Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology'
On 05 Jul 2013, at 02:02, freqflyer07281972 wrote: Hey List! (and in particular Bruno) I have started re-reading the book I mention in the subject line -- after languishing in my bookshelf for a number of years, I pulled it out and began noticing the uncanny parallels it had with Bruno's UDA, although it reaches the same conclusions by some rather different means, notably; it postulates God as the thinker of all thoughts, envisioning god in a Spinozistic/Platonic light, and (something that from what I have read seems absent from the UDA) postulates the 'ethical requiredness' of God as being of enough force to bring him into being, thus short-circuiting the old If God exists, what caused him to exist? type of argument. I guess my general question is if any of you are familiar with Leslie's work and if so, to what degree, and also if so, to what degree do you find it plausible? Leslie typically use bayesian reasoning. I read his book on the doomsday argument, that he attributes to Brandon Carter, and I am not convinced, by that type of ASSA argument. But I do think he wrote a book on many-world, which is more close to comp and MWI, perhaps. Myself, I seem to be going through a kind of metaphysical conversion of sorts, one where, despite the multiplicity of minds/universes, there nevertheless seems to be an unspeakable and seemingly permanent unity to all things. I'm almost leaning towards Christianity, for the simple reason that it seems peculiar and particular enough to just be right and suitable to reality. (Reading CS Lewis' 'Mere Christianity' has swayed me in this way -- check it out, it's online). Forgive the brevity of my remarks... I'd unpack more if there was any interest expressed in what I was saying... perhaps I'm not saying anything that hasn't already been said. You are welcome. I would be careful with the unnameable, as it can attract wishful thinking. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
On entelechy
Aristotle believed that Llife is the ability to move on one's own, hence motion is a product of entelechy or kinetic energy. If substance is Mind, and Mind tends to matter (placing it in motion) then entelechy is Mind in action. The fire in stars, radioactive fission to produce heat. June is bustin' out all over. Given all of that, Mind and Life are similar terms. Consciousness is only a mystery to materialists. Consciousness or Mind is not a stuff, and to pursue it as stuff is to prospect for Fool's Gold. It can't be isolated (extracted), for it is the subjective end or soul of an objective-subjective dipole. It is the governor and awareness of matter. You cannot say what Consciousness is, then, for to say what it is is to put it into words, which means to objectify it. All of my work is simply the elkucidation of Leibniz in various applications which might have some practidcal result. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Materialism and Buddhism
Understood, yet the notion that highly developed chemicals, a woodchuck, ourselves, somehow are required to finalize the probability cloud of swirling particles. How convinced am I of this as being true? If you are saying its unnecessary, by evidence that we have today, I'd agree. On the idea of the unknown, and what is the adjacent possibility I would say it's worth exploring. Perhaps, high value chem processing is what is needed to ice the cake, and to calculate, or chrystalize the world. Or, maybe not. On decoherence, we then to creep into the twilight zone of Everett's MWI, as I am not satisfied by the Bohr standard model of QM. And, I may be wrong on this as well. Mitch But why should the fact that some chemicals replicate instantiate reality? Life is really replication with evolution - if you don't include evolution then you could regard as crystals as replicating. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jul 4, 2013 5:23 pm Subject: Re: Materialism and Buddhism On 7/4/2013 1:15 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Good point. But replication would be a means for establishing reality. Perhaps, life reproducing sustains reality? But why should the fact that some chemicals replicate instantiate reality? Life is really replication with evolution - if you don't include evolution then you could regard as crystals as replicating. For me it's quite bizzare in the sense that it's non-intuitive. On the other hand it applies the observer as what or who establishes reality. The decoherence account of (almost) deriving the classical world (aka reality) from QM doesn't depend on observers except in the sense of devices with many degrees of freedom with states robust against entanglement with the environment. Brent -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jul 4, 2013 3:18 pm Subject: Re: Materialism and Buddhism On 7/4/2013 5:31 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Interesting Dr. Marchal, Do you hold that Dr. Robert Lanza and Bob Berman, may be on to something then? Lanza is a cell biologist, and Berman is an astronomer. They, together, came up with the theory of biocentrism, as the trigger to make probability real. That life, even at its simplest structures (bacteria) act as an observer to sense the universe, out of a cloud of probabilities swirling around us. That, life consciously, and unconsciously selects the physical cosmos. They have called it the Biocentrsm Theory. Maybe life is what causes the math to process as axioms, as programs (if you are a Stephen Wolfram fan?) to emerge from the great probability 'cloud.' Or, am I misunderstanding what you have intended? In both cases, yours, and theirs, there is no specific, physical universe, because it chrystalizes out of observation. Except life is well modelled as chemistry and physics; so I don't see any gain in introducing replication as a foundational concept. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology'
Brent, please acknowledge that aside from the divine right of kings, the Atheist-Marxists did exactly the identical badness under the leaderships of Stalin,Mao, Pol Pot, the Kim Dynasty in North Korean, slaughtered tens of millions, tortured, deprived women of rights, slave labor, and specialized, in torture. All these scientific socialsts, all athesists. Just a way of putting things into perspective. Mitch Peasent: Hey! That's a good idea! God: Of course it's a good idea, you idiot! Monty Python and the Holy Grail Of course this ethic requiredness supported slavery, ethnic cleansing, divine ight of ings, faith over inquiry, ignorance over knowledge, oppression of women, and nfinite orture for unbelievers. Brent Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of is Reason. --- Martin Luther -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jul 4, 2013 8:19 pm Subject: Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology' On 7/4/2013 5:02 PM, freqflyer07281972 wrote: Hey List! (and in particular Bruno) I have started re-reading the book I mention in the subject line -- after anguishing in my bookshelf for a number of years, I pulled it out and began noticing the ncanny parallels it had with Bruno's UDA, although it reaches the same conclusions by ome rather different means, notably; it postulates God as the thinker of all houghts, envisioning god in a Spinozistic/Platonic light, and (something that from what have read seems absent from the UDA) postulates the 'ethical requiredness' of God s being of enough force to bring him into being, thus short-circuiting the old If God xists, what caused him to exist? type of argument. Yeah, postulating is a good way to short circuit arguments (and burn out ational wiring). I guess my general question is if any of you are familiar with Leslie's work nd if so, to what degree, and also if so, to what degree do you find it plausible? Myself, I seem to be going through a kind of metaphysical conversion of sorts, ne where, despite the multiplicity of minds/universes, there nevertheless seems o be an unspeakable and seemingly permanent unity to all things. I'm almost leaning owards Christianity, for the simple reason that it seems peculiar and particular nough to just be right and suitable to reality. (Reading CS Lewis' 'Mere Christianity' has wayed me in this way -- check it out, it's online). Of course this ethic requiredness supported slavery, ethnic cleansing, divine ight of ings, faith over inquiry, ignorance over knowledge, oppression of women, and nfinite orture for unbelievers. Brent Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of is Reason. --- Martin Luther -- ou received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. o unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email o everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. o post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. isit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. or more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology'
Yes, Infinite Minds, Defending Immortality, The End of the World. Leslie, was interviewed by Jim Holt in Holt's Why the World Exists? Leslie's Ethical Requireness is interesting. I have mentally tried to mingle Leslie's works with Boltzmann's Boltzmann Brains, by asking silly, questions, as, is God a Boltzmann Brain? Or, If God is a BB, are we mere flickerings of thoughts within that Boltzmann Brain? Are there others as there should be? in an envisaged, infinite single universe? These are stimulating ideas to toy with, but I am sure Karl Popper would be asking for falsifiability. Still, it might be enjoyable for us primates to meet and communicate with the Master Brain, of this section of reality. Or at least I think this. Mitch -Original Message- From: freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jul 4, 2013 8:02 pm Subject: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology' Hey List! (and in particular Bruno) I have started re-reading the book I mention in the subject line -- after languishing in my bookshelf for a number of years, I pulled it out and began noticing the uncanny parallels it had with Bruno's UDA, although it reaches the same conclusions by some rather different means, notably; it postulates God as the thinker of all thoughts, envisioning god in a Spinozistic/Platonic light, and (something that from what I have read seems absent from the UDA) postulates the 'ethical requiredness' of God as being of enough force to bring him into being, thus short-circuiting the old If God exists, what caused him to exist? type of argument. I guess my general question is if any of you are familiar with Leslie's work and if so, to what degree, and also if so, to what degree do you find it plausible? Myself, I seem to be going through a kind of metaphysical conversion of sorts, one where, despite the multiplicity of minds/universes, there nevertheless seems to be an unspeakable and seemingly permanent unity to all things. I'm almost leaning towards Christianity, for the simple reason that it seems peculiar and particular enough to just be right and suitable to reality. (Reading CS Lewis' 'Mere Christianity' has swayed me in this way -- check it out, it's online). Forgive the brevity of my remarks... I'd unpack more if there was any interest expressed in what I was saying... perhaps I'm not saying anything that hasn't already been said. Cheers, Dan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Materialism and Buddhism
On 04 Jul 2013, at 14:31, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Interesting Dr. Marchal, Do you hold that Dr. Robert Lanza and Bob Berman, may be on to something then? Lanza is a cell biologist, and Berman is an astronomer. They, together, came up with the theory of biocentrism, as the trigger to make probability real. That life, even at its simplest structures (bacteria) act as an observer to sense the universe, out of a cloud of probabilities swirling around us. It is less wrong that many others idea, with respect to comp. That, life consciously, and unconsciously selects the physical cosmos. Life, or consciousness. or consciousness filters non life. Comp, or if you prefer, the correct understanding of comp is sympathetic with such idea, unless simplified or taken too much literally. All we need to have are the relations between number derivable from the addition and multiplication laws. This emulates, in the arithmetical Turing sense, the histories, and we, first persons are distributed in those histories. I have often used the term biology instead of psychology or theology. They have called it the Biocentrsm Theory. Maybe life is what causes the math to process as axioms, as programs (if you are a Stephen Wolfram fan?) Wolfram is still physicalist, and is close to digital physicalism, which is not only a digital way to eliminate the subject, both also a deny of the quantum reality. But I love cellular automata, and he wrote entertaining books. to emerge from the great probability 'cloud.' The question is probability cloud of what? Which events? What is bio? The amoeba problem is solved by phi_e() = e. I explain later. Sex, embryogenesis and regeneration problems are solved by a variant of above. Numbers does that all the time, but the consciousness flux starts when the number self-refers, and build coherent maps of their most probable scenarios/dreams, until they wake up in more coherent scenarios, ad infinitum. Or, am I misunderstanding what you have intended? In both cases, yours, and theirs, there is no specific, physical universe, because it chrystalizes out of observation. I think you understood well. The approach is of course different. I start from the assumption that we are machines, and shows that the physical chrysalises out of observation. In fact, it is just one aspect of a theological reality (with immortal soul) which crystalizes, or chysalises, you must choose :), from very simple, but Turing universal (derivable from elementary arithmetic). Biocentrism would be a part of the more theological processes, and a part of physics needs some of the incommunicable (theological) resources. The quantum, actually appears only on the theological part of the observation, which fits better with the neoplatonists, compared to a biocentrism still possibly conceived through an aristotelian conception of reality. I don't know for sure as I did not study them. In Charlie Stross's work of science fiction, Accelerondo, Stross posits that the Big Bang was a statistical computation that ran over 14 billion years ago, and we are the remnant of the statistical processing. That science fiction. Reality is beyond fiction :) What can be said (or argued for) is that *assuming* that we are machine (comp), itself fiction or reality we can never know (in science), we belong to an infinity of (probably deep, in Bennett or related sense) computations, and we can share them due to their linearity at their core. It is an open problem if some oracles are at play, but something like evolution is close to the halting oracle (in Turing sense). Bruno Mitch -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jul 4, 2013 3:22 am Subject: Re: Materialism and Buddhism On 03 Jul 2013, at 23:48, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Dr. Marchal, Hello. It's not an opinion, but a question motivated by observation. It doesn't make this point of view, axiomatically, correct. But, I do feel this issue needs to be addressed at some point, via scientific measure. The question is how? What would be our motivation to undertake this study-do non-material things exist? Can non-material object exist. Or am I asking do non-existing objects exist? Or, do non-material things exist elsewhere in our universe, but a difficult to ordinarily detect? You seem to assume that there is a physical universe. I don't assume that. You seem to assume Aristotle idea that what exist = what we can see, or observe, measure ... but the ancient dream argument already show that such inference is not valid. God created the natural numbers and said add and multiply. All the rest are dreams which exist due to the Turing universality of add and multiply. You might have a difficulty to conceive that physical existence might not be a
Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology'
On 7/5/2013 6:19 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, please acknowledge that aside from the divine right of kings, the Atheist-Marxists did exactly the identical badness under the leaderships of Stalin,Mao, Pol Pot, the Kim Dynasty in North Korean, slaughtered tens of millions, tortured, deprived women of rights, slave labor, and specialized, in torture. All these scientific socialsts, all athesists. Just a way of putting things into perspective. But unlike the inquistion and the crusades those purges were just for political power, as has been done for millenia. They were not in the name of atheism. Of course religion has often been used as cover for the exercise of political power; but in some of the most egregious cases religious belief itself has motivated the atrocities, c.f. the Cathars. And why not - certainly if it takes torture and bloodshed on a mere temporal scale to avoid an eternity of torture then it is justified. Brent But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. --- Jesus, Luke 19:27 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology'
As you indicated it is sometimes difficult to separate the the temporal from eternity. Lots of the massacres commited by the marxists, were done also out of paranoia and thus, emotion. I don't view the marxists as any cleaner, in purpose or reason then the religious witch burners, or the inquisitors. Stalins' slaughter of the Poles and Ukrainians, or Pol Pot's riddence of of those who could read and write, for example. It's all a form of group madness, seemingly. Mitch -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Jul 5, 2013 2:29 pm Subject: Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology' On 7/5/2013 6:19 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, please acknowledge that aside from the divine right of kings, the Atheist-Marxists did exactly the identical badness under the leaderships of Stalin,Mao, Pol Pot, the Kim Dynasty in North Korean, slaughtered tens of millions, tortured, deprived women of rights, slave labor, and specialized, in torture. All these scientific socialsts, all athesists. Just a way of putting things into perspective. But unlike the inquistion and the crusades those purges were just for political power, as has been done for millenia. They were not in the name of atheism. Of course religion has often been used as cover for the exercise of political power; but in some of the most egregious cases religious belief itself has motivated the atrocities, c.f. the Cathars. And why not - certainly if it takes torture and bloodshed on a mere temporal scale to avoid an eternity of torture then it is justified. Brent But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. --- Jesus, Luke 19:27 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
computationalism as a form of magic
Dear Prof. Tegmark, I have been trying to think of a way to make computationalism work but I can see no force that numbers might have on the physical world that might empower them. Instead I see computationalism as a form of magic. Serious magic if you will, but still magic, magic in the sense that saying the proper magic words or drawing certain figures or performing certain incantations or rituals will cause things to happen, presumably in imitation of those forms. But even though it is a form of magic, it may be that the numbers can be causal in some paranormal sense, if you can accept Leibniz's view that ideas seek perfection and physical realization is the highest perfection. If you can accept that, you might give some acceptance to the idea, and that actions can be preformed by intentions. Best, Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
