Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 14.07.2012 01:15 meekerdb said the following: On 7/13/2012 4:07 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: It must be, because this has been a very sucessful mith. Yes, it was no doubt successful in keeping the peasants believing the in divine knowledge of the free loading priests. Brent One can say the same way that thy myth of Higgs boson is designed to force taxpayers to pay for pleasures of particle physicists. Or what the difference do you see? Evgenii -- 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 13.07.2012 20:43 meekerdb said the following: On 7/13/2012 11:14 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... My question would be not about responsibility, I am not that far. Let us take a chess game (the example from John). We have two people playing chess and then for example the M-theory. How would you characterize the relationship between the M-theory and players. I would characterize them as being at separate levels of description. In what sense it is possible to say that the players play their own game? In the sense that there are no significant outside sources influencing the players (like a grandmaster whispering in their ear). How unpredictability would help here? I don't understand help. Are you striving to reach some conclusion you have not revealed? You have mentioned the chaos theory when you have written about predictability. Frankly speaking I do not understand the point, the chaos theory claims. If I understand correctly, it basically says that the uncertainty in the initial condition brings unpredictability. Yet, I do not understand where the uncertainty in initial conditions come from. If we discuss things in principle, then we should consider the case when the initial conditions are known exactly. But that's the point. In chaos theory things are only predictable if initial conditions (and the evolutionary calculations) are carried to infinite precision - which is impossible. You want to consider a case where we start with infinite information to predict an outcome which is defined only by finite information? If you mean predicting future by human beings, then this is not the question I am interested in. To this end, one can also employ Wolfram's computational irreducibility. Because I’ve seen so many cases where simple rules end up generating immensely rich and complex behavior. And that’s made me think it’s not nearly so implausible that our whole universe could come from a simple rule. But really it’s all completely deterministic. That somehow knowing the laws of the universe would tell us how humans would act–and give us a way to compute and predict human behavior. Of course, to many people this always seemed implausible–because we feel that we have some form of free will. And now, with computational irreducibility, we can see how this can still be consistent with deterministic underlying laws. It seems that your viewpoint is similar. If not, please tell where there is the difference. My question was rather philosophical. It is unrelated to practical things, well, the M-theory is anyway unrelated to human practice. In my view, for engineering it does not matter whether the underlying principles is based on natural numbers of on the M-theory. Still, let us look again at the game of chess. If we look at it in principle, then it is actually the Game of Life mentioned in the last chapter of Grand Design. The conglomerates of atoms move other conglomerates of atoms according to completely deterministic laws. Could you please demonstrate how to introduce separate level of descriptions in this process to bring some sense in playing chess? (but please not at the practical level, let us still stay at the level in principle). Evgenii -- http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2010/07/stephen-wolframs-computational-irreducibility.html -- 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 13.07.2012 22:14 John Clark said the following: On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru wrote: There are no experts in this field because there is no field. The field does exist. What does a expert on theology know about the nature of reality that a non-expert does not? As far as I understand, theology is about beliefs, and beliefs still play an important role, also among physicists. For example the belief in inexorable laws of nature expressed marvelously in Grand Design. Presumably there were questions that he [Newton] had found important. It might be interesting to understand what questions touched him and what has happened with these questions at present. I don't think it would be interesting at all, in fact I'd rather have my teeth drilled than read Newton on theology. Newton was I think the greatest genius the Human Race has yet produced, he was also vain arrogant vindictive and completely humorless, but those are all minor points compared with his virtues. The real tragedy was that this colossal intellect was horribly infected with the religious meme. This meme hijacked most of his massive mental machinery and forced it to think and write far more about religion than about Science. Today even Theologians admit that the many millions of words that he wrote about The Bible are worthless, and if there is one thing Theologians have a lot of experience with is worthless ideas. Newton advanced Science more than any other Human Being but I think it's one of the great tragedies of History that the rarest, most valuable quality that has ever existed in the world was not used to full advantage. Imagine what Newton could have accomplished if his mind had not been caught in a infinite loop, and I blame religion for that. On the other hand, it well might be that without his beliefs, he would not create the Newton's laws. Who knows. In general, I do not think that bringing in ideology helps us to understand history. The question where in physicalism numbers are located is also interesting indeed. If you know the answer, I would appreciate it. The number eleven is located just below green a little to the right of big above sweet and between fast and pneumatic. Could you offer some more meaningful picture on the relationship between mathematics and physics? Evgenii -- 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: esse est percipi?
On 13 Jul 2012, at 21:59, Stephen P. King wrote: On 7/13/2012 9:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 13 Jul 2012, at 11:55, Stephen P. King wrote: How exactly does one make a connection between a given set of resources and an arbitrary computation in your scheme? From the measure on all computations, which must exist to satisfy comp, as the UDA explains with all details, and as the translation of UDA in arithmetic (AUDA) makes precise. We still don't have the measure, but AUDA extracts the logic of measure one (accepting some standard definitions). And that measure one verifies what is needed to get a linear logic à-la Abramski-Girard which makes a notion of resource quite plausible. Anyway, we have no choice. If the measure does not exist, comp is false (to be short). Dear Bruno, Why do you seem to insist on a global (on all computations) measure? This is a consequence of the invariance of consciousness (for delays, virtual/real shifts, ...). I do not decide this. I think that this requirement is too strong and is the cause of many problems. What is wrong with a on some computations within some bound measure? UD* does noot bound the measure, and so such requirements can't be applied. It seems to me that if you would consider the Boolean SAT problem you would see this... I still do not understand why you are so resistant to considering the complexity issue. Was not Aaronson's paper sufficient motivation? A possible solution is a local measure (as opposed to global measures), but this idea disallows for any kind of global regime or Pre-Hstablished Harmony. (Is this why you are so dogmatic?) This is just an insult in disguise. Please Stephen , just do the math. It allow also for the possibility of pathological cases, such as omega-inconsistent logical algebras, so long as the contradictions do not occur within some finite bound. In other words, it may be possible to achieve the goal of the ultrafinitists without the absolute tyranny that they would impose on the totality of what exists,. but at the small price of not allowing abstract entities to be completely separate ontologically from the physical systems that can possibly implement them. Please notice that I am only requiring the connection to occur within the possibility and not any arbitrary actual physical system! I distinguish actual from possible. In which theory? This cannot work if we are machine, by the invariance result. I am not sure what you mean by explanation as you are using the word. Again, AFAIK abstractions cannot refer to specific physical objects It is better, when working on the mind-body problem, to not take the notion of physical object as granted, except for assuming that the physical laws have to be rich enough to support brain and computer execution, that is, to be at least Turing universal. This is a bit hypocritical since it is an incarnated number(up to isomorphism) that is writing this email! (per your result!) Not at all. I, the first person one, is not a number, and cannot be associated to any number. How can one ignore the necessity of a (relatively) persistent medium to communicate? You are still falling into the solipsism trap! You make a lot of statement without any justification, and ignoring all previous patient explanations. Maybe you are trying to claim some kind of excuse via semantic externality! But that argument is self-stultifying also... Words cannot exist as mere free-floating entities. It seems you come back with primitive (assumed) matter. I have no clue what that could be, and it cannot work by UDA. unless we consider an isomorphism of sorts between physical objects After UDA, and the usual weak Occam rule, we *know* (modulo comp) that physical objects are collective hallucination by numbers. You must show why some particular class of numbers (or equivalent) is the class of primitive entities capable of having hallucinations (or dreams). That is a consequence of arithmetical realism without which Church thesis and the notion of digital machine cannot be defined. The fact that they can possibly have hallucinations or dreams must be accounted for! It is a theorem of arithmetic. All finite pieces of computations exist in arithmetic, the first persons cannot not glue them, by what is explained in the first six step of UDA. That they are collective is an additional matter. You are glossing over very difficult problems! I formulate them in a way we can test precise answer. You have more than once acknowledge that the physical reality is not primitive (= cannot be assumed), so I am not sure to see why you come back with it to challenge the comp consequences. You are not understanding the definition that I have made here. It is not a matter is primitive claim, it is a limit on the way
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 13 Jul 2012, at 20:26, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.07.2012 19:40 John Clark said the following: On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru wrote: ... An interesting question is however, where resulting visual mental concepts are located. I find it about as interesting as asking where big or the number eleven is located and shows the same profound misunderstanding of the situation on so many different levels that it's hard to know where to begin. The question where in physicalism numbers are located is also interesting indeed. If you know the answer, I would appreciate it. As I just said to Stephen, numbers are not located anywhere. They are not physical entities. Bruno However, visual mental concepts are even more interested as we suppose that vision is a basic human capability and it exists much longer as mathematics. So, according to physics photons are reflected from an object, come to retina, and then natural neural nets starts information processing. The question is what happens after that. Provided that the brain is surrounded by the skull and information processes happen there, one could expect that mental visual concepts are somewhere within the skull. Where do you find a profound misunderstanding in the paragraph above? How would you explain the vision? Evgenii -- 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 . 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 13 Jul 2012, at 19:08, meekerdb wrote: On 7/13/2012 12:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: I insist I use them in the sense of many, and your way to keep definition explains why you reject the whole notion. You don't use theology in the sense of the papers I see published by faculties in departments of theology. Since the closure of Plato academy. Indeed. They are about the dogma of religions, especially Christianity and Islam. Yes. Like some atheists you seem to take seriously the definition of theologian you decry. Of course. Would it be sensible to decry something which was undefined?? Theology is the science which address the question of afterlife, soul, immortality, meaning, origin of the universe, etc. You confuse the question and the answer imposed by politicians for reason of population control. 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 13 Jul 2012, at 21:33, John Clark wrote: On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Like God this is a example is somebody willing to abandon a idea but not a word; Logicians work axiomatically or semi-axiomatically. If an idea/ theory seems absurd, we make the minimal change to keep the most of the theory (the words). The changes you make in God are as far from minimal as you can get, the magnitude of the changes are quite literally infinite. Because you seem to believe only in the post 523 occidental vocabulary. The term God is typical in that setting, and I find absurd to deny some concept by keeping an absurd theory. I don't know what you mean, a theory is a concept and the God theory is a very bad theory and thus so is the concept. God is the pointer to our ignorance. Most religion initially use God as a mark of accepting our ignorance. Of course, once the name of the one supposed (in most tradition) to be not unnameable, we get into problem. You do the same with free-will, by saying it is non sense, but this by deciding to accept the nonsensical definition. That is incorrect. The God theory is perfectly meaningful and so is the astrology theory, it's just that they both happen to be wrong. The free will theory on the other hand is no more meaningful than a burp and thus is neither right nor wrong. Free will is will and responsibility, and well explain for universal numbe by self-indetermination (à-la Turing, not first person indeterminacy). so God becomes something more powerful than yourself This is frequent fro Gof. Yes, something more powerful than yourself is what those who love the word but not the idea mean when they say God. Yes. Indeed. So you agree with my point above. And so God, a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe, suddenly gets demoted and becomes just another yellow bulldozer; I don't believe in your notion of God. and theology, the study of bulldozers, degenerates into diesel engine repair. God is not a machine. Then there is no alternative, God is not a bulldozer after all, God is a roulette wheel. You fail to see that even just in arithmetic we can prove the existence of many alternative to machine. there is a transfinity of weakening of the notion of machines, most of them are used implicitly in calculus. To deny the field theology today makes physics into a theology by argument from authority. Can't you doubt physicalism? 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 14.07.2012 10:26 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 13 Jul 2012, at 20:26, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.07.2012 19:40 John Clark said the following: On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru wrote: ... An interesting question is however, where resulting visual mental concepts are located. I find it about as interesting as asking where big or the number eleven is located and shows the same profound misunderstanding of the situation on so many different levels that it's hard to know where to begin. The question where in physicalism numbers are located is also interesting indeed. If you know the answer, I would appreciate it. As I just said to Stephen, numbers are not located anywhere. They are not physical entities. Bruno Bruno, I believe, I understand your position. My question concerns the case when one assumes physicalism. If to speak about your theorem, it is unclear to me, how the first person view accesses numbers and mathematical objects. Evgenii -- 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 14 Jul 2012, at 06:16, Stephen P. King wrote: On 7/13/2012 11:51 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 7/13/2012 7:31 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Does unpredictability that you have mentioned in another message will help in this respect? If yes, how? If you're asking whether unpredictability eliminates responsibility, the answer is no. Brent Hi Brent, OK, so does the converse hold? Predictability eliminates responsibility? That sentence looks very wrong Right. Predictability is irrelevant to the social concept of responsibility. Brent -- OK, so what is relevant? What action is the determinant of a given quantity of responsibility? Knowledge? No, that can't be because that involves predictability. So, I am at a loose. Please enlighten me. Knowledge of our ignorance. Numbers intrinsic knowledge of their own relative ignorance. 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 14 Jul 2012, at 10:42, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 14.07.2012 10:26 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 13 Jul 2012, at 20:26, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.07.2012 19:40 John Clark said the following: On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru wrote: ... An interesting question is however, where resulting visual mental concepts are located. I find it about as interesting as asking where big or the number eleven is located and shows the same profound misunderstanding of the situation on so many different levels that it's hard to know where to begin. The question where in physicalism numbers are located is also interesting indeed. If you know the answer, I would appreciate it. As I just said to Stephen, numbers are not located anywhere. They are not physical entities. Bruno Bruno, I believe, I understand your position. My question concerns the case when one assumes physicalism. All right. I missed that. If to speak about your theorem, it is unclear to me, how the first person view accesses numbers and mathematical objects. Like a digital machine, which can access numbers encoded in their memory, through logical gates, and so one. More details are given currently on the FOAR list, but the idea is simple, with comp our bodies are statistical first person constructs related to infinities of number relations, so we access to them a bit like a fish can access water. The price of this is that we have to abandon physicalism eventually. 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 14.07.2012 11:00 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 14 Jul 2012, at 10:42, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... If to speak about your theorem, it is unclear to me, how the first person view accesses numbers and mathematical objects. Like a digital machine, which can access numbers encoded in their memory, through logical gates, and so one. More details are given currently on the FOAR list, but the idea is simple, with comp our bodies are statistical first person constructs related to infinities of number relations, so we access to them a bit like a fish can access water. The price of this is that we have to abandon physicalism eventually. I am not sure if I understand. I would like to have an explanation for a phenomenon, for example 1) I see a cat; 2) I see a piece of paper with 2 + 2 = 4. Yet, when you start explaining, the phenomenon seems to disappear. Evgenii -- 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 14 Jul 2012, at 11:16, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 14.07.2012 11:00 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 14 Jul 2012, at 10:42, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... If to speak about your theorem, it is unclear to me, how the first person view accesses numbers and mathematical objects. Like a digital machine, which can access numbers encoded in their memory, through logical gates, and so one. More details are given currently on the FOAR list, but the idea is simple, with comp our bodies are statistical first person constructs related to infinities of number relations, so we access to them a bit like a fish can access water. The price of this is that we have to abandon physicalism eventually. I am not sure if I understand. I would like to have an explanation for a phenomenon, for example 1) I see a cat; 2) I see a piece of paper with 2 + 2 = 4. Yet, when you start explaining, the phenomenon seems to disappear. 1) I see a cat. This is explained by the fact that your current computational state belongs to an infinity of computations making you singling out some stable patterns that you recognize, by access to your previous experience as being cat. The qualia itself is explained by the fact that when you refer to the cat, you are really referring to yourself (with the implicit hope that it corresponds to some relatively independent pattern), and the math shows that such a self- reference involves some true but non rationally communicable feature. The math explained why, if this justification is correct, machines/ numbers will not be entirely satisfied by it, for the first person is not a machine from its own first person view. 2) The same with 2+2=4 written on some paper. It is also a stable pattern in the computations going through your state. Here you might just refer to what you have learned in school, and you might considered that the truth referred by that sentence on a paper is more stable than a cat, but the conscious perception of cat or ink on paper admits the same explanation: some universal number reflect a pattern belonging to almost all computations going through your state. You have to take the first person indeterminacy into account, and keep in mind that your immediate future is determined by an infinity of computations/universal number, going through your actual state. For example, all the Heisenberg matrices computing the state of the galaxy at some description level for some amount of steps. They all provably exist independently of us in a tiny part of elementary arithmetic, and admit at least as many variants as there are possible electron location in their energy level orbitals. I cannot be sure if this helps you as it relies to some familiarity with the first person indeterminacy and the fact that our comp states are distributed in an infinity of distinct, from a third person pov, computations (existing in arithmetic). Bruno Evgenii -- 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 . 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Saturday, July 14, 2012 5:52:33 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jul 2012, at 11:16, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 14.07.2012 11:00 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 14 Jul 2012, at 10:42, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... If to speak about your theorem, it is unclear to me, how the first person view accesses numbers and mathematical objects. Like a digital machine, which can access numbers encoded in their memory, through logical gates, and so one. More details are given currently on the FOAR list, but the idea is simple, with comp our bodies are statistical first person constructs related to infinities of number relations, so we access to them a bit like a fish can access water. The price of this is that we have to abandon physicalism eventually. I am not sure if I understand. I would like to have an explanation for a phenomenon, for example 1) I see a cat; 2) I see a piece of paper with 2 + 2 = 4. Yet, when you start explaining, the phenomenon seems to disappear. 1) I see a cat. This is explained by the fact that your current computational state belongs to an infinity of computations making you singling out some stable patterns that you recognize, by access to your previous experience as being cat. Patterns? Stability? Previous experience as being (a) cat? What are those things? Where are they found in arithmetic? Sounds like aspects of... sense-making. If you scoop those things into a explanation of the origin awareness and call it comp, how is that not begging the question of awareness? If we begin with sense and sense-making, then computation follows as a method of offloading or condensing first person experiences into a projected third person shadow, but it doesn't make any sense the other way around. I agree with Evgenii and Stephen that you are in fact disappearing the appearance and physicality of the cat. The qualia itself is explained by the fact that when you refer to the cat, you are really referring to yourself (with the implicit hope that it corresponds to some relatively independent pattern) But that isn't the reality is it? When we show a young child a cat, when we point to it and say cat, we are eminently aware of the common reality of the cat. We aren't hoping for any computational match that depends on the self - if anything the child has a richer, more objectively observant experiences of the cat with more subtle qualities than we have as blunted adults, although we could talk much more about the names of cat breeds and the price of veterinary care. I agree that there is computation involved but I think it goes in the opposite direction - it begins with wholeness and then breaks out into analytical process. Think of visual focus as qualia. When you cross your eyes, you get more information - two separate images which lack the realism of the focused visual perception. When you focus, you are more present in the world that you are focusing on. It becomes more real. Your channel of sense awareness is as unobstructed as it can be (to your naked eye, in the body you have now, etc) so you can see the difference between a solipsistic blur and a coherent connection with exterior realism. Pattern has something to do with it, as well as computation, but like the two blurred images, they mean nothing unless they are brought together by a third and primary sense-maker, to whom the matter of sensemaking inherently matters. Computation cannot supply this 'matter' (v) or its reflection/shadow 'matter' (n) because it is itself a shadow - an overflow condensation of subjectivity which skips the vertical subjective depth and leaves only the horizontal intersubjective plane. , and the math shows that such a self- reference involves some true but non rationally communicable feature. The math explained why, if this justification is correct, machines/ numbers will not be entirely satisfied by it, for the first person is not a machine from its own first person view. But the math gives no hint as to what forms these features take - which is the only thing that needs explaining. Math explains that the self thinks it is a self? Ok. So does a mirror. Impressive, I agree it is impressive that so many things can be derived from math, but they are not used in math, only mentioned. They have no power at all, they are only mental pictures of power. Indirect. Distant. Invisible. Like God. 2) The same with 2+2=4 written on some paper. It is also a stable pattern in the computations going through your state. Here you might just refer to what you have learned in school, and you might considered that the truth referred by that sentence on a paper is more stable than a cat, but the conscious perception of cat or ink on paper admits the same explanation: some universal number reflect a pattern belonging to almost all
Re: esse est percipi?
On 7/14/2012 4:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 13 Jul 2012, at 21:59, Stephen P. King wrote: On 7/13/2012 9:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 13 Jul 2012, at 11:55, Stephen P. King wrote: How exactly does one make a connection between a given set of resources and an arbitrary computation in your scheme? From the measure on all computations, which must exist to satisfy comp, as the UDA explains with all details, and as the translation of UDA in arithmetic (AUDA) makes precise. We still don't have the measure, but AUDA extracts the logic of measure one (accepting some standard definitions). And that measure one verifies what is needed to get a linear logic à-la Abramski-Girard which makes a notion of resource quite plausible. Anyway, we have no choice. If the measure does not exist, comp is false (to be short). Dear Bruno, Why do you seem to insist on a global (on all computations) measure? This is a consequence of the invariance of consciousness (for delays, virtual/real shifts, ...). I do not decide this. Hi Bruno, Might you see that this is problematic? Because you are using a particular infinite domain and codomain (N - NxN) as primitives and these are ordered, you are stuck. This is one of the many weaknesses of Plato's program. I admit that the general idea is brilliant and valuable, it is far to limited and thus constraining on what can be accomplished. I think that this requirement is too strong and is the cause of many problems. What is wrong with a on some computations within some bound measure? UD* does not bound the measure, and so such requirements can't be applied. I know this! It is for this reason that I make my claim that your result is for solipsistic systems only. One cannot hope to define an explanation of interaction with this method. As Peter Wegner et al point out here http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/pw/papers/bcj1.pdf, it is defined a priori to only be one thing. Interactions, to be modeled well, cannot be constrained a priori in this way. It seems to me that if you would consider the Boolean SAT problem you would see this... I still do not understand why you are so resistant to considering the complexity issue. Was not Aaronson's paper sufficient motivation? A possible solution is a local measure (as opposed to global measures), but this idea disallows for any kind of global regime or Pre-Hstablished Harmony. (Is this why you are so dogmatic?) This is just an insult in disguise. Please Stephen , just do the math. I did not intend it as an insult, but that possibility of interpretation is present. Why are you taking that option? You are avoiding my point. Why do you dismiss the SAT issue? It allow also for the possibility of pathological cases, such as omega-inconsistent logical algebras, so long as the contradictions do not occur within some finite bound. In other words, it may be possible to achieve the goal of the ultrafinitists without the absolute tyranny that they would impose on the totality of what exists,. but at the small price of not allowing abstract entities to be completely separate ontologically from the physical systems that can possibly implement them. Please notice that I am only requiring the connection to occur within the possibility and not any arbitrary actual physical system! I distinguish actual from possible. In which theory? This cannot work if we are machine, by the invariance result. Right, and that is the problem that I see. I am not sure what you mean by explanation as you are using the word. Again, AFAIK abstractions cannot refer to specific physical objects It is better, when working on the mind-body problem, to not take the notion of physical object as granted, except for assuming that the physical laws have to be rich enough to support brain and computer execution, that is, to be at least Turing universal. This is a bit hypocritical since it is an incarnated number(up to isomorphism) that is writing this email! (per your result!) Not at all. I, the first person one, is not a number, and cannot be associated to any number. Is it independent of all the numbers? Can it be severed? No! I am arguing the same thing for computations. Severing computations from physical implementation is a mistake. You are going to far. I think that it is like the difference between going to the limit of a function and jumping the gap to the at infinity itself. How can one ignore the necessity of a (relatively) persistent medium to communicate? You are still falling into the solipsism trap! You make a lot of statement without any justification, and ignoring all previous patient explanations. Turing Machines operate by a priori definitions, thus they cannot make good models of interaction. I am just using Peter Wegner's claims and proofs. See http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/pw/strong-cct.pdf Maybe you are trying
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 7/14/2012 4:26 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 13 Jul 2012, at 20:26, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.07.2012 19:40 John Clark said the following: On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru wrote: ... An interesting question is however, where resulting visual mental concepts are located. I find it about as interesting as asking where big or the number eleven is located and shows the same profound misunderstanding of the situation on so many different levels that it's hard to know where to begin. The question where in physicalism numbers are located is also interesting indeed. If you know the answer, I would appreciate it. As I just said to Stephen, numbers are not located anywhere. They are not physical entities. Bruno With this claim it follows that numbers cannot have *any* properties that we associate with physical entities. This is a problem! -- 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.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 7/14/2012 4:46 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jul 2012, at 06:16, Stephen P. King wrote: On 7/13/2012 11:51 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 7/13/2012 7:31 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Does unpredictability that you have mentioned in another message will help in this respect? If yes, how? If you're asking whether unpredictability eliminates responsibility, the answer is no. Brent Hi Brent, OK, so does the converse hold? Predictability eliminates responsibility? That sentence looks very wrong Right. Predictability is irrelevant to the social concept of responsibility. Brent -- OK, so what is relevant? What action is the determinant of a given quantity of responsibility? Knowledge? No, that can't be because that involves predictability. So, I am at a loose. Please enlighten me. Knowledge of our ignorance. Numbers intrinsic knowledge of their own relative ignorance. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ So then we can think of numbers as quantities of relative ignorance? That is much better than the ghosts of departed quantities that Newton had! But how does this answer my question of responsibility? You are talking to a different question and assuming a measure exists where one cannot be defined. The absence of a property is the complement of the property, no? This is where we cannot avoid some form of set theory and it is exactly where we get into trouble! -- 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.
Re: Cooperation and Free Riders
On 7/14/2012 4:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jul 2012, at 07:48, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Stephen, I took a look at the book of Jon Barwise and it seems very interesting. This use of category theory with information seems promising. I´m interested in both: how the living beings transmit and use information to achieve homeostasis (maintain internal entrophy). And it seems that the mind use category theory to systematize and navigate this information: http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000858 Not to bad summary of category theory. A bit superficial on cognition, though, imo. Bruno I agree! -- 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.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: As far as I understand, theology is about beliefs Theology is about believing in something when there is absolutely no reason for doing so, it is called faith. Theologians say this is a wonderful virtue and I can understand perfectly why a human being would try to peddle faith as the highest virtue because if you were trying to push a idea that makes no sense faith turns a disadvantage into a advantage. But I'll be damned (literally) if I understand why a omnipotent omniscient being thinks faith is a good thing and even tries to trick us into believing He does not exist and will torture us for eternity if this omnipotent being succeeds in fooling us because we don't have enough faith. Could you offer some more meaningful picture on the relationship between mathematics and physics? You demand I give a SPATIAL relationship between consciousness and numbers and various adjectives like Evgenii Rudnyi, you wanted to know where they are located, where they existed in space. I thought I did a good job telling you exactly where the number eleven is located but perhaps I'm wrong and it's really just below yellow (not green) a little to the right of big above sweet and between fast and pneumatic. Let's get in the car and go there right now and see if its there. 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 14.07.2012 11:52 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 14 Jul 2012, at 11:16, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 14.07.2012 11:00 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 14 Jul 2012, at 10:42, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... If to speak about your theorem, it is unclear to me, how the first person view accesses numbers and mathematical objects. Like a digital machine, which can access numbers encoded in their memory, through logical gates, and so one. More details are given currently on the FOAR list, but the idea is simple, with comp our bodies are statistical first person constructs related to infinities of number relations, so we access to them a bit like a fish can access water. The price of this is that we have to abandon physicalism eventually. I am not sure if I understand. I would like to have an explanation for a phenomenon, for example 1) I see a cat; 2) I see a piece of paper with 2 + 2 = 4. Yet, when you start explaining, the phenomenon seems to disappear. 1) I see a cat. This is explained by the fact that your current computational state belongs to an infinity of computations making you singling out some stable patterns that you recognize, by access to your previous experience as being cat. The qualia itself is explained by the fact that when you refer to the cat, you are really referring to yourself (with the implicit hope that it corresponds to some relatively independent pattern), and the math shows that such a self-reference involves some true but non rationally communicable feature. The math explained why, if this justification is correct, machines/numbers will not be entirely satisfied by it, for the first person is not a machine from its own first person view. 2) The same with 2+2=4 written on some paper. It is also a stable pattern in the computations going through your state. Here you might just refer to what you have learned in school, and you might considered that the truth referred by that sentence on a paper is more stable than a cat, but the conscious perception of cat or ink on paper admits the same explanation: some universal number reflect a pattern belonging to almost all computations going through your state. You have to take the first person indeterminacy into account, and keep in mind that your immediate future is determined by an infinity of computations/universal number, going through your actual state. For example, all the Heisenberg matrices computing the state of the galaxy at some description level for some amount of steps. They all provably exist independently of us in a tiny part of elementary arithmetic, and admit at least as many variants as there are possible electron location in their energy level orbitals. I cannot be sure if this helps you as it relies to some familiarity with the first person indeterminacy and the fact that our comp states are distributed in an infinity of distinct, from a third person pov, computations (existing in arithmetic). Bruno, Thank you for the answer. I am definitely far away from to comprehend it, but it looks like that your motive is also close to the Game of Life. What difference do you see in this respect? Evgenii -- 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 7/14/2012 5:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jul 2012, at 11:16, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 14.07.2012 11:00 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 14 Jul 2012, at 10:42, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... If to speak about your theorem, it is unclear to me, how the first person view accesses numbers and mathematical objects. Like a digital machine, which can access numbers encoded in their memory, through logical gates, and so one. More details are given currently on the FOAR list, but the idea is simple, with comp our bodies are statistical first person constructs related to infinities of number relations, so we access to them a bit like a fish can access water. The price of this is that we have to abandon physicalism eventually. I am not sure if I understand. I would like to have an explanation for a phenomenon, for example 1) I see a cat; 2) I see a piece of paper with 2 + 2 = 4. Yet, when you start explaining, the phenomenon seems to disappear. 1) I see a cat. This is explained by the fact that your current computational state belongs to an infinity of computations making you singling out some stable patterns that you recognize, by access to your previous experience as being cat. The qualia itself is explained by the fact that when you refer to the cat, you are really referring to yourself (with the implicit hope that it corresponds to some relatively independent pattern), and the math shows that such a self-reference involves some true but non rationally communicable feature. The math explained why, if this justification is correct, machines/numbers will not be entirely satisfied by it, for the first person is not a machine from its own first person view. Hi Bruno, No, the reverse is the case. The belongs to an infinity of computations making you singling out some stable patterns requires the prior existence of the you to select it. The observer (you here) effectively is the measure via a self-selection rule. I cannot discount my own existence given the immediate fact that I am experiencing myself as existing. Descartes' Cognito ergo Sum is a pointed statement of this unassailable fact. We cannot put the observer on a level that is emerging from the computations if the observer is the one that is selecting the class of computations that are generating said observer. A possible escape from this is to allow for non-well founded sets and such things as non-principle ultrafilters http://mathoverflow.net/questions/15872/non-principal-ultrafilters-on, but I don't know your stand on their existence. Our observation of the cat is a symmetric (within bounds) relationship, otherwise we fall into solipsism. My claim is that the same thing follows for mathematical entities. We cannot claim that mathematical (or any other abstract entity!) is such that we (the observers and understanders thereof) are emerging from them. This would require that the independence is not and cannot be an unbridgeable gap at all, but a analytic continuum connecting the particular instance of a physical system with the knowledge and meaning of the abstraction. Maths do not refer explicitly to the physical media that they are represented upon by patterns, but this does not allow us to imagine them as completely independent and thus severable from the physical instances. Even Plato's idea of the Forms as casting shadows on the wall of the cave tacitly assumes continuity between the Forms and what we the ideas in our individual minds. If I am not mistaken the idea of conic sections where used to argue the idea. Shadow or projections cannot be severed from the object casting them! 2) The same with 2+2=4 written on some paper. It is also a stable pattern in the computations going through your state. Here you might just refer to what you have learned in school, and you might considered that the truth referred by that sentence on a paper is more stable than a cat, but the conscious perception of cat or ink on paper admits the same explanation: some universal number reflect a pattern belonging to almost all computations going through your state. You have to take the first person indeterminacy into account, and keep in mind that your immediate future is determined by an infinity of computations/universal number, going through your actual state. For example, all the Heisenberg matrices computing the state of the galaxy at some description level for some amount of steps. They all provably exist independently of us in a tiny part of elementary arithmetic, and admit at least as many variants as there are possible electron location in their energy level orbitals. This paragraph 2) gets dangerously close to my criticism of your scheme and so it might help us come to some mutual understanding. For me, the truth of the sentence 2+2=4 (i will denote this as X) is not the same thing as the piece of paper with the symbols '2+2=4' on it (I will denote
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 7/14/2012 5:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 14 Jul 2012, at 11:16, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
On 14.07.2012 11:00 Bruno Marchal said the following:
On 14 Jul 2012, at 10:42, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
...
If to speak about your theorem, it is unclear to me, how the first
person view accesses numbers and mathematical objects.
Like a digital machine, which can access numbers encoded in their
memory, through logical gates, and so one. More details are given
currently on the FOAR list, but the idea is simple, with comp our
bodies are statistical first person constructs related to infinities
of number relations, so we access to them a bit like a fish can
access water. The price of this is that we have to abandon
physicalism eventually.
I am not sure if I understand. I would like to have an explanation
for a phenomenon, for example
1) I see a cat;
2) I see a piece of paper with 2 + 2 = 4.
Yet, when you start explaining, the phenomenon seems to disappear.
1) I see a cat. This is explained by the fact that your current
computational state belongs to an infinity of computations making you
singling out some stable patterns that you recognize, by access to
your previous experience as being cat. The qualia itself is explained
by the fact that when you refer to the cat, you are really referring
to yourself (with the implicit hope that it corresponds to some
relatively independent pattern), and the math shows that such a
self-reference involves some true but non rationally communicable
feature. The math explained why, if this justification is correct,
machines/numbers will not be entirely satisfied by it, for the first
person is not a machine from its own first person view.
2) The same with 2+2=4 written on some paper. It is also a stable
pattern in the computations going through your state. Here you might
just refer to what you have learned in school, and you might
considered that the truth referred by that sentence on a paper is more
stable than a cat, but the conscious perception of cat or ink on paper
admits the same explanation: some universal number reflect a pattern
belonging to almost all computations going through your state. You
have to take the first person indeterminacy into account, and keep in
mind that your immediate future is determined by an infinity of
computations/universal number, going through your actual state. For
example, all the Heisenberg matrices computing the state of the galaxy
at some description level for some amount of steps. They all provably
exist independently of us in a tiny part of elementary arithmetic, and
admit at least as many variants as there are possible electron
location in their energy level orbitals.
I cannot be sure if this helps you as it relies to some familiarity
with the first person indeterminacy and the fact that our comp states
are distributed in an infinity of distinct, from a third person pov,
computations (existing in arithmetic).
Bruno
Dear Bruno,
Please consider the following: from gowers
(mathoverflow.net/users/1459),/Non-principal ultrafilters on ?/,
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/15889 (version: 2010-02-20)
4
There is a nice class of problems that are equivalent to the existence
of a non-principal ultrafilter. One such, if I remember correctly, is
the existence of a colouring of the infinite subsets of the natural
numbers in such a way that no infinite set has all its infinite subsets
of the same colour. The obvious proof is to colour the sets in such a
way that if you add or take away a single element then you change its
colour. To make this proof work, you define two sets to be equivalent if
their symmetric difference is finite, and do the colouring in each
equivalence class separately. But to get it started you have to pick a
set in each equivalence class, and for that the obvious thing to do is
use AC.
But you can in fact do it with a non-principal ultrafilter as follows.
Given an infinite subset A, define its counting function f(n) to be the
cardinality of the intersection of A with {1,2,...,n}. Then take a
non-principal ultrafilter ? and define F(A) to be the limit along ?
of(-1)f(n). If you add an element m to A, then f(n) is unchanged up to m
and then adds 1 thereafter, so its parity is changed everywhere except
on a finite set, which implies that F(A) changes. So F gives you your
colouring.
I've never actually thought about the other direction (getting from such
a colouring to a non-principal ultrafilter) so I don't know how hard it
is. I'm not even 100% sure that it's true, but I'm pretty sure I
remember hearing that it was.
link
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/15872/non-principal-ultrafilters-on/15889#15889|flag|cite
answeredFeb 20 2010 at 12:30
http://mathoverflow.net/users/1459/gowers
gowers http://mathoverflow.net/users/1459/gowers
16.1k?8?73?124
The idea here of a colouring is a partitioning that would relate
to your measure,
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: you seem to believe only in the post 523 occidental vocabulary. Yeah, I can't tell you the number of times that darned post 523 occidental vocabulary of mine has gotten me into big trouble. I'm thinking of joining Post Occidental Vocabulary Anonymous and their 523 step program, or some similar self help organization. God is the pointer to our ignorance. So first God is a omnipotent omniscient omnipresent being that created the universe but He got laid off from that position so He became just something more powerful than ourselves, and then things got even worse for the poor Old One and now He's just our ignorance. In spite of this ridiculous situation you still believe the word G-O-D should not be retired and can still be used unambiguously to help us understand the deepest workings of the universe; and you actually think theology, the study of that 3 letter word, is not a joke. Free will is will So free will is will that is free, well I'm glad you cleared that up. and responsibility Responsibility is a function of how much a third party believes you should be rewarded or punished for your actions, subjectivity is involved but not your subjectivity because your responsibility is determined by others and not by you. And so God, a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe, suddenly gets demoted and becomes just another yellow bulldozer and theology, the study of bulldozers, degenerates into diesel engine repair. I don't believe in your notion of God. HERESY! You have sinned against the great and powerful Bulldozer God! If God is just something more powerful than yourself I don't understand the reason for your disbelief unless you imagine yourself more powerful than a mighty bulldozer. we can prove the existence of many alternative to machine. Yes, just show them a roulette wheel. To deny the field theology today makes physics into a theology So you believe physics is just glorified diesel engine repair, well that's a honorable profession, I can certainly think of worst things. 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 7/14/2012 1:41 PM, John Clark wrote: Responsibility is a function of how much a third party believes you should be rewarded or punished for your actions, subjectivity is involved but not your subjectivity because your responsibility is determined by others and not by you. Could you tell us what you mean by third parties and others? -- 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.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 7/14/2012 9:48 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: No, the reverse is the case. The belongs to an infinity of computations making you singling out some stable patterns requires the prior existence of the you to select it. The observer (you here) effectively is the measure via a self-selection rule. I cannot discount my own existence given the immediate fact that I am experiencing myself as existing. Descartes' Cognito ergo Sum is a pointed statement of this unassailable fact. We cannot put the observer on a level that is emerging from the computations if the observer is the one that is selecting the class of computations that are generating said observer. How does this comport with Everett's QM which has it that there is no unique, persistent you to do the selecting. It seems a simple matter of logic that any theory which sets out to explain consciousness cannot assume an observer, on pain of circularity. Brent -- 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: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 7/14/2012 8:47 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 7/14/2012 9:48 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: No, the reverse is the case. The belongs to an infinity of computations making you singling out some stable patterns requires the prior existence of the you to select it. The observer (you here) effectively is the measure via a self-selection rule. I cannot discount my own existence given the immediate fact that I am experiencing myself as existing. Descartes' Cognito ergo Sum is a pointed statement of this unassailable fact. We cannot put the observer on a level that is emerging from the computations if the observer is the one that is selecting the class of computations that are generating said observer. How does this comport with Everett's QM which has it that there is no unique, persistent you to do the selecting. It seems a simple matter of logic that any theory which sets out to explain consciousness cannot assume an observer, on pain of circularity. Brent -- Interesting. So the unitary evolution of the SWF or state vector is not continuous over its spectrum or what ever it is called ... the cover or span of the basis? I completely fail to understand your claim here. Could you elaborate on your ideas here. I am interested in your expertise. I am just a very annoying but well meaning student. You do understand that absent circularity it is impossible for consciousness to exist. Go through Descartes' /_Meditations_/ and slow down on the part about can I doubt my own existence? He was not the first to notice that circularity is the hall mark of consciousness. Why is circularity a bad thing. Please Remind me, I seem to have forgotten. -- 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.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 7/14/2012 10:26 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 7/14/2012 8:47 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/14/2012 9:48 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
No, the reverse is the case. The belongs to an infinity of
computations making you singling out some stable patterns requires
the prior existence of the you to select it. The observer (you
here) effectively is the measure via a self-selection rule. I cannot
discount my own existence given the immediate fact that I am
experiencing myself as existing. Descartes' Cognito ergo Sum is a
pointed statement of this unassailable fact. We cannot put the
observer on a level that is emerging from the computations if the
observer is the one that is selecting the class of computations that
are generating said observer.
How does this comport with Everett's QM which has it that there is no
unique, persistent you to do the selecting. It seems a simple
matter of logic that any theory which sets out to explain
consciousness cannot assume an observer, on pain of circularity.
Brent
--
Interesting. So the unitary evolution of the SWF or state vector
is not continuous over its spectrum or what ever it is called ... the
cover or span of the basis? I completely fail to understand your claim
here. Could you elaborate on your ideas here. I am interested in your
expertise. I am just a very annoying but well meaning student.
And I need to add that not only is there a persistent you, there
is every possible version of that persistent you. If there is Identity
via fixed point, then there is a you' involved in some capacity. It
just might not be belonging to an entity that some people denote as
John Clark; it could be Atom of Hydrogen. This rule applies to
anything that have a SWF or state vector representation. We are not just
considering people. You might like to learn to love panpsychism. :-P I
am just following the letter of the law of MWI.
http://www.univer.omsk.su/omsk/Sci/Everett/paper1957.html
And furthermore, It is quite possible to represent very nicely
behaved non-well founded sets that have all kind of circularity in them.
The trick is that there is always a bound of the circularity. It is only
*actually infinite* regress that is problematic. Just because something
is possible does not mean that it must happen! We still don't understand
exactly how Nature implements the unitary evolution. We don't have a
accurate theory of quantum gravity. At the moment, physicists do not
known how to write out equations that can account for arbitrarily long
yet smooth diffeomorphism of manifolds that are fibered with nice and
well behaved quantum fields. All of the texts books cheat by using
semi-classical approximations to define the Lagrangian, figure of the
quantum field that fits that Lagrangian and tell you that they actually
didn't cheat.
If you think that quantum gravity is not involved, consider the
following: The task of quantizing general relativity raises serious
questions about the meaning of the present formulation and
interpretation of quantum mechanics when applied to so fundamental a
structure as the space-time geometry itself. This paper seeks to clarify
the formulations of quantum mechanics. It presents a reformulation of
quantum theory in a form believed suitable for application to general
relativity. This is the first paragraph of Everett's famous paper,
referenced above.
and
{2)} The continuous, deterministic change of state of an isolated
system with time according to a wave equation dy/dt = ?y, where A is a
linear operator.
and
How is one to apply the conventional formulation of quantum
mechanics to the space-time geometry itself? The issue becomes
especially acute in the case of a closed universe.3 There is no place to
stand outside the system to observe it. There is nothing outside it to
produce transitions from one state to another. Even the familiar concept
of a proper state of the energy is completely inapplicable. In the
derivation of the law of conservation of energy, one defines the total
energy by way of an integral extended over a surface large enough to
include all parts of the system and their interactions.4 But in a closed
space, when a surface is made to include more and more of the volume, it
ultimately disappears into nothingness. Attempts to define a total
energy for a closed space collapse to the vacuous statement, zero equals
zero.
But let us read further:
This paper proposes to reward pure wave mechanics (?rocess 2 only)
as a complete theory. It postulates that a wave function that obeys a
linear wave equation everywhere and at all times supplies a complete
mathematical model for every isolated physical system without exception.
It further postulates that every system that is subject to external
observation can be regarded as part of a larger isolated system. */_The
wave function is taken as the basic physical entity with no a priori
