date:20190725

On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 2:42 PM Jason Resch  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 10:19 PM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 1:06 PM Jason Resch  wrote:
>>
>>> On Thursday, July 25, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>>>
 On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 2:44 AM Jason Resch 
 wrote:

> On Monday, July 22, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:41 PM Stathis Papaioannou <
>> stath...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:50, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
>>> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>
 On 7/22/2019 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

 Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can
> be replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this,
> questions about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has 
> been
> pointed out several times.
>

 The substantive problem is a philosophical one, since by assumption
 in these debates the copied brain is identical by any empirical test.

 But what if, as seems likely to me, it is theoretically impossible
 to copy a brain to a level that it undetectable, i.e. it will 
 necessarily
 be possible to distinguish physical differences.  Now these 
 differences may
 not matter to consciousness, or they may imply only a brief glitch at 
 the
 conscious/classical level, but we know from Holevo's theorem that the
 duplicate can't be known to be in the same state.

>>>
>>> I feel that I am the same person today as yesterday because I am
>>> pretty close to the person I was yesterday, even though if you were to 
>>> look
>>> at me in enough detail, even using simple tests and instruments, I am 
>>> quite
>>> different today. It seems unreasonable to insist that a copy of a person
>>> must be closer to the original than the "copying" that occurs in 
>>> everyday
>>> life.
>>>
>>
>> Dealing with this particular worry is one of the strengths of
>> Nozick's 'closest continuer' theory.
>>
>
>
> Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of
> personal identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in
> light of paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.
>
> As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are
> forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the
> zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all 
> observers
> to a single person (like many worlds).
>

 ?

>>>
>>>
>>> Could you clarify your question?
>>>
>>
>> I have no idea what your statement means.
>>
>
> It's an imprecise and ad-hoc revision to the theory to preserve a
> "singular identity" when the situation tells us the notion of a singular
> identity is inconsistent and untenable. And just as quantum mechanics
> undermined the idea of a single universe/history, QI was an imprecise and
> ad-hoc revision added to preserve that notion.
>

I see. That is a rather judgemental  approach to take. CI may have been ad
hoc at the time, but recent developments in the understanding of Everett
show that CI was not totally silly, after all (See Zurek
arxiv:1807.02092. I see the closest continuer theory as a reasonable
attempt to make sense of the notion of personal identity in a series of
unusual scenarios. It makes little sense to say that these scenarios
require that we throw out previous understandings of the idea.

Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity can
> always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and
> changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.
>

 How would one do that when psychological states are clearly closely
 correlated with physical (brain) states?

>>> Bodily continuity is same physical body without discontinuities. A bit
>>> like closest continuer theory. But there's no limit to how radically you
>>> could alter that body over time. This is where things like ageing, amnesia,
>>> memory loss, differentiation of twins, etc. come into play.
>>>
>>
>> Of course, and the theory deals adequately with them all.
>>
>
> What is closer, a duplicate mind among:
>
> - two branches of the wave function containing the same mind which differ
> by the location of a photon, or two branches of the wave function that
> differ in the location of an electron?
>

Since different branches of the wave function form disjoint worlds in the
MWI approach, it makes no sense to talk about a "distance" between the
branches -- comparisons are no longer possible.

- another branch of the wave function vs. 1 meter away in space?
> - separated 1 second in time versus

Re: We Are Legion We Are Bob Bobiverse Book 1

2019-07-25 Thread Russell Standish

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 10:47:46PM -0400, John Clark wrote:
> 
> The only other novel I can think of that treats the subject of uploading with
> equal intelligence is "The Silicon Man".
> 
> The Silicon Man by Charles Platt
> 

There's a movie "Abre los oyos" (Open your eyes) that deals with this
subject that I thought was quite good.


-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Senior Research Fellowhpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: STEP 3

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 10:19 PM Bruce Kellett 
wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 1:06 PM Jason Resch  wrote:
>
>> On Thursday, July 25, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 2:44 AM Jason Resch 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 On Monday, July 22, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:41 PM Stathis Papaioannou <
> stath...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:50, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
>> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/22/2019 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>
>>> Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can be
 replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this, 
 questions
 about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has been 
 pointed out
 several times.

>>>
>>> The substantive problem is a philosophical one, since by assumption
>>> in these debates the copied brain is identical by any empirical test.
>>>
>>>
>>> But what if, as seems likely to me, it is theoretically impossible
>>> to copy a brain to a level that it undetectable, i.e. it will 
>>> necessarily
>>> be possible to distinguish physical differences.  Now these differences 
>>> may
>>> not matter to consciousness, or they may imply only a brief glitch at 
>>> the
>>> conscious/classical level, but we know from Holevo's theorem that the
>>> duplicate can't be known to be in the same state.
>>>
>>
>> I feel that I am the same person today as yesterday because I am
>> pretty close to the person I was yesterday, even though if you were to 
>> look
>> at me in enough detail, even using simple tests and instruments, I am 
>> quite
>> different today. It seems unreasonable to insist that a copy of a person
>> must be closer to the original than the "copying" that occurs in everyday
>> life.
>>
>
> Dealing with this particular worry is one of the strengths of Nozick's
> 'closest continuer' theory.
>


 Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal
 identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of
 paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.

 As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are
 forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the
 zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers
 to a single person (like many worlds).

>>>
>>> ?
>>>
>>
>>
>> Could you clarify your question?
>>
>
> I have no idea what your statement means.
>

It's an imprecise and ad-hoc revision to the theory to preserve a "singular
identity" when the situation tells us the notion of a singular identity is
inconsistent and untenable. And just as quantum mechanics undermined the
idea of a single universe/history, QI was an imprecise and ad-hoc revision
added to preserve that notion.


>
>
> Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity can
 always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and
 changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.

>>>
>>> How would one do that when psychological states are clearly closely
>>> correlated with physical (brain) states?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Bodily continuity is same physical body without discontinuities. A bit
>> like closest continuer theory. But there's no limit to how radically you
>> could alter that body over time. This is where things like ageing, amnesia,
>> memory loss, differentiation of twins, etc. come into play.
>>
>
> Of course, and the theory deals adequately with them all.
>

What is closer, a duplicate mind among:

- two branches of the wave function containing the same mind which differ
by the location of a photon, or two branches of the wave function that
differ in the location of an electron?
- another branch of the wave function vs. 1 meter away in space?
- separated 1 second in time versus separated by 1 meter in space?
- a duplicate mind built as a physical computer that fully surrounds the
previous mind and extends 1 kilometer in all directions surrounding the
previous mind vs. a duplicate 1 meter away?
- two duplicates separated by a distance less than a plank length, but with
one being closer (does it result in two new people? How can you tell?)
- two duplicates in different reference space-time locations such that from
different reference frames there are different conclusions regarding which
of the duplicates is closer?

I see no clear answers to these cases offered by closest continuer theory.
Nor any way to address them from within the theory. The onyl way would be
to add more ad-hoc rules, like space of any distance trumps different
branches of the wave function, ans distance in time must be less than
(speed of

Re: We Are Legion We Are Bob Bobiverse Book 1

On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 1:12 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> On 7/25/2019 8:02 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 12:48 PM John Clark  wrote:
>
>> When I was younger I read a lot of science fiction, I don't do it so much
>> anymore and technically I didn't do it this time either but I did listen to
>> a audio book called "We Are Legion We Are Bob" it's the first book of
>> the Bobiverse trilogy and I really enjoyed it. You can get a free 5 minute
>> sample of the book here:
>>
>> We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1
>> 
>>
>> The only other novel I can think of that treats the subject of uploading
>> with equal intelligence is "The Silicon Man".
>>
>> The Silicon Man by Charles Platt
>> 
>>
>> John K Clark
>>
>
> Consider any of the earlier novels by Greg Egan, the Australian hard
> science fiction write based in Perth, WA: particularly "Permutation City"
> (1994).
>
>
> And you can learn a lot about black holes from Egan's website.  He does
> serious visual simulation too.  I've read several of his novels, including
> "Permutation City" but I liked his short story collection "Axiomatic" best.
>
> Brent
>

It is a long time since I read "Axiomatic". But glancing at the book again
now, I see that at least one of the stories might be relevant to current
discussions: "Closer". The blurb on the back reads "Michael and Siran are
happy together, but as people they are very different. In an attempt to
understand each other better they switch bodies and minds -- but you can
have too much of a good thing."

Or "The Safe Deposit Box": "A man wakes up each day with a new body: a body
that belongs to someone else."

Bruce

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Re: We Are Legion We Are Bob Bobiverse Book 1

2019-07-25 Thread 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List

On 7/25/2019 8:02 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 12:48 PM John Clark > wrote:

When I was younger I read a lot of science fiction, I don't do it
so much anymore and technically I didn't do it this time either
but I did listen to a audio book called "We Are Legion We Are Bob"
it's the first book of the Bobiverse trilogy and I really enjoyed
it. You can get a free 5 minute sample of the book here:

We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1

It tells the story of Bob, a young man who has just sold his
software company for a crazy amount of money and decides that
after a decade of hard work he's going to spent the rest of his
life just goofing off. On a whim he signs with a Cryonics company
to have his head frozen after his death and then just hours later
while crossing the street to go to a science fiction convention is
hit by a car and dies. Five subjective seconds later he wakes up
and finds that a century has passed and he's been uploaded into a
computer. This is all in the opening chapter.

Parts of the story are unrealistic but parts of it are not, I
think it was Isaac Asimov who said it's OK for a science fiction
writer to violate the known laws of physics but only if he knows
he's doing it, and when Dennis Taylor, the creator of Bob
universe, does it at one point with faster than light
communication it's obvious that he knowns it. And I can't deny it
makes for a story that is more fun to read. I have now read (well
listened) to all 3 Bob books and, although parts are a little
corny and parts a little too Star Trek for my taste, on the whole
I greatly enjoyed them all. They're a lot of fun.

The only other novel I can think of that treats the subject of
uploading with equal intelligence is "The Silicon Man".

The Silicon Man by Charles Platt

John K Clark

Consider any of the earlier novels by Greg Egan, the Australian hard
science fiction write based in Perth, WA: particularly "Permutation
City" (1994).

And you can learn a lot about black holes from Egan's website. He does
serious visual simulation too. I've read several of his novels,
including "Permutation City" but I liked his short story collection
"Axiomatic" best.

Brent

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Re: STEP 3

On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 1:06 PM Jason Resch  wrote:

> On Thursday, July 25, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 2:44 AM Jason Resch  wrote:
>>
>>> On Monday, July 22, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>>>
 On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:41 PM Stathis Papaioannou 
 wrote:

> On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:50, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>> On 7/22/2019 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>> Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can be
>>> replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this, 
>>> questions
>>> about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has been pointed 
>>> out
>>> several times.
>>>
>>
>> The substantive problem is a philosophical one, since by assumption
>> in these debates the copied brain is identical by any empirical test.
>>
>>
>> But what if, as seems likely to me, it is theoretically impossible to
>> copy a brain to a level that it undetectable, i.e. it will necessarily be
>> possible to distinguish physical differences.  Now these differences may
>> not matter to consciousness, or they may imply only a brief glitch at the
>> conscious/classical level, but we know from Holevo's theorem that the
>> duplicate can't be known to be in the same state.
>>
>
> I feel that I am the same person today as yesterday because I am
> pretty close to the person I was yesterday, even though if you were to 
> look
> at me in enough detail, even using simple tests and instruments, I am 
> quite
> different today. It seems unreasonable to insist that a copy of a person
> must be closer to the original than the "copying" that occurs in everyday
> life.
>

 Dealing with this particular worry is one of the strengths of Nozick's
 'closest continuer' theory.

>>>
>>>
>>> Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal
>>> identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of
>>> paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.
>>>
>>> As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are
>>> forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the
>>> zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers
>>> to a single person (like many worlds).
>>>
>>
>> ?
>>
>
>
> Could you clarify your question?
>

I have no idea what your statement means.


Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity can
>>> always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and
>>> changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.
>>>
>>
>> How would one do that when psychological states are clearly closely
>> correlated with physical (brain) states?
>>
>>
>>
> Bodily continuity is same physical body without discontinuities. A bit
> like closest continuer theory. But there's no limit to how radically you
> could alter that body over time. This is where things like ageing, amnesia,
> memory loss, differentiation of twins, etc. come into play.
>

Of course, and the theory deals adequately with them all.


> For example, you could, over time, change neuron by neuron, until you
> looked like and had the mind of Julius Caesar.  But under this continuity
> of the body your psyche, as you know it, has completely disappeared.
>
> Continuity of the psyche preserves your mind, but is discontinuous in
> physical instantiation. This is where you have transporters, duplicators,
> mind simulation, substitution of brain regions, etc.
>

Closest continuer theory also applies -- although it might not give the
results that you appear to want.



> Personal identity is multifactorial: it is not just psychological
>> continuity or just physical continuity, but a combination of those and
>> other factors.
>>
>>
> What are those factors?  If personal identity requires bodily continuity
> you get closest continuer theory. If it's psychological continuity you get
> functionalism. If it's both you get identity only of single thought
> moments, if it's neither you get universalism.
>

It is not a dichotomy of that sort. The theory involves both bodily and
psychological continuity -- or at least the closest continuer in this
multifactorial space. There may not be any continuers close enough, given
some metric over the space, in which case there is no continuer. Or there
may be ties, in which case multiple new persons are formed.

Personal identity theories, should enable one to answer for any situation:
> "what experiences belong to you?"
>

Define "you" in all these cases below.


> Consider some edge cases:
> - split brains
> - amoeba-like splits (e.g identical twins)
> - fusion of previously split brain hemispheres
> - transportation
> - duplication
> - transportation with errors
> - memory erasure
> - memory

Re: STEP 3

On Thursday, July 25, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 2:44 AM Jason Resch  wrote:
>
>> On Monday, July 22, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:41 PM Stathis Papaioannou 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:50, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
 everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> On 7/22/2019 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can be
>> replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this, 
>> questions
>> about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has been pointed 
>> out
>> several times.
>>
>
> The substantive problem is a philosophical one, since by assumption in
> these debates the copied brain is identical by any empirical test.
>
>
> But what if, as seems likely to me, it is theoretically impossible to
> copy a brain to a level that it undetectable, i.e. it will necessarily be
> possible to distinguish physical differences.  Now these differences may
> not matter to consciousness, or they may imply only a brief glitch at the
> conscious/classical level, but we know from Holevo's theorem that the
> duplicate can't be known to be in the same state.
>

 I feel that I am the same person today as yesterday because I am pretty
 close to the person I was yesterday, even though if you were to look at me
 in enough detail, even using simple tests and instruments, I am quite
 different today. It seems unreasonable to insist that a copy of a person
 must be closer to the original than the "copying" that occurs in everyday
 life.

>>>
>>> Dealing with this particular worry is one of the strengths of Nozick's
>>> 'closest continuer' theory.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal
>> identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of
>> paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.
>>
>> As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are
>> forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the
>> zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers
>> to a single person (like many worlds).
>>
>
> ?
>


Could you clarify your question?


>
>
>> Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity
>> can always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and
>> changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.
>>
>
> How would one do that when psychological states are clearly closely
> correlated with physical (brain) states?
>
>
>
Bodily continuity is same physical body without discontinuities. A bit like
closest continuer theory. But there's no limit to how radically you could
alter that body over time. This is where things like ageing, amnesia,
memory loss, differentiation of twins, etc. come into play.

For example, you could, over time, change neuron by neuron, until you
looked like and had the mind of Julius Caesar.  But under this continuity
of the body your psyche, as you know it, has completely disappeared.

Continuity of the psyche preserves your mind, but is discontinuous in
physical instantiation. This is where you have transporters, duplicators,
mind simulation, substitution of brain regions, etc.



>
> Personal identity is multifactorial: it is not just psychological
> continuity or just physical continuity, but a combination of those and
> other factors.
>
>
What are those factors?  If personal identity requires bodily continuity
you get closest continuer theory. If it's psychological continuity you get
functionalism. If it's both you get identity only of single thought
moments, if it's neither you get universalism.

Personal identity theories, should enable one to answer for any situation:
"what experiences belong to you?"

Consider some edge cases:
- split brains
- amoeba-like splits (e.g identical twins)
- fusion of previously split brain hemispheres
- transportation
- duplication
- transportation with errors
- memory erasure
- memory swapping
- morphing to another person (with nanotechnology)
- two people morphing into each other

If the theory of personal identity can't deal with those cases it's
incomplete, if not inconsistent.

Jason



> Bruce
>
>
>>
>> "Oneself: the logic of experience" by Arnold Zuboff is a good
>> introduction to the reasoning.  Many thinkers, including Shrodinger, Dyson,
>> and Hoyle reached the same conclusion.
>>
>> Jason
>>
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>

We Are Legion We Are Bob Bobiverse Book 1

2019-07-25 Thread John Clark

When I was younger I read a lot of science fiction, I don't do it so much
anymore and technically I didn't do it this time either but I did listen to
a audio book called "We Are Legion We Are Bob" it's the first book of
the Bobiverse trilogy and I really enjoyed it. You can get a free 5 minute
sample of the book here:

We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1

It tells the story of Bob, a young man who has just sold his software
company for a crazy amount of money and decides that after a decade of hard
work he's going to spent the rest of his life just goofing off. On a whim
he signs with a Cryonics company to have his head frozen after his death
and then just hours later while crossing the street to go to a science
fiction convention is hit by a car and dies. Five subjective seconds later
he wakes up and finds that a century has passed and he's been uploaded into
a computer. This is all in the opening chapter.

Parts of the story are unrealistic but parts of it are not, I think it
was Isaac
Asimov who said it's OK for a science fiction writer to violate the known
laws of physics but only if he knows he's doing it, and when Dennis Taylor,
the creator of Bob universe, does it at one point with faster than light
communication it's obvious that he knowns it. And I can't deny it makes for
a story that is more fun to read. I have now read (well listened) to all 3
Bob books and, although parts are a little corny and parts a little too
Star Trek for my taste, on the whole I greatly enjoyed them all. They're a
lot of fun.

The only other novel I can think of that treats the subject of uploading
with equal intelligence is "The Silicon Man".

The Silicon Man by Charles Platt

John K Clark

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Re: STEP 3

On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 2:44 AM Jason Resch  wrote:

> On Monday, July 22, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:41 PM Stathis Papaioannou 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:50, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
>>> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>
 On 7/22/2019 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

 Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can be
> replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this, 
> questions
> about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has been pointed 
> out
> several times.
>

 The substantive problem is a philosophical one, since by assumption in
 these debates the copied brain is identical by any empirical test.


 But what if, as seems likely to me, it is theoretically impossible to
 copy a brain to a level that it undetectable, i.e. it will necessarily be
 possible to distinguish physical differences.  Now these differences may
 not matter to consciousness, or they may imply only a brief glitch at the
 conscious/classical level, but we know from Holevo's theorem that the
 duplicate can't be known to be in the same state.

>>>
>>> I feel that I am the same person today as yesterday because I am pretty
>>> close to the person I was yesterday, even though if you were to look at me
>>> in enough detail, even using simple tests and instruments, I am quite
>>> different today. It seems unreasonable to insist that a copy of a person
>>> must be closer to the original than the "copying" that occurs in everyday
>>> life.
>>>
>>
>> Dealing with this particular worry is one of the strengths of Nozick's
>> 'closest continuer' theory.
>>
>
>
> Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal
> identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of
> paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.
>
> As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are
> forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the
> zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers
> to a single person (like many worlds).
>

?


> Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity can
> always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and
> changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.
>

How would one do that when psychological states are clearly closely
correlated with physical (brain) states? Personal identity is
multifactorial: it is not just psychological continuity or just physical
continuity, but a combination of those and other factors.

Bruce


>
> "Oneself: the logic of experience" by Arnold Zuboff is a good introduction
> to the reasoning.  Many thinkers, including Shrodinger, Dyson, and Hoyle
> reached the same conclusion.
>
> Jason
>

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Re: STEP 3



Seems to me that theoretical physicists can't get their story straight on 
gravity, dark matter and dark energy, the ad hocness of the Standard Model, 
the expansion "constant", and on and on. The whole subject is in shambles 
and many of them are too blind to see it. As Sabine Hossenfelder says, we 
need some new thinking here.

@philipthrift 



On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 4:03:05 PM UTC-5, spudb...@aol.com wrote:
>
> Thrift, it's the impact, over time, that a scientist has, typically, and 
> not like what Feyerabend thought "uncivilized savages," even with Feynman 
> at the Berkeley conference. I mean, Feyerabend, a nice guy, still served 
> and got shot while soldiering for the 3rd Reich in Mother Russia. But, we 
> are gossiping not deciding what is true? We as a species, argues Freeman 
> Dyson, should always improve our science-mostly by improving our scientific 
> instruments. Should we invoke maths(s) and philosophy when we cannot afford 
> to do measuring, yeah, but it's a poor second. Eventually, we should be 
> able to populate the outer solar system with radio telescopes of 
> prodigious, size and capability, as well as super Ligo's, and Infrareds, 
> etc. This will change physics (eventually again), cosmology, philosophy, 
> and yeah, religion. Having stated this, it will also change politics. 
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Philip Thrift >
> To: Everything List >
> Sent: Thu, Jul 25, 2019 4:31 pm
> Subject: Re: STEP 3
>
>
> "The younger generation of physicists, the *Feynmans*, the Schwingers, 
> etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their 
> predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. 
> But they *are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth*." 
>
> -- Paul Feyerabend [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend ]
>
>
> (Feyerabend personally knew Feynman, might have been sort of friendly. 
> They were together at at least one conference in Berkeley.)
>
> @philipthrift
>
> On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 3:03:19 PM UTC-5, Jason wrote:
>
> Regarding the identity of particles: A hydrogen atom is a hydrogen atom is 
> a hydrogen atom.
>
> “So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? 
> Last week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a 
> year ago — a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing 
> I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means 
> when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of my brain to be 
> replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and 
> then go out — there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, 
> remembering what the dance was yesterday.”
> –Richard Feynman (The Value of Science)
>
> http://www.strange-loops.com/ blog/?p=23 
> 
>
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 2:04 PM Philip Thrift  wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 11:44:26 AM UTC-5, Jason wrote:
>
>
> ...
> Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal 
> identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of 
> paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.
>
> As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are 
> forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the 
> zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers 
> to a single person (like many worlds).
>
> Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity can 
> always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and 
> changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.
>
> "Oneself: the logic of experience" by Arnold Zuboff is a good introduction 
> to the reasoning.  Many thinkers, including Shrodinger, Dyson, and Hoyle 
> reached the same conclusion.
>
> Jason
>
>
> One Self:
>
> All experience is equally here, now and mine and all conscious organisms 
> are equally I. My argument for this crucial further development is 
> presented in ‘One Self – The Logic of Experience’, Inquiry 33 (1991): pp. 
> 39-68.
>
> https://philpapers.org/rec/ ZUBMUA 
>
> Thus would radically differ from the ("real") materialist theory of 
> selfhood of Galen Strawson. 
>
> (To talk of 100% duplicate persons, A here, B there, is lurking 
> functionalism, I think Strawson would say. A and B are not made of the same 
> particles.)
>
> @philipthrift 
>
>
>

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Re: STEP 3

2019-07-25 Thread 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List

On 7/25/2019 3:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 25 Jul 2019, at 07:16, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
> wrote:

On 7/24/2019 4:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Note that the personal identity is not a transitive notion.
Step 3 actually illustrates well this. I recall he cut and copy
itself from Helsinki (H) in both Washington (W) and Moscow (M).
With the definition of the personal identity above, both the HW
and the HM guy are, from that personal identity view, the same
person as the H person.

With a more sensible notion of personal identity, the copies are
different persons, and different persons from the original.

But that would entail that you die in step 1, which would again just
be your opinion that mechanism is false.

Why do you assume this is all-or-nothing, live-or-die?

Because digitalness makes it so. The copies are numerically identical
at or below the substitution level.

What does "numerically identical" mean? And what if they aren't? You're
shifting the argument. One may very well say "yes" to the doctor
believing that one's essential character and memories will be preserved,
while also believing that many details will be different. So which is
it? Is it essential to your argument that the duplication be
exact?...exact at what level?

Brent

What seems likely to me is that the copy will be necessarily
different due to information limitations of quantum mechanics…

Quantum mechanics, nor any physics, is part of the assumption, except
for the existence of a physical reality (but not necessarily an
ontological existence).

but maybe not so different that one would still say yes to the
doctor, depending on the alternatives.

Yes. There are the usual difference between our mental state, but the
personal identity is defined by the ability to have our past
experience memories, which by definition are conserved in the process.

Bruno

Brent

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Re: STEP 3

2019-07-25 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

Thrift, it's the impact, over time, that a scientist has, typically, and not 
like what Feyerabend thought "uncivilized savages," even with Feynman at the 
Berkeley conference. I mean, Feyerabend, a nice guy, still served and got shot 
while soldiering for the 3rd Reich in Mother Russia. But, we are gossiping not 
deciding what is true? We as a species, argues Freeman Dyson, should always 
improve our science-mostly by improving our scientific instruments. Should we 
invoke maths(s) and philosophy when we cannot afford to do measuring, yeah, but 
it's a poor second. Eventually, we should be able to populate the outer solar 
system with radio telescopes of prodigious, size and capability, as well as 
super Ligo's, and Infrareds, etc. This will change physics (eventually again), 
cosmology, philosophy, and yeah, religion. Having stated this, it will also 
change politics. 


-Original Message-
From: Philip Thrift 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Thu, Jul 25, 2019 4:31 pm
Subject: Re: STEP 3


"The younger generation of physicists, the Feynmans, the Schwingers, etc., may 
be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their predecessors, than 
Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. But they are 
uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth." 
-- Paul Feyerabend [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend ]

(Feyerabend personally knew Feynman, might have been sort of friendly. They 
were together at at least one conference in Berkeley.)
@philipthrift
On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 3:03:19 PM UTC-5, Jason wrote:

Regarding the identity of particles: A hydrogen atom is a hydrogen atom is a 
hydrogen atom.

“So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last 
week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago 
— a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing I call my 
individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one 
discovers how long it takes for the atoms of my brain to be replaced by other 
atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out — there are 
always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance 
was yesterday.”–Richard Feynman (The Value of Science)
http://www.strange-loops.com/ blog/?p=23

Jason


On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 2:04 PM Philip Thrift  wrote:



On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 11:44:26 AM UTC-5, Jason wrote:

...Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal 
identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of 
paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.
As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are forced 
to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the zero 
universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers to a 
single person (like many worlds).
Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity can 
always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and changing 
the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.
"Oneself: the logic of experience" by Arnold Zuboff is a good introduction to 
the reasoning.  Many thinkers, including Shrodinger, Dyson, and Hoyle reached 
the same conclusion.
Jason

One Self:
All experience is equally here, now and mine and all conscious organisms are 
equally I. My argument for this crucial further development is presented in 
‘One Self – The Logic of Experience’, Inquiry 33 (1991): pp. 39-68.
https://philpapers.org/rec/ ZUBMUA

Thus would radically differ from the ("real") materialist theory of selfhood of 
Galen Strawson. 
(To talk of 100% duplicate persons, A here, B there, is lurking functionalism, 
I think Strawson would say. A and B are not made of the same particles.)
@philipthrift 


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Re: STEP 3


"The younger generation of physicists, the *Feynmans*, the Schwingers, 
etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their 
predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. 
But they *are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth*." 

-- Paul Feyerabend [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend ]


(Feyerabend personally knew Feynman, might have been sort of friendly. They 
were together at at least one conference in Berkeley.)

@philipthrift

On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 3:03:19 PM UTC-5, Jason wrote:

> Regarding the identity of particles: A hydrogen atom is a hydrogen atom is 
> a hydrogen atom.
>
> “So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? 
> Last week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a 
> year ago — a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing 
> I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means 
> when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of my brain to be 
> replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and 
> then go out — there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, 
> remembering what the dance was yesterday.”
> –Richard Feynman (The Value of Science)
>
> http://www.strange-loops.com/blog/?p=23
>
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 2:04 PM Philip Thrift  > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 11:44:26 AM UTC-5, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> ...
>>> Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal 
>>> identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of 
>>> paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.
>>>
>>> As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are 
>>> forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the 
>>> zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers 
>>> to a single person (like many worlds).
>>>
>>> Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity 
>>> can always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and 
>>> changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.
>>>
>>> "Oneself: the logic of experience" by Arnold Zuboff is a good 
>>> introduction to the reasoning.  Many thinkers, including Shrodinger, Dyson, 
>>> and Hoyle reached the same conclusion.
>>>
>>> Jason
>>>
>>
>> One Self:
>>
>> All experience is equally here, now and mine and all conscious organisms 
>> are equally I. My argument for this crucial further development is 
>> presented in ‘One Self – The Logic of Experience’, Inquiry 33 (1991): pp. 
>> 39-68.
>>
>> https://philpapers.org/rec/ZUBMUA
>>
>> Thus would radically differ from the ("real") materialist theory of 
>> selfhood of Galen Strawson. 
>>
>> (To talk of 100% duplicate persons, A here, B there, is lurking 
>> functionalism, I think Strawson would say. A and B are not made of the same 
>> particles.)
>>
>> @philipthrift 
>>
>>
>>

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Re: STEP 3

2019-07-25 Thread 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List

On 7/24/2019 10:52 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 3:16 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
> wrote:

On 7/24/2019 4:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Note that the personal identity is not a transitive notion.
Step 3 actually illustrates well this. I recall he cut and
copy itself from Helsinki (H) in both Washington (W) and
Moscow (M). With the definition of the personal identity
above, both the HW and the HM guy are, from that personal
identity view, the same person as the H person.

With a more sensible notion of personal identity, the copies are
different persons, and different persons from the original.

But that would entail that you die in step 1, which would again
just be your opinion that mechanism is false.

Why do you assume this is all-or-nothing, live-or-die? What seems
likely to me is that the copy will be necessarily different due to
information limitations of quantum mechanics...but maybe not so
different that one would still say yes to the doctor, depending on
the alternatives.

I was talking about duplication, as in step 3. But even in step 1 the
original is "cut" after copying. So the original certainly "dies"
according to the "cut" protocol. The question is whether what survives
as a copy is sufficiently like the original to count as the same person.

It seems to me that this depends on a lot of things that are left
unspecified. Of particular concern is whether the original body is
also reconstructed -- a feat that would seem to be beyond any
reasonable technology of the future.

It is even beyond theoretical possibility to copy the quantum state.
I'm not sure what implications that has for consciousness, which must be
quasi-classical, but I think at the very least it would imply a glich in
the stream of consciousness and memory.

Brent

What you could at best achieve would be to connect the mechanical
brain to some robotic body, with maintenance of essential input and
output functions. Or even have the copy live in an entirely virtual
reality, constructed within some computer. (Such possibilities are
relatively common in the Sci-Fi literature.) Then, even if memories
are preserved, it is possible that the copied person might react
negatively to his/her new substitute body (or the virtual reality
environment).. This is not unknown in practice, because sometimes
after accidents that lead to severe bodily deformations, the patient
rejects the damaged body and suffers all sorts of psychological
problems: PTSD being one of the least of their worries. So although
these are thought experiments, the practical implications for real
people are largely unknowable until it is actually tried in practice.
Whether this would ever be ethical is another question...

Bruce
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Re: STEP 3

Regarding the identity of particles: A hydrogen atom is a hydrogen atom is
a hydrogen atom.

“So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness?
Last week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a
year ago — a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing
I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means
when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of my brain to be
replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and
then go out — there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance,
remembering what the dance was yesterday.”
–Richard Feynman (The Value of Science)

http://www.strange-loops.com/blog/?p=23


Jason



On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 2:04 PM Philip Thrift  wrote:

>
>
> On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 11:44:26 AM UTC-5, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>> ...
>> Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal
>> identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of
>> paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.
>>
>> As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are
>> forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the
>> zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers
>> to a single person (like many worlds).
>>
>> Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity
>> can always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and
>> changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.
>>
>> "Oneself: the logic of experience" by Arnold Zuboff is a good
>> introduction to the reasoning.  Many thinkers, including Shrodinger, Dyson,
>> and Hoyle reached the same conclusion.
>>
>> Jason
>>
>
> One Self:
>
> All experience is equally here, now and mine and all conscious organisms
> are equally I. My argument for this crucial further development is
> presented in ‘One Self – The Logic of Experience’, Inquiry 33 (1991): pp.
> 39-68.
>
> https://philpapers.org/rec/ZUBMUA
>
> Thus would radically differ from the ("real") materialist theory of
> selfhood of Galen Strawson.
>
> (To talk of 100% duplicate persons, A here, B there, is lurking
> functionalism, I think Strawson would say. A and B are not made of the same
> particles.)
>
> @philipthrift
>
> --
> 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.
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> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/74fee58e-3743-40bf-aa7d-966d508b7be6%40googlegroups.com
> 
> .
>

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Re: Historical contingency and the futility of reductionism



On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 7:01:50 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> A bacteria is just far beyond current days technology. Even a complex 
> protein is beyond our technology.
>
> Bruno
>

Bacterial synthetic biology

"Bacterial synthetic biology is a scientific discipline that deals with the 
synthesis of part, or the whole, of bacteria that do not exist in nature in 
this form. It uses engineering and molecular biology tools."

Latest Research and Reviews

https://www.nature.com/subjects/bacterial-synthetic-biology 

@philipthrift

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Re: Observation versus assumption



On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 12:43:27 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> > On 25 Jul 2019, at 13:27, Telmo Menezes  > wrote: 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, Jul 25, 2019, at 11:06, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
> >> 
> >>> On 24 Jul 2019, at 20:31, Telmo Menezes  > wrote: 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> On Wed, Jul 24, 2019, at 17:41, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote: 
>  
>  
>  On 7/23/2019 11:52 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: 
> > 
> > On Tue, Jul 23, 2019, at 17:33, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote: 
> >> 
> >> On 7/23/2019 4:50 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: 
> >>> Hi Brent, 
> >>> 
> >>> On Fri, Jul 19, 2019, at 22:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote: 
>  On 7/19/2019 4:49 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: 
> > I share their perplexity. The idea of immaterialism is natural 
> (and 
> > arises thousands of years ago), because the only thing that we 
> cannot 
> > doubt (as Descartes pointed out) -- our consciousness -- is 
> > immaterial. There is not scientific instrument that can detect 
> > consciousness. 
>  That's not really true. Of course doctors assess patients as 
> conscious, 
>  unconscious, in coma, or brain dead every day.  The myth that 
>  consciousness is a mystery is part hubris (we are too special to 
> be 
>  understood) and part an exaggerated demand for understanding. 
> There's no 
>  scientific instrument that can detect the wave function of an 
> electron 
>  either.  But with the electron we're happy to have an effective 
> theory 
>  that tells us when the detector will click or not. Mystery 
> mongering 
>  about consciousness makes us demand something more that mere 
> measurement 
>  and prediction, something that doesn't exist for any theory. 
> >>> I understand your point that we can always make additional demands 
> for explanation, and that any scientific theory cannot be expected to do 
> more than what successful scientific theories do, which is to correctly 
> predict phenomena. 
> >>> 
> >>> My main point is this, and I think it goes to the core of our 
> disagreement: 
> >>> No scientific theory predicts consciousness! 
> >> What would it mean to predict consciousness.  When we predict 
> electrons 
> >> what we mean it we predict the observable effects of electrons. 
> > Right, so what are the observable effects of consciousness? All I 
> can see in neuroscience are predictions about the observable effects of 
> (wet) computations. Neuroscience is not capable of pointing to a behavior 
> and saying: ah! consciousness! see, this couldn't happen without 
> consciousness. 
> > 
> > If you rob physicists of electrons, suddenly many of their models 
> will have holes in them, they will no longer be valid. If you rob 
> neuroscientists of consciousness, everything works the same. 
>  I'm not sure that's true.  ISTM that some of the experiments by 
>  cognitive neuroscientists include conscious thoughts and judgements 
> as 
>  elements of their theory. 
> >>> 
> >>> They try, but they can't measure. 
> >>> 
> >>> - Alexa, are you conscious? 
> >>> - Of course! 
> >>> 
> >>> Err… 
> >> 
> >> Most neuroscientists believes in Matter, and, sometimes even 
> >> explicitly, like the ASSC, do not address the mind-body problem. 
> >> 
> >> When they have some understanding of the problem, they eliminate 
> >> consciousness and person, which is the logical thing to do for people 
> >> believing in both matter and mechanism: consciousness does not exists. 
> > 
> > I have met a few neuroscientists, and this is also my impression. I have 
> also met researchers who were trying to become neuroscientists, but 
> eventually were discouraged by the lack of philosophical rigor in the 
> field. The former become well-known, the latter disappear into other 
> endeavors. I will not get into more details to protect identities. This 
> sort of dynamic creates a false impression of consensus in some scientific 
> fields, especially with the lay people who are interested in science, and 
> helps make scientists with non-aligned positions seem crazy. 
>
>
> I know. That lasts since 1500 years. 
>
> Separating religion from science is like saying that you have the right to 
> believe in any BS, which is exactly what the exploiters of fears needs. 
>
> Some scientists (to be sure very few, but some are influent and nobody 
> knows why) consider that doubting physicalism is just an heresy. 
>
> They don’t argued, and unlike John Clark and Bruce Kellet, they only 
> ignore. It is the lie by Omission. 
> The lie by omission is what Barr did when “summarising” the Mueller report 
> (to give another example). 
>
> The book by Patrick Dehornoy “Théorie des Ensembles” has the merit to 
> point how the Bourbarki (the French mathematicians with many heads) imposed 
> somehow their misconception

Re: STEP 3

On Monday, July 22, 2019, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:41 PM Stathis Papaioannou 
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:50, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
>> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/22/2019 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>
>>> Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can be
 replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this, questions
 about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has been pointed out
 several times.

>>>
>>> The substantive problem is a philosophical one, since by assumption in
>>> these debates the copied brain is identical by any empirical test.
>>>
>>>
>>> But what if, as seems likely to me, it is theoretically impossible to
>>> copy a brain to a level that it undetectable, i.e. it will necessarily be
>>> possible to distinguish physical differences.  Now these differences may
>>> not matter to consciousness, or they may imply only a brief glitch at the
>>> conscious/classical level, but we know from Holevo's theorem that the
>>> duplicate can't be known to be in the same state.
>>>
>>
>> I feel that I am the same person today as yesterday because I am pretty
>> close to the person I was yesterday, even though if you were to look at me
>> in enough detail, even using simple tests and instruments, I am quite
>> different today. It seems unreasonable to insist that a copy of a person
>> must be closer to the original than the "copying" that occurs in everyday
>> life.
>>
>
> Dealing with this particular worry is one of the strengths of Nozick's
> 'closest continuer' theory.
>


Closest continuer theory is the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of personal
identity theory. A stop gap to preserve common sense notions in light of
paradoxes that imply the old way if thinking is untenable.

As with quantum mechanics, common sense personal identity theories are
forced to either abandon any connection linking observer moments (like the
zero universe interpretation) or to a universalism that links all observers
to a single person (like many worlds).

Personal identity theories based on psychological or bodily continuity can
always be shown to break down, either by holding the body the same and
changing the psyche, or holding the psyche the same and changing the body.

"Oneself: the logic of experience" by Arnold Zuboff is a good introduction
to the reasoning.  Many thinkers, including Shrodinger, Dyson, and Hoyle
reached the same conclusion.

Jason


>
> Bruce
>
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Re: Historical contingency and the futility of reductionism


> On 24 Jul 2019, at 22:11, spudboy100 via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> I bet that biology is reducible to physics

OK. Reasonable bet in the absence of string evidence to the contrary.


> and the belief, since that is what it is, a belief, is one reason we have 
> missed the boat on the life sciences apparently. We still can' (won't) bring 
> basic physical elements and from this create organisms. My suspicion that 
> since the days or Urey, scientists have backed off why this is not so. Unless 
> we invoke the elan vitale? :-D 

The élan vitale, of course, does not add anything to “we are ignorant”, and is 
the usual reification of ignorance done when theology felt in the trap, and is 
used to prevent research.

What people seems to miss is that Mechanism explains consciousness, entirely, 
in the sense that it explains the discourse by the machine on “consciousness” 
(that only thing that they know for sure), and it explains why consciousness is 
mysterious, and has to felt that way (and why consciousness existence is 
incompatible with mechanism+materialism, even in their weakest forms).

I think scientist have been able to build a virus from scratch, some years ago.

A bacteria is just far beyond current days technology. Even a complex protein 
is beyond our technology.

Bruno



> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Bruno Marchal 
> To: everything-list 
> Sent: Wed, Jul 24, 2019 5:59 am
> Subject: Re: Historical contingency and the futility of reductionism
> 
> 
>> On 22 Jul 2019, at 22:33, spudboy100 via Everything List 
>> mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> I would say that physics is diff from inorganic chemistry and biological 
>> science, in the sense that how academics observe and measure phenomena. Its 
>> a Venn diagram in which the circles or ovals align one on top of the other, 
>> maybe off-center here and there, but the same thing. 
> 
> Biology is certainly different from physics, but that does not mean that 
> terrestrial biology is not conceptually reducible to physics.
> 
> Like with mechanism, physics remains different from arithmetic and computer 
> science, but is conceptually reducible to or explained by, arithmetic.
> 
> It is important to distinguish the ontology (what we assume at the start, and 
> which is eventually shown *necessary* to assume), and the phenomenologies 
> derived in the ontology, which does not introduce any new assumptions (only 
> definitions).
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Bruno Marchal mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>>
>> To: everything-list > >
>> Sent: Mon, Jul 22, 2019 9:31 am
>> Subject: Re: Historical contingency and the futility of reductionism
>> 
>> 
>>> On 22 Jul 2019, at 11:44, Philip Thrift >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Why chemistry (and biology) is not physics
>>> 
>>> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/historical-contingency-and-the-futility-of-reductionism-why-chemistry-and-biology-is-not-physics/
>>>  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Partly why I'm a materialist, not a physicalist.
>>> 
>>> But this has implications for arithmetical reality (?).
>> 
>> If Chemistry is not physics, it would mean that ours substitution level 
>> would be in between QM and chemistry (something slightly more complex to be 
>> sure, but it is a reasonable approximation).
>> 
>> Now, I am not convinced by the paper above that chemistry is not reducible 
>> to quantum mechanics, especially that chemistry count the most successful 
>> application of quantum mechanics.
>> 
>> I have no definite ideas on all this. The paper might confuse []p and []p & 
>> p, like 99,9998% of materialist thinkers here.
>> 
>> Bruno
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> @philipthrift
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>>>  
>>> .
>>> 
>> 
>> 
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Re: Historical contingency and the futility of reductionism

> On 24 Jul 2019, at 12:17, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 4:59:35 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> Biology is certainly different from physics, but that does not mean that 
> terrestrial biology is not conceptually reducible to physics.
> 
> Like with mechanism, physics remains different from arithmetic and computer 
> science, but is conceptually reducible to or explained by, arithmetic.
> 
> It is important to distinguish the ontology (what we assume at the start, and 
> which is eventually shown *necessary* to assume), and the phenomenologies 
> derived in the ontology, which does not introduce any new assumptions (only 
> definitions).
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> Does "conceptually reducible" mean anything? It means nothing to me.

A theory T1, which intended domain discourse D1 is reduced to a theory T2, with 
domain D2, if T2 interpret D1 in D2, and proves the corresponding theorem of T1.

Basically, this means that T2 is not needed to be assumed, as T1 do the right 
task. Then if T1 is simpler than T2, there is again, especially if T2 looks 
like contradicting T1.

> 
> Start with the Standard Model in Lagrangian language:
> 
>
> https://www.sciencealert.com/images/Screen_Shot_2016-08-03_at_3.20.12_pm.png 
> 
> 
> Can one compile or translate the theories of biology into this? If so, it 
> could be made explicit.

You need only the part on the electromagnetic interaction 
(photon/electron/nucleus). Chemistry is *the* big success of quantum physics. 
Quantum filed theory go beyond, as it explains also the internal structure of 
the nuclei, which does not pay a big role in biochemistry, except for the mass 
and gravitation which is still unsolved. 

To use Alain Connes explicit Lagrangian here, would like trying to do a coffee 
using string theory. Possible in theory; but not in practice.

Similarly, Mechanism explains (up to now, and until refutation) why there is 
consciousness and where the apparence of a physical reality comes from, in a 
constructive way (leading to difficult problem in pure arithmetic/mathematical 
logic).

Bruno

> 
> @philipthrift
> 
>  
> 
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Re: Observation versus assumption

2019-07-25 Thread Telmo Menezes




On Thu, Jul 25, 2019, at 11:06, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> > On 24 Jul 2019, at 20:31, Telmo Menezes  wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Wed, Jul 24, 2019, at 17:41, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote:
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On 7/23/2019 11:52 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
> >>> 
> >>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019, at 17:33, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote:
>  
>  On 7/23/2019 4:50 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
> > Hi Brent,
> > 
> > On Fri, Jul 19, 2019, at 22:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> > wrote:
> >> On 7/19/2019 4:49 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
> >>> I share their perplexity. The idea of immaterialism is natural (and
> >>> arises thousands of years ago), because the only thing that we cannot
> >>> doubt (as Descartes pointed out) -- our consciousness -- is
> >>> immaterial. There is not scientific instrument that can detect
> >>> consciousness.
> >> That's not really true. Of course doctors assess patients as conscious,
> >> unconscious, in coma, or brain dead every day.  The myth that
> >> consciousness is a mystery is part hubris (we are too special to be
> >> understood) and part an exaggerated demand for understanding. There's 
> >> no
> >> scientific instrument that can detect the wave function of an electron
> >> either.  But with the electron we're happy to have an effective theory
> >> that tells us when the detector will click or not. Mystery mongering
> >> about consciousness makes us demand something more that mere 
> >> measurement
> >> and prediction, something that doesn't exist for any theory.
> > I understand your point that we can always make additional demands for 
> > explanation, and that any scientific theory cannot be expected to do 
> > more than what successful scientific theories do, which is to correctly 
> > predict phenomena.
> > 
> > My main point is this, and I think it goes to the core of our 
> > disagreement:
> > No scientific theory predicts consciousness!
>  What would it mean to predict consciousness.  When we predict electrons
>  what we mean it we predict the observable effects of electrons.
> >>> Right, so what are the observable effects of consciousness? All I can see 
> >>> in neuroscience are predictions about the observable effects of (wet) 
> >>> computations. Neuroscience is not capable of pointing to a behavior and 
> >>> saying: ah! consciousness! see, this couldn't happen without 
> >>> consciousness.
> >>> 
> >>> If you rob physicists of electrons, suddenly many of their models will 
> >>> have holes in them, they will no longer be valid. If you rob 
> >>> neuroscientists of consciousness, everything works the same.
> >> I'm not sure that's true.  ISTM that some of the experiments by 
> >> cognitive neuroscientists include conscious thoughts and judgements as 
> >> elements of their theory.
> > 
> > They try, but they can't measure.
> > 
> > - Alexa, are you conscious?
> > - Of course!
> > 
> > Err…
> 
> Most neuroscientists believes in Matter, and, sometimes even 
> explicitly, like the ASSC, do not address the mind-body problem.
> 
> When they have some understanding of the problem, they eliminate 
> consciousness and person, which is the logical thing to do for people 
> believing in both matter and mechanism: consciousness does not exists.

I have met a few neuroscientists, and this is also my impression. I have also 
met researchers who were trying to become neuroscientists, but eventually were 
discouraged by the lack of philosophical rigor in the field. The former become 
well-known, the latter disappear into other endeavors. I will not get into more 
details to protect identities. This sort of dynamic creates a false impression 
of consensus in some scientific fields, especially with the lay people who are 
interested in science, and helps make scientists with non-aligned positions 
seem crazy.

Telmo.

> Of course, most people here would disagree with such a blatant deny of 
> the most important data on consciousness: the experience we live 
> everyday.
> 
> Bruno 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> >>> 
>  In that
>  sense I think we will, eventually, predict consciousness.  We will
>  engineer intelligent entities and some of them will have the observable
>  aspects of consciousness...and we will be able to say why the do and
>  others don't and how we can design entities that have more or less or
>  different kinds of consciousness: perception, self-identity, reflection,
>  etc.
> >>> I attended a presentation the other day of a psychologist who is 
> >>> investigating the sort of relationships that people develop with voice 
> >>> assistants such as Alexa. She told the story of a woman who admits to 
> >>> being emotionally attached to her Alexa. She says that she is not crazy 
> >>> or deluded. This woman is an engineer and she has a pretty good grasp of 
> >>> what Alexa is, and how it works in general.

Re: Observation versus assumption


> On 24 Jul 2019, at 20:09, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/24/2019 2:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 23 Jul 2019, at 00:12, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>>> >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 7/22/2019 7:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> The only one I know for a fact to exist.
 
 Nobody can know that a world exist. You would know that you are 
 consistent, making you inconsistent.
>>> 
>>> A confusion of "know" and "prove”. 
>> 
>> ?
>> 
>> On the contrary. What I said has been derived (like the whole machine 
>> theology) from the distinction between knowledge ([]p & p) and 
>> belief/prove/assume ([]p).
>> 
>> Hmm, I think you are confusing “world” (nobody can prove that such a thing 
>> exist, nor know that such a thing exist) and consciousness, that nobody van 
>> prove that such a thing exists, but that everybody can know that it exists).
> 
> No.  You are assuming that you can only have knowledge of p if you also have 
> proof []p. 

On the contrary, I explain that we cannot justify that []p -> p, and that is 
why for knowledge, we have to use []p & p instead of just []p. 

Proving proves nothing! After Gödel, “proving” is just rational hypothetical 
beliefs. Knowledge comes from personal experience, and never go out of personal 
experience, but we can use them to try theories/beliefs, and test their 
consequences.




>   This is essentially rejecting empirical knowledge and instead assumes that 
> there some axioms on which []p can be based.

That is right, and that is how eventually incompleteness justifies the 
existence and the importance of the empirical beliefs/theories, and the 
personal knowledge.



> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> A consequence of assuming knowledge requires proof...in direct 
>>> contradiction to your definition of consciousness which is defined in terms 
>>> of immediate knowledge.
>> 
>> Knowledge requires proof,
> 
> Nonsense.  That's what I mean by your "definition" of consciousness does not 
> at all comport with actual experience of consciousness.   What would your 
> proof be based on?  Proofs are only relative to axioms and rules of inference.

Knowledge is []p & p. It requires proof because I limit myself to rational 
knowledge, but requiring does not mean that it is identify with proof. The 
conscious knowledge is in “p” not “[]p”.
You might need to reread my posts as I insist on this since long. Proof is 
neither truth, nor knowledge.



> 
> 
>> because the Theatetus’ sort of knowledge is limited to rational knowledge
> 
> ??  I suspect your idea of "rational knowledge" does not comport with 
> anyone's idea of rational since Theatetus.

It is the standard definition of knowledge since Theaetetus. See Gerson’s book 
on this (“ancient epistemology”). 
Gerson critics it, like Socrates in the Theaetetus, but the incompleteness 
theorem refutes Socartes, and Gerson’s refutation of it.

Bruno




> 
>> , and is defined by ([]p & p). It is when a belief/assumption is true.
>> 
>> The immediate knowledge is in the “immediate mode” obtained from the nuance 
>> ([]p & <>t & p).
>> 
>> G* proves that all modes are equivalent, and that the machine cannot be 
>> aware of that equivalence, and that it obeys different logic.
>> 
>> There is one truth, the sigma_1 arithmetical truth, and very different modes 
>> of handling that truth, the true mode, the belief mode, the knowledge mode, 
>> the observable modes and the sensible modes.
>> 
>> Bruno
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> Brent
>>> 
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>>>  
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>> .
> 
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Re: Observation versus assumption



> On 24 Jul 2019, at 20:31, Telmo Menezes  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 24, 2019, at 17:41, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On 7/23/2019 11:52 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019, at 17:33, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote:
 
 On 7/23/2019 4:50 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
> Hi Brent,
> 
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2019, at 22:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote:
>> On 7/19/2019 4:49 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>>> I share their perplexity. The idea of immaterialism is natural (and
>>> arises thousands of years ago), because the only thing that we cannot
>>> doubt (as Descartes pointed out) -- our consciousness -- is
>>> immaterial. There is not scientific instrument that can detect
>>> consciousness.
>> That's not really true. Of course doctors assess patients as conscious,
>> unconscious, in coma, or brain dead every day.  The myth that
>> consciousness is a mystery is part hubris (we are too special to be
>> understood) and part an exaggerated demand for understanding. There's no
>> scientific instrument that can detect the wave function of an electron
>> either.  But with the electron we're happy to have an effective theory
>> that tells us when the detector will click or not. Mystery mongering
>> about consciousness makes us demand something more that mere measurement
>> and prediction, something that doesn't exist for any theory.
> I understand your point that we can always make additional demands for 
> explanation, and that any scientific theory cannot be expected to do more 
> than what successful scientific theories do, which is to correctly 
> predict phenomena.
> 
> My main point is this, and I think it goes to the core of our 
> disagreement:
> No scientific theory predicts consciousness!
 What would it mean to predict consciousness.  When we predict electrons
 what we mean it we predict the observable effects of electrons.
>>> Right, so what are the observable effects of consciousness? All I can see 
>>> in neuroscience are predictions about the observable effects of (wet) 
>>> computations. Neuroscience is not capable of pointing to a behavior and 
>>> saying: ah! consciousness! see, this couldn't happen without consciousness.
>>> 
>>> If you rob physicists of electrons, suddenly many of their models will have 
>>> holes in them, they will no longer be valid. If you rob neuroscientists of 
>>> consciousness, everything works the same.
>> I'm not sure that's true.  ISTM that some of the experiments by 
>> cognitive neuroscientists include conscious thoughts and judgements as 
>> elements of their theory.
> 
> They try, but they can't measure.
> 
> - Alexa, are you conscious?
> - Of course!
> 
> Err…

Most neuroscientists believes in Matter, and, sometimes even explicitly, like 
the ASSC, do not address the mind-body problem.

When they have some understanding of the problem, they eliminate consciousness 
and person, which is the logical thing to do for people believing in both 
matter and mechanism: consciousness does not exists.

Of course, most people here would disagree with such a blatant deny of the most 
important data on consciousness: the experience we live everyday.

Bruno 



> 
>>> 
 In that
 sense I think we will, eventually, predict consciousness.  We will
 engineer intelligent entities and some of them will have the observable
 aspects of consciousness...and we will be able to say why the do and
 others don't and how we can design entities that have more or less or
 different kinds of consciousness: perception, self-identity, reflection,
 etc.
>>> I attended a presentation the other day of a psychologist who is 
>>> investigating the sort of relationships that people develop with voice 
>>> assistants such as Alexa. She told the story of a woman who admits to being 
>>> emotionally attached to her Alexa. She says that she is not crazy or 
>>> deluded. This woman is an engineer and she has a pretty good grasp of what 
>>> Alexa is, and how it works in general. And yet, the emotional attachment 
>>> still kicks in. So I guess, according to your idea, we should start 
>>> searching Alexa for an initial model of consciousness?
>> 
>> Certainly.  Two obvious ones are that Alexa is responsive to the 
>> environment (speech) and is knowledgeable.
> 
> But you don't need Alexa for that. You start by assuming that consciousness 
> is related to things such as being responsive to the environment, and then 
> you point at something that is responsible to the environment and you find 
> signs of consciousness. Don't you really see the problem here?
> 
>>> 
> Putting it another way, every single successful scientific theory that we 
> know about as these two properties:
> 
> - Consciousness is not required for anything "to work";
> - Consciousness is not predicted to exist in any

Re: Observation versus assumption


> On 24 Jul 2019, at 20:40, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 1:24:37 PM UTC-5, telmo wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 24, 2019, at 18:08, Philip Thrift wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 8:18:09 AM UTC-5, telmo wrote:
>> 
>> Brent argues that the consciousness problem will be solved by building AIs 
>> that behave in such a way as to convince us they are conscious. My point is 
>> that our relation to an AI tells us nothing about consciousness.
>> 
>> Telmo.
>> 
>> 
>> If the cognitivist (information-processing) AI approach to consciousness is 
>> right, then consciousness can be realized on any mechanism that performs 
>> (conventional) information processing.
>> 
>> The alternative is "not all materials are equal" and that (self-aware) 
>> consciousness can be realized only in mechanisms made of a particular type 
>> of materials (e.g. biomaterials).
> 
> A third possibility is that materials are things within consciousness, i.e. 
> consciousness is more fundamental than matter.
> 
> Telmo.
> 
> 
> 
> But then that goes back to my "materials science argument for matter": matter 
> (as demonstrated in the summer Materials Camp for high school students) shows 
> it does things beyond what consciousness on its own can imagine.

But that is the case of all the G* minus G phenomenologies. Matter has to be 
beyond any particular consciousness. It is an open question for the universal 
consciousness (the consciousness of the unprogrammed universal programs).

Bruno



> 
> @philipthrift
> 
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Re: Observation versus assumption


> On 24 Jul 2019, at 12:57, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 5:34:38 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> The concept of “Matter” is never used in any paper in physics, only in 
> materialist philosophy. 
> 
> 
> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02062-0
> 
> Strange topological materials are popping up everywhere physicists look
> 
> ‘Fragile topology’ is the latest addition to a group of quantum phenomena 
> that give materials exotic — and exciting — properties.
> 
> "The mathematics hidden in materials keeps getting more exotic. Topological 
> states of matter — which derive exotic properties from their electrons’ 
> ‘knotty’ quantum states — have shot from rare curiosity to one of the hottest 
> fields in physics. Now, theorists are finding that topology is ubiquitous — 
> and recognizing it as one of the most significant ways in which solid matter 
> can behave.”

With Mechanism, that is explained by the topology of the models obeying to the 
material modes of the self. Topology is an important topi in the whole of 
mathematical logic and computer science. In fact, there are many relationship 
between computable functions and functionals and continuous functions, in 
variated topological space. Scott models of the lambda calculus illustrates 
this too. The rise of the importance of topology in physics can be taken as a 
confirmation of computationalism.

Bruno



> 
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Re: STEP 3


> On 25 Jul 2019, at 04:20, PGC  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wednesday, July 24, 2019 at 1:28:34 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 24 Jul 2019, at 01:02, Bruce Kellett > 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 1:06 AM Bruno Marchal > > wrote:
>> On 23 Jul 2019, at 06:45, Bruce Kellett > 
>> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:30 PM Stathis Papaioannou >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> The inputs serve to put the brain in a particular state, but the brain 
>>> could go into the same state without the inputs. This can be a practical 
>>> problem in patients with schizophrenia: the may hear voices and are 
>>> convinced that the voices are real, to the point where they might assault 
>>> someone because of what they believe he said. 
>>> 
>>> And I believe that if a particular small area of the brain is stimulated, 
>>> the subject experiences the colour red. Similarly, if the colour red is 
>>> shown, that same area of the brain shows activity. So quailia are nothing 
>>> but particular brain activity. There is no additional "magic sauce" in 
>>> consciousness.
>>> 
>>> These same areas of the brain could be excited at random, as in your 
>>> schizophrenic example. All that goes to show is that consciousness is 
>>> nothing more than brain activity. Absent brain activity, there is no 
>>> consciousness.
>> 
>> But absence of consciousness does not entail absence of brain activity.
>> 
>> It is not claimed that consciousness and brain activity are coextensive. So 
>> you can have brain activity without consciousness (as in a vegetative 
>> state), but there is no consciousness without brain activity.
> 
> 
> There is no human consciousness without brain activity. But with mechanism 
> things are like this:
> 
> NUMBER => CONSCIOUSNESS => PHYSICAL REALITY => BRAINS => HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
> 
> All of which not only exist but have been implemented in laws for thousands 
> of years, enabling you to play e.g. philosopher king on this very list. 
> 
> What is believed to be "primary" is everybody's personal business.

I think this is false, and a remnant of he idea that in religion we can believe 
what we want, but is a consequence of the separation of science (modesty in the 
means) and religion (humility with resect of fundamental knowledge).


> Our democracies leave much to be desired; mostly avoiding self-destruction in 
> the search for sustainability but platonic degrees of freedom, preserving 
> and expanding them without killing ourselves, what you call "mechanism" is 
> democratic business as usual of conflicting interests due to simultaneous 
> existence. Plato isn't buried for a thousand years.
> 
> I don't see much philosophically noteworthy attributes that these thought 
> experiments add to discourse. A hierarchy of primacy runs into intractability 
> and ignorance, "we don't know" as authoritative argument is exploitable, as 
> everybody can see on this list for years; it's not a vaccine but seems an 
> unnecessary liability/commitment that rationally bars folks from enjoying 
> life's mystery.
> 

Good point.


> Every joy shared or not, merely deterministic, delusional.

No, with mechanism the “illusions" and phenomenologies are real, and the most 
important issue, given that the ontology is extremely simple and sober.



> Every degree of freedom merely phenomenological. All laughter an escape 
> mechanism exploited. All lives tears in the rain. Life negating and cynical. 
> That's just one thing you add to "2+2=4". The walls of this list are full of 
> the rest of it for 2 decades.Simplest theory, huh? 
> 
> Oscar Wilde would reply that such schools of thought, hyper rationality with 
> Christian ethical-theological primary components: Propagated by those who 
> don't know beauty, becoming slaves of their fanatical relation to 
> nomenclature. 
> 
> You want me to show you a full theory of everything without all the body mind 
> language woo woo? We do this in music and the arts for thousands of years. 
> Every piece. Every person. The following piece of music is but one of many. 
> All histories and ages, classical politeness discourses, romantic rumination 
> and introspection, party enjoyment to Quantum superposition insanity at the 
> end: progressing with every piece in that order... are represented by this 
> sequence of flute and guitar notes convincingly in my humble opinion: Lay 
> down or be comfortable, close our eyes, and hear for ourselves or not: 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=852jpjmSR8Q 
> 
> 
> Arguments are in the doing and experiencing,

That is correct.

Bruno




> not the explaining, nor the reports, which even though they should be done 
> are just that: reports by people. Just people. 
> 
> I guess I should quit bitching and publish. "The interesting sexy stuff. Who 
> got it? I want some. Procedural notes and algorithms. Discourse with balls." 
> PGC
> 
> 
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Re: STEP 3


> On 25 Jul 2019, at 07:52, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 3:16 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> 
> wrote:
> On 7/24/2019 4:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> Note that the personal identity is not a transitive notion. Step 3 actually 
>>> illustrates well this. I recall he cut and copy itself from Helsinki (H) in 
>>> both Washington (W) and Moscow (M). With the definition of the personal 
>>> identity above, both the HW and the HM guy are, from that personal identity 
>>> view,  the same person as the H person.
>>> 
>>> With a more sensible notion of personal identity, the copies are different 
>>> persons, and different persons from the original.
>> 
>> But that would entail that you die in step 1, which would again just be your 
>> opinion that mechanism is false.
> 
> Why do you assume this is all-or-nothing, live-or-die?  What seems likely to 
> me is that the copy will be necessarily different due to information 
> limitations of quantum mechanics...but maybe not so different that one would 
> still say yes to the doctor, depending on the alternatives.
> 
> I was talking about duplication, as in step 3. But even in step 1 the 
> original is "cut" after copying. So the original certainly "dies" according 
> to the "cut" protocol. The question is whether what survives as a copy is 
> sufficiently like the original to count as the same person.

That’s correct, and the digital Mechanist assumption is that the copy is a 
survivor when the copy is made at the right substitution, which exists too by 
part of the mechanist assumption.



> 
> It seems to me that this depends on a lot of things that are left unspecified.

What specifically?



> Of particular concern is whether the original body is also reconstructed -- a 
> feat that would seem to be beyond any reasonable technology of the future.

That is not relevant. The feasibility assumption is handy to do the thought 
experiences, and is explicitly discharged at step 7. All what counts if that is 
a level of substitution exists, then the arithmetical reality enacted it, in 
infinitely many arithmetical relations.




> What you could at best achieve would be to connect the mechanical brain to 
> some robotic body, with maintenance of essential input and output functions. 
> Or even have the copy live in an entirely virtual reality, constructed within 
> some computer.

That step 6.
Then step 7 use arithmetic as the base universal machinery. 



> (Such possibilities are relatively common in the Sci-Fi literature.) Then, 
> even if memories are preserved, it is possible that the copied person might 
> react negatively to his/her new substitute body (or the virtual reality 
> environment).. This is not unknown in practice, because sometimes after 
> accidents that lead to severe bodily deformations, the patient rejects the 
> damaged body and suffers all sorts of psychological problems: PTSD being one 
> of the least of their worries. So although these are thought experiments, the 
> practical implications for real people are largely unknowable until it is 
> actually tried in practice. Whether this would ever be ethical is another 
> question…….

All this is correct, but has no relevance with the reasoning, and its 
translation in arithmetic. None that I see, so you can elaborate perhaps.

Bruno



> 
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Re: STEP 3