Re: Re: Does Platonia exist ?

[Roger Clough]

ROGER: Hi Bruno Marchal 

I think we should only use the word exists only when we are 
referring to physical existence. 

BRUNO: Hmm That might aggravate the naturalist or materialist human 
penchant. 

ROGER: Why ? Naturalist and materialist entities are extended and so physically 
exist. 
What I say here is how I think Leibniz would respond. 

Thus I can truthfully say, 
for example, that God does not exist. 
Wikipedia says, In common usage, it [existence] 
is the world we are aware of through our senses, 
and that persists independently without them. 

BRUNO: But that points on the whole problem. With comp and QM, even when you 
observe the moon, it is not really there. 

ROGER: Yes it is. Although I observe the moon phenomenologically, it still has 
physical existence in spacetime 
because it is extended. At least that's Leibniz' position, namely that 
phenomena, although illusions, 
still have physical presence. Leibniz refers to these as well-founded 
phenomena. You can still stub your toe on 
phenomenological rocks. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence 


On the other hand, Platonia, Plotinus, Plato, Kant and Leibniz, 
take the opposite view or what is real and what exists. To them ideas 
and other nonphysical items such as numbers or anything not extended in space, 
anything outside of spacetime are what exist, the physical world out 
there is merely an appearance, a phenomenon. Following Leibniz, 
I would say of such things that they live, since life has 
such attributes. 

BRUNO: Hmm... Then numbers lives, but with comp, only universal or Lobian 
numbers can be said reasonably enough to be living. 
You might go to far. Even in Plato, the No? content (all the ideas) is richer 
that its living part. I doubt Plato would have said that 
a circle is living. Life will need the soul to enact life in the intelligible. 

Plato's One is a special case, saince it is a monad of monads,

And more esoteric thinking treats numbers more as beings: 

http://supertarot.co.uk/westcott/monad.htm

BRUNO:  The person and its body. OK. For the term exist I think we should 
allow all reading, and just ask people to remind us of the sense before the 
use. 


With comp, all the exists comes from the ExP(x) use in arithmetic, and their 
arithmetical epistemological version, like []Ex[]P(x), or []Ex[]P(x), etc. 


That gives a testable toy theology (testable as such a theology contains the 
physics as a subpart). 


Bruno 

ROGER: You lost me, except I believe that a main part of confusion and 
disagreement on this list
comes because of multiple meanings of the word exists,
which brings me back to where I started:


I think we should only use the word exists only when we are 
referring to physical (extended) existence.




- Receiving the following content - 
From: Bruno Marchal 
Receiver: everything-list 
Time: 2012-09-21, 04:10:52 
Subject: Re: Numbers in Space 




On 21 Sep 2012, at 03:28, Stephen P. King wrote: 


On 9/20/2012 12:14 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 



On Thursday, September 20, 2012 11:48:15 AM UTC-4, Jason wrote: 




It's not doing the computations that is hard, the computations are already 
there. The problem is learning their results. 

The problem is doing anything in the first place. Computations don't do 
anything at all. The reason that we do things is that we are not computations. 
We use computations. We can program things, but we can't thing programs without 
something to thing them with. This is a fatal flaw. If Platonia exists, it 
makes no sense for anything other than Platonia to exist. It would be redundant 
to go through the formality of executing any function is already executed 
non-locally. Why 'do' anything? 


Bruno can 't answer that question. He is afraid that it will corrupt Olympia. 



Not at all, the answer is easy here. In the big picture, that is arithmetic, 
nothing is done. The computations are already done in it. doing things is a 
relative internal notion coming from the first person perspectives. 


Also, Platonia does not really exist, nor God, as existence is what belongs to 
Platonia. Comp follows Plotinus on this, both God and Matter does not belong to 
the category exist (ontologically). They are epistemological beings. 


Bruno 











-- 
Onward! 

Stephen 

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


-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group. 
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. 
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. 



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 

Re: Re: Does Platonia exist ?

[Roger Clough]

Hi Alberto G. Corona  


If we can define what we are talking about, most of our problems
will be solved. 

That is why I believe we ought to use the Descartes-Leibniz definition 
of physical existence as that which is in spacetime (is extended). 
Thus the brain exists. 

Nonphysical existence (mind) is that which is not extended in space and 
hence is said to be nonextended or inextended.  
I have been referring to this type of existence as living,
but number does not seem tpo be alive since it does not change
while living things do. I sucggest that we use the term mental
for inextended entities. 

Then both number and mind are mental.

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
9/22/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Alberto G. Corona  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-09-21, 12:42:47 
Subject: Re: Does Platonia exist ? 


Hi, 
Anyone serious about knowing truths must either spend its life trying to define 
the concept of existence and fighting for it or? 
to discard it for all uses. The concept of phisical exsitence has a primitive 
utilitary nature: ?re there men in the other side of the mountain?. This urgent 
need to fix the knowledge of the phisical environment makes existence something 
crucial for communication. 


More sophisticated civilizations added to the existence more subtle concepts, 
which had effects in the personal and social life of the people: philosophical, 
psichological , political, religious. In this?ense materialism is a return to 
primitivism. ? 


In pragmatic terms, ?nything that has effects in life exist. Are you humans 
with hands, minds etc ?r are you allucinations, robots? 
I don? know it properly, but you exist for me.? 


This makes the concept of existence redundant, or at most, a matter of public 
consensus in the context of a community. But probably existence has never been 
more than this. 


Alberto. 


2012/9/21 Bruno Marchal  



On 21 Sep 2012, at 12:21, Roger Clough wrote: 


Hi Bruno Marchal ? 

I think we should only use the word exists ?nly when we are 
referring to physical existence.  


Hmm That might aggravate the naturalist or materialist human penchant. 








Thus I can truthfully say,  
for example, that God does not exist. ? 
Wikipedia says, In common usage, it [existence] 
is the world we are aware of through our senses, ? 
and that persists independently without them. 



But that points on the whole problem. With comp and QM, even when you observe 
the moon, it is not really there. 







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence 

On the other hand, Platonia, Plotinus, Plato, Kant and Leibniz,  
take the opposite view or what is real and what exists. To them ideas 
and other nonphysical items such as numbers or anything not extended in space, 
anything outside of spacetime are what exist, the physical world out 
there is merely an appearance, a phenomenon. ?ollowing Leibniz,  
I would say of such things that they live, since life has  
such attributes.  



Hmm... Then numbers lives, but with comp, only universal or Lobian numbers can 
be said reasonably enough to be living. You might go to far. Even in Plato, the 
No? content (all the ideas) is richer that its living part. I doubt Plato would 
have said that a circle is living. Life will need the soul to enact life in the 
intelligible. 







So when we say that a man exists, we are speaking of the physical man. 
But when we say that he lives, we are speaking of man as a mental or 
living being. 



The person and its body. OK. For the term exist I think we should allow all 
reading, and just ask people to remind us of the sense before the use. 


With comp, all the exists comes from the ExP(x) use in arithmetic, and their 
arithmetical epistemological version, like []Ex[]P(x), or?]Ex[]P(x), etc. 


That gives a testable toy theology (testable as such a theology contains the 
physics as a subpart). 


Bruno 







- Receiving the following content - ? 
From: Bruno Marchal ? 
Receiver: everything-list ? 
Time: 2012-09-21, 04:10:52  
Subject: Re: Numbers in Space  




On 21 Sep 2012, at 03:28, Stephen P. King wrote:  


On 9/20/2012 12:14 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:  



On Thursday, September 20, 2012 11:48:15 AM UTC-4, Jason wrote:  




It's not doing the computations that is hard, the computations are already 
there. ?he problem is learning their results.  

The problem is doing anything in the first place. Computations don't do 
anything at all. The reason that we do things is that we are not computations. 
We use computations. We can program things, but we can't thing programs without 
something to thing them with. This is a fatal flaw. If Platonia exists, it 
makes no sense for anything other than Platonia to exist. It would be redundant 
to go through the formality of executing any function is already executed 
non-locally. Why 'do' anything?  


??runo can 't answer that question. He is 

Re: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism

[Roger Clough]

Hi Craig Weinberg 

I would classify your items as follows:

MENTAL (outside of spacetime) :  All experiences, dreams, delusions, 
information, mathematics, logic, time, 
space, feelings, thoughts, ideas, numbers, life itself, God, monads, 
mathematics, physical laws themselves,
theory of any type.
 
PHYSICAL (within spacetime): Anything with dimensions, anything you can measure 
with physical instruments 
(even indirectly), weigh or see under a microscope or telescope, mass, energy, 
force, velocity, time, distance, 
voltage, optical or sound intensity, wave amplitude, dna type, cancer type, 
living tissue, dead tissue,
flesh (brain).

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
9/22/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 

=
- Receiving the following content -  
From: Craig Weinberg  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-09-21, 10:58:11 
Subject: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism 


I see all of our experiences, including dreams and delusions as being physical, 
but not necessarily ?eal?. To me, realism is a loose term describing the ?iddle 
of the road? range of experiences in which bodies and minds are clearly 
separate. The contrasting ?nreal? ranges are the profoundly 
spiritual/psychedelic/psychotic experiences and the profoundly 
logical/mathematical/abstracted principles, both of which can be understood as 
signifying real or more-than-real referents. 
Physical ( Unrealism of Logic  Realism of Bodies and Space ? Realism of 
Experiences and Time  Unrealism of Psyche )* 
Metaphysical = Hypothetically outside of spacetime and matter. 
Energy = Logical conceptualization of the perception and participation of 
material bodies in spacetime. 
Information = Logical conceptualization of logic in spacetime. 
Logic = Phenomenology turned in on itself - subjectivity that seeks to evacuate 
subjectivity of itself, leaving purely universal and involuntary truths as a 
residual product. 
Psyche = Deep phenomenology. Unconstrained by logic, subjectivity is free to 
sense and dream itself into transpersonal and near-metaphysical ranges of 
experience. 


* This is the Multisense Continuum, which is involuted like a Mobius strip, and 
can be shuffled and turned around: 
 Unrealism of Logic 
 Realism of Bodies and Space ? Realism of Experiences and Time  
Unrealism of Psyche  
(? = ?erpendicular/orthogonal fold? relation of Pedestrian Realism, ie 
supermarket reality). 

? Realism of Experiences and Time  
Unrealism of Psyche   Unrealism of Logic 
 Realism of Bodies and Space ? 
(  = ?vanescent dissolve? relation of Profound Unrealism, ie hypnogogic 
trance, epiphany, transcendence, enlightnenment) 

The contemporary cosmology I would describe this way: 

Information   Laws of Physics  Energy   Matter  ?  Space   Time  

The problems with this are embodied as problems with Idealism, Materialism, and 
Infocentrism, with each being unable to account for the prominence of the other 
without disqualifying it. Materialism makes information and subjectivity 
unreal, Idealism makes matter and spacetime unreal, Infocentricism makes matter 
and subjectivity unreal. 

Each of these three views have a blind spot for their own bias, which becomes 
pathological when applied in a thoroughly literal way to the the universe. 
Living beings become indistinguishable from programmed robots and animated 
cadavers. The world becomes an illusion conjurable by codes. We paint ourselves 
into a corner so that we are forced to conceive of ourselves paradoxically as 
epiphenomenal voyeurs yet inevitably omnipotent masters of the universe and 
ourselves. 

My approach, of course, is to weigh anchor with sense itself, as the primordial 
prerequisite of being and doing that is beneath and above all forms, materials, 
spaces, times, and subjective experiences. A neutral monism which projects 
itself within itself, always through juxtaposed experiences. Sense puts the 
'in' into information and makes structures matter. 


--  
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group. 
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/jHjKd7AGTAYJ. 
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: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism

[Roger Clough]

Hi Craig Weinberg 


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
9/22/2012 
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content - 
From: Craig Weinberg 
Receiver: everything-list 
Time: 2012-09-21, 10:58:11
Subject: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism


I see all of our experiences, including dreams and delusions as being physical, 
but not necessarily “real”. To me, realism is a loose term describing the 
‘middle of the road’ range of experiences in which bodies and minds are clearly 
separate. The contrasting ‘unreal’ ranges are the profoundly 
spiritual/psychedelic/psychotic experiences and the profoundly 
logical/mathematical/abstracted principles, both of which can be understood as 
signifying real or more-than-real referents.
Physical ( Unrealism of Logic  Realism of Bodies and Space ? Realism of 
Experiences and Time  Unrealism of Psyche )*
Metaphysical = Hypothetically outside of spacetime and matter.
Energy = Logical conceptualization of the perception and participation of 
material bodies in spacetime.
Information = Logical conceptualization of logic in spacetime.
Logic = Phenomenology turned in on itself - subjectivity that seeks to evacuate 
subjectivity of itself, leaving purely universal and involuntary truths as a 
residual product.
Psyche = Deep phenomenology. Unconstrained by logic, subjectivity is free to 
sense and dream itself into transpersonal and near-metaphysical ranges of 
experience.


* This is the Multisense Continuum, which is involuted like a Mobius strip, and 
can be shuffled and turned around:
 Unrealism of Logic
 Realism of Bodies and Space ? Realism of Experiences and Time 
Unrealism of Psyche 
(? = “perpendicular/orthogonal fold” relation of Pedestrian Realism, ie 
supermarket reality).

? Realism of Experiences and Time 
Unrealism of Psyche   Unrealism of Logic
 Realism of Bodies and Space ?
(  = “evanescent dissolve” relation of Profound Unrealism, ie hypnogogic 
trance, epiphany, transcendence, enlightnenment)

The contemporary cosmology I would describe this way:

Information   Laws of Physics  Energy   Matter  ?  Space   Time 

The problems with this are embodied as problems with Idealism, Materialism, and 
Infocentrism, with each being unable to account for the prominence of the other 
without disqualifying it. Materialism makes information and subjectivity 
unreal, Idealism makes matter and spacetime unreal, Infocentricism makes matter 
and subjectivity unreal.

Each of these three views have a blind spot for their own bias, which becomes 
pathological when applied in a thoroughly literal way to the the universe. 
Living beings become indistinguishable from programmed robots and animated 
cadavers. The world becomes an illusion conjurable by codes. We paint ourselves 
into a corner so that we are forced to conceive of ourselves paradoxically as 
epiphenomenal voyeurs yet inevitably omnipotent masters of the universe and 
ourselves.

My approach, of course, is to weigh anchor with sense itself, as the primordial 
prerequisite of being and doing that is beneath and above all forms, materials, 
spaces, times, and subjective experiences. A neutral monism which projects 
itself within itself, always through juxtaposed experiences. Sense puts the 
'in' into information and makes structures matter.


-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/jHjKd7AGTAYJ.
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: Re: Numbers in Space

[Roger Clough]

Hi Craig Weinberg  

How does ideal spacetime differ from what physicists refer to as spacetime.
Real spacetime can be integrated over dxdydzdt.

Anyway, even a physical vacuum can contain things such as radio waves,
light, intelligence, Platonia, etc. 

There is no such thing as nothing, IMHO.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
9/22/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Craig Weinberg  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-09-21, 12:58:41 
Subject: Re: Re: Numbers in Space 




On Friday, September 21, 2012 11:51:10 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote: 
Hi Craig Weinberg  

Thwe ideal vacuum is still in spacetime. 

It's in ideal spacetime. 
  



Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
9/21/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Craig Weinberg  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-09-21, 11:27:56 
Subject: Re: Numbers in Space 




On Friday, September 21, 2012 4:18:47 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:  


On 20 Sep 2012, at 19:16, Craig Weinberg wrote: 




On Thursday, September 20, 2012 12:26:07 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:  

On 20 Sep 2012, at 17:02, Craig Weinberg wrote:  

 Here's another reductio ad absurdum illustration of comp.  
  
 If the version of comp we are discussing here is independent of
 physics, then shouldn't it be possible for us to program universal
 machines using only empty space?  

You are quite quick here, but have a good insight, as comp makes space
non clonable, indeterministic in the details, and plausibly Turing
universal, as QM confirms. The 0-body problem (the quantum vacuum) is
already Turing universal (I think). For classical physics you need
three bodies at least).  



What about an ideal vacuum? Just lengths multiplying and adding enumerated 
bundles of lengths. No quantum.  



It would not be Turing universal. 

If it isn't then that seems to me an argument for primitive physics.  
  








  



 Length can be quantified, so why can't we just use millimeters or
 Planck lengths as the basis for our enumeration, addition, and
 multiplication and directly program from our mind to space?  

Who we? In the universe nearby it costs a lot of energy/money/time to
handle matter already gigantic compared to the Planck length.   


Or are you suggesting we are already simulated by the quantum vacuum.
Very plausible, but comp asks for justifying this in arithmetic.  


I'm saying that whatever program we access when we choose what we think about 
should be able to run just as easily in space as it does through the brain. 


Or just arithmetic. You don't need space. Only addition and multiplication of 
integers. Or justapplication and abstraction on lambda terms, etc. 

I was going to do another post upping the ante from Numbers in Space to Numbers 
in Xpace (imaginary space). To me this is the fading qualia argument that could 
be a Waterloo for comp. The transition from Turing machines executed in matter 
to execution in space and then xpace would have to be consistent to support the 
claim that arithmetic is independent from physics. If that isn't the case, why 
not? What is different other than physical properties between matter, space, 
and xpace? 
  







I should be able to pick an area of my house and leave a bunch of memories 
there and then come back to them later just be occupying the same space.  


Not at all. You are distributed in the whole UD*. You can go back to your 
memory only if the measure on computations makes such a persistence possible. 
This needs to be justified with the self-reference logics, and that is what is 
done with S4Grz1, Z1* and X1*. 

I don't know what that means exactly but if I am getting the gist, it still 
doesn't tell me why it is easier for me to remember something in my mind than 
to offload my memories onto objects, places, times of the year, whatever. Why 
not make a Turing machine out of time that uses moments instead of tape and 
tape instead of numbers? It seems to me that the universality of UMs is wildly 
overstated.  








That's if we define space as relative to my house and not the rotating planet, 
revolving sun, etc. 

So it sounds like you are not opposed to this idea of computation with no 
resources whatsoever besides space,  


No need for spaces. To invoke it is already too much physicalist for comp. 

So we can pretty much call comp magic then. It needs nothing whatsoever and can 
ultimately control anything from anywhere. 
  







provided that it could be justified arithmetically (which I don't understand 
why it wouldn't be. how does comp know if it's running on matter or space?) 



By UDA. Anything physical must be justified with the material hypostases. Up 
to now, this works, even by giving the shadows of the reason why destructive 
interference of the computations occurs below our substitution 

On Causation with Mind and brain as apples and oranges

[Roger Clough]

Hi Craig Weinberg  

OK that's the classic example of the pin prick and feeling pain.

It works for the worlds of apples and oranges if you accept 
Hume's and Leibniz's theory of causation, or at least my understanding of it, 
namely that changes in the mental world are simply synchronized
with changes in the physical world and vice versa.

Given that, to see if an action is caused either by mental or physical
powers you simply look at the near-future mental
or physical situation.  Monads allow you to do that.
In that future state both the mental and physical situations
will have changed. And anything changed can be considered 
as being caused. That's the principle of sufficient reason.




Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
9/22/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Craig Weinberg  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-09-21, 13:03:13 
Subject: Re: Mind and brain as apples and oranges 




On Friday, September 21, 2012 11:48:34 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote: 
Hi Stephen P. King  and all  

The problems imagined by materialists in invoking dualism  
are just that - imaginary-- as long as mind is unextended  
and brain is extended. And the so-called hard problem of consciousness  
and the cartesian problem of interfacing or superimposing  
mind and brain simply vanish. They're apples and  oranges.  
They exist in different universes, which can superimpose,  
the extended or physical floating in a sea of inextended  
or nonphysical mind, or to use a better word, life.  


But if I drink coffee (from the apples universe of extended stuff) then I get 
amped (in the oranges universe if unextended mind). Why does that problem 
disappear? 

Craig 
  



Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net  
9/21/2012
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen  


- Receiving the following content -
From: Stephen P. King
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-21, 11:04:59  
Subject: Re: Numbers in Space  


On 9/21/2012 4:34 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:  
 But the numbers build an arithmetic body  
  
 The numbers arithmetically dream of a non arithmetic body.  
  
  
 and then populate a space with multiple copies of it... so that they
 can implement the UD.  
  
 No, they are implemented by the UD, which exists like prime numbers
 exists. Primitively.  

 So the dreams exists like prime numbers exists. Primitively.  and
the dreams are of a non arithmetic body, thus a non arithmetic body
exists primitively. How is this different from anything that I have
tried to tell you of my ideas? We agree!! This is dual aspect
monism! I used to call it process dualism, but realized that that
working caused too much confusion.  


--
Onward!  

Stephen  

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


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.  
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.  
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-li...@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 view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/9zG-L5QYkuMJ. 
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: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 22.09.2012 11:48 Roger Clough said the following:

Hi Craig Weinberg

I would classify your items as follows:

MENTAL (outside of spacetime) :  All experiences, dreams, delusions,
information, mathematics, logic, time, space, feelings, thoughts,
ideas, numbers, life itself, God, monads, mathematics, physical laws
themselves, theory of any type.

PHYSICAL (within spacetime): Anything with dimensions, anything you
can measure with physical instruments (even indirectly), weigh or see
under a microscope or telescope, mass, energy, force, velocity, time,
distance, voltage, optical or sound intensity, wave amplitude, dna
type, cancer type, living tissue, dead tissue, flesh (brain).



Let us take a table, it seems to be a good example of a physical object 
with dimensions that we could measure. Yet, it is unclear to me what 
happens when I watch the table. Does I perceive it directly? Or 
alternatively does I observe just my perceptions of the table?


In other worlds, do you assume direct or indirect realism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism

Evgenii


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.

Re: Re: Prime Numbers

[Roger Clough]

Hi Rex Allen  

How could mathematics be fiction ?
If so, then we could simply say that 2+2=5 because it's saturday.



Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
9/22/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Rex Allen  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-09-21, 09:20:41 
Subject: Re: Prime Numbers 


Just to avoid confusion, this sentence: 


I would say that mathematics is just very tightly plotted fiction where so many 
details of the story are known up front that the plot can only progress in very 
specific ways if it is to remain consistent and believable to the reader.? 


Should probably be: 


I would say that mathematics is just very tightly plotted fiction where so many 
details of the back-story are known up front that the plot can only progress in 
very specific ways if it is to remain consistent and believable to the 
reader.? 






On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 8:40 AM, Rex Allen  wrote: 

On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 11:50 PM, Terren Suydam  wrote: 

On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 10:19 PM, Rex Allen  wrote: 
 
 On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Terren Suydam  
 wrote: 
 
 Rex, 
 
 Do you have a non-platonist explanation for the discovery of the 
 Mandelbrot set and the infinite complexity therein? 
 
 
 I find fictionalism to be the most plausible view of mathematics, with all 
 that implies for the Mandelbrot set. 


I'm curious about what a plausible fictionalist account of the 
Mandelbrot set could be. Is fictionalism the same as constructivism, 
or the idea that knowledge doesn't exist outside of a mind? 



I lean towards a strong form of fictionalism - which says that there are few 
important differences between mathematics and literary fiction. 


So - I could give a detailed answer - but I think I'd rather give a sketchy 
answer at this point. 


I would say that mathematics is just very tightly plotted fiction where so many 
details of the story are known up front that the plot can only progress in very 
specific ways if it is to remain consistent and believable to the reader. 


Mathematics is a kind of world building. ?n the?maginative?ense. 




? 

 But ;et me turn the question around on you, if I can: 
 
 Do you have an explanation for how we discover mathematical objects and 
 otherwise interact with the Platonic realm? 
 
 How is it that we are able to reliably know things about Platonia? 


I think just doing logic and math - starting from axioms and proving 
things from them - is interacting with the Platonic realm. 


But how is it that we humans do that? ?his is my main question. ?hat exactly 
are we doing when we start from axioms and prove things from them? ?here does 
this ability come from? ?hat does it consist of? 






 I would have thought that quarks and electrons from which we appear to be 
 constituted would be indifferent to truth. 
 
 Which would fit with the fact that I seem to make a lot of mistakes. 
 
 But you think otherwise? 


I didn't understand the above... what do quarks and electrons have to 
do with arithmetical platonism? 



Are we not composed from quarks and electrons? ?f so - then how do mere 
collections of quarks and electrons connect with platonic truths? 


By chance? ?re we just fortunate that the initial conditions and causal laws of 
the universe are such that our quarks and electrons take forms that mirror 
Platonic Truths? 


? 

 
 How can you make 
 sense of that in terms of the constructivist point of view that you 
 are (I think) compelled to take if you argue against arithmetical 
 platonism? ?t seems obvious that all possible intelligences would 
 discover the same forms of the Mandelbrot so long as they iterated on 
 z' = z^2 + c, but maybe I am missing the point of your argument. 
 
 I will agree with you that all intelligences that start from the same 
 premises as you, and follow the same rules as inference as you, will also 
 draw the same conclusions about the Mandelbrot set as you do. 
 
 However - I do not agree with you that this amenable group exhausts the set 
 of all *possible* intelligences. 


I only meant that all possible intelligences that start from a 
mathematics that includes addition, multiplication, and complex 
numbers will find that if they iterate the function z' = z^2 + c, they 
will find that some orbits become periodic or settle on a point, and 
some escape to infinity. If they draw a graph of which orbits don't 
escape, they will draw the Mandelbrot Set. All possible intelligences 
that undertake that procedure will draw the same shape... and this 
seems like discovery, not creation. 



It seems like a tautology to me. ?f you do what I do and believe what I believe 
then you will be a lot like me...? 


Is there anything to mathematics other than belief? 


What are beliefs? ?hy do we have the beliefs that we have? ?ow do we form 
beliefs - what lies behind belief? 


Can *our* mathematical abilities be reduced to something that is 

Re: music on my mind

[Platonist Guitar Cowboy]

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 6:56 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Friday, September 21, 2012 8:47:15 AM UTC-4, Platonist Guitar Cowboy
 wrote:



 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Thursday, September 20, 2012 1:25:48 PM UTC-4, Platonist Guitar
 Cowboy wrote:

 Reflected eternal song(s) dressed in the illusion of time. As far as I
 can see: proportions, relationships, ratios.


 That's what I mean by a conceptual sculpture of abstraction. It's not
 real though. Proportion of what? Relations between what?


 Pick your ontological primitive and insert it there.


 Nothing would work except the ontological primitive that I use (sense).


Glad that works for you. Linguistically I am flexible with primitives, and
I'm not overly hungry for consistency either, as language is so
semantically imprecise and notoriously slippery: on some days maybe
numbers, on other days the opposite sex, on other days strings do fine, as
I love guitar. Maybe all at once and when I play, at times I think its all
nuts anyway: there are more precise languages, such as music, that limit my
squirrely linguistic operations and can aim more efficiently towards joy.
These linguistic squirrel operations can be really ornate and rich but in
my case are mostly circular and don't lead to better composition/playing.



 That said, a theory of everything with my stamp of approval has to
 account for music, as intangible as it is: is it the code, the score, its
 syntax, the technical levels a musician has to engage in (rhythm, harmony,
 melody), the physical vibrations produced, nerve cells and neurons, the
 composer's intention, the listening experience etc. simply because, despite
 that ambiguity: music is here and guitars are awesome dream machines.

 This ambiguity, that music appears only partially in all these different
 ways, makes a piece of music materially intangible. A piece of music is not
 reducible to the page of notes, nor to its interpretation by one musician
 live, nor the recording etc. It does not exist materially. If you play me a
 Mozart piece on Piano, I might not agree with articulation or some
 parameter: for you this would be music and you'd point to the physical
 waves of sound in the room and the corresponding score; and I'd say:
 nope. Even concert professionals see their best work as approximations
 of a piece and rarely as perfect rendition of the piece.

 So despite physical vibrations and neurological correlations, music is as
 intangible as ever.


 I don't think of experiences as intangible, I just think of them as
 privately tangible as experiences through time rather than publicly
 tangible as objects across space. What makes it seem intangible is if we
 use public realism criteria against private phenomenology.


That's not the question, it was: what is music?

Music does not equal its experience alone. Reflections of it can be
experienced on a sensory level, sure, I'll give you that. But as I already
asked: is it the code, the score, its syntax, the technical levels a
musician has to engage in (rhythm, harmony, melody), the physical
vibrations produced, nerve cells and neurons, the composer's intention, the
listening experience, the infinite approximation of the performer that will
always find ways to render a piece more precicely etc.?

Your calibration of sense does not address this ambiguity, nor does it
clarify it.






 When we think of these things we can conceive of them abstractly
 as-if-they-were-real, but only because we are borrowing the concrete
 reality of our own neurology to do that.


 How is this room I'm typing in not some mental abstraction or
 conception? Neurologists can't explain aesthetic experience either.


 Because the room is publicly accessible, not just to yourself but guests,
 dogs, termites, etc. The idea of an Ur-music which is independent of all
 forms of experiencing the music is a purely idealistic notion - which is a
 concretely real experience too, but as a cognitive artifact rather than a
 referent in public reality or private qualia.


As I said, I am ontologically promiscuous. I do prefer Ur-music to termites
on most days, however. I don't let the latter into the room.




 Just because we can imagine how a song would look as a graphic
 representation doesn't mean that there is an independently real
 mathematical spirit which is clothed in different forms. It is the math
 which is derived through experiences of form, not the other way around. We
 are informed by experiencing forms, not by composing in silence and then
 hoping to discover sound.


 How are forms not another kind of mental abstraction; the sort of which
 you just denied real existence.


 Forms are another kind of abstraction but not mental. They are qualia of
 whatever sense modality we are being informed through - visual/tactile,
 acoustic, etc.



Now you make qualia into abstraction. This I don't understand as eating an
apple does not 

Re: Re: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism

[Roger Clough]

Hi Evgenii Rudnyi  

Following Leibniz and Kant, what we see in the case of the table is a  
well-grounded phenomenon. That is, we do not see the table 
itself, but as it appears to our senses. But the table is not  
an illusion, it really is there, and we can place a pitchure of 
milk on it with no problem and knock on its surface. 



Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
9/22/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Evgenii Rudnyi  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-09-22, 07:29:27 
Subject: Re: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism 


On 22.09.2012 11:48 Roger Clough said the following: 
 Hi Craig Weinberg 
 
 I would classify your items as follows: 
 
 MENTAL (outside of spacetime) : All experiences, dreams, delusions, 
 information, mathematics, logic, time, space, feelings, thoughts, 
 ideas, numbers, life itself, God, monads, mathematics, physical laws 
 themselves, theory of any type. 
 
 PHYSICAL (within spacetime): Anything with dimensions, anything you 
 can measure with physical instruments (even indirectly), weigh or see 
 under a microscope or telescope, mass, energy, force, velocity, time, 
 distance, voltage, optical or sound intensity, wave amplitude, dna 
 type, cancer type, living tissue, dead tissue, flesh (brain). 
 

Let us take a table, it seems to be a good example of a physical object  
with dimensions that we could measure. Yet, it is unclear to me what  
happens when I watch the table. Does I perceive it directly? Or  
alternatively does I observe just my perceptions of the table? 

In other worlds, do you assume direct or indirect realism? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism 

Evgenii 


--  
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group. 
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. 
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.

-- 
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: Prime Numbers

[Roger Clough]

Hi Terren Suydam 

I don't see that mathematics and fiction have anything in common.

With fiction, anything can happen. 
A would of could be, or should be.

With mathematics you've got that nasty equals sign.
A world of is.

Hume pointed out that there's no way to get from is
to ought or vice versa.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
9/22/2012 
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content - 
From: Terren Suydam 
Receiver: everything-list 
Time: 2012-09-21, 12:29:56
Subject: Re: Prime Numbers


On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 8:40 AM, Rex Allen rexallen31...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 11:50 PM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 I'm curious about what a plausible fictionalist account of the
 Mandelbrot set could be. Is fictionalism the same as constructivism,
 or the idea that knowledge doesn't exist outside of a mind?


 I lean towards a strong form of fictionalism - which says that there are few
 important differences between mathematics and literary fiction.

Can you articulate any important differences between them?

 So - I could give a detailed answer - but I think I'd rather give a sketchy
 answer at this point.

 I would say that mathematics is just very tightly plotted fiction where so
 many details of the story are known up front that the plot can only progress
 in very specific ways if it is to remain consistent and believable to the
 reader.

 Mathematics is a kind of world building. In the imaginative sense.

I am not unsympathetic with this view, given the creativity that goes
into mathematical proofs. However, it falls apart for me when I
consider that an alien civilization is constrained to build the same
worlds if they start from the same logical axioms.


 I think just doing logic and math - starting from axioms and proving
 things from them - is interacting with the Platonic realm.


 But how is it that we humans do that? This is my main question. What
 exactly are we doing when we start from axioms and prove things from them?
 Where does this ability come from? What does it consist of?

We're using our intelligence and creativity to search a space of
propositions (given a set of axioms) that are either provably true or
false. I would say our intelligence and creativity comes from our
animal nature, evolved as it is to make sense of the world (and each
other) and draw useful inferences that help us survive. I'm not sure
how to answer the question what does it consist of. Are you asking
how we can act intelligently, how creativity works?

 I didn't understand the above... what do quarks and electrons have to
 do with arithmetical platonism?

 Are we not composed from quarks and electrons? If so - then how do mere
 collections of quarks and electrons connect with platonic truths?

 By chance? Are we just fortunate that the initial conditions and causal
 laws of the universe are such that our quarks and electrons take forms that
 mirror Platonic Truths?

I see. Assuming comp, we are some infinite subset of the trace of the
UD (universal dovetailer), which is a platonic entity. Quarks and
electrons are a part of the physics that emerges from that (the
numbers' dreams)... that's the reversal, where physics emerges from
computer science.

The question of how we, as mere collections of quarks etc. connect
back with Platonia, is answered by CT (Church-Turing Thesis). As we
are universal machines, we can emulate any computation, including the
universal dovetailer (for instance).

 I only meant that all possible intelligences that start from a
 mathematics that includes addition, multiplication, and complex
 numbers will find that if they iterate the function z' = z^2 + c, they
 will find that some orbits become periodic or settle on a point, and
 some escape to infinity. If they draw a graph of which orbits don't
 escape, they will draw the Mandelbrot Set. All possible intelligences
 that undertake that procedure will draw the same shape... and this
 seems like discovery, not creation.

 It seems like a tautology to me. If you do what I do and believe what I
 believe then you will be a lot like me...?

 Is there anything to mathematics other than belief?

The point is that you are constrained in what you can prove starting
from a given set of axioms. You are not constrained in which axioms
you start with - that's where the belief comes in since there is no
way to prove that your axioms are True, except within a more
encompassing logical framework with its own axioms.

 What are beliefs? Why do we have the beliefs that we have? How do we form
 beliefs - what lies behind belief?

Beliefs in the everyday sense are inferences about our experience that
we hold to be true. They help us navigate the world as we experience
it, and make sense of it. Mostly our beliefs are formed by suggestion
from our parents and peers when we are young, and as we learn and grow
we complicate our worldview with new beliefs. There 

Re: Re: Prime Numbers

[Roger Clough]

Hi meekerdb 

Mathematical objects such as proofs ansd new theorems are found by intuition.
Penrose suggests that intuition is a peep into Platonia.
So these come from Platonia.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
9/22/2012 
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content - 
From: meekerdb 
Receiver: everything-list 
Time: 2012-09-21, 13:30:03
Subject: Re: Prime Numbers


On 9/21/2012 5:40 AM, Rex Allen wrote: 
On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 11:50 PM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote:

On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 10:19 PM, Rex Allen rexallen31...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Rex,

 Do you have a non-platonist explanation for the discovery of the
 Mandelbrot set and the infinite complexity therein?


 I find fictionalism to be the most plausible view of mathematics, with all
 that implies for the Mandelbrot set.


I'm curious about what a plausible fictionalist account of the
Mandelbrot set could be. Is fictionalism the same as constructivism,
or the idea that knowledge doesn't exist outside of a mind?



I lean towards a strong form of fictionalism - which says that there are few 
important differences between mathematics and literary fiction.


So - I could give a detailed answer - but I think I'd rather give a sketchy 
answer at this point.


I would say that mathematics is just very tightly plotted fiction where so many 
details of the story are known up front that the plot can only progress in very 
specific ways if it is to remain consistent and believable to the reader.


Mathematics is a kind of world building.  In the imaginative sense.






 But ;et me turn the question around on you, if I can:

 Do you have an explanation for how we discover mathematical objects and
 otherwise interact with the Platonic realm?

 How is it that we are able to reliably know things about Platonia?


I think just doing logic and math - starting from axioms and proving
things from them - is interacting with the Platonic realm.


But how is it that we humans do that?  This is my main question.  What exactly 
are we doing when we start from axioms and prove things from them?  Where does 
this ability come from?  What does it consist of?






 I would have thought that quarks and electrons from which we appear to be
 constituted would be indifferent to truth.

 Which would fit with the fact that I seem to make a lot of mistakes.

 But you think otherwise?


I didn't understand the above... what do quarks and electrons have to
do with arithmetical platonism?



Are we not composed from quarks and electrons?  If so - then how do mere 
collections of quarks and electrons connect with platonic truths?


By chance?  Are we just fortunate that the initial conditions and causal laws 
of the universe are such that our quarks and electrons take forms that mirror 
Platonic Truths?





 How can you make
 sense of that in terms of the constructivist point of view that you
 are (I think) compelled to take if you argue against arithmetical
 platonism?  It seems obvious that all possible intelligences would
 discover the same forms of the Mandelbrot so long as they iterated on
 z' = z^2 + c, but maybe I am missing the point of your argument.

 I will agree with you that all intelligences that start from the same
 premises as you, and follow the same rules as inference as you, will also
 draw the same conclusions about the Mandelbrot set as you do.

 However - I do not agree with you that this amenable group exhausts the set
 of all *possible* intelligences.


I only meant that all possible intelligences that start from a
mathematics that includes addition, multiplication, and complex
numbers will find that if they iterate the function z' = z^2 + c, they
will find that some orbits become periodic or settle on a point, and
some escape to infinity. If they draw a graph of which orbits don't
escape, they will draw the Mandelbrot Set. All possible intelligences
that undertake that procedure will draw the same shape... and this
seems like discovery, not creation.



It seems like a tautology to me.  If you do what I do and believe what I 
believe then you will be a lot like me...?


Is there anything to mathematics other than belief?


What are beliefs?  Why do we have the beliefs that we have?  How do we form 
beliefs - what lies behind belief?


Can *our* mathematical abilities be reduced to something that is indifferent to 
mathematical truth?






 Could there be intelligences who start from vastly difference premises, and
 use vastly different rules of inference, and draw vastly different
 conclusions?


Of course, but then what they are doing doesn't relate to the Mandelbrot Set.



However - they might *believe* their creations to be just as significant and 
universal as you consider the Mandelbrot Set to be - mightened they?


What would make them wrong in their belief but you right in yours?   

Re: Prime Numbers

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Sep 2012, at 19:17, meekerdb wrote:


On 9/21/2012 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Sep 2012, at 20:14, meekerdb wrote:


On 9/20/2012 10:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Sep 2012, at 18:14, meekerdb wrote:


On 9/20/2012 2:05 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
A modal logic of probability is given by the behavior of the  
probability one. In Kripke terms, P(x) = 1 in world alpha  
means that x is realized in all worlds accessible from alpha,  
and (key point) that we are not in a cul-de-sac world.


What does 'accessible' mean?



In modal logic semantic, it is a technical world for any element  
in set + a binary relation on it.


A mapping of the set onto itself?


?

A relation is not a map. A world can access more than one world.
For example {a, b} with the relation {(a, a), (a, b)}, or aRa, aRb.







When applied to probability, the idea is to interpret the worlds  
by the realization of some random experience, like throwing a  
coin would lead to two worlds accessible, one with head, the  
other with tail. In that modal (tail or head) is a certainty as  
(tail or head) is realized everywhere in the accessible worlds.


Then accessible means nomologically possible.


Accessible means only that some binary relation exists on a set.  
But in some concrete model of a multi-world or multi-situation  
context, nomological possibility is not excluded.


Then I don't understand what other kinds of possibility are  
allowed?  I don't see how logical possibility could be considered an  
accessibility relation (at least not an interesting one) because it  
would allow Rxy where y was anything except not-x.







But in the worlds of the UD there is no nomological constraint, so  
there's no probability measure?


I am not sure why there is no nomological constraints in the UD.  
UD* is a highly structured entity. You might elaborate on this.


A nomological constraint is one of physics.


Why? Define perhaps nomological.



But physics is derivative from part of the UD.  The UD is structured  
only by arithmetic.


Why would this be not enough, given that physics will supervene on  
arithmetical relations (computations)?


Bruno







Generally speaking a different world is defined as not  
accessible.  If you can go there, it's part of your same world.


Yes. OK. Sorry. Logician used the term world in a technical  
sense, and the worlds can be anything, depending of which modal  
logic is used, for what purpose, etc. Kripke semantic main used  
is in showing the independence of formula in different systems.


Bruno





Brent


This gives KD modal logics, with K:  = [](p - q)-([]p -  
[]q), and D:  []p - p. Of course with [] for Gödel's  
beweisbar we don't have that D is a theorem, so we ensure the D  
property by defining a new box, Bp = []p  t.


--
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 
.




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 
.




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: questions on machines, belief, awareness, and knowledge

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Sep 2012, at 21:27, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


On 19.09.2012 00:57 meekerdb said the following:

On 9/17/2012 11:27 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

Do you mean that the meaning in a guided missile system happens
as by-product of its development by engineers?

To me, it seems that meaning that you have defined in Mars
Rovers is yet another theory of epiphenomenalism.


And your quote and question are yet another example of nothing
buttery and argument by incredulity.

Brent



I am not sure if I understand you. I am not saying that I am right
but I really do not understand you point. You say

Consciousness and computation are given their meaning by their
effecting actions in the world.

and it seems that you imply that this could be applied for a robot
as well. My thought were that engineers who have design a robot
know everything how it is working.


But they don't a robot, even one as simple as a Mars Rover perceives
and acts on things the engineers don't know.  A more advanced robot
will also learn from experience and become as unpredictable as a
person from the engineer's standpoint.



Okay, let us take more advanced robots. I guess that

Dario Floreano and Claudio Mattiussi, Bio-Inspired Artificial  
Intelligence: Theories, Methods, and Technologies


should be perfect here. You will find in the book about learning in  
behavioral systems. Yet, the authors do not use the term  
consciousness at all. They even talk about intelligence just once


Conclusion, p. 585 : “A careful reader have noticed that we have not  
yet defined what intelligence is. This was done on purpose because  
intelligence has different meanings for different persons and in  
different situations. For example, some believe that intelligence is  
the ability to be creative; other think that it is the ability to  
make predictions; and others believe that intelligence exists only  
in the eye of the observer. In this book we have shown that  
biological and artificial intelligence manifests itself though  
multiple processes and mechanisms that interact at different spatial  
and temporal scales to produce emergent and functional behavior. The  
most important implication of the approaches presented here is that  
understanding and engineering intelligence does not reduce to  
replicating a mammalian brain in a computer but requires also  
capturing multiply types and levels of interactions, such as those  
between brains and bodies, individual and societies, learning and  
behavior, evolution and development, self-protection and self- 
repair, to mention a few”.


Hence, again let us imagine that a robot with artificial neural  
networks developed as described in the book can learn something  
indeed. In the book there are even examples in this respect. Yet,  
the engineers developing it have not even thought about  
consciousness. Hence, in my view, if consciousness happens to be in  
such a robot, then we could talk without a problem about  
epiphenomenalism. Why not?


I have seen a project where engineers at least talk about a module  
QUALIA


http://www.mindconstruct.com/

“MIND|CONSTRUCT is developing a ‘strong-AI engine’, a so called AI- 
mind, that can be used in (human-like) robotics, healthcare,  
aerospace sciences and every other area where ‘conscious’ man- 
machine interaction is of any importance.


The MIND|CONSTRUCT organization is the culmination of many years in  
AI-research and the so called ‘hard-problems’, and the application  
of elaborate experience in knowledge-management, for the design and  
development of a ‘strong-AI engine’.“


If consciousness happens here, then we could at least find that it  
was planned this way.


It is part of what a machine is that we cannot know what we are doing  
in building them, so human might as well build a conscious machine  
without knowing it; except later, when the machine complains or fight  
for its right.
Comp is rather negative on the idea of programming consciousness. We  
can only let consciousness manifest itself, or not. Or we can copy  
intelligent machine, partially or completely.


Bruno





Evgenii
--
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/03/intelligence.html

http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/05/mindconstruct.html

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google  
Groups Everything List group.

To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en 
.




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: Thought Doesn’t Think That It Feels

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Sep 2012, at 22:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:


Post from my blog:



Simple as that, really. From psychological discoveries of the  
subconscious and unconscious, to cognitive bias and logical  
fallacies, to quasi-religious faith in artificial intelligence, we  
seem to have a mental blind spot for emotional realities.


What could be more human than making emotional mistakes or having  
one’s judgment cloud over because of favoritism or prejudice? Yet  
when it comes to assessing the feasibility of a sentient being  
composed of programmed functions, we tend to miss entirely this  
little detail: Personal preference. Opinion. Bias. It doesn’t bother  
us that machines completely lack this dimension and in all cases  
exhibit nothing but impersonal computation. This tends to lead the  
feel-blind intellect to unknowingly bond to the computer. The  
consistency of an automaton’s function is comforting to our  
cognitive self, who longs to be free of emotional bias, so much so  
that it is able to hide that longing from itself and project the  
clean lines of perfect consequences outward onto a program.


It’s not that machines aren’t biased too - of course they are  
incredibly biased toward the most literal interpretations possible,  
but they are all biased in the same exact way so that is seems to us  
a decent tradeoff. The rootless consciousness of the prefrontal  
cortex thinks that is a small price to pay, and one which will  
inevitably be mitigated with improvements in technology. In its  
crossword puzzle universe of Boolean games, something like a lack of  
personhood or feeling is a minor glitch, an aesthetic ‘to be  
continued’ which need only be set aside for now while the more  
important problems of function can be solved.


It seems that the ocean of feelings and dreams which were tapped  
into by Freud, Jung, and others in the 20th century have been  
entirely dismissed in favor of a more instrumental approach.  
Simulation of behaviors. Turing machine emulation. This approach has  
the fatal flaw of drawing the mind upside down, with intellect and  
logic at the base that builds up to complex mimicry of mood and  
inflection. The mind has an ego and doesn’t know it. Thinking has  
promoted itself to a cause of feeling and experience rather than a  
highly specialized and esoteric elaboration of personhood.


We can see this of course in developmental psychology and  
anthropology. Babies don’t come out of the womb with a flashing  
cursor, ready to accept programming passively. Primitive societies  
don’t begin with impersonal state bureaucracies and progress to  
chiefdoms. We seem to have to learn this lesson again and again that  
our humanity is not a product of strategy and programming, but of  
authenticity and direct participation.


When people talk about building advanced robots and computers which  
will be indistinguishable from or far surpass human beings, they  
always seem to project a human agenda on them. We define  
intelligence outside of ourselves as that which serves a function to  
us, not to the being itself. This again suggests to me the  
reflective quality of the mind, of being blinded by the reflection  
of our own eyes in our sunglasses. Thoughts have a hard time  
assessing the feeling behind themselves, and an even harder time  
admitting that it matters.


I think we see this more and more in all areas of our lives - an  
overconfidence in theoretical approaches and a continuous  
disconnecting with the results. We keep hoping that it will work  
this time, even though we probably know that it never will. It’s as  
if our collective psyche is waiting for our deluded minds to catch  
up. Waiting for us to figure out that in spite of the graphs and  
tests and retooling, the machine is really not working any better.




You are right. We have very often dismissed emotion, feelings and  
consciousness in human.


Unfortunately, dismissing emotion feelings and consciousness in  
machine, will not help.


Bruno






--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google  
Groups Everything List group.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/2h-lGPs0zXwJ 
.

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: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 22.09.2012 14:09 Roger Clough said the following:

Hi Evgenii Rudnyi

Following Leibniz and Kant, what we see in the case of the table is
a well-grounded phenomenon. That is, we do not see the table
itself, but as it appears to our senses. But the table is not an
illusion, it really is there, and we can place a pitchure of milk on
it with no problem and knock on its surface.


Now we should say where in the physical space this well-grounded 
phenomenon is located. Otherwise we will have a problem with


PHYSICAL (within spacetime)

Evgenii





Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/22/2012 Forever is a long time,
especially near the end. -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content - From: Evgenii Rudnyi
Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-22, 07:29:27 Subject: Re:
Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism


On 22.09.2012 11:48 Roger Clough said the following:

Hi Craig Weinberg

I would classify your items as follows:

MENTAL (outside of spacetime) : All experiences, dreams,
delusions, information, mathematics, logic, time, space, feelings,
thoughts, ideas, numbers, life itself, God, monads, mathematics,
physical laws themselves, theory of any type.

PHYSICAL (within spacetime): Anything with dimensions, anything
you can measure with physical instruments (even indirectly), weigh
or see under a microscope or telescope, mass, energy, force,
velocity, time, distance, voltage, optical or sound intensity, wave
amplitude, dna type, cancer type, living tissue, dead tissue, flesh
(brain).


--
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: questions on machines, belief, awareness, and knowledge

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 22.09.2012 14:58 Bruno Marchal said the following:


On 21 Sep 2012, at 21:27, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


On 19.09.2012 00:57 meekerdb said the following:

On 9/17/2012 11:27 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

Do you mean that the meaning in a guided missile system
happens as by-product of its development by engineers?

To me, it seems that meaning that you have defined in Mars
Rovers is yet another theory of epiphenomenalism.


And your quote and question are yet another example of
nothing buttery and argument by incredulity.

Brent



I am not sure if I understand you. I am not saying that I am
right but I really do not understand you point. You say

Consciousness and computation are given their meaning by
their effecting actions in the world.

and it seems that you imply that this could be applied for a
robot as well. My thought were that engineers who have design a
robot know everything how it is working.


But they don't a robot, even one as simple as a Mars Rover
perceives and acts on things the engineers don't know.  A more
advanced robot will also learn from experience and become as
unpredictable as a person from the engineer's standpoint.



Okay, let us take more advanced robots. I guess that

Dario Floreano and Claudio Mattiussi, Bio-Inspired Artificial
Intelligence: Theories, Methods, and Technologies

should be perfect here. You will find in the book about learning in
 behavioral systems. Yet, the authors do not use the term
consciousness at all. They even talk about intelligence just once

Conclusion, p. 585 : “A careful reader have noticed that we have
not yet defined what intelligence is. This was done on purpose
because intelligence has different meanings for different persons
and in different situations. For example, some believe that
intelligence is the ability to be creative; other think that it is
the ability to make predictions; and others believe that
intelligence exists only in the eye of the observer. In this book
we have shown that biological and artificial intelligence manifests
itself though multiple processes and mechanisms that interact at
different spatial and temporal scales to produce emergent and
functional behavior. The most important implication of the
approaches presented here is that understanding and engineering
intelligence does not reduce to replicating a mammalian brain in a
computer but requires also capturing multiply types and levels of
interactions, such as those between brains and bodies, individual
and societies, learning and behavior, evolution and development,
self-protection and self-repair, to mention a few”.

Hence, again let us imagine that a robot with artificial neural
networks developed as described in the book can learn something
indeed. In the book there are even examples in this respect. Yet,
the engineers developing it have not even thought about
consciousness. Hence, in my view, if consciousness happens to be in
such a robot, then we could talk without a problem about
epiphenomenalism. Why not?

I have seen a project where engineers at least talk about a module
QUALIA

http://www.mindconstruct.com/

“MIND|CONSTRUCT is developing a ‘strong-AI engine’, a so called
AI-mind, that can be used in (human-like) robotics, healthcare,
aerospace sciences and every other area where ‘conscious’
man-machine interaction is of any importance.

The MIND|CONSTRUCT organization is the culmination of many years in
 AI-research and the so called ‘hard-problems’, and the application
of elaborate experience in knowledge-management, for the design and
 development of a ‘strong-AI engine’.“

If consciousness happens here, then we could at least find that it
was planned this way.


It is part of what a machine is that we cannot know what we are doing
in building them, so human might as well build a conscious machine
without knowing it; except later, when the machine complains or fight
for its right. Comp is rather negative on the idea of programming
consciousness. We can only let consciousness manifest itself, or not.
Or we can copy intelligent machine, partially or completely.


Then, I am afraid, comp is of no help to the AI community as it seems 
cannot guide engineers on how to develop an intelligent robot.


Evgenii


Bruno





Evgenii -- http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/03/intelligence.html

http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/05/mindconstruct.html

-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the
Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send
email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this
group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.



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 

Re: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism

[Craig Weinberg]

On Saturday, September 22, 2012 5:49:49 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:

 Hi Craig Weinberg 

 I would classify your items as follows: 

 MENTAL (outside of spacetime) :  All experiences, dreams, delusions, 
 information, mathematics, logic, time, 
 space, feelings, thoughts, ideas, numbers, life itself, God, monads, 
 mathematics, physical laws themselves, 
 theory of any type. 


Huh? You are classifying time, space as (outside of spacetime).

If we recognize that experiences and dreams, feelings, thoughts, ideas, 
life itself, rely on significance which builds through story-like 
relations, and that they are not only cognitive but wordlessly emotional 
then I don't think that MENTAL is a meaningful category nor is it correct 
to consider these things separate from time. God, monads, physical laws, 
logic, mathematics, information, theories, etc are accessed through 
experiences in time, but represent space-like cognitive level qualia.
 

   
 PHYSICAL (within spacetime): Anything with dimensions, anything you can 
 measure with physical instruments 
 (even indirectly), weigh or see under a microscope or telescope, mass, 
 energy, force, velocity, time, distance, 
 voltage, optical or sound intensity, wave amplitude, dna type, cancer 
 type, living tissue, dead tissue, 
 flesh (brain). 


I reject the assumption that the experiential aspects are not 'physical' 
since our feelings and thoughts are profoundly and directly affected by 
physical changes. It makes more sense to understand that the difference is 
in public persistence across space as bodies as opposed to private 
experience through time as significance.

Craig

 


 Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net javascript: 
 9/22/2012   
 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 

 = 
 - Receiving the following content -   
 From: Craig Weinberg   
 Receiver: everything-list   
 Time: 2012-09-21, 10:58:11 
 Subject: Physics, Metaphysics, and Realism 


 I see all of our experiences, including dreams and delusions as being 
 physical, but not necessarily ?eal?. To me, realism is a loose term 
 describing the ?iddle of the road? range of experiences in which bodies and 
 minds are clearly separate. The contrasting ?nreal? ranges are the 
 profoundly spiritual/psychedelic/psychotic experiences and the profoundly 
 logical/mathematical/abstracted principles, both of which can be understood 
 as signifying real or more-than-real referents. 
 Physical ( Unrealism of Logic  Realism of Bodies and Space ? Realism of 
 Experiences and Time  Unrealism of Psyche )* 
 Metaphysical = Hypothetically outside of spacetime and matter. 
 Energy = Logical conceptualization of the perception and participation of 
 material bodies in spacetime. 
 Information = Logical conceptualization of logic in spacetime. 
 Logic = Phenomenology turned in on itself - subjectivity that seeks to 
 evacuate subjectivity of itself, leaving purely universal and involuntary 
 truths as a residual product. 
 Psyche = Deep phenomenology. Unconstrained by logic, subjectivity is free 
 to sense and dream itself into transpersonal and near-metaphysical ranges 
 of experience. 


 * This is the Multisense Continuum, which is involuted like a Mobius 
 strip, and can be shuffled and turned around: 
  Unrealism of Logic 
  Realism of Bodies and Space ? Realism of Experiences and Time  
 Unrealism of Psyche  
 (? = ?erpendicular/orthogonal fold? relation of Pedestrian Realism, ie 
 supermarket reality). 

 ? Realism of Experiences and Time  
 Unrealism of Psyche   Unrealism of Logic 
  Realism of Bodies and Space ? 
 (  = ?vanescent dissolve? relation of Profound Unrealism, ie hypnogogic 
 trance, epiphany, transcendence, enlightnenment) 

 The contemporary cosmology I would describe this way: 

 Information   Laws of Physics  Energy   Matter  ?  Space   Time   

 The problems with this are embodied as problems with Idealism, 
 Materialism, and Infocentrism, with each being unable to account for the 
 prominence of the other without disqualifying it. Materialism makes 
 information and subjectivity unreal, Idealism makes matter and spacetime 
 unreal, Infocentricism makes matter and subjectivity unreal. 

 Each of these three views have a blind spot for their own bias, which 
 becomes pathological when applied in a thoroughly literal way to the the 
 universe. Living beings become indistinguishable from programmed robots and 
 animated cadavers. The world becomes an illusion conjurable by codes. We 
 paint ourselves into a corner so that we are forced to conceive of 
 ourselves paradoxically as epiphenomenal voyeurs yet inevitably omnipotent 
 masters of the universe and ourselves. 

 My approach, of course, is to weigh anchor with sense itself, as the 
 primordial prerequisite of being and doing that is beneath and above all 
 forms, materials, spaces, times, and subjective experiences. A neutral 
 monism which 

Re: Thought Doesn’t Think That It Feels

[Craig Weinberg]

On Saturday, September 22, 2012 9:10:30 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:


 On 21 Sep 2012, at 22:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:

 Post from my blog:

 Simple as that, really. From psychological discoveries of the subconscious 
 and unconscious, to cognitive bias and logical fallacies, to 
 quasi-religious faith in artificial intelligence, we seem to have a mental 
 blind spot for emotional realities.

 What could be more human than making emotional mistakes or having one’s 
 judgment cloud over because of favoritism or prejudice? Yet when it comes 
 to assessing the feasibility of a sentient being composed of programmed 
 functions, we tend to miss entirely this little detail: Personal 
 preference. Opinion. Bias. It doesn’t bother us that machines completely 
 lack this dimension and in all cases exhibit nothing but impersonal 
 computation. This tends to lead the feel-blind intellect to unknowingly 
 bond to the computer. The consistency of an automaton’s function is 
 comforting to our cognitive self, who longs to be free of emotional bias, 
 so much so that it is able to hide that longing from itself and project the 
 clean lines of perfect consequences outward onto a program.

 It’s not that machines aren’t biased too - of course they are incredibly 
 biased toward the most literal interpretations possible, but they are all 
 biased in the same exact way so that is seems to us a decent tradeoff. The 
 rootless consciousness of the prefrontal cortex thinks that is a small 
 price to pay, and one which will inevitably be mitigated with improvements 
 in technology. In its crossword puzzle universe of Boolean games, something 
 like a lack of personhood or feeling is a minor glitch, an aesthetic ‘to be 
 continued’ which need only be set aside for now while the more important 
 problems of function can be solved.

 It seems that the ocean of feelings and dreams which were tapped into by 
 Freud, Jung, and others in the 20th century have been entirely dismissed in 
 favor of a more instrumental approach. Simulation of behaviors. Turing 
 machine emulation. This approach has the fatal flaw of drawing the mind 
 upside down, with intellect and logic at the base that builds up to complex 
 mimicry of mood and inflection. The mind has an ego and doesn’t know it. 
 Thinking has promoted itself to a cause of feeling and experience rather 
 than a highly specialized and esoteric elaboration of personhood.

 We can see this of course in developmental psychology and anthropology. 
 Babies don’t come out of the womb with a flashing cursor, ready to accept 
 programming passively. Primitive societies don’t begin with impersonal 
 state bureaucracies and progress to chiefdoms. We seem to have to learn 
 this lesson again and again that our humanity is not a product of strategy 
 and programming, but of authenticity and direct participation.

 When people talk about building advanced robots and computers which will 
 be indistinguishable from or far surpass human beings, they always seem to 
 project a human agenda on them. We define intelligence outside of ourselves 
 as that which serves a function to us, not to the being itself. This again 
 suggests to me the reflective quality of the mind, of being blinded by the 
 reflection of our own eyes in our sunglasses. Thoughts have a hard time 
 assessing the feeling behind themselves, and an even harder time admitting 
 that it matters.

 I think we see this more and more in all areas of our lives - an 
 overconfidence in theoretical approaches and a continuous disconnecting 
 with the results. We keep hoping that it will work this time, even though 
 we probably know that it never will. It’s as if our collective psyche is 
 waiting for our deluded minds to catch up. Waiting for us to figure out 
 that in spite of the graphs and tests and retooling, the machine is really 
 not working any better.


 You are right. We have very often dismissed emotion, feelings and 
 consciousness in human. 

 Unfortunately, dismissing emotion feelings and consciousness in machine, 
 will not help.

 Bruno


You don't see a connection between the two? There is no chance of machine 
feelings being a psychological projection?

I'm not opposed to the idea of computers having emotions in theory, but the 
evidence we've seen so far shows precisely the opposite. If inorganic 
machines could grow and change and learn by themselves, then we would 
likely see a single example of just that. What we see instead is that even 
with many brilliant minds working hard with the finest technology, face a 
perpetual uphill battle. In spite of Moore's Law and 30 years of commercial 
explosion, there is still no sign of any authentic feeling or intentional 
act by a program. What we see is exactly what I would expect from a 
fundamentally flawed assumption being dragged out - like Ptolemaic 
astronomy...it just isn't working out because we aren't approaching it the 
right way. We are trying to build a house on 

Re: Thought Doesn’t Think That It Feels

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Sep 2012, at 17:08, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Saturday, September 22, 2012 9:10:30 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 21 Sep 2012, at 22:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:


Post from my blog:



Simple as that, really. From psychological discoveries of the  
subconscious and unconscious, to cognitive bias and logical  
fallacies, to quasi-religious faith in artificial intelligence, we  
seem to have a mental blind spot for emotional realities.


What could be more human than making emotional mistakes or having  
one’s judgment cloud over because of favoritism or prejudice? Yet  
when it comes to assessing the feasibility of a sentient being  
composed of programmed functions, we tend to miss entirely this  
little detail: Personal preference. Opinion. Bias. It doesn’t  
bother us that machines completely lack this dimension and in all  
cases exhibit nothing but impersonal computation. This tends to  
lead the feel-blind intellect to unknowingly bond to the computer.  
The consistency of an automaton’s function is comforting to our  
cognitive self, who longs to be free of emotional bias, so much so  
that it is able to hide that longing from itself and project the  
clean lines of perfect consequences outward onto a program.


It’s not that machines aren’t biased too - of course they are  
incredibly biased toward the most literal interpretations possible,  
but they are all biased in the same exact way so that is seems to  
us a decent tradeoff. The rootless consciousness of the prefrontal  
cortex thinks that is a small price to pay, and one which will  
inevitably be mitigated with improvements in technology. In its  
crossword puzzle universe of Boolean games, something like a lack  
of personhood or feeling is a minor glitch, an aesthetic ‘to be  
continued’ which need only be set aside for now while the more  
important problems of function can be solved.


It seems that the ocean of feelings and dreams which were tapped  
into by Freud, Jung, and others in the 20th century have been  
entirely dismissed in favor of a more instrumental approach.  
Simulation of behaviors. Turing machine emulation. This approach  
has the fatal flaw of drawing the mind upside down, with intellect  
and logic at the base that builds up to complex mimicry of mood and  
inflection. The mind has an ego and doesn’t know it. Thinking has  
promoted itself to a cause of feeling and experience rather than a  
highly specialized and esoteric elaboration of personhood.


We can see this of course in developmental psychology and  
anthropology. Babies don’t come out of the womb with a flashing  
cursor, ready to accept programming passively. Primitive societies  
don’t begin with impersonal state bureaucracies and progress to  
chiefdoms. We seem to have to learn this lesson again and again  
that our humanity is not a product of strategy and programming, but  
of authenticity and direct participation.


When people talk about building advanced robots and computers which  
will be indistinguishable from or far surpass human beings, they  
always seem to project a human agenda on them. We define  
intelligence outside of ourselves as that which serves a function  
to us, not to the being itself. This again suggests to me the  
reflective quality of the mind, of being blinded by the reflection  
of our own eyes in our sunglasses. Thoughts have a hard time  
assessing the feeling behind themselves, and an even harder time  
admitting that it matters.


I think we see this more and more in all areas of our lives - an  
overconfidence in theoretical approaches and a continuous  
disconnecting with the results. We keep hoping that it will work  
this time, even though we probably know that it never will. It’s as  
if our collective psyche is waiting for our deluded minds to catch  
up. Waiting for us to figure out that in spite of the graphs and  
tests and retooling, the machine is really not working any better.




You are right. We have very often dismissed emotion, feelings and  
consciousness in human.


Unfortunately, dismissing emotion feelings and consciousness in  
machine, will not help.


Bruno


You don't see a connection between the two? There is no chance of  
machine feelings being a psychological projection?


There is. But as far as we are concern with the emotion dismissing  
problem, projecting emotion them, when they behave in some way, will  
be less dismissing emotion that attribuating puppetness by decision.






I'm not opposed to the idea of computers having emotions in theory,  
but the evidence we've seen so far shows precisely the opposite. If  
inorganic machines could grow and change and learn by themselves,  
then we would likely see a single example of just that. What we see  
instead is that even with many brilliant minds working hard with the  
finest technology, face a perpetual uphill battle. In spite of  
Moore's Law and 30 years of commercial explosion, there is still no  
sign of any 

Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment

[John Clark]

On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 3:03 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

 If anyone is not familiar with David Chalmers Absent Qualia, Fading
 Qualia, Dancing Qualia You should have a look at 
 ithttp://consc.net/papers/qualia.htmlfirst.


I confess I have not read it because I have little confidence it's any
better than the Chinese Room. Well OK I exaggerate, it's probably better
than that (what isn't) but there is something about all these anti AI
thought experiments that has always confused me. Let's suppose I'm dead
wrong and Chambers really has found something new and strange and maybe
even paradoxical about consciousness, what I want to know is why am I
required to explain it if I want to continue to believe that a intelligent
computers would be conscious? Whatever argument Chambers has it could just
as easily be turned against the idea that the intelligent behavior of other
people indicates consciousness, and yet not one person on this list
believes in Solipsism, not even the most vocal AI critics. Why? Why is it
that I must find the flaws in all these thought experiments but the anti AI
people feel no need to do so?

In the extraordinarily unlikely event that Chambers has shown that
consciousness is paradoxical (and its probably just as childish as all the
others) I would conclude that he just made an error someplace that nobody
has found yet. When Zeno showed that  motion was paradoxical nobody thought
that motion did not exist but that Zeno just made a mistake, and he did,
although the error wasn't found till the invention of the Calculus
thousands of years later.

  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: What is 'Existence'?

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/22/2012 5:25 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

ROGER: Hi Bruno Marchal

I think we should only use the word exists only when we are
referring to physical existence.


Dear Roger,

I think the exact opposite. We should NEVER use the word exists in 
reference to what is merely the subject of human perception, aka 
physical existence.




BRUNO: Hmm That might aggravate the naturalist or materialist 
human penchant.


Just a tad...



ROGER: Why ? Naturalist and materialist entities are extended and so 
physically exist.


Why might wish to consider that that extension is the result of 
observation and not independent of it. What I just wrote will be 
controversial, as it seems to make what exists subject to human whim, 
but I am trying to make a more subtle point. The physical world has 
properties that we can observe by performing observations and we have 
learned, from very careful experiment and logical analysis, that those 
properties cannot be definite prior to the measurements. This is not 
to say that measurements cause properties, no. Measurements select 
properties. Objects prior to measurement have a spectrum of possible 
properties and not definite properties. This is the lesson of QM that 
must be understood. To claim otherwise is to claim that nature has a 
preference for some basis.
We to understand that every single act of interaction that occurs 
in the universe is, at some level, an act of measurement. If we consider 
that there are a HUGE number of measurements occurring all around us 
continuously, that this and this alone is responsible for the appearance 
of a definite physical world that has properties objectively. It 
does this in the sense that that definiteness does not depend on the 
actions of any one individual observations or interaction; it depends on 
the sum over all of the acts of interaction.



What I say here is how I think Leibniz would respond.

Thus I can truthfully say,
for example, that God does not exist.
Wikipedia says, In common usage, it [existence]
is the world we are aware of through our senses,
and that persists independently without them.

BRUNO: But that points on the whole problem. With comp and QM, even 
when you observe the moon, it is not really there.


ROGER: Yes it is. Although I observe the moon phenomenologically, it 
still has physical existence in spacetime

because it is extended.


You are not the only observer of the moon! There is a subtle 
passive-aggressive solipsism in this idea that the moon exists without 
me , as if to imply the possibility of the converse: the moon would 
not exist without me.


No, By Leibniz' Monadology, all extensions are an appearance and 
not inherent or innate. The definiteness of the Moon follows from the 
mutual consistency required to occur between the percepts of each and 
every monad such that an incontrovertible (empty of inconsistency) 
relation can exist between them. This in the language of computer 
science is known as Satisfiability.


At least that's Leibniz' position, namely that phenomena, although 
illusions,
still have physical presence. Leibniz refers to these as well-founded 
phenomena. You can still stub your toe on

phenomenological rocks.


Yes, but Leibniz' position was that phenomenological appearance 
flowed strictly from the Pre-Established Harmony between monads and had 
no existence or reality otherwise.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence


Existence has been variously defined by sources. In common usage, it is 
the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists 
independently without them. Others define it as everything that is, or 
simply everything.


I am one of those others. We cannot conflate the definiteness of 
properties that we perceive with the bundling together of those 
properties in some particular location that results because of the 
requirement of mutual consistency of our physical universe. Existence, 
qua innate possibility to be, cannot be constrained by any a prior or 
contingent upon any a posteriori. It must simply be. So leave it alone.





On the other hand, Platonia, Plotinus, Plato, Kant and Leibniz,
take the opposite view or what is real and what exists. To them ideas
and other nonphysical items such as numbers or anything not extended 
in space,

anything outside of spacetime are what exist, the physical world out
there is merely an appearance, a phenomenon. Following Leibniz,
I would say of such things that they live, since life has
such attributes.



But Leibniz did not give us a complete and consistent ToE. His 
P.E.H. is deeply flawed and his explanation of the world that logically 
follows from the synchronization of the monad's perceptions 
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/leibniz.htmlwas woefully 
pedantic and flawed. I suspect that he simply did not want to try to 
speculate on the subject but his hand was forced by his need to defend 
his ideas against the savage attacks from the likes 

Re: Does Platonia exist ?

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/22/2012 5:34 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Alberto G. Corona


If we can define what we are talking about, most of our problems
will be solved.

That is why I believe we ought to use the Descartes-Leibniz definition
of physical existence as that which is in spacetime (is extended).
Thus the brain exists.

Nonphysical existence (mind) is that which is not extended in space and
hence is said to be nonextended or inextended.
I have been referring to this type of existence as living,
but number does not seem tpo be alive since it does not change
while living things do. I sucggest that we use the term mental
for inextended entities.

Then both number and mind are mental.

Roger Clough,rclo...@verizon.net  
9/22/2012

Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


Dear Roger,

The only problem that I see is that the term living has an 
associated schemata of meaningfulness. It would be better, I argue, to 
cleanser the term existence of its vague and nonsensical associations 
and use it for the necessary possibility of both the extended and 
non-extended aspects of the One.


--
Onward!

Stephen

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


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.

Re: Does Platonia exist ?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Sep 2012, at 11:25, Roger Clough wrote:


ROGER: Hi Bruno Marchal

I think we should only use the word exists only when we are
referring to physical existence.

BRUNO: Hmm That might aggravate the naturalist or materialist  
human penchant.


ROGER: Why ? Naturalist and materialist entities are extended and so  
physically exist.


R^3 is extended, but is not physical. The Mandelbrot set is extended,  
but is not physical.






What I say here is how I think Leibniz would respond.

Thus I can truthfully say,
for example, that God does not exist.
Wikipedia says, In common usage, it [existence]
is the world we are aware of through our senses,
and that persists independently without them.

BRUNO: But that points on the whole problem. With comp and QM, even  
when you observe the moon, it is not really there.


ROGER: Yes it is. Although I observe the moon phenomenologically, it  
still has physical existence in spacetime

because it is extended.



I don't what is spacetime. I work on where spacetime oir space time  
hallucinations come from.





At least that's Leibniz' position, namely that phenomena, although  
illusions,

still have physical presence.


I don't understand. the physical is what need an explanation,  
notably when you assume comp.




Leibniz refers to these as well-founded phenomena. You can still  
stub your toe on

phenomenological rocks.


Yes. But this is more an argument that phenomenological rocks can make  
you stub the toe, even when non extended, like when being virtual or  
arithmetical.






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence


On the other hand, Platonia, Plotinus, Plato, Kant and Leibniz,
take the opposite view or what is real and what exists. To them ideas
and other nonphysical items such as numbers or anything not extended  
in space,

anything outside of spacetime are what exist, the physical world out
there is merely an appearance, a phenomenon. Following Leibniz,
I would say of such things that they live, since life has
such attributes.

BRUNO: Hmm... Then numbers lives, but with comp, only universal or  
Lobian numbers can be said reasonably enough to be living.
You might go to far. Even in Plato, the No? content (all the ideas)  
is richer that its living part. I doubt Plato would have said that
a circle is living. Life will need the soul to enact life in the  
intelligible.


Plato's One is a special case, saince it is a monad of monads,


OK, it makes sense with mùonad of monads = universal machine/number,  
and monad = machine/number.





And more esoteric thinking treats numbers more as beings:

http://supertarot.co.uk/westcott/monad.htm

BRUNO:  The person and its body. OK. For the term exist I think we  
should allow all reading, and just ask people to remind us of the  
sense before the use.



With comp, all the exists comes from the ExP(x) use in arithmetic,  
and their arithmetical epistemological version, like []Ex[]P(x), or  
[]Ex[]P(x), etc.



That gives a testable toy theology (testable as such a theology  
contains the physics as a subpart).



Bruno

ROGER: You lost me, except I believe that a main part of confusion  
and disagreement on this list

comes because of multiple meanings of the word exists,
which brings me back to where I started:


I think we should only use the word exists only when we are
referring to physical (extended) existence.



Which brings me back to my statement: this will not help.

You can use this in the mundane life, or even when doing physics  
(although with QM, even this is no more clear). But if you serach a  
TOE, it is clearer to clearly distinguish what you assume to exist at  
the start, and what exists by derivation, and what exists in the mind  
of the self-aware creatures appearing by derivation.


Keep in mind that the UD arrgument is supposed, at the least, to show  
that the TOE is just arithmetic (or anything Turing equivalent), and  
that the physical reality has to be recovered mathematically by the  
statistical interference of number's dream. That is an exercise in  
theoretical computer science. We can recover more, as we can get a  
large non communicable, but hopable or fearable, part.


Bruno






= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
==



- Receiving the following content -
From: Bruno Marchal
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-21, 04:10:52
Subject: Re: Numbers in Space




On 21 Sep 2012, at 03:28, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 9/20/2012 12:14 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Thursday, September 20, 2012 11:48:15 AM UTC-4, Jason wrote:




It's not doing the computations that is hard, the computations are  
already there. The problem is learning their results.


The problem is doing anything in the first place. Computations don't  
do anything at all. The reason that we do things is that we are not  
computations. We use computations. We can program things, but we  
can't 

Re: What is 'Existence'?

[John Mikes]

Dear Stephen and Bruno:
*(BRUNO: Hmm... Then numbers lives, but with comp, only universal or Lobian
numbers can be said reasonably enough to be living.
You might go to far. Even in Plato, the No? content (all the ideas) is
richer that its living part. I doubt Plato would have said that a circle is
living. Life will need the soul to enact life in the intelligible.* )

I find it hard to believe that 'exist(ence?)' is depending on human
thought/measurement/comprehension. If something fails to 'materialize'(?)
into physical(?) existence it still can exist - in our thinking, or beyond
that: in the part of the unlimited (complexity?) we never heard of.
To restrict existence to our knowledge - especially quoting ancient
thinkers who experienced so much less to think of-
(e.g. Leibnitz, whom I respect no end, but over the more than 3 centuries
humanity has learned SOMETHING??)
is counterscientific -there are less polite words - and Bruno's
justification depends how we define that 'circle' - OOPS: *life-living*.
And IF we aggrevate *naturalists* and *materialists*? so be it. (Spelling
var: SOB-it).
*(Bruno again:  Life will need the soul to enact life in the intelligible.*
Looks like Bruno's stance on the mind-body bases. I am not with that, I
consider Descartes' dualism a defence against the danger to be burnt at the
stake. I consider him smarter than dualistic.

Stephen, I think(?) you waste your time arguing in such length against a
differen belief system. It is like a political campaign in the US:
everybody talks ONLY to their OWN constituents, the others do not even
listen. All those billion $s (there) are wasted just as all those zillion
posts here.
Look at the double-meaning of your Wiki-quote. ((- I am one of those
others-.))

Sorry I could not resist to reply.

John M






On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote:

  On 9/22/2012 5:25 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

 ROGER: Hi Bruno Marchal

 I think we should only use the word exists only when we are
 referring to physical existence.


 Dear Roger,

 I think the exact opposite. We should NEVER use the word exists in
 reference to what is merely the subject of human perception, aka physical
 existence.


 BRUNO: Hmm That might aggravate the naturalist or materialist human
 penchant.


 Just a tad...


 ROGER: Why ? Naturalist and materialist entities are extended and so
 physically exist.


 Why might wish to consider that that extension is the result of
 observation and not independent of it. What I just wrote will be
 controversial, as it seems to make what exists subject to human whim, but
 I am trying to make a more subtle point. The physical world has properties
 that we can observe by performing observations and we have learned, from
 very careful experiment and logical analysis, that those properties cannot
 be definite prior to the measurements. This is not to say that
 measurements cause properties, no. Measurements select properties.
 Objects prior to measurement have a spectrum of possible properties and
 not definite properties. This is the lesson of QM that must be understood.
 To claim otherwise is to claim that nature has a preference for some basis.
 We to understand that every single act of interaction that occurs in
 the universe is, at some level, an act of measurement. If we consider that
 there are a HUGE number of measurements occurring all around us
 continuously, that this and this alone is responsible for the appearance of
 a definite physical world that has properties objectively. It does this
 in the sense that that definiteness does not depend on the actions of any
 one individual observations or interaction; it depends on the sum over all
 of the acts of interaction.

  What I say here is how I think Leibniz would respond.

 Thus I can truthfully say,
 for example, that God does not exist.
 Wikipedia says, In common usage, it [existence]
 is the world we are aware of through our senses,
 and that persists independently without them.

 BRUNO: But that points on the whole problem. With comp and QM, even when
 you observe the moon, it is not really there.

 ROGER: Yes it is. Although I observe the moon phenomenologically, it still
 has physical existence in spacetime
 because it is extended.


 You are not the only observer of the moon! There is a subtle
 passive-aggressive solipsism in this idea that the moon exists without me
 , as if to imply the possibility of the converse: the moon would not exist
 without me.

 No, By Leibniz' Monadology, all extensions are an appearance and not
 inherent or innate. The definiteness of the Moon follows from the mutual
 consistency required to occur between the percepts of each and every monad
 such that an incontrovertible (empty of inconsistency) relation can exist
 between them. This in the language of computer science is known as
 Satisfiability.

  At least that's Leibniz' position, namely that phenomena, although
 illusions,
 

Re: On Causation with Mind and brain as apples and oranges

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/22/2012 6:11 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Craig Weinberg

OK that's the classic example of the pin prick and feeling pain.

It works for the worlds of apples and oranges if you accept
Hume's and Leibniz's theory of causation, or at least my understanding of it,
namely that changes in the mental world are simply synchronized
with changes in the physical world and vice versa.


 Dear Roger,

 The relation between the extended and non-extended is immediate 
and thus must be some form of isomorphism. I porpose the Stone Duality 
to be a valid and faithful representation of this isomorphism, following 
the suggestion by Pratt.
The coordination of events of the body and states of the mind are 
successive alignments that we can either case into a global explanatory 
scheme, such as a PEN, or we can assume some Humean classical model. 
Perhaps both Hume and Leibniz where looking at the problem from opposite 
sides of a spectrum and each only seeing the pole. If We start with the 
consistent idea of a monad, as defined, and then consider what it means 
to have a coordination between the extended and non-extended aspects, we 
notice that these can be recast into an inside v. outside relation.


It was Descartes that failed to see that the problem is not 
explanation of the interaction between the mental and the physical, it 
is the problem of explanation of how bodies (minds) interact with other 
bodies (minds). Bruno has shown that it is possible to almost completely 
capture the relational scheme needed for minds within a framework of 
modal logic. He shows that all that is left is the explanation of what 
is a body. Newton et al, have given us a wonderful account of the 
schemata of the body but left unresolved the nature and necessity of the 
mind. What if both of these schemata are just restatements of the 
Polarity between what Leibniz and Hume considered as a problem of causality?




Given that, to see if an action is caused either by mental or physical
powers you simply look at the near-future mental
or physical situation.  Monads allow you to do that.


Don't conflate them. Think of the causality  of each as 
contravariant, as going in opposite directions. Monads can solve this 
if we understand that they have dual aspects. Mental aspects are such 
that their causation is logical entailment and this looks back onto 
precedent so as to not allow any state that would contradict any 
previous state. Physical aspects are causal in the usual understood 
sense of events causing other events in a temporal progression.



In that future state both the mental and physical situations
will have changed.


No! That would allow contradictions, and thus White Rabbits, to 
occur. The key is to understand that we cannot assume a global 
arrangement that imposes a ordering on the Many, ala a Pre-Established 
Harmony. We have to allow for novelty and choice. We can achieve this in 
an explanation, but we need to consider that we are, at the end of the 
day, considering finite worlds that have bounding horizons.



  And anything changed can be considered
as being caused. That's the principle of sufficient reason.


We agree. but all of the Principles must be applicable. We cannot 
cherry pick the applications of the Principles. There is the Identity of 
Indiscernibles to consider, and others...






Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
9/22/2012
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Craig Weinberg
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-21, 13:03:13
Subject: Re: Mind and brain as apples and oranges




On Friday, September 21, 2012 11:48:34 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
Hi Stephen P. King  and all

The problems imagined by materialists in invoking dualism
are just that - imaginary-- as long as mind is unextended
and brain is extended. And the so-called hard problem of consciousness
and the cartesian problem of interfacing or superimposing
mind and brain simply vanish. They're apples and  oranges.
They exist in different universes, which can superimpose,
the extended or physical floating in a sea of inextended
or nonphysical mind, or to use a better word, life.


But if I drink coffee (from the apples universe of extended stuff) then I get 
amped (in the oranges universe if unextended mind). Why does that problem 
disappear?

Craig
   




Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
9/21/2012
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Stephen P. King
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-21, 11:04:59
Subject: Re: Numbers in Space


On 9/21/2012 4:34 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

But the numbers build an arithmetic body
  
The numbers arithmetically dream of a non arithmetic body.
  
  

and then populate a space with multiple copies of it... so that they
can implement the UD.
  
No, they are implemented by the UD, which exists like prime numbers

exists. Primitively.

   

Re: Prime Numbers

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/22/2012 7:32 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

How could mathematics be fiction ?
If so, then we could simply say that 2+2=5 because it's saturday.
How could we have a world we many minds can, on rare occasions, come to 
complete agreement if that where the case? Perhaps it is true that 2+2=4 
because we all agree, at some level, that it is true. (I am not just 
considering humans here with the word we!)


--
Onward!

Stephen

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


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.

Re: questions on machines, belief, awareness, and knowledge

[meekerdb]

On 9/22/2012 6:29 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 22.09.2012 14:58 Bruno Marchal said the following:


On 21 Sep 2012, at 21:27, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


On 19.09.2012 00:57 meekerdb said the following:

On 9/17/2012 11:27 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

Do you mean that the meaning in a guided missile system
happens as by-product of its development by engineers?

To me, it seems that meaning that you have defined in Mars
Rovers is yet another theory of epiphenomenalism.


And your quote and question are yet another example of
nothing buttery and argument by incredulity.

Brent



I am not sure if I understand you. I am not saying that I am
right but I really do not understand you point. You say

Consciousness and computation are given their meaning by
their effecting actions in the world.

and it seems that you imply that this could be applied for a
robot as well. My thought were that engineers who have design a
robot know everything how it is working.


But they don't a robot, even one as simple as a Mars Rover
perceives and acts on things the engineers don't know.  A more
advanced robot will also learn from experience and become as
unpredictable as a person from the engineer's standpoint.



Okay, let us take more advanced robots. I guess that

Dario Floreano and Claudio Mattiussi, Bio-Inspired Artificial
Intelligence: Theories, Methods, and Technologies

should be perfect here. You will find in the book about learning in
 behavioral systems. Yet, the authors do not use the term
consciousness at all. They even talk about intelligence just once

Conclusion, p. 585 : “A careful reader have noticed that we have
not yet defined what intelligence is. This was done on purpose
because intelligence has different meanings for different persons
and in different situations. For example, some believe that
intelligence is the ability to be creative; other think that it is
the ability to make predictions; and others believe that
intelligence exists only in the eye of the observer. In this book
we have shown that biological and artificial intelligence manifests
itself though multiple processes and mechanisms that interact at
different spatial and temporal scales to produce emergent and
functional behavior. The most important implication of the
approaches presented here is that understanding and engineering
intelligence does not reduce to replicating a mammalian brain in a
computer but requires also capturing multiply types and levels of
interactions, such as those between brains and bodies, individual
and societies, learning and behavior, evolution and development,
self-protection and self-repair, to mention a few”.

Hence, again let us imagine that a robot with artificial neural
networks developed as described in the book can learn something
indeed. In the book there are even examples in this respect. Yet,
the engineers developing it have not even thought about
consciousness. Hence, in my view, if consciousness happens to be in
such a robot, then we could talk without a problem about
epiphenomenalism. Why not?

I have seen a project where engineers at least talk about a module
QUALIA

http://www.mindconstruct.com/

“MIND|CONSTRUCT is developing a ‘strong-AI engine’, a so called
AI-mind, that can be used in (human-like) robotics, healthcare,
aerospace sciences and every other area where ‘conscious’
man-machine interaction is of any importance.

The MIND|CONSTRUCT organization is the culmination of many years in
 AI-research and the so called ‘hard-problems’, and the application
of elaborate experience in knowledge-management, for the design and
 development of a ‘strong-AI engine’.“

If consciousness happens here, then we could at least find that it
was planned this way.


It is part of what a machine is that we cannot know what we are doing
in building them, so human might as well build a conscious machine
without knowing it; except later, when the machine complains or fight
for its right. Comp is rather negative on the idea of programming
consciousness. We can only let consciousness manifest itself, or not.
Or we can copy intelligent machine, partially or completely.


Then, I am afraid, comp is of no help to the AI community as it seems cannot guide 
engineers on how to develop an intelligent robot.


Evgenii 


In the past, Bruno has said that a machine that understands transfinite induction will be 
conscious.  But being conscious and intelligent are not the same thing.


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: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment

[meekerdb]

On 9/22/2012 10:53 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 3:03 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com 
mailto:whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:


 If anyone is not familiar with David Chalmers Absent Qualia, Fading 
Qualia,
Dancing Qualia You should have a look at it 
http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html
first.



It's some reductio arguments in favor of functionalism (i.e. comp).  I find these 
arguments convincing.  So in building an intelligent robot it is almost certain that a 
sufficiently high level of intelligence we will have created a conscious robot.  But I 
don't think it follows that the robot's consciousness will be the same as ours - because 
it's not the same even between different human beings.  In particular I refer to 
synasthesia and certain mathematical savants who seem to have some different consciousness 
than I do.  So for me the interesting question is how to build a robot with different 
consciousness in prespecified ways?


Brent



I confess I have not read it because I have little confidence it's any better than the 
Chinese Room. Well OK I exaggerate, it's probably better than that (what isn't) but 
there is something about all these anti AI thought experiments that has always confused 
me. Let's suppose I'm dead wrong and Chambers really has found something new and strange 
and maybe even paradoxical about consciousness, what I want to know is why am I required 
to explain it if I want to continue to believe that a intelligent computers would be 
conscious? Whatever argument Chambers has it could just as easily be turned against the 
idea that the intelligent behavior of other people indicates consciousness, and yet not 
one person on this list believes in Solipsism, not even the most vocal AI critics. Why? 
Why is it that I must find the flaws in all these thought experiments but the anti AI 
people feel no need to do so?


In the extraordinarily unlikely event that Chambers has shown that consciousness is 
paradoxical (and its probably just as childish as all the others) I would conclude that 
he just made an error someplace that nobody has found yet. When Zeno showed that  motion 
was paradoxical nobody thought that motion did not exist but that Zeno just made a 
mistake, and he did, although the error wasn't found till the invention of the Calculus 
thousands of years later.


  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.


--
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: What is 'Existence'?

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/22/2012 3:52 PM, John Mikes wrote:

Dear Stephen and Bruno:
/*(BRUNO: Hmm... Then numbers lives, but with comp, only universal or 
Lobian numbers can be said reasonably enough to be living.
You might go to far. Even in Plato, the No? content (all the ideas) is 
richer that its living part. I doubt Plato would have said that a 
circle is living. Life will need the soul to enact life in the 
intelligible.*/ )


I find it hard to believe that 'exist(ence?)' is depending on human 
thought/measurement/comprehension. If something fails to 
'materialize'(?) into physical(?) existence it still can exist - in 
our thinking, or beyond that: in the part of the unlimited 
(complexity?) we never heard of.
To restrict existence to our knowledge - especially quoting ancient 
thinkers who experienced so much less to think of-
(e.g. Leibnitz, whom I respect no end, but over the more than 3 
centuries humanity has learned SOMETHING??)
is counterscientific -there are less polite words - and Bruno's 
justification depends how we define that 'circle' - OOPS: 
/*life-living*/. And IF we aggrevate *naturalists* and *materialists*? 
so be it. (Spelling var: SOB-it).
*/(Bruno again:  Life will need the soul to enact life in the 
intelligible./*
Looks like Bruno's stance on the mind-body bases. I am not with that, 
I consider Descartes' dualism a defence against the danger to be burnt 
at the stake. I consider him smarter than dualistic.
Stephen, I think(?) you waste your time arguing in such length against 
a differen belief system. It is like a political campaign in the US: 
everybody talks ONLY to their OWN constituents, the others do not even 
listen. All those billion $s (there) are wasted just as all those 
zillion posts here.
Look at the double-meaning of your Wiki-quote. ((- I am one of those 
others-.))

Sorry I could not resist to reply.
John M


Dear John,

I try and I deeply appreciate your comment. You understand me 
sometimes. Sometimes I don't have any idea where the thoughts that I 
write come from or what they mean until later...


--
Onward!

Stephen

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

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.