons as well as more general anthropic or observer self-selection issues. One could see this as a useful conceptual simplification or a step too far, I guess. The probability of being me, seems to be, as you say, all or nothing; but in terms of the heuristic it is weird but inevitable that this must always seem to be the case in the context of a given occasion of experience. The probability of becoming me (or that there will be a me to be) depends, as I think you imply, on the entire web of relations encoded in the real system. Thank you again for the critique. I hadn't really thought to convince you, but you have helped me to test the usefulness of the view under stress, as it were. I continue to find it helpful, but I will of course always be on the look-out for cases where it might seriously mislead. We cannot hope for full illumination in such matters, but a small guiding light can often help us negotiate a conceptual obstacle in the path. David -- Dear David and Bruno, I am very informed by your discussion so far. I really appreciate the patience and depth of the discussion! I would only add that the idea of a single primitive notion, which is assumed to mediate all questions of who, where, when and relative to what is a form of Pre-Established Harmony ala what Leibniz had in mind to explain the synchronization of the Monads. I see this idea as problematic because it assumes something that is completely unphysical and even impossible! It is my claim that any such PEH is equivalent to a solution to an optimization or satisfaction problem and such require computations to be actually performed to be said to have solutions. One can claim that a solution exists and even privite a proof of this existence, but this is no substitute for actually having the solution in hand so as to use it. The real world requires that we physically instantiate our computations; we have to do work to gain knowledge of solutions to problems. The idea that there exists a Mediator of all questions is not sufficient if we do not have the means to acquire the exact nature of the who, where, when and relative to what. We have to be very careful about this assumed from the onset stuff! Yes, it is necessary to assume things even for the sake of discussion of ideas, but to assume
Quantum Computing at Room Temperature — Now a Reality
http://techland.time.com/2012/07/06/quantum-computing-at-room-temperature-now-a-reality/#ixzz1zsz3oAMW Quantum Computing at Room Temperature — Now a Reality By MATT PECKHAM | @mattpeckham | July 6, 2012 | Georg Kucsko is a graduate student and one of the lead authors of a paper that describes a technique that could one day lead to the creation of a quantum computer at room temperature. Professor Mikhail Lukin (from left), Georg Kucsko, and Christian Latta are pictured looking at their lasers in the LISE Building at Harvard University. You’ve read about the world’s first quantum network built from two atoms and one proton. You’ve heard about the quantum computer someone plonked inside a diamond to grapple with something called “quantum decoherence.” I mean, who hasn’t? But it’s all crazy Futurama science, right? You’d need costly equipment capable of cooling those quantum bits (aka “qubits”) to about the temperature of outer space vacuum, which is to say near absolute zero (-459.67 F), to get even a primitive quantum computer working, wouldn’t you? Also: laser beams and mirrors and springs made of light? Maybe not. In fact, maybe all you need is a team of intrepid researchers and a little ingenuity to prod a qubit into controlled, quantifiable action without special cooling. Like: a group of Harvard scientists, who’ve apparently managed to create qubits and get them to store information for nearly two seconds at ambient temperatures. Two seconds may not sound like much, but we’re talking about a timeframe that the researchers claim is six orders of magnitude greater than prior attempts. Diamond Days How’d they do it? With one of the world’s hardest materials, of course. Like the international team of scientists that recently fiddled with a tiny diamond chip to get qubits to perform rudimentary calculations, the Harvard research team, led by physics professor Mikhail Lukin, employed a custom-crafted diamond to create quantum bits that were able to store information for nearly two seconds, and — incredibly — do it at room temperature. “What we’ve been able to achieve in terms of control is quite unprecedented,” said Lukin in a story by Harvard Gazette. “We have a qubit, at room temperature, that we can measure with very high efficiency and fidelity. We can encode data in it, and we can store it for a relatively long time. We believe this work is limited only by technical issues, so it looks feasible to increase the life span into the range of hours. At that point, a host of real-world applications become possible.” Getting a quantum computer working is like pulling off the world’s least forgiving Cirque de Soleil act flawlessly. Quantum particles are susceptible to outside influence. Persuading them to store information, then measuring that information — much less at room temperature — involves Herculean feats of isolation and control, like using extremely expensive equipment to trap particles in a vacuum, then keeping them perfectly still (as in really-truly: no atomic motion at all) to lower their temperature to somewhere in the vicinity of absolute zero. In addition to thermal issues, qubits are prone to decoherence, losing information quickly as they’re influenced by their environment, thus the basic quantum science notion that by simply measuring a particle’s state you’re interacting with it in a way that critically influences your results. The Harvard team opted to create an ultra-pure, lab-manufactured diamond containing nitrogen-vacancies, or NVs — impurities at the atomic level that behave like atoms, allowing them to be controlled and their spin-orientation quantified. The trouble with NVs is that they can’t hold data long enough to function as quantum computers. Carbon-13 atoms also present in the diamond, on the other hand, are much less easily influenced and prone to hanging around longer. But the trouble with them is that those same upsides make them much more difficult to measure and manipulate. Pure Impurities The solution? It turns out NVs and carbon-13 atoms interact in rather fascinating ways, such that the former can indicate the state of the latter. By measuring the NVs, in other words, the team was able to gauge the spin of the carbon-13 atoms at room temperatures. And by further isolating the NVs and carbon-13 atoms using lasers, the team was able to encode information in the carbon-13 atom’s spin and raise its coherence — the time it’s holding the data — from a millisecond to over two seconds. Why bother at all, given the effort still involved to produce the crudest of quantum calculations? Because functional quantum computers would be unbelievably fast: They take the concept of classical systems, where information is factored sequentially in “ones” and “zeroes,” and can represent those states simultaneously, a typically weird-sounding, parallelistic quantum behavior known as “superposition.” To
Re: Autonomy?
On 6 July 2012 22:55, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: We have to be very careful about this assumed from the onset stuff! Yes, it is necessary to assume things even for the sake of discussion of ideas, but to assume that they are de facto primitive and/or a priori is often a fatal mistake. Let me assure you, Stephen, that I make no assumptions or assertions as to primitivity or a priori truth for these notions. As I have said, I find them useful and illuminating (as presumably did Hoyle) in connection with certain conceptual problems of consciousness, particularly those relating to personal identity and history. It is also the case that, in discussing these particular ideas with others, I've found that their particular explicitness with respect to factors that are often tacit or even entirely unrecognised has often been helpful in drawing out veiled aspects of competing viewpoints. I tend to agree that a comparison can be drawn with Leibnizian PEH, which I suppose is rather unavoidable given the way the notion is formulated. With respect to the substrate or real system with which Hoyle's pigeon holes are assumed to be associated *h**ypotheses non fingo; *the heuristic is more or less neutral on this issue, which can be construed both as a weakness or a strength, depending on one's purposes. David -- 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: Autonomy?
On 7/6/2012 7:26 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 6 July 2012 22:55, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: We have to be very careful about this assumed from the onset stuff! Yes, it is necessary to assume things even for the sake of discussion of ideas, but to assume that they are de facto primitive and/or a priori is often a fatal mistake. Let me assure you, Stephen, that I make no assumptions or assertions as to primitivity or a priori truth for these notions. Hi David, I did not mean to claim that you where making assumptions or assertions. I was speaking in generalities, thus the use of the word we. As I have said, I find them useful and illuminating (as presumably did Hoyle) in connection with certain conceptual problems of consciousness, particularly those relating to personal identity and history. I agree. Hoyle was on to an important idea, IMHO. I really appreciate that you have pointed this out. It is also the case that, in discussing these particular ideas with others, I've found that their particular explicitness with respect to factors that are often tacit or even entirely unrecognised has often been helpful in drawing out veiled aspects of competing viewpoints. Yes. I recall vividly how much David Bohm discussed tacit assumptions in his writings. It is more often the case than not that it is what we jsut assume to be true without question that is the problem that prevents progress in our thinking. I tend to agree that a comparison can be drawn with Leibnizian PEH, which I suppose is rather unavoidable given the way the notion is formulated. With respect to the substrate or real system with which Hoyle's pigeon holes are assumed to be associated /h//ypotheses non fingo; /the heuristic is more or less neutral on this issue, which can be construed both as a weakness or a strength, depending on one's purposes. Would it be too bold to claim that we now have enough evidence to propose a hypothesis? -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- 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.
