Re: The world's most environmentally friendly car
On 3/16/2015 1:27 PM, LizR wrote: On 17 March 2015 at 08:08, PGC multiplecit...@gmail.com mailto:multiplecit...@gmail.com wrote: That */is/* funny because now, Bruno has to justify why for example any grey diplomat/politician, say Angela Merkel is among the funniest comedians on the planet... Her degree is in Physical Chemistry (surprise aristotelian attack!) I think, which may explain some of her success in current political climate. Didn't Mrs Thatcher have something like that??? Thatcher has a degree in chemistry and worked as a research chemist. She brought up global warming as a major problem which she was qualified to understand when she first ran for office. She supported creation of the IPCC. 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/d/optout.
Re: Price promotion for Amoeba's secret
I already have one of course, but if you can give me a link to the relevant web page I'll let anyone I think might be interested know about it. On 17 March 2015 at 12:34, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au wrote: Just a heads up that I'm running a price promotion on the US Amazon Kindle store for Bruno Marchal's Amoeba's Secret on Kindle starting on the 18th March US time (so basically the 19th for the rest of us), finishing on the 25th. So if you get in quick, you can snaffle a copy for 99 cents on the first day. Every day, the price is increased by $1 until the price is back up to its normal price of $7.99. I'm curious to see if this sparks any interest in the book... Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness
On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 9:26 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net w Suppose you substituted for Watson's database one learned entirely from the Conservapedia. Then Watson would be quite incompetent, Yes, and it would behave quite stupidly too unless it recognized the self contradictions in it's database. but I see no reason to think Watson would be less conscious. If its database had self contradictions then it could still think about the entries in that database, but if there were no logically coherent links between the entries there would be little depth to that thought. I believe there is a link between depth of thought (also called intelligence) and consciousness but as I've said I'll never be able to prove it. Bruno identifies intelligence with learning. And if Watson couldn't learn he would have never won on Jeopardy. John K Clark -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Humans Hold Anti-AI, Anti-Robot Protest in Texas
Elon Musk and Ned Ludd sound oddly similar. On 17 March 2015 at 05:49, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: http://en.yibada.com/articles/19837/20150316/humans-hold-anti-ai-robot-protest-sxsw-texas.htm I wonder how long before AIs hold an anti-human protest. Cheers Telmo. -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: The Weakness of Panpsychism?
My apologies obviously you did mean finite.
This is very interesting although probably too much for my brain at the
moment.
What is all the stuff about S(S(0)) and {}, {{}}, etc? Doesn't that define
finite numbers?
On 17 March 2015 at 05:39, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
On 15 Mar 2015, at 21:29, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/15/2015 10:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
We cannot define the notion of finite number
This will make it very difficult to interpret the output of your computer.
I guess you are joking.
In case you are serious, you really should study a good book on logic.
Machines can handle many things that they cannot define.
To make my statement more precise, it means that we cannot build a theory
having all natural numbers and only the natural numbers as model, by using
first order logic. In fact no theory of any finite things can be formalized
in first order logic. There is no first order axiomatization of finite
group theory, of finite field, etc. There are good theories, even first
order theories, but they have infinite models.
We can formalized finiteness in ... second order logic. But this is a
treachery because this use the notion of finiteness (in explicit or
implicit way).
That is the root of the failure of logicism. Not only we have to assume
the natural numbers and they additive and multiplicative structure, (if we
want use them), but we can't interpret them categorically or univocally. It
is a strange world where it can be consistent for a machine to be
inconsistent.
What I really meant was: we cannot define the notion of number without
using the notion of finite number.
You might try, as a game to define natural number without using the
notion, like if explaining them to someone who does not grasp them at all
(if you can imagine that).
You might say I is a number, and: if x is a number, then Ix is a number.
The difficulty is in avoiding the person believe that I... become a
number, with a variety of meaning for ...
Bruno
Brent
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Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness
On 3/16/2015 4:32 PM, John Clark wrote: On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: you've exaggerated the example to create a straw man. Watson has some local database, he doesn't access the web for everything; so my analogy is correct. How is that a straw man?? The Jeopardy champagne Watson could't access the web for *ANYTHING*. All Watson had was his memory, take away that and Watson would be as clueless as a college professor who had totally lost his memory. OK, change the analogy a little. Suppose you substituted for Watson's database one learned entirely from the Conservapedia. Then Watson would be quite incompetent, but I see no reason to think Watson would be less conscious. Bruno would say he's less competent, but more intelligent, but you seem to identify competence and intelligence. If a person behaves is a certain way then he's intelligent, but if a robot behaves in the EXACT SAME WAY then he's just competent. And that my friend is 100% triple distilled extra virgin Bullshit. Wrong distinction. Bruno identifies intelligence with learning. So a small child is very intelligent, even though he isn't very competent. 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/d/optout.
Re: Price promotion for Amoeba's secret
So people living outside the USA get it for $6.83? (I assume for a kindle there's no delivery charge!) On 17 March 2015 at 12:47, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: I think the sales tax depend on which state you live in... as Amazon cannot know it in advance, the price is without tax... Regards 2015-03-17 0:52 GMT+01:00 Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au: Its here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRLEKPA I notice it currently advertised at $6.83. I don't understand how Amazon works - unless this is the usual US practice of advertising a price without sales tax, only to find that the real price is more like the $7.99 it is supposed to be. Cheers On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 12:29:39PM +1300, LizR wrote: I already have one of course, but if you can give me a link to the relevant web page I'll let anyone I think might be interested know about it. On 17 March 2015 at 12:34, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au wrote: Just a heads up that I'm running a price promotion on the US Amazon Kindle store for Bruno Marchal's Amoeba's Secret on Kindle starting on the 18th March US time (so basically the 19th for the rest of us), finishing on the 25th. So if you get in quick, you can snaffle a copy for 99 cents on the first day. Every day, the price is increased by $1 until the price is back up to its normal price of $7.99. I'm curious to see if this sparks any interest in the book... Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: The world's most environmentally friendly car
On 17 March 2015 at 08:08, PGC multiplecit...@gmail.com wrote: That *is* funny because now, Bruno has to justify why for example any grey diplomat/politician, say Angela Merkel is among the funniest comedians on the planet... Her degree is in Physical Chemistry (surprise aristotelian attack!) I think, which may explain some of her success in current political climate. Didn't Mrs Thatcher have something like that??? -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Carroll and Motul
On 12 Mar 2015, at 02:07, meekerdb wrote: An excellent talk by Sean Carroll explicating where the gaps are in Everett's MWI as applied to cosmology and providing a solution to the Boltzmann brain problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TFy6Ben0Ho Note that toward the end he seems to require a conscious observer to bottom out the epistemology, i.e. to have a measurement actually made. Be sure to listen to the QA too. Coincidentally, I came across Lubos Motul's discussion of MWI in which he has an extended argument with Ron Maimon. I don't like Lubos's politics or his style or argument which is arrogant and bombastic. In this case he is being very critical of Sean Carroll whom is a very nice guy and I do like - but I think Lubos makes some fair points. Interesting. Note that qZ1* is very plausibly more on the side of infinite Hilbert Spaces, at least formally, and this would mean the universal machine would choose the second option, leading to Boltzmann brain problems in the comp solution of the mind-body problem. Nevertheless, we have to derive the very equation of physics from the Boltzmann brain that exists in arithmetic, which is assumed by Carroll (except it use the aristotelian picture to very quickly put the problem under the rug, almost namely). It is nice that physicists see the inflation of experiences/brains problem in physics. It can help them to become aware of the mind-body problem, and better appreciate that such problem is already there in arithmetic, even without Universe. Bruno 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/d/optout. 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/d/optout.
Re: The world's most environmentally friendly car
On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 12:34 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Well of course laughing AT people you dislike is a classic bullying technique. And then you say oh come on it was only a joke! Yet bullies never make jokes about themselves, because they are often humourless sociopaths. I agree. I think people understand intuitively that making fun of someone that is at a disadvantage in relation to you is just mean and distasteful. It is sociopathic to find that sort of thing funny. It's very common with teenagers, and I think that part of the reason is fear: if you don't join in on the bullying, you could become the victim yourself. Unfortunately, some people never develop past that stage. I don't think that this joke is mean in any sense. On the contrary, I think that environmentalists that can't laugh about it a bit should be worried that they are becoming too religious. I even think that great jokes can be made about the senseless destruction of everything we hold dear. People who don't believe me should read The Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy. Telmo. Dunno if this is on topic but I thought I'd mention it anyway, just in case. -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Galen Strawson: Consciousness myth
On 15 Mar 2015, at 20:37, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1523413.ece An interesting paper that reviews the history on consciousness in philosophy in order to display that Twenty years ago, however, an instant myth was born: a myth about a dramatic resurgence of interest in the topic of consciousness in philosophy, in the mid-1990s, after long neglect. I am not sure that it was a myth. I have wittnessed it, as the subject of consciousness was an ultra-taboo subject, even for most psychologist. Scientist were, more or less consciously, influence by positivisme. There are just been an understanding that positivism and instrumentalistm where incoherent. It happens that philosophical zombies have been invented already in 18th century No doubt. After Descartes attempts to solve the mind-body problem, there has been a lot of work on the subject. Leibniz was well aware of the problem. It the problems which are usually answered by the so- called religion, and in fact, it is more or less recent that the subject has been made taboo, due to that influence of the Vienne circle. Wittgenstein, fortunately changed his mind, but not all scientists realize the reason he was forced to do so. 'In 1755 Charles Bonnet observed that God “could create an automaton that would imitate perfectly all the external and internal actions of man”. In 1769, following Locke, he made a nice point against those who resisted materialism on religious grounds: “if someone ever proved that the mind is material, then far from being alarmed, we should have to admire the power that was able to give matter the capacity to think”.' That is the aristotelian assumption. The belief in some primitive matter. The taking of granted that physics is the fundamental science, and that everything real is material. But no one has ever prove or given an evidence for such a primitive matter. And we do have samples of non material entity, like the game of chess, the french nationality, the numbers and the mathematical structures, the waves and the singularities. So Charles Bonnet is right, mind would be material if we are non- machine, and then you need a God to duplicate it, and to make the consistent selection. Wat would iot mean to make matter thinking, except in the sense that aspect of matter are turing universal, and can implement, thus, other machines, universal or not. Bonnet is just expressing itself badlly, perhaps, but the resistance is not on religious ground, it is the use of matter which is criticized for being religious without saying. If matter exists, the question is how matter selects your first person mind state among an infinity of computations (with oracles). A religion is a solution to the mind-body problem. For historical reasons, perhaps Löbian reasons too, we tolerate the lack of rigor in the field, and we tolerate the argument-per-authority, the fairy tales, etc. I guess machines exploits the consistency of inconsistency right at the start. But it is a problem which interest all creatures which ask about themselves if they will stop, or not, who they are, and what happens, etc. Universal machine are dumbfounded by such questions. Consciousness is the first mystical state, where you hallucinate, make the experience, that there is a reality/god/truth. Bruno Evgenii -- 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/d/optout. 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/d/optout.
Humans Hold Anti-AI, Anti-Robot Protest in Texas
http://en.yibada.com/articles/19837/20150316/humans-hold-anti-ai-robot-protest-sxsw-texas.htm I wonder how long before AIs hold an anti-human protest. Cheers Telmo. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: The Weakness of Panpsychism?
On 15 Mar 2015, at 21:29, meekerdb wrote: On 3/15/2015 10:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: We cannot define the notion of finite number This will make it very difficult to interpret the output of your computer. I guess you are joking. In case you are serious, you really should study a good book on logic. Machines can handle many things that they cannot define. To make my statement more precise, it means that we cannot build a theory having all natural numbers and only the natural numbers as model, by using first order logic. In fact no theory of any finite things can be formalized in first order logic. There is no first order axiomatization of finite group theory, of finite field, etc. There are good theories, even first order theories, but they have infinite models. We can formalized finiteness in ... second order logic. But this is a treachery because this use the notion of finiteness (in explicit or implicit way). That is the root of the failure of logicism. Not only we have to assume the natural numbers and they additive and multiplicative structure, (if we want use them), but we can't interpret them categorically or univocally. It is a strange world where it can be consistent for a machine to be inconsistent. What I really meant was: we cannot define the notion of number without using the notion of finite number. You might try, as a game to define natural number without using the notion, like if explaining them to someone who does not grasp them at all (if you can imagine that). You might say I is a number, and: if x is a number, then Ix is a number. The difficulty is in avoiding the person believe that I... become a number, with a variety of meaning for ... Bruno 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/d/optout. 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/d/optout.
Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness
On 15 Mar 2015, at 21:45, John Mikes wrote: Bruno wrote: Response to relation looks like Behaviorism, that is pure 3p. Consciousness usually denote the first person awareness. Where does your line#1 imply your line#2? That darn Behaviorism (I don't argue with your usage of words) may be a 'liveless' 3p behavior as well. Certainly. It may depend on YOUR (MY?) definition of Ccness that may, or may not include thinking/living creatures exclusively. Just think of 'pressure' related changes available also for lifeless(?) items. That is what I do all the times, as consciousness supervene, in the computationalist theory, on (infinities) of 3p relations among numbers (admittedly lifeless). But this means that you agree with the usual definition which is that consciousness is a private knowledge, by creatures (in arithmetic, with computationalism, or in some other reality, with other hypotheses). Br: Denied ignorance is very bad, but what about the accepted ignorance? Then we can do all the theories we want, without ever taking ourselves too much seriously. Would you please draw a line here between science and religion? There is no difference. The only difference comes from the fact that we tolerate the lack of rigor in religion, which might be normal for the applied religion in the short run. The result is that in science we know that we don't know the truth, and we search seriously, but in religion we usually pretend to know the truth and -we burn alive those who find the flaws. I plea for a return to seriousness in all fields. It is very easy, as it consists to just make clear the assumptions, and the way of reasoning, and mleans of verification. Br: If we use ignorance to forbid the theorizing then we will certainly learn nothing. Or: we would learn a different type (logic?) leading to different theorizing and build a different (scientific???) worldview. But that is what we do all the time in science, which contains already many ways of reasoning, not all compatible, which leads to problems. I am not sure I understand. Logicians studies many different logics. The machine self-reference showsalreadu 8 conflicting logics that the machine develop about itself. The machine agrees with you, but apparently you don't like that, which makes me doubt about your agnosticism with respect of computationalism. Agnosticism in my view does not restrict, rather free up the ways of gathering information. I am open to all the ways, from math to salvia and dream experiences. Then we make theories, which are always hypothetical, once we want communicate to others. Classical logic is not the most true logic, but it is the most polite, in which we can easily explain other logics. Bruno JM On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 14 Mar 2015, at 20:59, John Mikes wrote: LizR: Consciousness, in my vocabulary sounds like: Response to Relations, not a mental awarness in thinking/living creatures. Response to relation looks like Behaviorism, that is pure 3p. Consciousness usually denote the first person awareness. Your views may be correct, if you accept conclusions drawn in the name of the present science upon the incomplete circumstances we already know of. Including Ccness as some mental awareness in living minds. Your 'evolutionary advantages' are triggered - maybe including - effects from so far even unreceived domains. Similarly I would think twice to call an extinction 'devolutionary'. My statement stays: I don't know. Nobody knows. The question is always, what do you believe? A tyranosaure - even with terrific 'enthusiasm' - could not resist to starving. I accept your denigratory opinion rather than being part of a contemporary science - cheating/lying (theorizing?) based upon denied ignorance. Your humble agnostix Denied ignorance is very bad, but what about the accepted ignorance? Then we can do all the theories we want, without ever taking ourselves too much seriously. If we use ignorance to forbid the theorizing then we will certainly learn nothing. Bruno On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 5:47 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 13 March 2015 at 10:39, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know. JM PS did I promise to solve the problems? Telling one's opinion is a free right, even w/o being obliged to redress things. I fought against reductionists and faithfuls, now I simply speak my mind. J. That's OK, of course. My problem is that I couldn't understand what you were trying to say, so you didn't actually even manage to tell your opinion. It just looked like random sniping with no actual meaning. (Maybe it was?) Anyway, my original point still stands. Consciousness may confer some evolutionary advantage. (e.g. a sense of self may mean an organism responds to threats and so on with greater enthusiasm that it would if
Re: The world's most environmentally friendly car
On 16 Mar 2015, at 00:34, LizR wrote: Well of course laughing AT people you dislike is a classic bullying technique. And then you say oh come on it was only a joke! Yet bullies never make jokes about themselves, because they are often humourless sociopaths. Dunno if this is on topic but I thought I'd mention it anyway, just in case. May be the joke was a bit too gross. We can laugh at the little misery of the others, and we can laugh at the big misery on ourselves, but we cannot laugh at the big misery of the others. The line is fuzzy, and partly cultural, that is why there is something like diplomacy. Bruno -- 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/d/optout. 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/d/optout.
Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness
On 16 Mar 2015, at 08:21, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 4:27 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 13 Mar 2015, at 17:57, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 13 Mar 2015, at 08:19, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 1:25 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/12/2015 1:21 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Not me. I'm the opposite, I was always confused by the idea that rocks are not conscious. If you ever have an operation, I suggest you check to see that your anesthesiologist is not confused. There's maybe a difference between being a conscious entity and being conscious of something. Does not consciousness entails the consciousness of at least one thing? Even before speculating about an entity (the future little ego) consciousness seems reflexive to me, before verbalizing. It is the fixed point of the doubt. If we try to doubt everything, we find the indubitable but non justifiable knowledge of one thing. My intuitive impression (from some attempts at meditating, for example) is that consciousness can exist in a completely self- referential state. But I am not certain of this at all. I think this is inline with what you say above, and with cogito ergo sum. That might be. Thomas Slezak, and myself, like to interpret Descartes in arithmetic, so that a doubt of p, is defined by ~p, and thus ~[]p, and the fixed point is the famous Gödel sentence g, which is such that PA proves (rationally believes) g ~[]g, which should be then, as far as PA trust herself and her correctness, true and non believable/justifiable. But to get the knowledge itself, which results from that, you need the knower variant= [1]p = []p p. That one has [1]p - p, and just can't doubt everything: he is the one living the fixed point of the doubt. What does [1]p mean? Is it a reference to first person? [1]p is defined by []p p. It is the modal connector you get when you apply Theaetetus idea to Gödel beweisbar predicate, which describes the 3p-self of the machine, its body representation, with possible higher level features, like I have legs, or I am in Helsinki. The logic of [1] is the one axiomatized by the logic S4Grz, and S4Grz1 (when p is limited to the sigma_1 proposition, which translate the UD in arithmetic. We know (or strongly believe) that PA is correct, and Gödel-Löbian, so we know that for all p, []p - [1]p. And indeed: G* proves []p - ([]p p), that is []p - []p p. But PA does not know that, nor can she believe that. G does not prove, for all p, that []p - ([]p p). There is no knowledge ([1]), nor belief ([]p) that I am that machine []p. Only God knows your substitution level, where []p []p p equate. I think that meditation tries to diminish the dominance of the []p, and meditation favor the p, in the []p p part of the knower. I still don't fully grasp the []p p thing. My naive interpretation would be that meditation favours []p, given that it sometimes generates a feeling of identification with the totality of things. You are right. Meditation leads you on the totality, that is the truth. We can say p is true in arithmetic, so we say p instead, which means p is true, when asserted as p by the machine. On the contrary, []p is beweisbar p, it represents a description of the machinery in the language understandable by the machinery. It is representational. It is, or might be the same truth of the same p, but seen through to window of some 3-self/body/code/number/finite-thing. p is associated with the truth, which might be more than what we, earthly finite creature, can rationally believe ([]p). It is the p in []p p, which makes machine's knowledge not definable in term of number and machine. S4Grz formalizable at a level, what the machine cannot formalize about herself (but can bet on, ...). Thanks to incompleteness, the Theaetetus' definition makes sense, and distinguish the knower from the rational believer for the machine. Don't hesitate to ask precision. I am very literal here: the knower is defined by the true believer. It is a modest definition of knowledge, and it is not similar with I know for sure that, which needs some amount of consistency (like t, or t, or t, etc.). [0]p = []p, and obeys to G, and fully described by G* (at the propositional level). [1]p = []p p, and obeys to S4Grz, [2]p = []p t obeys and define the logic Z [3]p = []p t p Mathematically, you interpret the p by arithmetical proposition, []p by beweisbar(p), an arithmetical predicate provable(x), with x the proposition represented in the things the machine understand (here the numbers, that is, the Gödel numbers of the sentence expressing the proposition. The book by Smullyan Forever Undecided introduces the logic G. Note that G* is representable in G. I don't insist because
Price promotion for Amoeba's secret
Just a heads up that I'm running a price promotion on the US Amazon Kindle store for Bruno Marchal's Amoeba's Secret on Kindle starting on the 18th March US time (so basically the 19th for the rest of us), finishing on the 25th. So if you get in quick, you can snaffle a copy for 99 cents on the first day. Every day, the price is increased by $1 until the price is back up to its normal price of $7.99. I'm curious to see if this sparks any interest in the book... Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Humans Hold Anti-AI, Anti-Robot Protest in Texas
Ned Ludd didn't fund Hyperloop, but Musk is. The anti-robot thing is a put on by the funders of the convention to cause media attention and it worked. -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, Mar 16, 2015 4:46 pm Subject: Re: Humans Hold Anti-AI, Anti-Robot Protest in Texas Elon Musk and Ned Ludd sound oddly similar. On 17 March 2015 at 05:49, Telmo Menezeste...@telmomenezes.com wrote: http://en.yibada.com/articles/19837/20150316/humans-hold-anti-ai-robot-protest-sxsw-texas.htm I wonder how long before AIs hold an anti-human protest. Cheers Telmo. -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness
On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: you've exaggerated the example to create a straw man. Watson has some local database, he doesn't access the web for everything; so my analogy is correct. How is that a straw man?? The Jeopardy champagne Watson could't access the web for *ANYTHING*. All Watson had was his memory, take away that and Watson would be as clueless as a college professor who had totally lost his memory. Bruno would say he's less competent, but more intelligent, but you seem to identify competence and intelligence. If a person behaves is a certain way then he's intelligent, but if a robot behaves in the EXACT SAME WAY then he's just competent. And that my friend is 100% triple distilled extra virgin Bullshit. John K Clark -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Price promotion for Amoeba's secret
Its here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRLEKPA I notice it currently advertised at $6.83. I don't understand how Amazon works - unless this is the usual US practice of advertising a price without sales tax, only to find that the real price is more like the $7.99 it is supposed to be. Cheers On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 12:29:39PM +1300, LizR wrote: I already have one of course, but if you can give me a link to the relevant web page I'll let anyone I think might be interested know about it. On 17 March 2015 at 12:34, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au wrote: Just a heads up that I'm running a price promotion on the US Amazon Kindle store for Bruno Marchal's Amoeba's Secret on Kindle starting on the 18th March US time (so basically the 19th for the rest of us), finishing on the 25th. So if you get in quick, you can snaffle a copy for 99 cents on the first day. Every day, the price is increased by $1 until the price is back up to its normal price of $7.99. I'm curious to see if this sparks any interest in the book... Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Humans Hold Anti-AI, Anti-Robot Protest in Texas
OK, if you say so. I only skimmed the article. Also, I have no idea what hyperloop is. On 17 March 2015 at 10:12, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Ned Ludd didn't fund Hyperloop, but Musk is. The anti-robot thing is a put on by the funders of the convention to cause media attention and it worked. -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, Mar 16, 2015 4:46 pm Subject: Re: Humans Hold Anti-AI, Anti-Robot Protest in Texas Elon Musk and Ned Ludd sound oddly similar. On 17 March 2015 at 05:49, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: http://en.yibada.com/articles/19837/20150316/humans-hold-anti-ai-robot-protest-sxsw-texas.htm I wonder how long before AIs hold an anti-human protest. Cheers Telmo. -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Price promotion for Amoeba's secret
I think the sales tax depend on which state you live in... as Amazon cannot know it in advance, the price is without tax... Regards 2015-03-17 0:52 GMT+01:00 Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au: Its here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRLEKPA I notice it currently advertised at $6.83. I don't understand how Amazon works - unless this is the usual US practice of advertising a price without sales tax, only to find that the real price is more like the $7.99 it is supposed to be. Cheers On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 12:29:39PM +1300, LizR wrote: I already have one of course, but if you can give me a link to the relevant web page I'll let anyone I think might be interested know about it. On 17 March 2015 at 12:34, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au wrote: Just a heads up that I'm running a price promotion on the US Amazon Kindle store for Bruno Marchal's Amoeba's Secret on Kindle starting on the 18th March US time (so basically the 19th for the rest of us), finishing on the 25th. So if you get in quick, you can snaffle a copy for 99 cents on the first day. Every day, the price is increased by $1 until the price is back up to its normal price of $7.99. I'm curious to see if this sparks any interest in the book... Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness
On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 4:27 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 13 Mar 2015, at 17:57, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 13 Mar 2015, at 08:19, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 1:25 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/12/2015 1:21 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Not me. I'm the opposite, I was always confused by the idea that rocks are not conscious. If you ever have an operation, I suggest you check to see that your anesthesiologist is not confused. There's maybe a difference between being a conscious entity and being conscious of something. Does not consciousness entails the consciousness of at least one thing? Even before speculating about an entity (the future little ego) consciousness seems reflexive to me, before verbalizing. It is the fixed point of the doubt. If we try to doubt everything, we find the indubitable but non justifiable knowledge of one thing. My intuitive impression (from some attempts at meditating, for example) is that consciousness can exist in a completely self-referential state. But I am not certain of this at all. I think this is inline with what you say above, and with cogito ergo sum. That might be. Thomas Slezak, and myself, like to interpret Descartes in arithmetic, so that a doubt of p, is defined by ~p, and thus ~[]p, and the fixed point is the famous Gödel sentence g, which is such that PA proves (rationally believes) g ~[]g, which should be then, as far as PA trust herself and her correctness, true and non believable/justifiable. But to get the knowledge itself, which results from that, you need the knower variant= [1]p = []p p. That one has [1]p - p, and just can't doubt everything: he is the one living the fixed point of the doubt. What does [1]p mean? Is it a reference to first person? I think that meditation tries to diminish the dominance of the []p, and meditation favor the p, in the []p p part of the knower. I still don't fully grasp the []p p thing. My naive interpretation would be that meditation favours []p, given that it sometimes generates a feeling of identification with the totality of things. It leads to the problem that consciousness becomes a feature of the arithmetical truth, only restricted by the little ego, owner of the body and representations. We might need that God (Truth) is a knower itself, and thus a sort of person, because only God would be conscious. The word God still makes me cringe, but this is mostly because of organized religion. I plan on reading Plotinus soon and see if I change my mind. But I think I understand and agree with what you're saying, otherwise. I think. You might say it is not a consciousness *of* something. I might have missed a nuance. I will clarify what I meant in a reply to Brent, to keep the discussion linear. Oops, sorry for bringing some non linearity, but that's because the black hole in my basement is active again ... The nice thing is that I just need to read your post to Brent to get the clarification, and see if it matches the universal machine's explanation. Bruno Bruno Telmo. Bruno Telmo. 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout. 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/d/optout. -- 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
Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness
On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 9:11 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/15/2015 7:10 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:00 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/13/2015 10:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: or under anesthesia I'm not conscious You can't prove that. That's an assumption. That's logic chopping. There's a big gap between proven and assumed. In fact all of science works in that gap. It's called knowledge and it is provided by evidence, not logic and not assumption. I agree, prove was a horrible choice of words. What I meant to say is that you can't test for consciousness. You can test for things that you assume to be sufficient and necessary conditions for consciousness, but you can't test this assumption itself. Carl Sagan talks about the dragon in the garage. I feel that consciousness is unlike any other phenomena, because it is the dragon in the garage that we *know* is there. Is that really so different from all the other things we know? I could be a brain-in-a-vat, my impression I'm typing on a keyboard could be a hallucination, are there *really* other people, perhaps this is a dream, am I really just imagining the world and other people? I think it is different, because all the scenarios you describe are irrelevant to most scientific theories. Classical physics is an excellent model to predict observations in the meso world where we live. I can use it to predict the path of of projectile, because it describes regularities in the mechanics of our reality. It was conceived before any modern knowledge of subatomic particles, relativity and so on. The substrate doesn't matter, until you go to extreme cases. It's still good science, I think we can agree. The same holds for all the scientific knowledge that then allows us to predict how our world will behave, that allows us to build stuff that we desire and so on. It doesn't matter if I'm a brain-in-a-vat or an inhabitant of the Matrix. We used empiricism to discover regularities in whatever this environment is. But consciousness is different. Consider Watson. Is it conscious? We have absolutely no way of knowing, and our intuitions about neural activity, hormone levels, blood pressure and so on do not help us there. For one reason or another we easily dismiss all these defeaters of knowledge, but when it comes to consciousness it's suddenly different and we get radical agnosticism - even though consciousness is by definition knowledge (of something). With all other knowledge we know who the knower is. With consciousness, the model becomes self-referential. Telmo. 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness
On 3/16/2015 12:33 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 9:11 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/15/2015 7:10 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:00 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/13/2015 10:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: or under anesthesia I'm not conscious You can't prove that. That's an assumption. That's logic chopping. There's a big gap between proven and assumed. In fact all of science works in that gap. It's called knowledge and it is provided by evidence, not logic and not assumption. I agree, prove was a horrible choice of words. What I meant to say is that you can't test for consciousness. You can test for things that you assume to be sufficient and necessary conditions for consciousness, but you can't test this assumption itself. Carl Sagan talks about the dragon in the garage. I feel that consciousness is unlike any other phenomena, because it is the dragon in the garage that we *know* is there. Is that really so different from all the other things we know? I could be a brain-in-a-vat, my impression I'm typing on a keyboard could be a hallucination, are there *really* other people, perhaps this is a dream, am I really just imagining the world and other people? I think it is different, because all the scenarios you describe are irrelevant to most scientific theories. Classical physics is an excellent model to predict observations in the meso world where we live. I can use it to predict the path of of projectile, because it describes regularities in the mechanics of our reality. It was conceived before any modern knowledge of subatomic particles, relativity and so on. The substrate doesn't matter, until you go to extreme cases. It's still good science, I think we can agree. The same holds for all the scientific knowledge that then allows us to predict how our world will behave, that allows us to build stuff that we desire and so on. It doesn't matter if I'm a brain-in-a-vat or an inhabitant of the Matrix. We used empiricism to discover regularities in whatever this environment is. But consciousness is different. Consider Watson. Is it conscious? We have absolutely no way of knowing, and our intuitions about neural activity, hormone levels, blood pressure and so on do not help us there. I agree those are weak evidence. But when we understand the brain better at the level of information processing, we will have a model which can be compared to how Watson thinks. We will be able to compare AIs to brains in terms of how they implement imagination, decision making, emotion, self-reference, memory, learning, etc. Will we *know* whether they are conscious? No. But we won't find that an interesting question. It will be like philosophizing about whether viruses are alive. Instead cognitive engineers will discuss whether more or less randomness will improve the learning rate, whether the love//hate module needs stabilizing, whether recursive levels of abstraction should be allowed,... For one reason or another we easily dismiss all these defeaters of knowledge, but when it comes to consciousness it's suddenly different and we get radical agnosticism - even though consciousness is by definition knowledge (of something). With all other knowledge we know who the knower is. With consciousness, the model becomes self-referential. I know who the knower is when I know I'm conscious, just the same as I know who the knower is when I know I type this sentence. Both are equally transparent - and equally mysterious. Self-reference isn't a problem. Mars Rovers have self-reference. They know where they are, what their temperature is, how charged their batteries are, when they can next talk to Earth,... I think self-reference and self-awareness are used as mystifiers: Only humans can see the truth of Godel sentences. But one can't see the truth of one's own Godel sentence. I can be aware of myself, and I can be aware of being aware of myself. But I just fooling myself with words if I think I can be aware of being aware of being aware of myself. 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/d/optout.
Re: The world's most environmentally friendly car
On 3/16/2015 3:47 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 12:34 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Well of course laughing AT people you dislike is a classic bullying technique. And then you say oh come on it was only a joke! Yet bullies never make jokes about themselves, because they are often humourless sociopaths. I agree. I think people understand intuitively that making fun of someone that is at a disadvantage in relation to you is just mean and distasteful. It is sociopathic to find that sort of thing funny. It's very common with teenagers, and I think that part of the reason is fear: if you don't join in on the bullying, you could become the victim yourself. Unfortunately, some people never develop past that stage. I don't think that this joke is mean in any sense. On the contrary, I think that environmentalists that can't laugh about it a bit should be worried that they are becoming too religious. But to be funny, and not bullying, the joke needs to be on the privileged and powerful. That's why it works. Prius buyers are relatively well off. If it were counseling suicide for poor Indians in Mumbai slums as a solution to overpopulation it wouldn't be funny. Brent I even think that great jokes can be made about the senseless destruction of everything we hold dear. People who don't believe me should read The Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy. Telmo. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: Galen Strawson: Consciousness myth
Am 16.03.2015 um 17:13 schrieb Bruno Marchal: On 15 Mar 2015, at 20:37, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1523413.ece An interesting paper that reviews the history on consciousness in philosophy in order to display that Twenty years ago, however, an instant myth was born: a myth about a dramatic resurgence of interest in the topic of consciousness in philosophy, in the mid-1990s, after long neglect. I am not sure that it was a myth. I have wittnessed it, as the subject of consciousness was an ultra-taboo subject, even for most psychologist. Scientist were, more or less consciously, influence by positivisme. There are just been an understanding that positivism and instrumentalistm where incoherent. If to speak about psychology or neuroscience, then you are write. But this is a myth when we speak about philosophy. A quote is below. In the case of psychology the story of resurgence has some truth. There are doubts about its timing. The distinguished psychologist of memory Endel Tulving places it in the 1980s. “Consciousness has recently again been declared to be the central problem of psychology”, he wrote in 1985, citing a number of other authors. The great dam of behaviouristic psychology was cracking and spouting. It was bursting. Even so, there was a further wave of liberation in psychology in the 1990s. Discussion of consciousness regained full respectability after seventy years of marginalization, although there were of course (and still are) a few holdouts. In the case of philosophy, however, the story of resurgence is simply a myth. There was a small but fashionable group of philosophers of mind who in the 1970s and 80s focused particularly on questions about belief and “intentionality”, and had relatively little to say about consciousness. Their intensely parochial outlook may be one of the origins of the myth. But the problem of consciousness, the “hard problem”, remained central throughout those years. It never shifted from the heart of the discipline taken as a whole. Evgeny -- 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/d/optout.
Re: The world's most environmentally friendly car
On Monday, March 16, 2015 at 6:03:37 PM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Mar 2015, at 00:34, LizR wrote: Well of course laughing AT people you dislike is a classic bullying technique. And then you say oh come on it was only a joke! Yet bullies never make jokes about themselves, because they are often humourless sociopaths. Dunno if this is on topic but I thought I'd mention it anyway, just in case. May be the joke was a bit too gross. We can laugh at the little misery of the others, and we can laugh at the big misery on ourselves, but we cannot laugh at the big misery of the others. The line is fuzzy, and partly cultural, that is why there is something like diplomacy. That *is* funny because now, Bruno has to justify why for example any grey diplomat/politician, say Angela Merkel is among the funniest comedians on the planet... Her degree is in Physical Chemistry (surprise aristotelian attack!) I think, which may explain some of her success in current political climate. Also, she is conservative and the conservatives find her too green/social while for the greens and socialists, she is not green/socialist enough. And she doesn't hate gays but doesn't help them either. But funny? She's prohibitionist as long as it is popular to do that, so I'm not so sure as Bruno maybe had too many induction axioms for breakfast. PGC -- 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/d/optout.
