Re: Where's the agent ? Who or what does stuff and is aware of stuff ?
Hi Roger, I have noticed and read your posts. Might you write some remarks about Leibniz' concept of pre-established harmony? On 8/10/2012 8:53 AM, Roger wrote: Hence I follow Leibniz, even though he's difficult and some say contradictory. That agent or soul or self you have is your monad, the only (alhough indirectly) perceiving/acting/feeling agent in all of us, but currently missing in neuroscience and neurophilosophy. -- 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: God has no name
"You live by symbols. You have made up names for everything you see. Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name. By this you carve it out of unity. By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted by a name. This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world's perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will. What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses? You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be. The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well. For what is named is given meaning and will then be seen as meaningful; a cause of true effect, with consequence inherent in itself. This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. Its enemy is wholeness. It conceives of little things and looks upon them. And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision that sees differently, become the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny. Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception. It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared. This is the sum of the inheritance the world bestows. And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and symbols that assert the world is real. It is for this they stand. They leave no doubt that what is named is there. It can be seen, as is anticipated. What denies that it is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality. To question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity. Such is the teaching of the world. It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises, how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects. Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt. Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his. It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a teaching function. You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well. They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought that will release you from them. They become but means by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognize is not the unity where true communication can be found. Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. Here you understand the Word, the Name which God has given you; the one Identity which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true. And then step back to darkness, not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world that darkness rules. Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. Yet accept them not as your reality. The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has one Name, one meaning, and a single Source which unifies all things within Itself. Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you. _God has no name_. And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson doe
Re: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
On 8/10/2012 4:57 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 09:36:22AM -0700, meekerdb wrote: But a course of action could be 'selected', i.e. acted upon, without consciousness (in fact I often do so). I think what constitutes consciousness is making up a narrative about what is 'selected'. Absolutely! The evolutionary reason for making up this narrative is to enter it into memory so it can be explained to others and to yourself when you face a similar choice in the future. Maybe - I don't remember Dennett ever making that point. He didn't. It's my idea. More importantly, its hard to see what the necessity of the narrative is for forming memories. It's not necessary, but it's efficient. As opposed to a tape just recording everything, a narrative picks out what's important and encodes it relative to what's already known (if it's routine - forget it). It's also important for social interactions, for explaining yourself to others, persuading them, lying to to them (liars need good memories). Quite primitive organisms form memories, yet I'm sceptical they have any form of internal narrative. I agree. But I don't think they are conscious in a human sense either. That the memory of these past decisions took the form of a narrative derives from the fact that we are a social species, as explained by Julian Jaynes. This explains why the narrative is sometimes false, and when the part of the brain creating the narrative doesn't have access to the part deciding, as in some split brain experiments, the narrative is just confabulated. I find Dennett's modular brain idea very plausible and it's consistent with the idea that consciousness is the function of a module that produces a narrative for memory. If were designing a robot which I intended to be conscious, that's how I would design it: With a module whose function was to produce a narrative of choices and their supporting reasons for a memory that would be accessed in support of future decisions. This then requires a certain coherence and consistency in robots decisions - what we call 'character' in a person. I don't think that would make the robot necessarily conscious according to Bruno's critereon. But if it had to function as a social being, it would need a concept of 'self' and the ability for self-reflective reasoning. Then it would be conscious according to Bruno. Brent IIRC, Dennett talks about feedback connecting isolated modules (as in talking to oneself) as being the progenitor of self-awareness (and perhaps even consciousness itself). Since this requires language, it would imply evolutionary late consciousness. I don't recall that Dennett referred to talking to oneself, but that's Julian Jaynes idea and indeed it makes consciousness very late indeed. According to Jaynes, human consciousness as we have now didn't come about until the interaction of different tribes and it become advantageous to lie or at least to conceal your own thoughts. I do think that self-awareness is a trick that enables efficient modelling of other members of the same species. Its the ability to put yourself in the other's shoes, and predict what they're about to do. Yes, but that it a higher-level of self-awareness. Even dogs have awareness of being who they are (having a name and a location) and even of having a status in the pack. But they have no need or ability to explain their actions to others. I'm in two minds about whether one can be conscious without also being self-aware. I think a solitary animal, like a tiger, is self-aware in that it knows where it is, whether it's hungry or thirsty, that there are other tigers and other animals. But since it's not social it needn't have a sense of status or position within a society. It doesn't care what other tigers think. But wolves probably care what other wolves think. But without language it's hard for this kind of recursive reflection to get very far or even to be evolutionarily useful. Brent "I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult." --- Rita Rudner -- 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: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 09:36:22AM -0700, meekerdb wrote: > But a course of action could be 'selected', i.e. acted upon, without > consciousness (in fact I often do so). I think what constitutes > consciousness is making up a narrative about what is 'selected'. Absolutely! > The evolutionary reason for making up this narrative is to enter it > into memory so it can be explained to others and to yourself when > you face a similar choice in the future. Maybe - I don't remember Dennett ever making that point. More importantly, its hard to see what the necessity of the narrative is for forming memories. Quite primitive organisms form memories, yet I'm sceptical they have any form of internal narrative. > That the memory of these > past decisions took the form of a narrative derives from the fact > that we are a social species, as explained by Julian Jaynes. This > explains why the narrative is sometimes false, and when the part of > the brain creating the narrative doesn't have access to the part > deciding, as in some split brain experiments, the narrative is just > confabulated. I find Dennett's modular brain idea very plausible > and it's consistent with the idea that consciousness is the function > of a module that produces a narrative for memory. If were designing > a robot which I intended to be conscious, that's how I would design > it: With a module whose function was to produce a narrative of > choices and their supporting reasons for a memory that would be > accessed in support of future decisions. This then requires a > certain coherence and consistency in robots decisions - what we call > 'character' in a person. I don't think that would make the robot > necessarily conscious according to Bruno's critereon. But if it had > to function as a social being, it would need a concept of 'self' and > the ability for self-reflective reasoning. Then it would be > conscious according to Bruno. > > Brent IIRC, Dennett talks about feedback connecting isolated modules (as in talking to oneself) as being the progenitor of self-awareness (and perhaps even consciousness itself). Since this requires language, it would imply evolutionary late consciousness. I do think that self-awareness is a trick that enables efficient modelling of other members of the same species. Its the ability to put yourself in the other's shoes, and predict what they're about to do. I'm in two minds about whether one can be conscious without also being self-aware. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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: Re: Definitions of intelligence possibly useful to computers in AI ordescribing life
In which case, your concept of intelligence is not what AI researchers are studying. You can't have it both ways :). Cheers On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 08:45:34AM -0400, Roger wrote: > Hi Russell Standish > > Life doesn't have to be intelligent in the IQ sense, but it still > has to know, for example, however dimly, what's good to eat. I still > call that dim awareness intelligence. IMHO I believe intelligence of some > form extends through creation. > > > Roger , rclo...@verizon.net > 8/10/2012 > - Receiving the following content - > From: Russell Standish > Receiver: everything-list > Time: 2012-08-09, 18:55:39 > Subject: Re: Definitions of intelligence possibly useful to computers in AI > ordescribing life > > > The point being that life need not be intelligent. In fact 999.9% of > life (but whatever measure, numbers, biomass etc) is unintelligent. > > The study of artificial life by the same reason need not be a study of > artitificial intelligence, although because of a biases as an > intelligent species, a significantly higher fraction of alife research > is about AI. > > > On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 06:47:59AM -0400, Roger wrote: > > Hi Russell Standish > > > > I like this list I have just joined because of the excellent thinkers here, > > who are already changing my view of what computers can do in AI. > > > > The differences in our interpretations of AI and the possibility of > > computers simulating life > > is due to our different interpretations of what is meant by the word > > "intelligence". > > My own definition IMHO allows one to uyse the same definition for AI and > > for life. > > > > > > There is no generally agree-upon definition of intelligence. My own > > definition, > > as I had stated, is that intelligence is the ability to make choices of > > one's own. > > Autonomous choices. Self determinations. This ability is IMHO essential for > > life, > > for one has to choose which direction to move all on one's own (Aristotle) > > , > > to separate good food from bad food, to separate friend from foe, etc. > > > > > > > > > > Roger , rclo...@verizon.net > > 8/7/2012 Is life a cause/effect activity ? > > If so, what is the cause agent ? > > > > - Receiving the following content - > > From: Russell Standish > > Receiver: everything-list > > Time: 2012-08-06, 23:17:34 > > Subject: Re: scientists simulate an entire organism in software for the > > firsttime ever > > > > > > On Mon, Aug 06, 2012 at 01:29:50AM -0700, rclough wrote: > > > Perhaps I am wrong, but I have a problem with the concept of artificial > > > intelligence and hence artificial life-- at least according to my > > > understanding of what intelligence is. > > > > > > > Artificial Life is an independent field to Artificial > > Intelligence, so I don't see how you can say that. True there is some > > cross-pollination, mostly ALife => AI, but sometimes AI philosophical > > issues has some relevance to ALife. > > > > An example of the difference: it is relatively easy to define and > > measure intelligence. Its virtually impossible to do the same for life. > > > > > > -- > > > > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > Principal, High Performance Coders > > Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au > > University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > > -- > > 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. > > > > > > > > - > > No virus found in this message. > > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > > Version: 2012.0.2197 / Virus Database: 2437/5182 - Release Date: 08/06/12 > > > > -- > > 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. > > > > -- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Principal, High Performance Coders > Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au > University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything Li
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 6:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > I have even never met a christian in Europa who is a literalist theist. > I'm not surprised that a European feels that way, if you don't count Antarctica it is the least religious spot on the surface of the Earth; but if a Christian is not a theist then he's a Christian in name only. In America I have never in my life met a Christian who was NOT a literal theist, not once. I'm the opposite of that, I'm a a-theist. > Only the american creationists. For the others it is a legend, > Bruno, I hate to break it to you but in America creationists are not rare, in the country with the most powerful military machine the world has ever seen most people think the Universe is less than 6 thousand years old because that's what the Bible says. With a bunch like that do you really think I can say "I believe in Spinoza's God" and not expect to be massively misinterpreted? If they know anything at all about Spinoza, and they probably don't, it's that he was Jewish; they'd probably ask me what synagogue I go to. ** > I think that saint Thomas, well appreciated by the Church, makes already clear that God cannot be both omnipotent and omniscient. > He also wondered if God could make a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it, but Thomas concluded that God was omnipotent anyway and the idea wasn't self contradictory, he had no idea why it wasn't self contradictory but he had faith it wasn't and God just made it work somehow. God works in mysterious ways and similar Bullshit flavored cop-outs. > > I have never met a Christian who believe literally that Jesus is a > particular son of God. It is a legend. > Even by European standards you must hang around with some very very unusual Christians! > You share with the Christian the definition of God, > Yes and it's right and just that I do. After all Christians and other religious people are the main users of God, they invented God and have a patent on Him so they have the right to define Him as they see fit; and I have the right to say they're full of shit for doing so. 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: Where's the agent ? Who or what does stuff and is aware of stuff ?
On 8/10/2012 5:53 AM, Roger wrote: Hi Russell Standish But Dennet has no agent to react to all of those signals. To perceive. To judge. To cause action. If he had an agent he would have failed to explain anything - he would have just pushed the problem off into the "agent". To do those, an agent has to be unified and singular -- a point of focus-- and there's no propect for such in current neuroscience/neurophilosophy. But that's Dennett's point. Humans aren't that way. They may do something because of X and yet think they did it because of Y. This is blatant in split brain experiments where the subjects brain on one side makes a reasonable decision based on the information available to it; while the other side, which doesn't have that information, confabulates a completely different story about the decision. This is most obvious in split brain patients, but it happens to the rest of us too. There is only one action because a physical body can't do two different things at the same time; but that doesn't mean the person is not of two minds. Brent Hence I follow Leibniz, even though he's difficult and some say contradictory. That agent or soul or self you have is your monad, the only (alhough indirectly) perceiving/acting/feeling agent in all of us, but currently missing in neuroscience and neurophilosophy. -- 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: [SPAM] On rational prayer
On 8/10/2012 5:24 AM, Roger wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal Rationality isn't a very useful function. I only use it when I get in trouble. I don't need it to drive my car or do practically anything. Ben Franklin found rationality very useful. I don't have more than a scanty definition of my ladyfriend, and only she knows if this is correct, but I can still talk to her. Only because you assume a definition must be in words. You actually have an excellent ostensive definition of her. An ostensive definitions are how, facilitated by the evolutionary design of your brain, you learned the meaning of the words you use in verbal definitions. Brent So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for every thing one has a mind to do. --- Benjamin Franklin, Autobiographical Writings 1791 -- 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.
On rational prayer
Hi Bruno Marchal Rationality isn't a very useful function. I only use it when I get in trouble. I don't need it to drive my car or do practically anything. I don't have more than a scanty definition of my ladyfriend, and only she knows if this is correct, but I can still talk to her. And the highest form of prayer (centering prayer) is simply wordless intention. And even higher, even the intention drops off (you stop doing praying and just be with God). I have only done this once in my life. Zen masters call this the Void. I would call it the Plenum. Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/10/2012 - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-10, 05:22:59 Subject: Re: God has no name Hi Roger, On 07 Aug 2012, at 11:53, Roger wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal OUR FATHER, WHICH ART IN HEAVBEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME. Luther said that to meditate of the sacredness of God according to this phrase is the oldest prayer. In old testament times, God's name was considered too sacred to speak by the Jews. The King James Bible uses YHWH, the Jews never say "God" as far as I know, they sometimes write it as G*d. We have relaxed these constrictions in the protestant tradition, use Jehovah and all sorts of other sacfed names. It is the problem with the notions of God, Whole, Truth, consciousness, etc. we can't define them. You can sum up Damascius by "one sentence on the ineffable is already one sentence too much, it can only miss the point". (But Damascius wrote thousand of pages on this!). Like Lao Tseu said that the genuine wise man is mute, also. John Clark said it recently too! This is actually well explained (which does not mean that the explanation is correct) by computer science: a universal machine can look inward and prove things about itself, including that there are true proposition that she cannot prove as far as she is consistent, that machine-truth is not expressible, etc. My last paper (in french) is entitled "la machine mystique" (the mystical machine) and concerns all the things that a machine might know without being able to justify it rationally and which might be counter-intuitive from her own point of view. The word "god" is not problematical ... as long as we don't take the word too much seriously. You can say "I search God", but you can't say "I found God", and still less things like "God told me to tell you to send me money or you will go to hell". God is more a project or a hope for an explanation. It cannot be an explanation itself. For a scientist: it is more a problem than a solution, like consciousness, for example. Bruno Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/7/2012 Is life a cause/effect activity ? If so, what is the cause agent ? - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-07, 05:37:56 Subject: Re: God has no name Hi Stephen, On 8/6/2012 8:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: [SPK] Which is the definition I use. Any one that actually thinks that God is a person, could be a person, or is the complement (anti) of such, has truly not thought through the implications of such. [BM For me, and comp, it is an open problem. [SPK] ? Why? It's not complicated! A person must be, at least, nameable. A person has always has a name. [BM] Why? Because names are necessary for persistent distinguishability. OK. You are using "name" in the logician sense of "definite description". With comp we always have a 3-name, but the first person have no name. Let us try an informal proof by contradiction. Consider the case where it is *not* necessary for a person to have a name. What means would then exist for one entity to be distinguished from another? By the entity itself: no problem (and so this is not a problem for the personal evaluation of the measure). By some other entity? We might consider the location of an entity as a proxy for the purposes of identification, but this will not work because entities can change location and a list of all of the past locations of an entity would constitute a name and such is not allowed in our consideration here. Sure. What about the 1p content of an entity, i.e. the private name that an entity has for itself with in its self-referential beliefs? It has no such name. "Bp & p", for example, cannot be described in arithmetic, despite being defined in arithmetical terms. It is like arithmetical truth, we can't define it in arithmetic language. Since it is not communicable - as this would make the 1p aspect a non-first person concern and thus make it vanish - it cannot be a name. Names are 3p, they are public invariants that form from a consensus of many entities coming to an agreement, and thus cannot be determined strictly by 1p content. You might also note that the anti-foundation axiom is "every graph has a unique decoration". The decoration is t
Where's the agent ? Who or what does stuff and is aware of stuff ?
Hi Russell Standish But Dennet has no agent to react to all of those signals. To perceive. To judge. To cause action. To do those, an agent has to be unified and singular -- a point of focus-- and there's no propect for such in current neuroscience/neurophilosophy. Hence I follow Leibniz, even though he's difficult and some say contradictory. That agent or soul or self you have is your monad, the only (alhough indirectly) perceiving/acting/feeling agent in all of us, but currently missing in neuroscience and neurophilosophy. Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/10/2012 - Receiving the following content - From: Russell Standish Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-10, 08:04:44 Subject: Re: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated! On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 12:10:43PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > On 10 Aug 2012, at 00:23, Russell Standish wrote: > > > > >It is plain to me that thoughts can be either conscious or > >unconscious, and the conscious component is a strict minority of the > >total. > > This is not obvious for me, and I have to say that it is a point > which is put in doubt by the salvia divinorum reports (including > mine). When you dissociate the brain in parts, perhaps many parts, > you realise that they might all be conscious. In fact the very idea > of non-consciousness might be a construct of consciousness, and be > realized by partial amnesia. I dunno. For the same reason I have > stopped to believe that we can be unconscious during sleep. I think > that we can only be amnesic-of-'previous-consciousness'. > With due respect to your salvia experiences, which I dare not follow, I'm still more presuaded by the likes of Daniel Dennett, and his "pandemonia" theory of the mind. In that idea, many subconscious process, working disparately, solve different aspects of the problems at hand, or provide different courses of action. The purpose of consciousness is to select from among the course of action presented by the pandemonium of subconscious processes - admittedly consciousness per se may not be necessary for this role - any unifying (aka reductive) process may be sufficient. The reason I like this, is that it echoes an essentially Darwinian process of random variation that is selected upon. Dawinian evolution is the key to any form of creative process. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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. -- 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: Re: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
Hi Russell Standish Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/10/2012 - Receiving the following content - From: Russell Standish Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-10, 08:04:44 Subject: Re: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated! On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 12:10:43PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > On 10 Aug 2012, at 00:23, Russell Standish wrote: > > > > >It is plain to me that thoughts can be either conscious or > >unconscious, and the conscious component is a strict minority of the > >total. > > This is not obvious for me, and I have to say that it is a point > which is put in doubt by the salvia divinorum reports (including > mine). When you dissociate the brain in parts, perhaps many parts, > you realise that they might all be conscious. In fact the very idea > of non-consciousness might be a construct of consciousness, and be > realized by partial amnesia. I dunno. For the same reason I have > stopped to believe that we can be unconscious during sleep. I think > that we can only be amnesic-of-'previous-consciousness'. > With due respect to your salvia experiences, which I dare not follow, I'm still more presuaded by the likes of Daniel Dennett, and his "pandemonia" theory of the mind. In that idea, many subconscious process, working disparately, solve different aspects of the problems at hand, or provide different courses of action. The purpose of consciousness is to select from among the course of action presented by the pandemonium of subconscious processes - admittedly consciousness per se may not be necessary for this role - any unifying (aka reductive) process may be sufficient. The reason I like this, is that it echoes an essentially Darwinian process of random variation that is selected upon. Dawinian evolution is the key to any form of creative process. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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. -- 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: Re: Definitions of intelligence possibly useful to computers in AI ordescribing life
Hi Russell Standish Life doesn't have to be intelligent in the IQ sense, but it still has to know, for example, however dimly, what's good to eat. I still call that dim awareness intelligence. IMHO I believe intelligence of some form extends through creation. Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/10/2012 - Receiving the following content - From: Russell Standish Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-09, 18:55:39 Subject: Re: Definitions of intelligence possibly useful to computers in AI ordescribing life The point being that life need not be intelligent. In fact 999.9% of life (but whatever measure, numbers, biomass etc) is unintelligent. The study of artificial life by the same reason need not be a study of artitificial intelligence, although because of a biases as an intelligent species, a significantly higher fraction of alife research is about AI. On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 06:47:59AM -0400, Roger wrote: > Hi Russell Standish > > I like this list I have just joined because of the excellent thinkers here, > who are already changing my view of what computers can do in AI. > > The differences in our interpretations of AI and the possibility of computers > simulating life > is due to our different interpretations of what is meant by the word > "intelligence". > My own definition IMHO allows one to uyse the same definition for AI and for > life. > > > There is no generally agree-upon definition of intelligence. My own > definition, > as I had stated, is that intelligence is the ability to make choices of one's > own. > Autonomous choices. Self determinations. This ability is IMHO essential for > life, > for one has to choose which direction to move all on one's own (Aristotle) , > to separate good food from bad food, to separate friend from foe, etc. > > > > > Roger , rclo...@verizon.net > 8/7/2012 Is life a cause/effect activity ? > If so, what is the cause agent ? > > - Receiving the following content - > From: Russell Standish > Receiver: everything-list > Time: 2012-08-06, 23:17:34 > Subject: Re: scientists simulate an entire organism in software for the > firsttime ever > > > On Mon, Aug 06, 2012 at 01:29:50AM -0700, rclough wrote: > > Perhaps I am wrong, but I have a problem with the concept of artificial > > intelligence and hence artificial life-- at least according to my > > understanding of what intelligence is. > > > > Artificial Life is an independent field to Artificial > Intelligence, so I don't see how you can say that. True there is some > cross-pollination, mostly ALife => AI, but sometimes AI philosophical > issues has some relevance to ALife. > > An example of the difference: it is relatively easy to define and > measure intelligence. Its virtually impossible to do the same for life. > > > -- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Principal, High Performance Coders > Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au > University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > -- > 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. > > > > - > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2012.0.2197 / Virus Database: 2437/5182 - Release Date: 08/06/12 > > -- > 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. > -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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. -- 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
Re: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
On 8/10/2012 7:23 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: The modern positivist conception of free will has no scientific meaning. But all modern rephasings of old philosophy are degraded. Or appear so because they make clear the deficiencies of the old philosophy. Positivist philosophy pass everithing down to what-we-know-by-science of the physical level, That's not correct. Postivist philosophy was that we only know what we directly experience and scientific theories are just ways of predicting new experiences from old experiences. Things not directly experienced, like atoms, were merely fictions used for prediction. that is the only kind of substance that they admit. this "what-we-know-by-science" makes positivism a moving ground, a kind of dictatorial cartesian blindness which states the kind of questions one is permitted at a certain time to ask or not. Classical conceptions of free will were concerned with the option ot thinking and acting morally or not, that is to have the capability to deliberate about the god or bad that a certain act implies for oneself One deliberates about consequences and means, but how does one deliberate about what one wants? Do you deliberate about whether pleasure or pain is good? and for others, and to act for god or for bad with this knowledge. Roughly speaking, Men have such faculties unless in slavery. Animals do not. My dog doesn't think about what's good or bad for himself? I doubt that. The interesting parts are in the details of these statements. An yes, they are questions that can be expressed in more "scientific" terms. This can be seen in the evolutionary study of moral and law under multilevel selection theory: https://www.google.es/search?q=multilevel+selection&sugexp=chrome,mod=11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 which gives a positivistic support for moral, and a precise, materialistic notion of good and bad. And thus suddenly these three concepts must be sanctioned as legitimate objects of study by the positivistic dictators, without being burnt alive to social death, out of the peer-reviewed scientific magazines, where sacred words of Modernity resides. We are witnessing this "devolution" since slowly all the old philosophical and theological concepts will recover their legitimacy, and all their old problems will stand as problems here and now. For example, we will discover that what we call Mind is nothing but the old concepts of Soul and Spirit. After stripping "soul" of it's immortality and acausal relation to physics. Concerning the degraded positivistic notion of free will, I said before that under an extended notion of evolution it is nor possible to ascertain if either the matter evolved the mind or if the mind selected the matter. So it could be said that the degraded question is meaningless and of course, non interesting. But the question of their relationship is still interesting. 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: God has no name
Yeah but you can't define what a set is either, so... On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 2:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > Hi Roger, > > On 07 Aug 2012, at 11:53, Roger wrote: > > Hi Bruno Marchal > > > OUR FATHER, WHICH ART IN HEAVBEN, > HALLOWED BE THY NAME. > > Luther said that to meditate of the sacredness of God > according to this phrase is the oldest prayer. > > In old testament times, God's name was considered too sacred to speak > by the Jews. The King James Bible uses YHWH, the Jews never say "God" as > far as I > know, they sometimes write it as G*d. > > We have relaxed these constrictions in the protestant tradition, > use Jehovah and all sorts of other sacfed names. > > > It is the problem with the notions of God, Whole, Truth, consciousness, > etc. we can't define them. > You can sum up Damascius by "one sentence on the ineffable is already one > sentence too much, it can only miss the point". (But Damascius wrote > thousand of pages on this!). > > Like Lao Tseu said that the genuine wise man is mute, also. John Clark > said it recently too! > > This is actually well explained (which does not mean that the explanation > is correct) by computer science: a universal machine can look inward and > prove things about itself, including that there are true proposition that > she cannot prove as far as she is consistent, that machine-truth is not > expressible, etc. My last paper (in french) is entitled "la machine > mystique" (the mystical machine) and concerns all the things that a machine > might know without being able to justify it rationally and which might be > counter-intuitive from her own point of view. > > The word "god" is not problematical ... as long as we don't take the word > too much seriously. You can say "I search God", but you can't say "I found > God", and still less things like "God told me to tell you to send me money > or you will go to hell". > > God is more a project or a hope for an explanation. It cannot be an > explanation itself. For a scientist: it is more a problem than a solution, > like consciousness, for example. > > Bruno > > > > > > > Roger , rclo...@verizon.net > 8/7/2012 Is life a cause/effect activity ? > If so, what is the cause agent ? > > > - Receiving the following content - > *From:* Bruno Marchal > *Receiver:* everything-list > *Time:* 2012-08-07, 05:37:56 > *Subject:* Re: God has no name > > > Hi Stephen, > > On 8/6/2012 8:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > [SPK] Which is the definition I use. Any one that actually thinks that > God is a person, could be a person, or is the complement (anti) of such, > has truly not thought through the implications of such. > > [BM > > For me, and comp, it is an open problem. > > [SPK] > > ? Why? It's not complicated! A person must be, at least, nameable. A > person has always has a name. > > > [BM] > > Why? > > >Because names are necessary for persistent distinguishability. > > > OK. You are using "name" in the logician sense of "definite description". > With comp we always have a 3-name, but the first person have no name. > > > > Let us try an informal proof by contradiction. Consider the case where > it is *not* necessary for a person to have a name. What means would then > exist for one entity to be distinguished from another? > > > By the entity itself: no problem (and so this is not a problem for the > personal evaluation of the measure). By some other entity? > > > > We might consider the location of an entity as a proxy for the purposes > of identification, but this will not work because entities can change > location and a list of all of the past locations of an entity would > constitute a name and such is not allowed in our consideration here. > > > Sure. > > > > What about the 1p content of an entity, i.e. the private name that an > entity has for itself with in its self-referential beliefs? > > > It has no such name. "Bp & p", for example, cannot be described in > arithmetic, despite being defined in arithmetical terms. It is like > arithmetical truth, we can't define it in arithmetic language. > > > > Since it is not communicable - as this would make the 1p aspect a > non-first person concern and thus make it vanish - it cannot be a name. > Names are 3p, they are public invariants that form from a consensus of many > entities coming to an agreement, and thus cannot be determined strictly by > 1p content. You might also note that the anti-foundation axiom is "every > graph has a unique decoration". The decoration is the name! It is the name > that allow for non-ambiguous identification. >A number's name is its meaning invariant symbol representation class... > Consider what would happen to COMP if entities had no names! Do I need to > go any further for you to see the absurdity of persons (or semi-autonomous > entities) not having names? > > > > > Say that it is X. There is something that is not that person and that > something must therefore have a different name: not-X. What is God's
Re: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
On 8/10/2012 5:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote: On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 12:10:43PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Aug 2012, at 00:23, Russell Standish wrote: It is plain to me that thoughts can be either conscious or unconscious, and the conscious component is a strict minority of the total. This is not obvious for me, and I have to say that it is a point which is put in doubt by the salvia divinorum reports (including mine). When you dissociate the brain in parts, perhaps many parts, you realise that they might all be conscious. In fact the very idea of non-consciousness might be a construct of consciousness, and be realized by partial amnesia. I dunno. For the same reason I have stopped to believe that we can be unconscious during sleep. I think that we can only be amnesic-of-'previous-consciousness'. With due respect to your salvia experiences, which I dare not follow, I'm still more presuaded by the likes of Daniel Dennett, and his "pandemonia" theory of the mind. In that idea, many subconscious process, working disparately, solve different aspects of the problems at hand, or provide different courses of action. The purpose of consciousness is to select from among the course of action presented by the pandemonium of subconscious processes - admittedly consciousness per se may not be necessary for this role - any unifying (aka reductive) process may be sufficient. But a course of action could be 'selected', i.e. acted upon, without consciousness (in fact I often do so). I think what constitutes consciousness is making up a narrative about what is 'selected'. The evolutionary reason for making up this narrative is to enter it into memory so it can be explained to others and to yourself when you face a similar choice in the future. That the memory of these past decisions took the form of a narrative derives from the fact that we are a social species, as explained by Julian Jaynes. This explains why the narrative is sometimes false, and when the part of the brain creating the narrative doesn't have access to the part deciding, as in some split brain experiments, the narrative is just confabulated. I find Dennett's modular brain idea very plausible and it's consistent with the idea that consciousness is the function of a module that produces a narrative for memory. If were designing a robot which I intended to be conscious, that's how I would design it: With a module whose function was to produce a narrative of choices and their supporting reasons for a memory that would be accessed in support of future decisions. This then requires a certain coherence and consistency in robots decisions - what we call 'character' in a person. I don't think that would make the robot necessarily conscious according to Bruno's critereon. But if it had to function as a social being, it would need a concept of 'self' and the ability for self-reflective reasoning. Then it would be conscious according to Bruno. Brent The reason I like this, is that it echoes an essentially Darwinian process of random variation that is selected upon. Dawinian evolution is the key to any form of creative process. Cheers -- 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 Thu, Aug 9, 2012 Russell Standish wrote: > "Free will is the ability to do something stupid". > Well OK, but there sure as hell is a lot of free will going around these days, even a pair of dice can be pretty stupid, the smart thing for it to do would be to come up with a 7, but sometimes it comes up with a 2 even though that number is 6 times less likely. Only a idiot would pick 2 but sometimes the dice does. As Homer Simpson would say "Stupid dice". > Roulette wheels do what they do, they never do anything different. > Sure they do, sometimes they produce a 12 and sometimes they produce a 21. 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: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
On 8/10/2012 3:10 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: This is not obvious for me, and I have to say that it is a point which is put in doubt by the salvia divinorum reports (including mine). When you dissociate the brain in parts, perhaps many parts, you realise that they might all be conscious. In fact the very idea of non-consciousness might be a construct of consciousness, and be realized by partial amnesia. I dunno. For the same reason I have stopped to believe that we can be unconscious during sleep. I think that we can only be amnesic-of-'previous-consciousness'. I have never supposed that asleep=unconscious. When one is asleep, one is still perceptive; just trying whispering a sleeping person's name near them. This is quite different from being unconscious due to a concussion. I agree that being unconscious might be a combination of loss of all bodily control plus a loss of memory. But that seems an unlikely coincidence. Rather it is evidence that memory is physical and that consciousness requires memory. 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: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
The modern positivist conception of free will has no scientific meaning. But all modern rephasings of old philosophy are degraded. Positivist philosophy pass everithing down to what-we-know-by-science of the physical level, that is the only kind of substance that they admit. this "what-we-know-by-science" makes positivism a moving ground, a kind of dictatorial cartesian blindness which states the kind of questions one is permitted at a certain time to ask or not. Classical conceptions of free will were concerned with the option ot thinking and acting morally or not, that is to have the capability to deliberate about the god or bad that a certain act implies for oneself and for others, and to act for god or for bad with this knowledge. Roughly speaking, Men have such faculties unless in slavery. Animals do not. The interesting parts are in the details of these statements. An yes, they are questions that can be expressed in more "scientific" terms. This can be seen in the evolutionary study of moral and law under multilevel selection theory: https://www.google.es/search?q=multilevel+selection&sugexp=chrome,mod=11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 which gives a positivistic support for moral, and a precise, materialistic notion of good and bad. And thus suddenly these three concepts must be sanctioned as legitimate objects of study by the positivistic dictators, without being burnt alive to social death, out of the peer-reviewed scientific magazines, where sacred words of Modernity resides. We are witnessing this "devolution" since slowly all the old philosophical and theological concepts will recover their legitimacy, and all their old problems will stand as problems here and now. For example, we will discover that what we call Mind is nothing but the old concepts of Soul and Spirit. Concerning the degraded positivistic notion of free will, I said before that under an extended notion of evolution it is nor possible to ascertain if either the matter evolved the mind or if the mind selected the matter. So it could be said that the degraded question is meaningless and of course, non interesting. 2012/8/10, Russell Standish : > On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 12:10:43PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> On 10 Aug 2012, at 00:23, Russell Standish wrote: >> >> > >> >It is plain to me that thoughts can be either conscious or >> >unconscious, and the conscious component is a strict minority of the >> >total. >> >> This is not obvious for me, and I have to say that it is a point >> which is put in doubt by the salvia divinorum reports (including >> mine). When you dissociate the brain in parts, perhaps many parts, >> you realise that they might all be conscious. In fact the very idea >> of non-consciousness might be a construct of consciousness, and be >> realized by partial amnesia. I dunno. For the same reason I have >> stopped to believe that we can be unconscious during sleep. I think >> that we can only be amnesic-of-'previous-consciousness'. >> > > With due respect to your salvia experiences, which I dare not follow, > I'm still more presuaded by the likes of Daniel Dennett, and his > "pandemonia" theory of the mind. In that idea, many subconscious > process, working disparately, solve different aspects of the problems > at hand, or provide different courses of action. The purpose of > consciousness is to select from among the course of action > presented by the pandemonium of subconscious processes - admittedly > consciousness per se may not be necessary for this role - any unifying > (aka reductive) process may be sufficient. > > The reason I like this, is that it echoes an essentially Darwinian > process of random variation that is selected upon. Dawinian evolution > is the key to any form of creative process. > > Cheers > > -- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Principal, High Performance Coders > Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au > University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > -- > 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. > > -- 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: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 12:10:43PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > On 10 Aug 2012, at 00:23, Russell Standish wrote: > > > > >It is plain to me that thoughts can be either conscious or > >unconscious, and the conscious component is a strict minority of the > >total. > > This is not obvious for me, and I have to say that it is a point > which is put in doubt by the salvia divinorum reports (including > mine). When you dissociate the brain in parts, perhaps many parts, > you realise that they might all be conscious. In fact the very idea > of non-consciousness might be a construct of consciousness, and be > realized by partial amnesia. I dunno. For the same reason I have > stopped to believe that we can be unconscious during sleep. I think > that we can only be amnesic-of-'previous-consciousness'. > With due respect to your salvia experiences, which I dare not follow, I'm still more presuaded by the likes of Daniel Dennett, and his "pandemonia" theory of the mind. In that idea, many subconscious process, working disparately, solve different aspects of the problems at hand, or provide different courses of action. The purpose of consciousness is to select from among the course of action presented by the pandemonium of subconscious processes - admittedly consciousness per se may not be necessary for this role - any unifying (aka reductive) process may be sufficient. The reason I like this, is that it echoes an essentially Darwinian process of random variation that is selected upon. Dawinian evolution is the key to any form of creative process. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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 10 Aug 2012, at 00:48, Russell Standish wrote: On Wed, Aug 08, 2012 at 12:33:47PM -0400, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 Russell Standish wrote: I do claim to know what I mean by "free will", Well maybe you do know what free will means but the trouble is you are unable to communicate that understanding to any of your fellow human beings and certainly not to me. That's the trouble with mystical experiences, even if they really do give you a deeper understanding of the world and are not just caused by indigestion, that new understanding helps only you and nobody else. I've never had a mystical experience but if I ever do I intend to keep quiet about it for that very reason. The meaning I use for free will has nothing to do with mysticism. I spend several pages on free will in my book, and I can sum it up by the statement that "Free will is the ability to do something stupid". It is very close to the definition of some christians, where free-will is the ability to do something bad (like killing a child for an example). The notion of hell has been plausibly invented by fear of human free- will. Bruno I also note that there tends to be no agreement on the term, I will agree on any meaning of the term provided it is self consistent and non-circular and provided you don't complain when I use nothing but that definition and pure logic to take you to places you may not want to go, like endowing Roulette Wheels with free will. I'd like to see you do that. Roulette wheels do what they do, they never do anything different. I believe in Spinoza's god. I don't. When somebody says "I believe in Spinoza's god" it just means there is so much mystery complexity and beauty in the universe that it causes me to feel a sense of awe. I'm awed by the universe too but that is so many light years away from the original meaning of "God" that I believe both Spinoza and Einstein blundered in using the same word for both very different things; it just invites misunderstanding, it virtually begs for it. Fair comment. I don't feel the need to insist on this, which is why to a regular Christian, I will just say I'm an atheist. I think the problem is that even many hardcore atheists have a residual feeling that if you don't believe in something called G-O-D then you're somehow a morally bad person, so they redefine the word "God" in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone to disbelieve in it. Did you want to take a survey? I, for one, have no such attachment to the word God. "Spinoza'a god" is just a label for an idea - I would be just as happy to use the label Tao, as it seems to describe pretty much the same thing. It has nothing to do with morals. For some reason I just don't have as much affection for that particular word as most people, perhaps because no other word has caused more human misery or ignorance. 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- l...@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 . -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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: Libet's experimental result re-evaluated!
On 10 Aug 2012, at 00:23, Russell Standish wrote: On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 08:55:03AM -0700, meekerdb wrote: On 8/9/2012 12:06 AM, Russell Standish wrote: IIUC, the delays in question are between when the brain plans (possibly decides) (the action potential) to do a course of action, and when the mind becomes consciously aware of the decision. Why would a several second delay between these two events have any implications on the existence or otherwise of free will? I think it is that in the 'spirit' conception of mind, all thought is conscious thought. So if there is an unconscious physical process that is causally connected to the decision that is evidence against the 'spirits free will'. Of course it has no implications for compatibilist 'free will'. Brent Interesting - it might explain what all the fuss is about. Yes. Of course I agree with Brent here. To be clear. Of course, I don't know what is meant by "spirits free will", I'm guessing here it has something to do with that ill-defined notion of soul. I guess you allude to the non compatibilist notion of soul. I usually define it by the first person (like in UDA or in AUDA). In UDA it is the owner of the personal diary, and in AUDA it is defined by the modality Bp & p. The soul is the heart of the person, so to speak. It has no name, like truth and God. Soul is far more easier to define than free-will (for a compatibilist, or a (digital) mechanist). It is plain to me that thoughts can be either conscious or unconscious, and the conscious component is a strict minority of the total. This is not obvious for me, and I have to say that it is a point which is put in doubt by the salvia divinorum reports (including mine). When you dissociate the brain in parts, perhaps many parts, you realise that they might all be conscious. In fact the very idea of non- consciousness might be a construct of consciousness, and be realized by partial amnesia. I dunno. For the same reason I have stopped to believe that we can be unconscious during sleep. I think that we can only be amnesic-of-'previous-consciousness'. Best, Bruno Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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 09 Aug 2012, at 22:38, John Clark wrote: On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 5:46 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > The mind-body comes from the fact that we don't grasp the relation between organized matter and the qualia-consciousness lived by the person experiencing it. We don't understand the details of that relationship but we do know some of the general outlines. We know that changing the organization of matter, such as the matter in the brain, changes the qualia- consciousness of the person and we know that changes in the qualia- consciousness chages external matter, as when you get hungry and decide to pick up the matter in a candy bar. Yes. But that is only a part of the problem description. >> The sort of matter the Large Hadron Collider investigates. I don't know if you call that apparent matter or primitive matter, I just call it matter. > It is (obviously) apparent matter. Well then "apparent matter" covers one hell of a lot of ground and seems very interesting indeed, interesting enough to fully occupy the minds of thousands of geniuses for centuries. On the other hand "primitive matter" contains nothing of intellectually interest, at least nobody has found anything interesting to say about it yet. Apparent matter is quite literally astronomically rich while primitive matter is shallow and a utter bore. I agree. But most people, even physicist believe in some primitive matter. Obviously it is a way to sit down the mind and progress. If matter is only apparent, and if we are interested in fundamental question, we have to explain it without postulating it. That is what we can, and must, formulate mathematically once we assume comp. > Primitive matter is a theological concept OK. Theology is a field of study without a subject so it's not surprising that there is nothing of note to say about "primitive matter". But modern physics, and alas physicalism, is a descendant of Aristotle primary matter notion. It is was an error in theology (assuming comp), but it has been a quite fertile error which gave rise to current science. But if we assume comp, we have to move away from it. BTW, t looks I am explaing UDA again on the FOR list, you might make another try, and you can reply on it here if you want. You can also criticize the explanation given on FOAR. > The roulette Wheels has no free will, as it is not a computer representing itself It's not a computer but even a rock represents itself, the hard part was developing language and figuring out that the symbols r-o-c-k can also represent it. I am not sure a rock represent itself, but I am not sure the word "rock" denotes anything clear. > and its ignorance, as forced by my definition (yours + the important nuance that the system has to be partially aware of its ignorance). Very often I find that I am absolutely positively 100% certain that if X happens then I will do Y, but when X does happen I find I don't do anything even close to Y , and I find this is more the rule than the exception; to put it another way I am not aware of my ignorance. However I don't know for a fact that is true for other people, I don't even know for a fact that other people, or roulette Wheels, are aware of anything. OK. But you still bet on this. I guess. And I hope. I do know that a computer does not have the memory of the outcome of a calculation in its memory banks until it has finished the calculation and I can't help but feel that is evocative of something. There is another problem, to define "free will" you have to introduce the concept of awareness and to define awareness you have to introduce "free will"; Not at all. I agree that free will implies the presence of some consciousness, but consciousness and awareness does not demand any free-will. Think about having pain for example. I can easily conceive headache without free-will. I can't imagine free-will without consciousness, without enlarging even more its meaning. and regardless of what a being may or may not be aware of, that is to say regardless of what information it does or does not have in its memory, it does things for a reason or it does not, so you're still either a cuckoo clock or a roulette wheel. Not with comp: I am definitely a cuckoo clock, but à-la Babbage, i.e. a Turing universal one. >> it's the exact same notion that 99.9% of the people on this planet who call themselves a "theist" have, That is false, Like hell it is!! What sort of dream world are you living in? In a world full of buddhist, christian mystics, sufi, cabbalist, platonist, salvia smokers, traditionalist christians (who don't give a shit to truth but believe it is useful for adult to fake there is one). I have even never met a christian in Europa who is a literalist theist. Unfortunately they are materialist, and are not interested in (néo)Platonism. > and
Re: God has no name
Hi Roger, On 07 Aug 2012, at 11:53, Roger wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal OUR FATHER, WHICH ART IN HEAVBEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME. Luther said that to meditate of the sacredness of God according to this phrase is the oldest prayer. In old testament times, God's name was considered too sacred to speak by the Jews. The King James Bible uses YHWH, the Jews never say "God" as far as I know, they sometimes write it as G*d. We have relaxed these constrictions in the protestant tradition, use Jehovah and all sorts of other sacfed names. It is the problem with the notions of God, Whole, Truth, consciousness, etc. we can't define them. You can sum up Damascius by "one sentence on the ineffable is already one sentence too much, it can only miss the point". (But Damascius wrote thousand of pages on this!). Like Lao Tseu said that the genuine wise man is mute, also. John Clark said it recently too! This is actually well explained (which does not mean that the explanation is correct) by computer science: a universal machine can look inward and prove things about itself, including that there are true proposition that she cannot prove as far as she is consistent, that machine-truth is not expressible, etc. My last paper (in french) is entitled "la machine mystique" (the mystical machine) and concerns all the things that a machine might know without being able to justify it rationally and which might be counter-intuitive from her own point of view. The word "god" is not problematical ... as long as we don't take the word too much seriously. You can say "I search God", but you can't say "I found God", and still less things like "God told me to tell you to send me money or you will go to hell". God is more a project or a hope for an explanation. It cannot be an explanation itself. For a scientist: it is more a problem than a solution, like consciousness, for example. Bruno Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/7/2012 Is life a cause/effect activity ? If so, what is the cause agent ? - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-07, 05:37:56 Subject: Re: God has no name Hi Stephen, On 8/6/2012 8:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: [SPK] Which is the definition I use. Any one that actually thinks that God is a person, could be a person, or is the complement (anti) of such, has truly not thought through the implications of such. [BM For me, and comp, it is an open problem. [SPK] ? Why? It's not complicated! A person must be, at least, nameable. A person has always has a name. [BM] Why? Because names are necessary for persistent distinguishability. OK. You are using "name" in the logician sense of "definite description". With comp we always have a 3-name, but the first person have no name. Let us try an informal proof by contradiction. Consider the case where it is *not* necessary for a person to have a name. What means would then exist for one entity to be distinguished from another? By the entity itself: no problem (and so this is not a problem for the personal evaluation of the measure). By some other entity? We might consider the location of an entity as a proxy for the purposes of identification, but this will not work because entities can change location and a list of all of the past locations of an entity would constitute a name and such is not allowed in our consideration here. Sure. What about the 1p content of an entity, i.e. the private name that an entity has for itself with in its self-referential beliefs? It has no such name. "Bp & p", for example, cannot be described in arithmetic, despite being defined in arithmetical terms. It is like arithmetical truth, we can't define it in arithmetic language. Since it is not communicable - as this would make the 1p aspect a non-first person concern and thus make it vanish - it cannot be a name. Names are 3p, they are public invariants that form from a consensus of many entities coming to an agreement, and thus cannot be determined strictly by 1p content. You might also note that the anti-foundation axiom is "every graph has a unique decoration". The decoration is the name! It is the name that allow for non-ambiguous identification. A number's name is its meaning invariant symbol representation class... Consider what would happen to COMP if entities had no names! Do I need to go any further for you to see the absurdity of persons (or semi-autonomous entities) not having names? Say that it is X. There is something that is not that person and that something must therefore have a different name: not-X. What is God's name? ... It cannot be named because there is nothing that it is not! Therefore God cannot be a person. Transcendence eliminates nameability. The Abrahamist think that Satan is the anti-God, but that would be a denial of God's transcendence. There are reaso
