date:20120902

On 9/2/2012 12:36 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Sunday, September 2, 2012 3:28:26 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:

On 9/2/2012 9:09 AM, John Clark wrote:
> 6) Evolution has no foresight: This is the most important reason of all.
> A jet engine works better than a prop engine in an airplane. I give 
you a
> prop engine and tell you to turn it into a jet, but you must do it 
while
> the engine is running, you must do it in one million small steps, and 
you
> must do it so every one of those small steps immediately improves
> the operation
> of the engine. Eventually you would get an improved engine of some
> sort, but it
> wouldn't look anything like a jet.

Good exposition.  But it's not the case every small step must be an 
improvement.  It's
sufficient that it not be a degradation.

It seems like both of you are attributing to evolution some kind of universal 
fitness.

Not at all.  In fact John was, in part, explaining why evolution often comes up with poor 
designs - because it's constrained by evolving what already exists and it can't go thru 
intermediate designs that are inferior at reproducing.

The terms improvement and degradation superimpose a pseudo-teleology on 
evolution.

No they are just relative to reproductive fitness.

In reality, if your island is suddenly underwater, whoever happens to have the leftover 
semi-gills stands a better chance of surviving and reproducing than the otherwise 
superior other species. It has nothing to do with improvement, it's just an accumulation 
of environmental shakeouts. Survival of the lucky.

That's the natural selection.  The other part is the random variation.

Brent
"And to think of this great country in danger of being dominated
by people ignorant enough to take a few ancient Babylonian legends
as the canons of modern culture. Our scientific men are paying for
their failure to speak out earlier. There is no use now talking
evolution to these people. Their ears are stuffed with Genesis."
--- Luther Burbank, on the Scopes trial

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary



On Sunday, September 2, 2012 3:28:26 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>
> On 9/2/2012 9:09 AM, John Clark wrote: 
> > 6) Evolution has no foresight: This is the most important reason of all. 
> > A jet engine works better than a prop engine in an airplane. I give 
> you a 
> > prop engine and tell you to turn it into a jet, but you must do it 
> while 
> > the engine is running, you must do it in one million small steps, 
> and you 
> > must do it so every one of those small steps immediately improves 
> > the operation 
> > of the engine. Eventually you would get an improved engine of some 
> > sort, but it 
> > wouldn't look anything like a jet. 
>
> Good exposition.  But it's not the case every small step must be an 
> improvement.  It's 
> sufficient that it not be a degradation. 
>
>
It seems like both of you are attributing to evolution some kind of 
universal fitness. The terms improvement and degradation superimpose a 
pseudo-teleology on evolution. In reality, if your island is suddenly 
underwater, whoever happens to have the leftover semi-gills stands a better 
chance of surviving and reproducing than the otherwise superior other 
species. It has nothing to do with improvement, it's just an accumulation 
of environmental shakeouts. Survival of the lucky. 

Craig 

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary


On 9/2/2012 9:09 AM, John Clark wrote:

6) Evolution has no foresight: This is the most important reason of all.
A jet engine works better than a prop engine in an airplane. I give you a
prop engine and tell you to turn it into a jet, but you must do it while
the engine is running, you must do it in one million small steps, and you
must do it so every one of those small steps immediately improves
the operation
of the engine. Eventually you would get an improved engine of some
sort, but it
wouldn't look anything like a jet.


Good exposition.  But it's not the case every small step must be an improvement.  It's 
sufficient that it not be a degradation.


Brent
"What designer would put a recreational area between two waste disposal sites?"
   --- Woody Allen, on Intelligent Design

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Re: While computers are causal, life is not causal.


On 9/2/2012 8:02 AM, John Clark wrote:


Neither can I, but I can argue that everything is causal or everything is not 
causal.


You mean, "...or not everything is causal."

Brent

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary

On Sunday, September 2, 2012 12:59:54 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 9/2/2012 5:01 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Saturday, September 1, 2012 12:43:50 PM UTC-4, Alberto G.Corona wrote: 
>>
>>  *Where is the revulsion, disgust, and blame - the stigma and 
>> shaming...the deep and violent prejudices? Surely they are not found in the 
>> banal evils of game theory. ** * 
>>
>>  In the book I referred, it is described the evolutionary role of 
>> sentiments. Sentiments are the result of mostly unconscious processing. See 
>> for example the cheating detection mechanism in this book, which has been 
>> subject to an extensive set of test. and there are many papers about 
>> cheater detection. cheater detection is a module of logical reasoning 
>> specialized for situations where a deal can be broken.  It exist because 
>> cheater detection is critical in some situations and it must necessary to 
>> react quickly. Its effect is perceived by the conscious as anger of fear, 
>> depending on the situation.
>>  
>  
> That's not the point. It doesn't matter how tightly the incidence of 
> sentiment or emotion is bound with evolutionary function, I would expect 
> that given the fact of emotion's existence. The problem that needs to be 
> answered is given a universe of nothing but evolutionary functions, why 
> would or how could anything like an emotion arise? 
>
>
> When an amoeba detects a gradient of salinity and moves in the less saline 
> direction does it have a feeling?
>

I imagine that it does. Not much like a feeling we could relate to as human 
beings, but there is an experience there and it has more qualitative depth 
to it than when a steel needle interacts with a gradient of salinity, but 
less depth than when an animal's tongue encounters salinity.

Craig

 

>
> Brent
>  

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary


On 9/2/2012 5:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
That's all I mean morals; having values about your own actions so that you can 
recognize that sometimes you do stupid or bad things - by your own standards - but 
which are not unethical because they have little or no effect on other people.


OK. May be it is a difference between english and french, where, at least in my country, 
moral is just a common term for ethical.



Yes, it is in english too.  But I'm trying to change that. :-)





Maybe you can suggest a different word, but the morals/ethics distinction I suggest 
seems close to common usage.  And even if you want to keep the two words as 
coextensive, it's still useful when someone refers to "immoral" to think whether he 
means something he would regard as bad in himself (like enjoying some pot)


?
(I can understand but I have to replace pot by alcohol, for which statistics exists that 
it is bad in himself).





or he means it harms other people and should be discouraged by society.


I appreciate that you seem to think that the society can only discouraged behavior which 
harms the others.




And that's the main reason I think the distinction is useful.  When a politician says "X 
is immoral and we should pass a law against X." his audience thinks, "Yes. He's right. I 
would feel badly if I did X or my child did X."   Sometimes X is also bad for other 
people, i.e. unethical and society should discourage it. But other times it is just 
personally repugnant to the audience (like homosexuality or getting drunk) and the 
audience should think, "Well I think it's immoral - but it's not unethical. We don't need 
such a law."   By not making the distinction they allow the inference 
immoral->unethical->illegal.


Brent

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary

On 9/2/2012 5:01 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Saturday, September 1, 2012 12:43:50 PM UTC-4, Alberto G.Corona wrote:

/Where is the revulsion, disgust, and blame - the stigma and shaming...the
deep and
violent prejudices? Surely they are not found in the banal evils of game
theory. ///

In the book I referred, it is described the evolutionary role of sentiments.
Sentiments are the result of mostly unconscious processing. See for example
the
cheating detection mechanism in this book, which has been subject to an
extensive
set of test. and there are many papers about cheater detection. cheater
detection is
a module of logical reasoning specialized for situations where a deal can
be broken.
It exist because cheater detection is critical in some situations and it
must
necessary to react quickly. Its effect is perceived by the conscious as
anger of
fear, depending on the situation.

That's not the point. It doesn't matter how tightly the incidence of sentiment or
emotion is bound with evolutionary function, I would expect that given the fact of
emotion's existence. The problem that needs to be answered is given a universe of
nothing but evolutionary functions, why would or how could anything like an emotion arise?

When an amoeba detects a gradient of salinity and moves in the less saline direction does
it have a feeling?

Brent

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary

2012-09-02 Thread John Clark

Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com Wrote:

> There are greath differences between evolutionary designs and rational design.

Yes there are big differences, rational designs are, well, rational, but
evolutionary designs are idiotic. Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow
and stupid
tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it
couldn't even
come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees!
Rational designers had less difficulty coming up with the wheel. The
only advantage
Evolution had is that until it managed to invent brains it was the
only way complex
objects could get built.

 I can think of a few reasons for natures poor design:

1) Time Lags: Evolution is so slow the animal is adapted to conditions that may
   no longer exist, that's why moths have an instinct to fly into candle
   flames. I have no doubt that if you just give them a million years or so,
   evolution will give hedgehogs a better defense than rolling up into a
   ball when confronted by their major predator, the automobile. The only
   problem is that by then there won't be any automobiles.

2) Historical Constraints: The eye of all vertebrate animals is backwards,
   the connective tissue of the retina is on the wrong side so light must
   pass through it before it hits the light sensitive cells. There's no doubt
   this degrades vision and we would be better off if the retina was
reversed as
   it is in squids whose eye evolved independently, however It's too late for
   that to happen now because all the intermediate forms would not be viable.

   Once a standard is set, with all its interlocking mechanisms it's very
   difficult to abandon it completely, even when much better methods are
   found. That's why we still have inches and yards even though the metric
   system is clearly superior. That's why we still have Windows. Nature is
   enormously conservative, it may add new things but it doesn't abandon the
   old because the intermediate stages must also work. That's also why humans
   have all the old brain structures that lizards have as well as new ones.

3) Lack of Genetic Variation: Mutations are random and you might not get the
   mutation you need when you need it. Feathers work better for flight than
   the skin flaps bats use, but bats never produced the right mutations for
   feathers and skin flaps are good enough.

4) Constraints of Costs and Materials: Life is a tangle of trade offs and
   compromises.

5) An Advantage on one Level is a Disadvantage on Another: One gene can give
   you resistance to malaria, a second identical gene will give you sickle
   cell anemia.

6) Evolution has no foresight: This is the most important reason of all.
   A jet engine works better than a prop engine in an airplane. I give you a
   prop engine and tell you to turn it into a jet, but you must do it while
   the engine is running, you must do it in one million small steps, and you
   must do it so every one of those small steps immediately improves
the operation
   of the engine. Eventually you would get an improved engine of some
sort, but it
   wouldn't look anything like a jet.

   If the tire on your car is getting worn you can take it off and put a
   new one on, but evolution could never do something like that, because when
   you take the old tire off you have temporally made things worse, now you
   have no tire at all. With evolution EVERY step (generation), no matter
   how many, MUST be an immediate improvement over the previous one. it
   can't think more than one step ahead, it doesn't understand one step
   backward two steps forward.

And that's why there are no 100 ton supersonic birds. Yes I know, such a
creature would use a lot of energy, but if we can afford to do so why
can't nature?
Being slow, weak, and cheap is not my idea a an inspired design.

 John K Clark

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Re: While computers are causal, life is not causal.

2012-09-02 Thread John Mikes

JohnC
thanks. I expected better from you:

*"...we couldn't know anything until we knew everything*,..."
In general I am missing from your statements *"I THINK"*  as* *
*esasing *the heaviness of the ideas. We think we know a lot, call it:
conventional sciences etc., with a brilliant technology that is *ALMOST * good
(discount the mishaps that occur) and that convivtion is growing with the
millennia. KNOW???

*"...the commonplace use of elementary logic* ..."
is an application of yesterday's standard inventory of human thinking.
Logic also changed as we learned more over time.
"Elementary"???

*"... I recognize life when I see it..." *
you *THINK  *you do. I was asking to elaborate upon those signs you see as
basis of such recognition. Nobody can argue with your unspecified feelings.

John M
On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 11:02 AM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 1:55 PM, John Mikes  wrote:
>
>  > in (my) deterministic agnosticism everything is entailed (var: causal)
>
>
> That belief is not consistent with the observation of real life. If that
> were true we couldn't know anything until we knew everything, and clearly
> we don't know everything but we do know something.
>
>  > I cannot argue that 'everything is causal
>>
>
> Neither can I, but I can argue that everything is causal or everything is
> not causal. For reasons I don't understand this conclusion from the
> commonplace use of elementary logic is surprising and controversial to
> people around here.
>
>  > I have no discerning description of it. Life? I don't know what it is.
>>
>
> But I recognize life when I see it, and in general examples are much more
> important than definitions. I can't define intelligence either, perhaps I'm
> just not intelligent enough to do that, but I know of examples of it and
> examples that seem to lack it.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
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Re: While computers are causal, life is not causal.

2012-09-02 Thread John Clark

On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 1:55 PM, John Mikes  wrote:

> in (my) deterministic agnosticism everything is entailed (var: causal)

That belief is not consistent with the observation of real life. If that
were true we couldn't know anything until we knew everything, and clearly
we don't know everything but we do know something.

> I cannot argue that 'everything is causal
>

Neither can I, but I can argue that everything is causal or everything is
not causal. For reasons I don't understand this conclusion from the
commonplace use of elementary logic is surprising and controversial to
people around here.

> I have no discerning description of it. Life? I don't know what it is.
>

But I recognize life when I see it, and in general examples are much more
important than definitions. I can't define intelligence either, perhaps I'm
just not intelligent enough to do that, but I know of examples of it and
examples that seem to lack it.

  John K Clark

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Re: Good is that which enhances life

2012-09-02 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

It depends what standards for and quality of information you have on
something.

People shouldn't judge what they do not understand. Bruno you understand
what Krokodil entails, with solid information, so trying it is nonsense.
But I don't think most understand what Cannabis entails because of
misinformation. To most people what Krokodil entails is the same as
Cannabis.

I let a singer songwriter make the point lacking in this thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhKq9JvssB8

:)

Paraphrasing old Nietsche:
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not
to hit it at all.

To which I would add:
They should be asked to leave, or at least get out of the way.

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Re: Toward emulating life with a monadic computer

2012-09-02 Thread Stephen P. King


Dear Roger,

I am most interested in a detailed discussion of the

1) "preestablished harmony"
2) reflections or images
3) Tree-like structure
4) whatever might be "exterior" to a monad.


On 9/2/2012 2:19 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

*Toward emulating life with a monadic computer*
**
In a previous discussion we showed that the natural numbers qualify as
Leibnizian monads, suggesting the possibility that other mathematical
forms might similarly be treated as monadic structures.
At the same time, Leibniz's monadology describes a computational
architecture  that  is capable of emulating not only the dynamic physical
universe, but a biological universe as well.
In either case, the entire universe might be envisioned as a gigantic
digital golem, a living figure whose body consists of a categorical
nonliving substructure and whose mind/brain is the what Leibniz called 
 the "supreme

monad". The supreme monad might be thought of as a monarch,
since it  governs the operation of its passive monadic substructures
according to a "preestablished harmony." In addition, each monad in 
the system

would possess typical monadic substructures, and possibly further monadic
substructures wuithin this, depending spending on the level of complexity
desired.
Without going into much detail at this point, Leibniz's monadology 
might be considered
as the operating system of such a computer, with the central 
processing chip

as its supreme monad. This CPU continually updates all of the monads
in the system according the following scheme.  Only the CPU is active,
while all of the sub-structure monads (I think in a logical, tree-like 
structure)  are passive.
Each monad contains a dynamically changing image (a "reflection") of 
all of the
other monads, taken from its particular point of view.  These are 
called its perceptions,
which might be thought of as records of the state of any given monad 
at any
given time. This state comprising an image of the entire universe of 
monads,

constantly being updated by the Supreme monad or CPU. In addition to
the perceptions, each monad also has a constantly changing set of 
appetites.

And all of these are coorddinated to fit a pre-established harmony.
It might be that the pre-established harmony is simply what is happening
in the world outside the computer.
Other details of this computer should be forthcoming.



--
Onward!

Stephen

http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary



On 02 Sep 2012, at 13:17, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Craig Weinberg > wrote:


That implies that T-cells need a feeling to guide them not to kill  
friendly

cells. That H2O needs a feeling to guide it not to dissolve non-polar
molecules. If you believe in functionalism, then all feeling is a
metaphysical epiphenomenon. I think the opposite makes more sense -
everything is feeling, function is the result of sense, not the  
other way
around. T-cells do feel. Molecules do feel. How could it be any  
other way?


Panpsychism is not inconsistent with functionalism. David Chalmers is
a functionalist and panpsychist.



To use this as argument, you have to convince us that David Chalmers  
is consistent.

I already provide evidence that he is not.
In case he is consistent, then, as a human being having a complexity  
close to you and me, you cannot prove consistently that he is  
consistent.

You are using an inconsistent argument per authority here.

Also, what is "pan" in panpsychism?

His physicalist computationalism is already inconsistent with its own  
functionalism.
Like its dualist interpretation of Everett was inconsistent with  
Everett monistic motivation to abandon the collapse. Not sure he still  
defend that view though.


Bruno


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



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Re: What is thinking ?

On 01 Sep 2012, at 20:07, John Mikes wrote:

Bruno wrote:

Intuitively it is the limit of the number going through your actual
state in bigger and bigger finite portions of the UD*. Technically
you need the logic S4grz1, Z1* and X1* to define it properly. We
know it is exists if comp is correct, and so we an use it to test
comp. The measure one has a logic which is already well defined at
the propositional level, and it has already enough quantum feature
to define an arithmetical quantization...

A L L are product of (human?) thinking - arguments from within.
Like religious 'evidences' from alleged deeds of an alleged god (or
dreams).

Do we have anything better?

It depends on what you assume. If you assume that "we are machine",
then we can generalize your statement, by "all are product of machine
thinking from within", and apply the math of machine to learn about
them and us.

I don't (especially with some mechanism attached).

You are right. Me neither, nor any consistent machines, nor any
definable divinities, except "god", but "god" is hardly definable. So
we agree, it seems to me. That's actually a key point, as the whole
comp approach benefits from the study of machine's *limitations*, and
the ways they can use to overcome those limitations.

But my point above was just hat such approach leads to a physics, and
is made testable/refutable by comparing machine's physics with human's
physics. That is nice as it shows that we can been shown wrong in that
field, and so there are hope of progress and new discoveries.

Bruno

John M
On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal
wrote:

On 31 Aug 2012, at 19:39, meekerdb wrote:

On 8/31/2012 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 30 Aug 2012, at 18:56, meekerdb wrote:

On 8/30/2012 9:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 30 Aug 2012, at 17:16, Brian Tenneson wrote:

Thinking implies a progression of time. So perhaps it is equally
important to define time.

In the computationlist theory, the digital discrete sequence 0,
s(0), s(s(0)) ... is enough, notably to named the steps of execution
of the UD (UD*), or of the programs execution we can see in UD*, or
equivalently in a tiny subset of arithmetical truth.

Are you saying time-order corresponds to the order of execution of
steps in the UD?

The first person time-order is given by the relative measure on the
computations.

?? But what is that measure.

Are you saying 1p experiences on exist in an implicit order when all
the uncountably infinite UD computations are done?

With a large sense of order, this is a consequence of the invariance
of the first person experience for the delays of reconstitution in
UD*.

But this relies on all computations, and they need a third person
time-order, and I am just saying that this one is reducible by the
natural number order.

I don't see how that can be consistent with your idea that our
sequence of conscious experiences corresponds to a "closest
continuation" of a our present state. Our present state is
supposedly visited infinitely many times by the UD.

Yes, that is for the first person time order, and thus for the
physical time too, as the whole physics emerges from the first
person plural indeterminacy. But to define computation, we need a
thrid person time, and for this one, as the UD illustrates, we need
only the natural number canonical order: 0, 1, 2, 3, ...

That's sort of a no-person time;

OK.

a time not experienced or accessible to anyone.

?
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ...
I just access it right now.

I think of third person time as something like proper time in GR or
entropy increase - the sort of time that people can reach
intersubjective agreement about, what you measure on a clock.

OK.

I don't know which Brian was referring to, but I doubt it was the no-
person time of the UD.

I don't know.

Bruno

Brent

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary



On 01 Sep 2012, at 19:26, meekerdb wrote:


On 9/1/2012 7:17 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 31 Aug 2012, at 19:42, meekerdb wrote:


On 8/31/2012 1:13 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Aug 2012, at 19:19, meekerdb wrote:


On 8/30/2012 10:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 29 Aug 2012, at 22:30, meekerdb wrote:

From experience I know people tend not to adopt it, but let me  
recommend a distinction.  Moral is what I expect of myself.   
Ethics is what I do and what I hope other people will do in  
their interactions with other people.  They of course tend to  
overlap since I will be ashamed of myself if I cheat someone,  
so it's both immoral and unethical.  But they are not the  
same.  If I spent my time smoking pot and not working I'd be  
disappointed in myself, but it wouldn't be unethical.


I'm not sure I understand. "not working" wouldn't be immoral  
either. Disappointing, yes, but immoral?


In my definition it would be immoral because I expect myself to  
work.  It's personal.  It doesn't imply that it would be immoral  
for you to not work. But it would be unethical for you to not  
work and to be supported by others.  That's the point of making  
a distinction between moral (consistent with personal values,  
1P) and ethical (consistent with social values, 3p).


OK, then I disagree (by which I mean that I am OK with you).
By "OK with you" I mean you are free to use personal definition  
orthogonal to the use of the majority.

By "orthogonal" I mean ...
Hmm...


But it's not orthogonal, it's just at an slight angle.  Do you see  
no distinction between standards by which you judge yourself and  
those which by which society may judge you?


i just don't understand what is moral or immoral in the fact of  
eating too much pizza and not doing work. It might be stupid, but I  
don't see anything immoral.


To call it stupid is a value judgement.


Not necessarily.



That's all I mean morals; having values about your own actions so  
that you can recognize that sometimes you do stupid or bad things -  
by your own standards - but which are not unethical because they  
have little or no effect on other people.


OK. May be it is a difference between english and french, where, at  
least in my country, moral is just a common term for ethical.




Maybe you can suggest a different word, but the morals/ethics  
distinction I suggest seems close to common usage.  And even if you  
want to keep the two words as coextensive, it's still useful when  
someone refers to "immoral" to think whether he means something he  
would regard as bad in himself (like enjoying some pot)


?
(I can understand but I have to replace pot by alcohol, for which  
statistics exists that it is bad in himself).




or he means it harms other people and should be discouraged by  
society.


I appreciate that you seem to think that the society can only  
discouraged behavior which harms the others.


Bruno


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



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Re: What is thinking ?



On 01 Sep 2012, at 19:19, meekerdb wrote:


On 9/1/2012 7:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Yes, that is for the first person time order, and thus for the  
physical time too, as the whole physics emerges from the first  
person plural indeterminacy. But to define computation, we need a  
thrid person time, and for this one, as the UD illustrates, we  
need only the natural number canonical order: 0, 1, 2, 3, ...


That's sort of a no-person time;


OK.




a time not experienced or accessible to anyone.


?
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ...
I just access it right now.


I don't think so. You just thought and typed those numbers in the 1p  
time your were already experiencing;


OK. But that makes not the point non valid.



which is easily shown since you would experience it as well if you  
had typed 1,9,8,3,2,5,7,4,...


Not OK. I do experience just now quite well the order  
"1,9,8,3,2,5,7,4", yes. But I don't experience at all

"1,9,8,3,2,5,7,4 ...",

Bruno

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



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Re: A Dialog comparing Comp with Leibniz's metaphysics


Hi Roger,


On 01 Sep 2012, at 15:59, Roger Clough wrote:



A Dialog comparing Comp with Leibniz's metaphysics


Abstract

The principal conclusion of this discussion is that there is a  
striking

similarity between comp and the metaphysics of Leibniz,


I agree. that is why two years ago I have followed different courses  
on Leibniz. But it is quite a work to make the relationship precise.  
It is far more simple with Plato, neoplatonists, and mystics.







for example that the natural numbers of comp are indeed monads,


I am glad you dare to say so, but that could be confusing. You might  
define monad, and define precisley the relationship.





but a critical difference is that not all monads are natural numbers.
And not all substances are monads. For students of comp,
this should be of no practical importance as long as the
computational field is confined to natural numbers.


It is, by definition.




Which is the basic method of comp. However, if one goes
outside of that field, a reassessment of the
additional mathematical forms in terms of substances
would have to be made.

ROGER (a Leibnizian): Hi Bruno Marchal

Perhaps I am misguided, but I thought that comp was moreorless
a mechanical model of brain and man activity.

BRUNO (a comp advocate):...


I am not a comp advocate. I use comp because it gives the opportunity  
to apply the scientific method to biology, philosophy and theology.
I search the key under the lamp, as I know I will not find it in the  
dark, even if the key is in the dark.


I am just a technician in applied logic. I inform people that IF comp  
is correct, then physics arise from elementary arithmetic, which  
includes a theology of number. The fundamental science, with comp, is  
the thology of numbers (that is: the study about the truth on numbers:  
this includes many form of truth: provable, feelable, observable,  
knowable, etc. With the usual classical definition. It masp closely  
with the theology of the neoplantonists and of the mystics, and  
certainly some aspect of Leibniz.





... Not really. Comp is the hypothesis that there is a level of  
description of my brain or body such that I can be
emulated by a computer simulating my brain (or body) at that level  
of description.


ROGER: Very good. "At that level of description" is exactly the  
point of view I have adopted regarding Leibniz's metaphysics,

discussed below.


OK.




This is wholly my own version, since a possible problem arises in  
understanding what a Leibnizian substance is.
The reason is that Leibniz describes a substance as potentially any  
"whole" entity, that being either extended body
or inextended mind. But because extended bodies (despite L's  
familiarty with atomism)* can always be divided into
smaller inextended bodies, extended bodies cannot be substances in  
L's metaphysics. Hence L substances are

the inextended representations of extended bodies.


OK. (Of course here 'substances' are not the Aristotelian primary  
matter).






*[In my view, the issue that fundamental particles cannot be  
subdivided, can be replaced
by the the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, which in effect allows  
one to consider corporeal
bodies as inifinitely divisible in the sense that one cannot arrive  
at final separate pieces without
uncertainty. So one cannot come to a final state, holding up L's  
argument that corporeal bodies

cannot be sustances. There's nothing left that one can point to. ]


I can agree, but Heisenberg uncertainties are an open problem in the  
comp theory, as the existence of particles, space, physical time, etc.





Natural numbers qualify as Leibnizian substances, since they are  
inextended

and not divisible.


Well, 24 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 24.

OK, you can take it as a joke. But I fear you put too much importance  
in the particular notion of numbers, ad we can use LISP programs  
instead of numbers. This plays some role in the derivation of physics  
from the comp first person indeterminacy.


I do see your point that numbers "are not divisible", though. But  
Fortran program, machines, neither, in such a similar sense.




They also do not have parts, so in L's terms, they are simple  
substances,
which is another name for monads. Natural numbers are thus  
(Platonic) monads, although
not all monads are natural numbers. A man-- me, for example-- is not  
a natural number
even in the Platonic realm, but yet is a monad, separates comp from  
L's metaphysics.


I'm afarid that your notion of monad becomes to general, as with comp,  
a term like a man is ambiguous. Either we refer to his body, and that  
is a (relative) number, or to its soul, in which case, comp prevents  
us to take it as a number. It is nothing third person describable.  
Todays machines already know that, if you listen carefully (which asks  
for work à-la Gödel-Löb, but terrribly simplified by the use of  
Solovay theorem on G and G*.





In addition, not all substances a

Re: Toward emulating life with a monadic computer



On Sunday, September 2, 2012 2:20:49 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
>
>   
> *Toward emulating life with a monadic computer*
> ** 
> In a previous discussion we showed that the natural numbers qualify as
> Leibnizian monads, suggesting the possibility that other mathematical 
> forms might similarly be treated as monadic structures. 
>  
> At the same time, Leibniz's monadology describes a computational
> architecture  that  is capable of emulating not only the dynamic physical
> universe, but a biological universe as well. 
>  
> In either case, the entire universe might be envisioned as a gigantic
> digital golem, a living figure whose body consists of a categorical
> nonliving substructure and whose mind/brain is the what Leibniz called 
>  the "supreme
> monad". The supreme monad might be thought of as a monarch, 
> since it  governs the operation of its passive monadic substructures
> according to a "preestablished harmony." In addition, each monad in the 
> system
> would possess typical monadic substructures, and possibly further monadic
> substructures wuithin this, depending spending on the level of complexity
> desired. 
>  
> Without going into much detail at this point, Leibniz's monadology might 
> be considered
> as the operating system of such a computer, with the central processing 
> chip
> as its supreme monad. This CPU continually updates all of the monads
> in the system according the following scheme.  Only the CPU is active,
> while all of the sub-structure monads (I think in a logical, tree-like 
> structure)  are passive. 
> Each monad contains a dynamically changing image (a "reflection") of all 
> of the 
> other monads, taken from its particular point of view.  These are 
> called its perceptions, 
> which might be thought of as records of the state of any given monad at any
> given time. This state comprising an image of the entire universe of 
> monads,
> constantly being updated by the Supreme monad or CPU. In addition to
> the perceptions, each monad also has a constantly changing set of 
> appetites.
> And all of these are coorddinated to fit a pre-established harmony.
>  
> It might be that the pre-established harmony is simply what is happening
> in the world outside the computer.
>  
> Other details of this computer should be forthcoming.
>

First I would say that numbers are not monads because numbers have no 
experience. They have no interior or exterior realism, but rather are the 
interstitial shadows of interior-exterior events. Numbers are a form of 
common sense, but they are not universal sense and they are limited to a 
narrow channel of sense which is dependent upon solid physicality to 
propagate. You can't count with fog.

Secondly I think that the monadology makes more sense as the world outside 
the computer. Time and space are computational constructs generated by the 
meta-juxtaposition of sense*(matter+entropy) and (matter/matter)-sense. 
Matter is the experience of objecthood. Numbers are the subjective-ized 
essence of objects

Craig.
 

>  
>  
>  
>  
>  Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net 
> 9/2/2012 
> Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him 
> so that everything could function."
>

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary

On Sunday, September 2, 2012 7:18:14 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> > That implies that T-cells need a feeling to guide them not to kill 
> friendly 
> > cells. That H2O needs a feeling to guide it not to dissolve non-polar 
> > molecules. If you believe in functionalism, then all feeling is a 
> > metaphysical epiphenomenon. I think the opposite makes more sense - 
> > everything is feeling, function is the result of sense, not the other 
> way 
> > around. T-cells do feel. Molecules do feel. How could it be any other 
> way? 
>
> Panpsychism is not inconsistent with functionalism. David Chalmers is 
> a functionalist and panpsychist. 
>

True, but panpsychism isn't inconsistent with pre-functionalism either. To 
me it's pretty straightforward. It is easy to see the possibility of 
function as an experience in all cases, but it doesn't make sense to see 
experience as purely a function in any case. Of course subjectivity can be 
imagined as having a function after the fact, but if you start by imagining 
a universe without any possibility of subjectivity first, there is 
certainly no way that it could, should, or would be conjured from nowhere 
to accomplish something that could not be accomplished already, with more 
efficiency, by a Turing emulable mechanism.

Craig

>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: No Chinese Room Necessary

On Saturday, September 1, 2012 12:43:50 PM UTC-4, Alberto G.Corona wrote:
>
>  *Where is the revulsion, disgust, and blame - the stigma and 
> shaming...the deep and violent prejudices? Surely they are not found in the 
> banal evils of game theory. ** *
>
> In the book I referred, it is described the evolutionary role of 
> sentiments. Sentiments are the result of mostly unconscious processing. See 
> for example the cheating detection mechanism in this book, which has been 
> subject to an extensive set of test. and there are many papers about 
> cheater detection. cheater detection is a module of logical reasoning 
> specialized for situations where a deal can be broken.  It exist because 
> cheater detection is critical in some situations and it must necessary to 
> react quickly. Its effect is perceived by the conscious as anger of fear, 
> depending on the situation.
>

That's not the point. It doesn't matter how tightly the incidence of 
sentiment or emotion is bound with evolutionary function, I would expect 
that given the fact of emotion's existence. The problem that needs to be 
answered is given a universe of nothing but evolutionary functions, why 
would or how could anything like an emotion arise? If you admit that 
feeling performs some function that could not be generated otherwise, then 
you have invalidated functionalism, since the presumed epiphenomenon of 
conscious experience could not be reduced to the physical interaction of 
mechanisms. One way or the other you have to explain why everything in the 
universe seems to function perfectly well being (presumably) unconscious, 
but that human bodies can only function if an entire universe of subjective 
experiences is invented out of thin air.

Craig

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Re: Two reasons why computers IMHO cannot exhibit intelligence