date:20150526



On 25 May 2015, at 23:59, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/25/2015 9:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 25 May 2015, at 03:27, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/24/2015 5:05 AM, Pierz wrote:



On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 4:02:42 PM UTC+10, Brent wrote:
On 5/23/2015 9:58 PM, Pierz wrote:



On Saturday, May 23, 2015 at 8:36:40 PM UTC+10, Liz R wrote:
I'm not sure why comp would predict that physical laws are  
invariant for all observers. I can see that it would lead to a  
sort of super-anthropic-selection effect, but surely all  
possible observers should exist somewhere in arithmetic,  
including ones who observe different physics (that is compatible  
with their existence) ?


I really must dig up the old thread! But I'm not saying comp  
does entail invariant physics for all observers, just that if  
there are different physics, the substitution level must be very  
low indeed. Think of the original scenario in the UDA: a person  
in Washington is suddenly annihilated, and then duplicated in  
Helsinki and Moscow (or whatever). That operation creates a 50%  
probability of finding oneself in Helsinki or Moscow. But the  
ultimate point of the UDA is that one's actual probability of  
finding oneself in Helsinki or Washington depends on the total  
measure of all virtual environments within which that observer  
is instantiated in an environment that looks like one of those  
cities. One can't  isolate a particular  
virtual system from the trace of the UD. So you can't create an  
arbitrary physics in an environment that looks like either city  
(or anywhere). Well you can, but any observer will always find  
their own physics to be the measure of *all* their continuations  
in arithmetic. So there can't be an environment that is like  
Helsinki or Moscow at some point but that has different physical  
laws. Carry this logic over to the scenario of a person standing  
in an empty room - the physics the person experiences will be  
the measure of all such identical persons standing in empty rooms.


Experiencing physics I think needs some explication.  If  
experiencing only refers to consciously thinking propositions,  
then one may not be experiencing much physics: the world seems 3D  
with colors, there's a mild temperature, air  
smellsOK,...  One doesn't directly,  
consciously experience the 2nd law, or the Born rule.  The laws  
of physics are human inventions to describe and predict events.   
They're not out there in Nature; which is why we have to revise  
them from time to time as we find more comprehensive, more  
accurate laws.


OK, but it doesn't seem relevant to the argument. We experience a  
world predictable and stable in certain ways that, now we're so  
sophisticated, we formalise into the science of physics. Bruno's  
claim is that these regularities are not intrinsic properties of  
some primary stuff, but emergent from the computational  
properties of observers - namely how often various continuations  
of those observers crop up relatively to one another in the  
abstract space of all possible continuations. I'm trying to make  
an admittedly difficult point about whether or not observers in  
different places can experience different physics within this  
paradigm, and if so, how that relates to substitution level. If  
you're worried about people experiencing physics let's just  
concentrate on observers who go to the trouble of doing physics  
experiments. It really doesn't matter.


My point was that most people's conscious experience most of the  
time could be accommodated within a large range of physics.  For  
example Newtonian physics seems intuitive while quantum mechanics  
isn't; but we think QM is the better theory.  But Bruno claims  
that his theory implies QM and not Newtonian mechanics. So if  
people consciously experienced aNewtonian universe  
(which they once thought they did) would that falsify comp or  
would it just imply that the UD can instantiate Newtonian universes.


Which it can't. So, a Newtonian universe would have refute comp,  
and indeed even locality as the Newtonian universe is not local.  
But of course, a computationalist could say, that the newtonian  
character is illusory, and that by looking closer we will  
discover ... something like QM.


So you are claiming that it would be impossible to have a conscious  
being that experienced a Newtonian universe - that this would  
produce a logical contradiction?


With comp, yes. Precisely, it would refute comp or indicate that you  
belong to a simulation or a video game, build in the normal (quantum- 
like) reality. Yes, that is all the UDA point.


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Galen Strawson: Consciousness myth



On 16 Mar 2015, at 19:40, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


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.


It depends of the university. In mine, philosophy of mind *is* still  
forbidden, or very badly seen, to the philosophers (in the french  
part, unlike the flemish part, actually). It has always been like  
that. They try to change this, and there are some tiny progress, but  
it concerns more the psychologists than the philosophers.




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.



Among philosophers of mind, where it can be done.

Bruno







Evgeny

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Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level



On 26 May 2015, at 00:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/25/2015 9:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 May 2015, at 11:12, LizR wrote:

The stability of natural laws is also the simplest situation, I  
think? (Isn't there something in Russell's TON about this?)  
Natural laws remain stable due to symmetry principles, which are  
simpler than anything asymmetric (although physics contains some  
asymmetries, of course, like matter vs antimatter).


But simplicity is not by itself something which will multiply you  
enough. Simplicity is not enough. Then RA can be said to be simple  
but is of course quite non symmetrical. (We could take more  
symmetrical ontology, but again, I prefer to start from something  
not related to physics).






I'm not sure about this person in an empty room - surely they  
experience all sorts of phenomena that can ultimately be traced to  
the laws of physics? An obvious one is the pull of gravity (or  
lack thereof).


But I have to admit I can't see how one gets from the UDA to  
physics. The notion that physics falls out of all the  
computations passing through a specific observer moment seems  
approximately as difficult to explain as how physics operates if  
one assumes primary materialism - but of course physics based on  
primary materialism comes with the benefit that for 100s of years,  
people have believed the ontology to be correct, and they have  
slowly built up a body of knowledge on that basis. Hence comp  
finds itself doubly disadvantaged in that no one has worked out  
how it might work in practice, and also in that most people react  
with an argument from incredulity because they've been taught  
that physics is based on primary materialism.


The point is that primary materialism, to operate, as to  
introduce a brain-mind 3p-1p identity thesis which is not  
sustainable when we assume comp.


Then the difference is almost between the difference between ONE  
computation does this, and an infinity of computations of measure  
one does this.


Except that when we do the math, we inherit the intensional  
variants of the G*/G distinction between truth and rational  
justififiability, which enrich the psycho and theo - logical part  
of the picture, usually ignored or denied.







This is a bit like the situation with cars that run on something  
other than petrol, or subcritical nuclear reactors. No one has put  
in a century of research to work out how (say) alcohol driven cars  
might work, or 50 years of research on how thorium reactors might  
work. Or 300 years of thinking on how reality might be derived  
from computations.



Well the first three hundred cars run on hemp, and were made of  
hemp, and people already asked at that time why using non renewable  
resource when renewable one where disposable?


?? I don't think Karl Benz made any part of the first car from hemp  
and he ran it on alcohol and benzene.


Henry Ford, as an experiment, made car with a body of plastic from  
soy beans, but not hemp.


References? This contradicts all my own information sources.

Bruno





Brent

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Re: What does the MGA accomplish?



On 26 May 2015, at 02:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:


Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 25 May 2015, at 08:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Part of my problem is that the UD does not execute any actual  
program sequentially: after each step in a program it executes the  
next step of the next program and so on, until it reaches the  
first step of some program, at which point it loops back to the  
start.
The UD does  execute sequentially *each* specific program, but the  
UD adds delays, due to its dovetailing duties, which we already  
know (step 2) that it does not change the first person experience  
of the entiuty supported by that execution.
So if the conscious moment is evinced by a logical sequence of  
steps by the dovetailer, it does not correspond to any particular  
program, but a rather arbitrary assortment of steps from many  
programs.

?
Each execution of the programs is well individuated in the UD*. You  
can descrbied them by sequences

phi_i^k(j) k = 0, 1, 2, ...(with i and j fixed).


But each step of the dovetailer is just a single application of the  
axioms of the Turing machine in question: one of the

  Kxy  gives x,
  Sxyz gives xz(yz),
for example. These single steps are all that there is in the  
dovetailer. But such steps lack a context -- they make no sense on  
their own. You could simply claim that the two basic steps are all  
that is needed -- consciousness self-assembles by taking as many of  
these in whatever order is needed.


?

The context will be given by the combinators. To dovetail universally  
with the combinators, you need to generate them all: K, S, KK, KS, SK,  
SS, KKK, K(KK), KKS, K(KS), ...


If comp is true, the combinators running your current brain states  
will be executed, and probably with some rich context in most of them  
(if not, and can prove it, comp is refuted).




If the next step of program phi_i is some 10^50 or so dovetailer  
steps away, the only thing that could possibly link these is the  
program phi_i itself -- the actual execution of the steps is  
entirely secondary. In which case, one would say that consciousness  
resides in the program phi_i itself - execution on the dovetailer is  
not required. I do not think you would want to go down this path, so  
you need something to give each step a context, something to link  
the separate steps that are required for consciousness.


Consciousness is associated to the execution, not to the programs.  
That would not make sense, even if the existence of the program  
entails the existence of its execution in arithmetic. The relative  
probabilities depends on the execution and the mathematical structure  
which exists on the set of continuations (structured by the first,  
third, ... points of view).





The teleportation arguments of Steps 1-7 are insufficient for this,  
since in that argument you are teleporting complete conscious  
entities, not just single steps of the underlying program.


?






Of course, given that all programs are executed, this sequence of  
steps does correspond to some program, somewhere, but not  
necessarily any of the ones partially executed for generating that  
conscious moment.

Yes. So what?


I was trying to give you a way out of the problems that I have  
raised above. If you don't see that the sequential steps of the  
actual dovetailer program give the required connectivity, then what  
does?


?
I do see that the sequential steps of the *many* computations give the  
required statistical connectivity.



You did, some time ago, claim that the dovetailer steps gave an  
effective time parameter for the  system.


An infinity of them.



But even that requires a contextual link between the steps --


The UD brought them all.


something that would be given by the underlying stepping -- which is  
not the stepping of each individual program phi_i.


It depends at which level you describe the happenings. The FPI makes  
your subjective future statistically defined on all the UD*, by the  
first person non awareness of the underlying stepping of the UD itself.


Bruno





Bruce

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Re: The Weakness of Panpsychism?



On 16 Mar 2015, at 23:33, LizR wrote:


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?



That gives example of representations. To use this as a definition of  
numbers you will need to be circular: you will have to say something  
like: 0 is a number, s(0) is a number,  s(s(s( (0)))...) is a  
number ... if s is repeated a *finite number of time*. There are  
other ways, but they use implicitly the notion of finite number, or  
more complex notions, like the notion of arbitrary set.
It can be proved that we cannot axiomatize the notion of finite things  
in pure first-order logical theory. Second order logic somehow accepts  
the intuition of finite, and build the rest from that. But then the  
proofs are no more checkable, and we are no more in the formal frame.  
It is math, no more logic.


Bruno

PS discover the post of the 16 mars today (!)





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: What do you need to create a universe?



On 25 May 2015, at 20:44, Frederik Goplen wrote:

Suppose I wanted to create a new universe in my lab. What would I  
need to get started?


The question may seem absurd. After all, the universe is enormous.  
It is billions of years old and, as far as we know, it contains all  
that ever existed and ever will exist.


Still it appears that all this—including space, time, energy and  
matter—came into being with the Big Bang. If so, everything we know  
was created out of nothing. Or was it really?


If it is possible to create a universe from nothing—except perhaps  
from some rules like in a computer program—what is to stop us from  
doing exactly that some time in the future?


You will make a local non quantum universe. but you can decide to run  
all programs. This will not create a universe, but will give the  
appearance of universe to the average creature. Of course, you,  
outside that program, will not see it, despite you are already in it,  
in the statistical way.


There is no universe, if we are machine. It is only a stable and  
persistent illusion (assuming mechanism).


Bruno







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Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia



On 25 May 2015, at 22:49, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/25/2015 5:16 AM, Pierz wrote:



On Monday, May 25, 2015 at 4:58:53 AM UTC+10, Brent wrote:
On 5/24/2015 4:09 AM, Pierz wrote:



On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 4:47:12 PM UTC+10, Jason wrote:


On Sun, May 24, 2015 at 12:40 AM, Pierz pie...@gmail.com wrote:


On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 1:07:15 AM UTC+10, Jason wrote:


On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


On 19 May 2015, at 15:53, Jason Resch wrote:




On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou  
stat...@gmail.com wrote:

On 19 May 2015 at 14:45, Jason Resch jason...@gmail.com wrote:


 On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou  
stat...@gmail.com

 wrote:


 On 19 May 2015 at 11:02, Jason Resch jason...@gmail.com wrote:

  I think you're not taking into account the level of the  
functional
  substitution. Of course functionally equivalent silicon and  
functionally
  equivalent neurons can (under functionalism) both  
instantiate the same
  consciousness. But a calculator computing 2+3 cannot  
substitute for a

  human
  brain computing 2+3 and produce the same consciousness.

 In a gradual replacement the substitution must obviously be at  
a level
 sufficient to maintain the function of the whole brain.  
Sticking a

 calculator in it won't work.

  Do you think a Blockhead that was functionally equivalent  
to you (it

  could
  fool all your friends and family in a Turing test scenario  
into thinking

  it
  was intact you) would be conscious in the same way as you?

 Not necessarily, just as an actor may not be conscious in the  
same way
 as me. But I suspect the Blockhead would be conscious; the  
intuition
 that a lookup table can't be conscious is like the intuition  
that an

 electric circuit can't be conscious.


 I don't see an equivalency between those intuitions. A lookup  
table has a
 bounded and very low degree of computational complexity: all  
answers to all

 queries are answered in constant time.

 While the table itself may have an arbitrarily high information  
content,

 what in the software of the lookup table program is there to
 appreciate/understand/know that information?

Understanding emerges from the fact that the lookup table is  
immensely

large. It could be wrong, but I don't think it is obviously less
plausible than understanding emerging from a Turing machine made of
tin cans.



The lookup table is intelligent or at least offers the appearance  
of intelligence, but it makes the maximum possible advantage of  
the space-time trade off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space– 
time_tradeoff


The tin-can Turing machine is unbounded in its potential  
computational complexity, there's no reason to be a bio- or  
silico-chauvinist against it. However, by definition, a lookup  
table has near zero computational complexity, no retained state.


But it is counterfactually correct on a large range spectrum. Of  
course, it has to be infinite to be genuinely counterfactual- 
correct.



But the structure of the counterfactuals is identical regardless  
of the inputs and outputs in its lookup table. If you replaced all  
of its outputs with random strings, would that change its  
consciousness? What if there existed a special decoding book,  
which was a one-time-pad that could decode its random answers?  
Would the existence of this book make it more conscious than if  
this book did not exist? If there is zero information content in  
the outputs returned by the lookup table it might as well return  
all X characters as its response to any query, but then would  
any program that just returns a string of X's be conscious?


I really like this argument, even though I once came up with a  
(bad) attempt to refute it. I wish it received more attention  
because it does cast quite a penetrating light on the issue. What  
you're suggesting is effectively the cache pattern in computer  
programming, where we trade memory resources for computational  
resources. Instead of repeating a resource-intensive computation,  
we store the inputs and outputs for later regurgitation.


How is this different from a movie recording of brain activity  
(which most on the list seem to agree is not conscious)? The  
lookup table is just a really long recording, only we use the  
input to determine to which section of the recording to fast- 
forward/rewind to.


It isn't different to a recording. But here's the thing: when we  
ask if the lookup machine is conscious, we are kind of implicitly  
asking: is it having an experience *now*, while I ask the question  
and see a response. But what does such a question actually even  
mean? If a computation is underway in time when the machine  
responds, then I assume it is having a co-temporal experience. But  
the lookup machine idea forces us to the realization that  
different observers' subjective experiences (the pure qualia)  
can't be mapped to one another in objective time. The

Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia



On 26 May 2015, at 00:55, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/25/2015 11:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 May 2015, at 23:51, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/24/2015 11:28 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On Monday, May 25, 2015, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 5/24/2015 1:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Again, with comp, all incarnations are zombie, because bodies  
do not think. It is the abstract person which thinks


But a few thumps on the body and the abstract person won't  
think either.  So far as we have observered *only* bodies think.   
If comp implies the contrary isn't that so much the worse for comp.


In a virtual environment, destroying the body destroys the  
consciousness, but both are actually due to the underlying  
computations.


How can those thumped know it's virtual.  A virtual environment  
with virtual people doing virtual actions seems to make virtual  
virtually meaningless.


It is the difference between life and second life. Reality, and  
relative dreams.


That's the question, can such a difference be meaningful if the  
world is defined by conscious experience. In the examples you give,  
the virtual is distinguished because it is not a rich and complete  
and consistent as real life.


With computationalism (and its consequences) there is a real physical  
bottom, which is the same for all creature. In that sense, comp makes  
physics much more grounded in reality! All creature can test comp or  
simulation if they have enough time and external clues. If we decide  
to keep comp: it is the emulation part which is testable.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: What does the MGA accomplish?



On 26 May 2015, at 05:02, Bruce Kellett wrote:


meekerdb wrote:

On 5/25/2015 5:54 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 25 May 2015, at 08:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:

Part of my problem is that the UD does not execute any actual  
program sequentially: after each step in a program it executes  
the next step of the next program and so on, until it reaches  
the first step of some program, at which point it loops back to  
the start.


The UD does  execute sequentially *each* specific program, but  
the UD adds delays, due to its dovetailing duties, which we  
already know (step 2) that it does not change the first person  
experience of the entiuty supported by that execution.


So if the conscious moment is evinced by a logical sequence of  
steps by the dovetailer, it does not correspond to any  
particular program, but a rather arbitrary assortment of steps  
from many programs.


?
Each execution of the programs is well individuated in the UD*.  
You can descrbied them by sequences


phi_i^k(j) k = 0, 1, 2, ...(with i and j fixed).


But each step of the dovetailer is just a single application of  
the axioms of the Turing machine in question: one of the

  Kxy  gives x,
  Sxyz gives xz(yz),
for example. These single steps are all that there is in the  
dovetailer. But such steps lack a context -- they make no sense on  
their own. You could simply claim that the two basic steps are all  
that is needed -- consciousness self-assembles by taking as many  
of these in whatever order is needed.


If the next step of program phi_i is some 10^50 or so dovetailer  
steps away, the only thing that could possibly link these is the  
program phi_i itself -- the actual execution of the steps is  
entirely secondary. In which case, one would say that  
consciousness resides in the program phi_i itself - execution on  
the dovetailer is not required. I do not think you would want to  
go down this path, so you need something to give each step a  
context, something to link the separate steps that are required  
for consciousness.


The teleportation arguments of Steps 1-7 are insufficient for  
this, since in that argument you are teleporting complete  
conscious entities, not just single steps of the underlying program.


Of course, given that all programs are executed, this sequence  
of steps does correspond to some program, somewhere, but not  
necessarily any of the ones partially executed for generating  
that conscious moment.


Yes. So what?


I was trying to give you a way out of the problems that I have  
raised above. If you don't see that the sequential steps of the  
actual dovetailer program give the required connectivity, then  
what does? You did, some time ago, claim that the dovetailer steps  
gave an effective time parameter for the  system. But even that  
requires a contextual link between the steps -- something that  
would be given by the underlying stepping -- which is not the  
stepping of each individual program phi_i.
I think what it boils down to is that steps in phi_{i}, where {i}  
is a set indexing programs supporting a particular consciousness,  
must be linked by representing consciousness of the same thing, the  
same thought.  But I think that requires some outside reference  
whereby they can be about the same thing.  So it is not enough to  
just link the phi_{i} of the single consciousness, they must also  
be linked to an environment.  I think this part of what Pierz is  
saying.  He says the linkage cannot merge different physics, so  
effectively the thread of computations instantiating Bruce's  
consciousness imply the computation of a whole world (with physics)  
for Bruce's consciousness to exist in.


My original question here concerned the connectivity in Platonia for  
the computational steps of an individual consciousness. But I do  
agree that we have to go beyond this because consciousness is  
conscious of *something*, viz., an external world, so that has to be  
part of the computation -- so that when I hit you hard on the head,  
your self in Platonia loses consciousness. There is endless  
connectivity between the self and the world external to the self --  
and this covers all space and time, because my consciousness can be  
changed by a CMB photon. Hence my thinking that the whole universe  
(multiverse) may well have to be included in the same connected  
simulation in Platonia.


Bruno does not seem to have thought along these lines.


I am not sure why you say this. I very often mention that possibility.  
The point is only that whatever the case is, it has to be jusified  
from computer science/arithmetic.


Bruno





Bruce

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Stopping atomic motion (almost)

2015-05-26 Thread LizR

This is cool. Very cool.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/atomic-telescope-brings-atoms-to-standstill/

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Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level



On 25 May 2015, at 19:45, John Clark wrote:


On Sat, May 23, 2015 , Pierz pier...@gmail.com wrote:

 Bruno did acknowledge that his theory predicts that the laws of  
physics are invariant across space and time, because they are  
supposed to arise out of pure arithmetic


snip

Of that I have no opinion because nobody knows what comp means,  
least of all Bruno.


Ad hominem rhetorical lying trick.

Bruno




  John K Clark


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Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level



On 26 May 2015, at 06:37, LizR wrote:


On 26 May 2015 at 05:45, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
Of that I have no opinion because nobody knows what comp means,  
least of all Bruno.


Comp is the theory that consciousness is the product of Turing- 
emulable processes, i.e. that it's a computation.


That is the idea, but the way you say it can be misleading.  
Consciousness is a first person attribute, and you cannot write A = B,  
if A is first person and B is third person. So consciousness is not a  
computation. It is associates to computation, like you can associate  
the truth that 2+2=4 with the number of bottles of milk in the fridge.




The idea that we may one day create AIs is based on the same  
assumption.


Yes. Logically COMP implies STRONG AI, but the reverse is false  
(Machine can be conscious does not ential that only machine can be  
conscious, logically).




There are a couple of extra assumptions to do with certain  
mathematical ideas being correct (e.g. the Church-Turing thesis, I  
believe).


Yes. Although we could easily not use it, but then people comes with  
statement: what if we are not Turing machine, or combinators, or  
numbers, and we have to explain Church-Thesis anyway.





But I believe it's a fairly standard theory used by a lot of  
scientists - Hugh Everett III for example used it in his thesis.


He uses mechanism (arguably), but he does not refer to Church thesis  
nor anything in computer science. He uses just he idea that we store  
our memories in the manner of some automata.





For clarity I have called this comp1 and Bruno's results derived  
from it comp2, but unless someone can show a fault in the argument  
connecting them this is a purely nominal distinction.


Good :)

Bruno







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Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level



On 26 May 2015, at 06:59, Bruce Kellett wrote:


LizR wrote:
On 26 May 2015 at 05:45, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com 
 wrote:

   Of that I have no opinion because nobody knows what comp means,
   least of all Bruno. Comp is the theory that consciousness is the  
product of Turing-emulable processes, i.e. that it's a computation.


Actually, that strictly does not follow. All that follows is that a  
computer can emulate certain physical processes upon which  
consciousness supervenes.


In which theory?


This does not mean that consciousness is a computation, in Platonia  
or anywhere else. All that we know from the evidence is that  
consciousness supervenes on physical brains.


Assuming the primitive existence of the physical brain. But there is  
no evidence for that. It is a strong extrapolation, and it failed  
(since 1500 years) to account for the existence of consciousness. That  
is why the mind-body problem is not yet solved.


And what is nice with comp, is that not only computer science does  
offer a theory of mind and consciousness, but it explains conceptually  
the origin of the physical appearances from elementary arithmetic (and  
this in a testable way).


Bruno





Bruce


The idea that we may one day create AIs is based on the same  
assumption. There are a couple of extra assumptions to do with  
certain mathematical ideas being correct (e.g. the Church-Turing  
thesis, I believe). But I believe it's a fairly standard theory  
used by a lot of scientists - Hugh Everett III for example used it  
in his thesis.
For clarity I have called this comp1 and Bruno's results derived  
from it comp2, but unless someone can show a fault in the argument  
connecting them this is a purely nominal distinction.


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Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Quali



On 24 May 2015, at 21:06, David Nyman wrote:

Statements like this lead me to suspect that, when it comes down to  
it, you don't really make any essential distinction between the 3p  
and 1p senses of the term consciousness.




I have the same feeling. Often, I feel like some people are not aware,  
or just not interested in the mind-body problem.



ISTM that the latter sense is probably what you intend by  
fundamental.  Whereas consciousness in the former sense can  
perhaps be placed alongside intelligence in something like the  
manner you suggest, in the latter sense it surely cannot, except by  
ignoring the distinction in question. ISTM you conflate these two  
senses quite a lot. I can't really decide whether you're hedging  
your bets on this, or whether you really don't recognise any  
important difference. Care to elucidate?


To be fair, Brent seems aware of the problem ... in some post, and  
then no more in other posts. I agree that in this one, he was doing  
the typical under-the-rug move.


Also, we don't take consciousness as fundamental/primitive. We do take  
it as an important data that we cannot throw out if we want be serious  
on the everything theory search.
To say that consciousness is a language related add on intelligence is  
very misleading. If it means intelligence in the Bohm-Krishnamurti  
mystical sense, why not, but then the problem remains. If it is  
intelligence in the sense of competence, then it has nothing to so  
with intelligence.


I hope Brent will add on some precision. If consciousness was just a  
language add, anesthesia would not exist.


Bruno



David

On 24 May 2015 6:36 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 5/23/2015 11:47 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
There is a common programming technique called memoization.  
Essentially building automatic caches for functions within a  
program. I wonder: would adding memorization to the functions  
implementing an AI eventually result in it becoming a zombie  
recording rather than a program, if it were fed all the same inputs  
a second time?


Isn't that exactly what happens when you learn to ride a bicycle,  
hit a tennis ball, touch type,...  Stuff you had to think about when  
you were learning becomes automatic - and subconscious.


I suspect a lot of these conundrums arise from taking consciousness  
to be fundamental, rather than a language related add-on to  
intelligence.


Brent

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Re: Stopping atomic motion (almost)

My question, always, is what can we learn from this, how can we apply it? 
 

 

 

-Original Message-
From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, May 26, 2015 3:51 am
Subject: Stopping atomic motion (almost)


 
  
This is cool. Very cool.  
  
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/atomic-telescope-brings-atoms-to-standstill/
  
 
  
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Re: What do you need to create a universe?

Yeah, subtlety, is not a strength in emails for me, I am afraid. I brutal crack 
across the noggin works best on me. The black hole experimentation is for 
another generation, another century, much like lunar or martian exploration was 
left for latter days, from Verne and Wells pens to the world, during the 19th 
century.  
 

 

 

-Original Message-
From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, May 25, 2015 7:23 pm
Subject: Re: What do you need to create a universe?


 
I was speaking metaphorically.  
   
  
  
There are those who think a new universe may form inside a black hole, of 
course. (This isn't safe in the lab OR easy to communicate with, however.)  
 
 
  
  
On 26 May 2015 at 10:52, spudboy100 via Everything List
everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote:   
   
I would say a novel may help make a blueprint, a direction, a precis, but 
not a cosmos itself. Once upon a time..
 
 
  
  -Original Message-
 From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com
 To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
  
   
 Sent: Mon, May 25, 2015 6:44 pm
 Subject: Re: What do you need to create a universe?
 
 
  
 Writing a novel is one way.  
  
   
   
 On 26 May 2015 at 09:13, spudboy100 via Everything List
everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote:

 What about such universes or subregions,domains, that sadly, lack 
a conscious observer? What creates or sends the observer, perhaps a jobs 
agency? Observer needed to alter empty spacetime region. Must be experienced 
in science, history, and philosophy, and mathematics. Willing to take on a 
trainee.
 
 
  
   -Original Message-
 From: Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com
 To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com


 Sent: Mon, May 25, 2015 4:41 pm 
 Subject: Re: What do you need to create a universe? 
 
 
  
Run a computer simulation that contains a conscious observer and you
have
created reality. In another sense, however, all universes already
exist and so
you aren't creating anything, only forging a connection
to another universe
that's out there.

Jason

On 5/25/15, spudboy100 via Everything
List
everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote:
 Eric Steinhart believes like
Dawkins does that it is evolution. That the
 simplest starter universe, with
something like Conway's Life, can produce
 through a mathematical cascade
effect, newer and eventually more complex
 universes. I guess I am dumb enough
to look at a prime programmer analyst,
 coming up with an enormous program,
but that is me, not Steinhart or
 Dawkins. Other speculations suggested
slamming massive amounts of matter
 together, and the backlash would produce a
big bang. Others have suggested
 compressing a black hole (astronomical) and
viola, a b-b. Others still claim
 that if you can get a BH to spin fast
enough, or have exotic matter you can
 open up or deflower, a BH by widening
its' access valve, leaving universe to
 universe trade and
communication.



 -Original Message-
 From: Frederik Goplen
frederikgop...@gmail.com
 To: everything-list
everything-list@googlegroups.com
 Sent: Mon, May 25, 2015 3:35 pm

Subject: What do you need to create a universe?



 Suppose I wanted to
create a new universe in my lab. What would I need to
 get
started?



 The question may seem absurd. After all, the universe is
enormous. It is
 billions of years old and, as far as we know, it contains all
that ever
 existed and ever will exist.




 Still it appears that
all this—including space, time, energy and matter—came
 into being with the
Big Bang. If so, everything we know was created out of
 nothing. Or was it
really?




 If it is possible to create a universe from
nothing—except perhaps from some
 rules like in a computer program—what is to
stop us from doing exactly that
 some time in the future?





 
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Re: Stopping atomic motion (almost)


 You are proposing anyons, chilled to perfection, might be the seat of 
non-biological consciousness?

 

 

-Original Message-
From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, May 26, 2015 12:42 pm
Subject: Re: Stopping atomic motion (almost)


 
  
   
On Tue, May 26, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List 
everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote:   
   

   
   

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/atomic-telescope-brings-atoms-to-standstill/
   
   


  My question, always, is what can we learn from this, how can we apply 
it? 

 


The colder you make something the longer you can postpone quantum decoherence, 
and quantum decoherence is the major roadblock to building a quantum computer 
of a few hundred Qubits. If a machine like that could be built the world would 
change so dramatically that it would soon become unrecognisable. 

 


Besides extreme cooling another approach toward quantum computing is to use 
non-Abelian  Anyons, these are 2 dimensional quasiparticles that are far 
more resistant to quantum decoherence than electrons or photons or any other 
known particle. We don't know for certain that non-Abelian  Anyons exist 
but there is mounting evidence that they do. Microsoft of all people is 
pursuing this approach. 

 


  John K Clark

 


 
   
  
 
  
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Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level

2015-05-26 Thread John Clark

On Tue, May 26, 2015 , LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Comp is the theory that consciousness is the product of Turing-emulable
 processes


No that's computationalism, comp on the other hand is whatever Bruno says
it is, and that changes from day to day as circumstances demand.  I know
this because in nearly every post Bruno decrees that according to comp X
must be true or according to comp Y can not be true when computationalism
says nothing of the sort; so whatever comp is it's not just an
abbreviation for computationalism.


  i.e. that it's a computation. The idea that we may one day create AIs is
 based on the same assumption. There are a couple of extra assumptions to do
 with certain mathematical ideas being correct (e.g. the Church-Turing
 thesis, I believe).


The Church-Turing thesis says something about intelligence but not
consciousness, it says that any real world computation, like a intelligent
action, can be translated into a equivalent program on a Turing machine.


  But I believe it's a fairly standard theory used by a lot of scientists
 - Hugh Everett III for example used it in his thesis.


Everett had no need to say anything about consciousness because unlike most
quantum interpretations in Many World's conscious beings obey exactly the
same laws of physics as non conscious things, so Everett didn't have to
explain what a observation or an observer is. And that is its great
strength.

  John K Clark

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Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level

Isn't consciousness a form of intelligence? 

-Original Message-
From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, May 26, 2015 12:03 pm
Subject: Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution 
level

On Tue, May 26, 2015 , LizRlizj...@gmail.com wrote:   

 Comp is the theory that consciousness is the product of Turing-emulable 
 processes

No that's computationalism, comp on the other hand is whatever Bruno says it 
is, and that changes from day to day as circumstances demand.  I know this 
because in nearly every post Bruno decrees that according to comp X must be 
true or according to comp Y can not be true when computationalism says 
nothing of the sort; so whatever comp is it's not just an abbreviation for 
computationalism.

 i.e. that it's a computation. The idea that we may one day create AIs is 
 based on the same assumption. There are a couple of extra assumptions to do 
 with certain mathematical ideas being correct (e.g. the Church-Turing thesis, 
 I believe).

The Church-Turing thesis says something about intelligence but not 
consciousness, it says that any real world computation, like a intelligent 
action, can be translated into a equivalent program on a Turing machine.   

 But I believe it's a fairly standard theory used by a lot of scientists - 
 Hugh Everett III for example used it in his thesis.

Everett had no need to say anything about consciousness because unlike most 
quantum interpretations in Many World's conscious beings obey exactly the same 
laws of physics as non conscious things, so Everett didn't have to explain what 
a observation or an observer is. And that is its great strength. 

  John K Clark

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Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level

2015-05-26 Thread John Clark

On Tue, May 26, 2015  spudboy100 via Everything List 
everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote:

 Isn't consciousness a form of intelligence?


I don't think you can have intelligence without consciousness but I can't
prove it,  but if I'm wrong about that then Darwin was wrong about
Evolution, and I don't think Darwin was wrong.

 John K Clark

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Re: Stopping atomic motion (almost)

2015-05-26 Thread John Clark

On Tue, May 26, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List 
everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/atomic-telescope-brings-atoms-to-standstill/

 My question, always, is what can we learn from this, how can we apply it?


The colder you make something the longer you can postpone quantum
decoherence, and quantum decoherence is the major roadblock to building a
quantum computer of a few hundred Qubits. If a machine like that could be
built the world would change so dramatically that it would soon become
unrecognisable.

Besides extreme cooling another approach toward quantum computing is to
use non-Abelian Anyons, these are 2 dimensional quasiparticles that are far
more resistant to quantum decoherence than electrons or photons or any
other known particle. We don't know for certain that non-Abelian Anyons
exist but there is mounting evidence that they do. Microsoft of all people
is pursuing this approach.

  John K Clark

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Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level


On 5/26/2015 1:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So you are claiming that it would be impossible to have a conscious being that 
experienced a Newtonian universe - that this would produce a logical contradiction?


With comp, yes. Precisely, it would refute comp or indicate that you belong to a 
simulation or a video game, build in the normal (quantum-like) reality. Yes, that is all 
the UDA point.


So what is the argument from Newtonian physics to 1=0?

Brent

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Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia


On 5/26/2015 1:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 25 May 2015, at 22:49, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/25/2015 5:16 AM, Pierz wrote:



On Monday, May 25, 2015 at 4:58:53 AM UTC+10, Brent wrote:

On 5/24/2015 4:09 AM, Pierz wrote:



On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 4:47:12 PM UTC+10, Jason wrote:



On Sun, May 24, 2015 at 12:40 AM, Pierz pie...@gmail.com wrote:



On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 1:07:15 AM UTC+10, Jason wrote:



On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Bruno Marchal 
mar...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


On 19 May 2015, at 15:53, Jason Resch wrote:




On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou
stat...@gmail.com wrote:

On 19 May 2015 at 14:45, Jason Resch 
jason...@gmail.com wrote:


 On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou
stat...@gmail.com
 wrote:


 On 19 May 2015 at 11:02, Jason Resch 
jason...@gmail.com
wrote:

  I think you're not taking into account the level 
of the
functional
  substitution. Of course functionally equivalent 
silicon
and functionally
  equivalent neurons can (under functionalism) both
instantiate the same
  consciousness. But a calculator computing 2+3 
cannot
substitute for a
  human
  brain computing 2+3 and produce the same 
consciousness.

 In a gradual replacement the substitution must 
obviously
be at a level
 sufficient to maintain the function of the whole 
brain.
Sticking a
 calculator in it won't work.

  Do you think a Blockhead that was functionally
equivalent to you (it
  could
  fool all your friends and family in a Turing test
scenario into thinking
  it
  was intact you) would be conscious in the same way 
as you?

 Not necessarily, just as an actor may not be 
conscious in
the same way
 as me. But I suspect the Blockhead would be 
conscious;
the intuition
 that a lookup table can't be conscious is like the
intuition that an
 electric circuit can't be conscious.


 I don't see an equivalency between those intuitions. A
lookup table has a
 bounded and very low degree of computational 
complexity:
all answers to all
 queries are answered in constant time.

 While the table itself may have an arbitrarily high
information content,
 what in the software of the lookup table program is 
there to
 appreciate/understand/know that information?

Understanding emerges from the fact that the lookup 
table is
immensely
large. It could be wrong, but I don't think it is 
obviously less
plausible than understanding emerging from a Turing 
machine
made of
tin cans.



The lookup table is intelligent or at least offers the
appearance of intelligence, but it makes the maximum 
possible
advantage of the space-time trade off:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space–time_tradeoff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space%E2%80%93time_tradeoff

The tin-can Turing machine is unbounded in its potential
computational complexity, there's no reason to be a bio- or
silico-chauvinist against it. However, by definition, a 
lookup
table has near zero computational complexity, no retained 
state.


But it is counterfactually correct on a large range 
spectrum. Of
course, it has to be infinite to be genuinely
counterfactual-correct.


But the structure of the counterfactuals is identical 
regardless of
the inputs and

Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level

On 5/26/2015 1:33 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 May 2015, at 00:04, meekerdb wrote:

On 5/25/2015 9:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 24 May 2015, at 11:12, LizR wrote:

The stability of natural laws is also the simplest situation, I think? (Isn't there
something in Russell's TON about this?) Natural laws remain stable due to symmetry
principles, which are simpler than anything asymmetric (although physics contains
some asymmetries, of course, like matter vs antimatter).

But simplicity is not by itself something which will multiply you enough. Simplicity
is not enough. Then RA can be said to be simple but is of course quite non
symmetrical. (We could take more symmetrical ontology, but again, I prefer to start
from something not related to physics).

I'm not sure about this person in an empty room - surely they experience all sorts
of phenomena that can ultimately be traced to the laws of physics? An obvious one is
the pull of gravity (or lack thereof).

But I have to admit I can't see how one gets from the UDA to physics. The notion that
physics falls out of all the computations passing through a specific observer
moment seems approximately as difficult to explain as how physics operates if one
assumes primary materialism - but of course physics based on primary materialism
comes with the benefit that for 100s of years, people have believed the ontology to
be correct, and they have slowly built up a body of knowledge on that basis. Hence
comp finds itself doubly disadvantaged in that no one has worked out how it might
work in practice, and also in that most people react with an argument from
incredulity because they've been taught that physics is based on primary materialism.

The point is that primary materialism, to operate, as to introduce a brain-mind
3p-1p identity thesis which is not sustainable when we assume comp.

Then the difference is almost between the difference between ONE computation does
this, and an infinity of computations of measure one does this.

Except that when we do the math, we inherit the intensional variants of the G*/G
distinction between truth and rational justififiability, which enrich the psycho and
theo - logical part of the picture, usually ignored or denied.

This is a bit like the situation with cars that run on something other than petrol,
or subcritical nuclear reactors. No one has put in a century of research to work out
how (say) alcohol driven cars might work, or 50 years of research on how thorium
reactors might work. Or 300 years of thinking on how reality might be derived from
computations.

Well the first three hundred cars run on hemp, and were made of hemp, and people
already asked at that time why using non renewable resource when renewable one where
disposable?

?? I don't think Karl Benz made any part of the first car from hemp and he ran it on
alcohol and benzene.

Henry Ford, as an experiment, made car with a body of plastic from soy beans, but not
hemp.

References? This contradicts all my own information sources.

From Wikipedia:

/Others argue that Ford invested millions of dollars into research to develop the plastic
car to no avail.//^[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_Car#cite_note-Allen-8 //He
proclaimed he would grow automobiles from the soil — however it never happened, even
though he had over 12,000 acres of soybeans for experimentation. Some sources even say the
Soybean Car wasn't made from soybeans at all — but of //phenolic plastic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_plastic//, an extract of //coal tar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_tar//.//^[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_Car#cite_note-DeseretNews-9 //^[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_Car#cite_note-Bryan-10 //^[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_Car#cite_note-Maxwell-11

...
//
//The exact ingredients of the plastic are not known since there were no records kept of
the plastic itself. Speculation is that it was a combination of soybeans, //wheat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat//, hemp, //flax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax//and //ramie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramie//.
Lowell Overly, the person who had the most influence in creating the car, says it was
...soybean fiber in a //phenolic resin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_resin//with //formaldehyde
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde//used in the impregnation./^/[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_Car#cite_note-ResearchCenter-15//

It's possible that hemp was used in the plastic, but it's much more likely that it's a
myth created by advocates for the legalization and recreational use of marijuana.

/
/
^/Mr. Ford tested the pliability of the plastic panel by swinging on it with an axe. The
panel was unchanged after the blow, but a similar experiment on a steel panel cut through
the metal. ...Needed materials, he said, would include 100,000 bales of cotton, 500,000
bushels of wheat, 700,000 bushels of

Re: The scope of physical law and its relationship to the substitution level

On 5/26/2015 2:10 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 May 2015, at 06:59, Bruce Kellett wrote:

LizR wrote:
On 26 May 2015 at 05:45, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com
mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:

Of that I have no opinion because nobody knows what comp means,
least of all Bruno. Comp is the theory that consciousness is the product of
Turing-emulable processes, i.e. that it's a computation.

Actually, that strictly does not follow. All that follows is that a computer can
emulate certain physical processes upon which consciousness supervenes.

In which theory?

This does not mean that consciousness is a computation, in Platonia or anywhere else.
All that we know from the evidence is that consciousness supervenes on physical brains.

Assuming the primitive existence of the physical brain.

That is NOT assumed. All that is *hypothesized* is that consciousness supervenes on a
physical brain. No one said it was primitive or fundamental nor is that relevant. If
you can show that the physical brain is a consequence of arithmetic, then you will
accomplished a great feat. But it will still be the case that consciousness supervenes on
that brain.

But there is no evidence for that. It is a strong extrapolation, and it failed (since
1500 years) to account for the existence of consciousness. That is why the mind-body
problem is not yet solved.

And what is nice with comp, is that not only computer science does offer a theory of
mind and consciousness, but it explains conceptually the origin of the physical
appearances from elementary arithmetic (and this in a testable way).

But it doesn't. It just says that given comp1, and that comp2 is entailed by comp1, there
must be such an explanation. It's like saying if God created the universe then there's an
explanation for why it's the way it is: God wanted it that way.

Brent

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Re: Michael Shermer becomes sceptical about scepticism!

2015-05-26 Thread Pierz



On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 1:03:48 PM UTC+10, Liz R wrote:

 On 25 May 2015 at 00:34, Pierz pie...@gmail.com javascript: wrote:


 On Monday, May 4, 2015 at 9:08:30 PM UTC+10, spudb...@aol.com wrote:

 I sure did, Telmo. Scroll to the bottom and you shall view my last, 
 number 26th, the last one. This kind of thing is interesting to me. I tend 
 toward the materialist stuff since it seems to have potential. The 
 mentalist stuff seems unreliable because people who have NDE's or trances 
 have not come back with information. 


 ? Highly debatable! It's true that so far I'm not aware of any 
 experiments in which NDE subjects reported the content of cards put in 
 places only visible from the ceiling (as some researchers have tried)

 This could invalidate the top-down view often reportedly experienced in 
 NDEs, but my 13 year old daughter told me the other day that she can easily 
 imagine herself from an outside viewpoint (we weren't talking about NDEs or 
 anything like that) so it is certainly possible for people to do this. 
 Hence people being conscious in some sense during NDEs isn't invalidated 
 by their inability to spot cards hidden on top of cabinets, even if the 
 viewpoint described is. It remains possible that they are aware of their 
 surroundings.mind you I'm also very sceptical of this woman's report, 
 how exact and well testified is it, and could she have picked up the 
 information smoe other way?


It's not invalidated - those not predisposed to credit the legitimacy of 
NDEs naturally latch onto this, while those predisposed to believe tend to 
downplay it. Confirmation bias. But there are credible explanations for the 
failure to confirm (so far) via cards - firstly it is difficult to get 
enough subjects, because one can't organize someone's near death easily, 
only about 10% of people who come close to death have such an experience, 
and not all NDEs involve the classic looking down from the ceiling 
experience. Furthermore, people undergoing a near death experience are not 
lab rats running a maze - they are typically fascinated  by the sight of 
their own body and the drama surrounding it, so it's plausible that a card 
stuck to the top of a cabinet simply does not attract their attention. 

You should be skeptical of the report of course - extraordinary claims bla 
bla. But invariably people who presume NDEs 'can't' be legit don't 
investigate them properly, or read just enough to get to the first 
skeptical account which then safely confirms their assumptions. Brent's one 
sentence dismissal is typical, and typically inaccurate. Far from 
exaggerating and confabulating (though no doubt some people do), NDE 
experiencers tend to keep their experience secret for fear of ridicule or 
being thought nuts. And the experience is typically so intense and vivid 
that it in no way resemble a dream or delirium in which second hand reports 
or later memories could get confused with the original experience. The 
particular case I cited was both *highly* accurate and witnessed by 
multiple persons, including the neurosurgeon who for example stated there 
was no way she could have heard the conversations she reported - because 
she was profoundly unconscious according to her EEG, and because she had 
earphones on at the time that were emitting deafening noise. 

I don't get into arguments about it because it is boring and frustrating, I 
just encourage people to look into it for themselves. I have some interest 
in it because my mother had one which changed her life in a big way.

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Re: Michael Shermer becomes sceptical about scepticism!

Verifiable data is essential for me. On the other hand, Steinhart's Promotion 
theory consists of a process (humans, biomes,?) being also data pipelines to 
another region of spacetime, or other universes. This, in some sense resembles 
the repeated perspectives by many of tunnel's, passages, and the like. Being 
promoted, as a software process might be occurring-if one holds that this 
vision is somehow, not, a hallucination? Steinhart, suggests we'd get promoted, 
as integrated data and history, to another instantiation of yourself. His 
Revision Theory of Resurrection is not the same as his Promotion, in that the 
data that you were is merely an improved clone in an improved universe, but no 
memories pass to the next instantiation. Promotion is the same as 
Teleportation, or Uploading, where as, Revision is akin to the clone's created 
by Everett's MWI, although some, MWI's are exact copies with exact memories and 
identity. It's all just me tossing about Steinhart's and my own ideas, and 
applying it to this discussion. 

 

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Pierz pier...@gmail.com
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, May 26, 2015 10:07 am
Subject: Re: Michael Shermer becomes sceptical about scepticism!


 
  
  
On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 1:03:48 PM UTC+10, Liz R wrote:  
   

 
On 25 May 2015 at 00:34, Pierz   pie...@gmail.com wrote:  
  
   

On Monday, May 4, 2015 at 9:08:30 PM UTC+10, spudb...@aol.com wrote: 
  I sure did, Telmo. Scroll to the bottom and you shall view my last, 
number 26th, the last one. This kind of thing is interesting to me. I tend 
toward the materialist stuff since it seems to have potential. The mentalist 
stuff seems unreliable because people who have NDE's or trances have not come 
back with information.  
 
  
 

? Highly debatable! It's true that so far I'm not aware of any experiments in 
which NDE subjects reported the content of cards put in places only visible 
from the ceiling (as some researchers have tried)

 

   
  
  
This could invalidate the top-down view often reportedly experienced in NDEs, 
but my 13 year old daughter told me the other day that she can easily imagine 
herself from an outside viewpoint (we weren't talking about NDEs or anything 
like that) so it is certainly possible for people to do this. Hence people 
being conscious in some sense during NDEs isn't invalidated by their 
inability to spot cards hidden on top of cabinets, even if the viewpoint 
described is. It remains possible that they are aware of their 
surroundings.mind you I'm also very sceptical of this woman's report, how 
exact and well testified is it, and could she have picked up the information 
smoe other way?  
 

   
  
  
   
  
  
It's not invalidated - those not predisposed to credit the legitimacy of NDEs 
naturally latch onto this, while those predisposed to believe tend to downplay 
it. Confirmation bias. But there are credible explanations for the failure to 
confirm (so far) via cards - firstly it is difficult to get enough subjects, 
because one can't organize someone's near death easily, only about 10% of 
people who come close to death have such an experience, and not all NDEs 
involve the classic looking down from the ceiling experience. Furthermore, 
people undergoing a near death experience are not lab rats running a maze - 
they are typically fascinated  by the sight of their own body and the drama 
surrounding it, so it's plausible that a card stuck to the top of a cabinet 
simply does not attract their attention.   
  
   
  
  
You should be skeptical of the report of course - extraordinary claims bla bla. 
But invariably people who presume NDEs 'can't' be legit don't investigate them 
properly, or read just enough to get to the first skeptical account which then 
safely confirms their assumptions. Brent's one sentence dismissal is typical, 
and typically inaccurate. Far from exaggerating and confabulating (though no 
doubt some people do), NDE experiencers tend to keep their experience secret 
for fear of ridicule or being thought nuts. And the experience is typically so 
intense and vivid that it in no way resemble a dream or delirium in which 
second hand reports or later memories could get confused with the original 
experience. The particular case I cited was both *highly* accurate and 
witnessed by multiple persons, including the neurosurgeon who for example 
stated there was no way she could have heard the conversations she reported - 
because she was profoundly unconscious according to her EEG, and because she 
had earphones on at the time that were emitting deafening noise.   
  
   
  
  
I don't get into arguments about it because it is boring and frustrating, I 
just encourage people to look into it for themselves. I have some interest in 
it because my mother had

Re: Michael Shermer becomes sceptical about scepticism!