Re: An AI can now pass a 12th-Grade Science Test

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 9/15/2019 5:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Why would it even have a simple goal like "survive”?

It is a short code which makes the organism better for eating and avoiding 
being eaten.


An organism needs to eat and avoid being eaten because that what 
evolution selects.  AIs don't evolve by natural selection.








And to help yourself is saying no more that it will have some fundamental goal...otherwise 
there's no distinction between "help" and "hurt”.

It helps to eat, it hurts to be eaten. It is the basic idea.


For "helps" and "hurts" what?  Successful replication?

Brent

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/6cbdd7be-9474-ceb0-86fa-7e269c9c8a71%40verizon.net.

Re: Quantum immortality

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 9/15/2019 6:41 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

If in H you are multiplied in W and M, but directly killed in M, you survive in W with 
probability one. That is why we add p or <>t to []p to transform the logic of belief 
([]p) into a probability logic ([]p & <>t).

Suppose you live a few seconds in M.  Do you then survive in W with probability 
0.5?

Assuming you do die in M, even after some years, the probability in H to be 
feeling the one in W will be one, assuming you never dies in W. But this 
assumes mortality, and some transitivity of the probability rules, so the  
question is very complex. The probability in H to be W or M, for a short time,  
is one half, but the probability to be in the place where you stay for a long 
time, will be close to one in a sort of retrospective way.

All this comes from a simple fact: absolute-death is not a first person 
experience. There is no entry in the first person diary which mention “I died 
today”.

The difficulty is that the first person renormalise the probabilities all the 
time, and that is why making them transitive leads to paradoxes.


I think what makes them paradoxical is that you jump around between 
subjective probabilities of different persons beliefs.




Let me try to illustrate. You are in H, just before the WM-duplication. You are 
told in advance that in W you will get a cup of tea, and then be killed. In W 
you get a cup of coffee, and not killed.


Is that last W supposed to be "M"?


What is the probability (in H) that you will get a cup of tea. It is 1/2. But 
what is the probability, in H, that you will have a long lasting memory of 
having drink a cup of coffee after that experiments: It is 1. In fact, in 
Moscow, you could (although it is psychologically very difficult) still bet 
that “you” will have a memory of having doing coffee, and just an amnesia of M 
and its cup of tea. This also gives some sense that we survive more in our kids 
and in the value we transmit to them, than in bodies and personal first person 
happening.

Now, that renormalisation process is not easy, a bit like in QFT, we get 
infinities which are hard to subtract.


Brent

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/d673b090-1a42-fc42-4abc-68fc09633e9e%40verizon.net.

Re: Quantum immortality

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 9/15/2019 6:13 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 13 Sep 2019, at 22:28, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote:




On 9/13/2019 10:59 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 6:38 PM Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 2:55 AM Jason Resch
mailto:jasonre...@gmail.com>> wrote:

On Tuesday, September 10, 2019, Bruce Kellett
mailto:bhkellet...@gmail.com>> wrote:

On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 10:18 AM 'Brent Meeker' via
Everything List mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> wrote:

On 9/10/2019 4:30 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> Another argument that has been given here before
is that if quantum
> immortality is true, then we should expect to see
a number of people
> who are considerably older than the normal life
expectancy -- and we
> do not see people who are two or three hundred
years old. Even if the
> probabilities are very low, there have been an
awful lot of people
> born within the last 500 or so years -- some must
have survived on our
> branch if this scenario is true.

My argument was that each of us should find
ourselves to be much older
than even the oldest people we know.

That is probably the best single argument against
quantum immortality: if QI is true, then the measure of
our lifetime after one reaches a normal lifetime is
infinitely greater than the measure before age , say,
120 yr. So if one finds oneself younger than 120 years,
QI is false, and if MWI is still considered to be true,
there must be another argument why MWI does not imply QI.



Why do you think that measure only increases with age? On an
objective level it only decreases.


As Bruno would say, "you confuse the 1p with the 1pp." I am
talking about my personal measure of the number of years I have
lived. As I get older, the number of years I have lived
increases. If I live to 1000, I have lived more years between
100 and 1000 than between 1 and 100. This is arithmetic, after all.


I see.  This reasoning works only under the assumption that finding 
yourself in any particular year across your infinite lifespan is 
equiprobable (i.e. you can ignore the effects of the number or 
measure of the various yous in other branches).  This is what I 
thought you mean by measure, in terms of how to calculate 
probabilities / weights of the various branches.



But this discussion has gone off the rails. It started as a
discussion of quantum immortality, and the arguments against
this notion, even in MWI. The arguments against QI that have
been advanced are that life-threatening events tend not to be
binary or quantum, but rather we enter a period of slow decline,
due to illness or other factors. Consequently, there is no
reason for us to expect to be immortal, even in MWI.


I don't see how that last sentence follows.  It is true MWI doesn't 
guarantee we should expect to always survive in the same condition, 
but it does guarantee we should survive in some form.


But what does "we" refer to. Are you saying Jason, with the memories 
he has at this moment, will always have a successor in the future.   
Or are you saying there'll always be a Jason that shares my childhood 
memories or my memories of last year when that lightning bolt just 
missed me.



The other argument is that if QI is true, then you would expect
to be very old.


We only know we are very old if our memories accumulate without 
limit, but MWI does not guarantee persistence of memory.  It also 
follows from this that to know one is immortal (has lived an 
infinite number of years) requires an infinitely large brain and 
memory capacity.


I don't have to remember everything that happened over 80yrs to know 
I'm 80yrs old.  In fact I only need to remember my birthday.



And memory is fallible, and memory of age has no more meaning when 
your age is bigger that the nameable or describable number, which 
happens very soon, relatively, for the immortal being trying to keep 
track of their birthday.


Immortality is when you are to old to be able to even name your age. 
After that, you have always the same age.


Nice aphorisms.  But irrelevant.  The question is why don't we see 
almost everyone else as younger?




Mortality is an illusion enjoyed by the gods when tired of eternity. 
It is very long 


Brent
"Eternity is very long.  Especially near the end."
         Woody Allen

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

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:03:06 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:05 PM Alan Grayson  > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 9:58:53 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:36 AM Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>


 On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:01:23 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:02 AM Alan Grayson  
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 4:34:28 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:06 PM Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>


 On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:46:27 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:36 AM Alan Grayson  
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 12:34:18 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Friday, September 13, 2019, Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>


 On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:42:00 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:25 AM Alan Grayson <
> agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5:24:11 AM UTC-6, Bruno 
>> Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 13 Sep 2019, at 04:26, Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 11:01:54 AM UTC-6, Alan 
>>> Grayson wrote:



 On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 7:45:22 AM UTC-6, 
 Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:20:46 AM UTC-5, 
> Philip Thrift wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, 
>> Alan Grayson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Many Worlds is where people go to escape from one world 
>> of quantum-stochastic processes. They are like vampires, but 
>> instead of 
>> running away from sunbeams, are running away from 
>> probabilities.
>>
>> @philipthrift
>>
>
> This assessment is not entirely fair. Carroll and Sebens 
> have a paper on how supposedly the Born rule can be derived 
> from MWI  I 
> have yet to read their paper, but given the newsiness of this 
> I might get 
> to it. One advantage that MWI does have is that it splits the 
> world as a 
> sort of quantum frame dragging that is nonlocal. This 
> nonlocal property 
> might be useful for working with quantum gravity,
>
> I worked a proof of a theorem, which may not be complete 
> unfortunately, where the two sets of quantum interpretations 
> that 
> are ψ-epistemic and those that are ψ-ontological are not 
> decidable. There 
> is no decision procedure which can prove QM holds either way. 
> The proof is 
> set with nonlocal hidden variables over the projective rays 
> of the state 
> space. In effect there is an uncertainty in whether the 
> hidden variables 
> localize extant quantities, say with ψ-ontology, or 
> whether this localization is the generation of information in 
> a local 
> context from quantum nonlocality that is not extant, such as 
> with 
> ψ-epistemology. Quantum interprertations are then 
> auxiliary physical axioms or postulates. MWI and within the 
> framework of 
> what Carrol and Sebens has done this is a ψ-ontology, and 
> this defines the Born rule. If I am right the degree of 
> ψ-epistemontic 
> nature is mixed. So the intriguing question we can address is 
> the nature of 
> the Born rule and its tie into the auxiliary postulates of 
> quantum 
> interpretations. Can a similar demonstration be made for the 
> Born 

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

My guess is among the physics community, most, would be mildly, skeptical of 
MWI, because it's a bridge too far to get evidence of, as yet and thus, 
unconcerned. Having said this, many cosmologists are still having a cat fight 
about the Hubble Constant (The rate of cosmological expansion). my suspicion 
is, that once we get to the point of hanging truly gigantic telescopes on the 
periphery of the solar system, new discoveries will be made, and revisions to 
old laws of physics will be done. We'll gain a few definitive answers through 
observation, and we shall see that quantum in action at a vastly large scale. 
Relatedly, hey!, where's my dark matter? in fact, hey!, where's my fusion 
reactors. Ah! So much for the 'mentally fit' physicists and astronomers


-Original Message-
From: Philip Thrift 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Sun, Sep 15, 2019 7:03 pm
Subject: Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)



On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 5:46:13 PM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote:


On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 3:34:10 PM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote:

 

Sean Carroll's many-selves

And the good news is ... the one in this world is going bald. AG 


And (many would say) going crazy.
There is obviously (in his view) a world where a Sean Carroll is a "one world" 
quantum theorist. 

@philipthrift





https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=zsXCwUsuvKo


@philipthrift
On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote:
https://www.wired.com/story/ sean-carroll-thinks-we-all- 
exist-on-multiple-worlds/



-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/3b7a3a0d-b3e0-43ef-b886-c393eb35c9b0%40googlegroups.com.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/8643456.7738728.1568594779723%40mail.yahoo.com.

Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 9:50:18 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:18 PM Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> >>The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every 
>>> possible way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, but 
>>> that's not all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact with 
>>> the ticket in every possible way. Some interactions result in great wealth, 
>>> some result in no profit, and some result in oblivion as in the suicide 
>>> scenario.
>>>
>>
>> > The Schödinger equation says nothing of the sort.
>>
>
> It says when an electron moves from point A to point B it can do so by any 
> path, although some paths are more likely than others.
>

Technically there is no electron on a path. These paths are calculation 
devices and their ontological status is uncertain.
 

>  
>
>> > It is not a Charlie Parker "anything goes" system. It just tells how 
>> probability amplitudes that define a state or wave in a Fourier sum evolves 
>> with time. [...] It would be argued there are some MWI splittings that 
>> may play a role in determining the lottery number on the winning ticket, 
>> but there is no way this can at all be localized or identified.
>>
>
>
> The Schödinger Equation says the wave function is a direct 
> representation of reality, and the Many World's people say that too, they 
> say that's all that is needed. I admit it doesn't seem that way because 
> when we observe an electron hitting a photographic plate we don't see a 
> wave function and we don't see a large blob we see a small localized spot 
> at a definite place. So some people concluded that Schödinger's Equation 
> wasn't enough and they tacked on a lot of extra stuff about it collapsing 
> when a observation is made, something the equation itself doesn't even hint 
> at. Many Worlds says the extra stuff is unnecessary and Schödinger's 
> Equation is all that is needed.
>
> When you observe a electron, in other words when you become entangled with 
> the electron, in still other words when both you and the electron have the 
> same quantum wave function, there is a connection between the "you "system 
> and the "electron" system. That combined you-electron system obeys 
> Schödinger's Equation and the system smoothly evolves into a entangled 
> state, a superposition of every place the electron could have been and you 
> observing the electron at that location.
>
> But rather than say the combined you-electron system having evolved into a 
> superposition of all possible states Many World's says it evolves into 
> every possible observer. We don't end up with one observer who has many 
> ideas where the electron was seen, instead we end up with many worlds each 
> with an observer in it with a single definite idea of where the electron 
> was seen.  
>  
>
>> > As for below the Wheeler Delayed Choice experiment in the MWI setting 
>> a measurement of whether the electron went through a slit is performed 
>> after it has passed.
>>
>
> Many Worlds can explain delayed choice without invoking backward 
> causality. 
>

My point is not to argue for some retrocausality, for that is ruled out by 
the non-signalling theorem. My point is with the ambiguity with where 
states are localized.

The measurement is some entanglement of a system with a large number of 
quantum modes with a system that has few modes or degrees of freedom. The 
elementary approach is to assign some measurement state or needle state. 
But really the entanglement is far more complex and it is a partial 
entanglement that spreads through many other states that compose the 
measurement system or reservoir. 

LC
 

> The photon hits a half silvered mirror so 50% of the time the photon 
> takes path A and 50% of the time it takes path B. At the end of each path 
> is a detector which destroys the photon and sends the information on which 
> path the photon took to a physical memory system of some sort that, just 
> like everything else, must obey Schödinger's Equation. 
>
> Many Worlds says if there is a change the universe splits and in this case 
> the only difference is a change in the physical memory,  in one universe 
> the memory is it going through path A and the other it remembers it going 
> throughpath B. But if you then use quantum erasure then the physical state 
> of the memory is no longer different, they are in the exact same state, 
> so there is no longer any difference between the 2 universes, so they 
> merge back together. But now the single universe seems to have indications 
> the photon followed path A only and indications it followed path B only and 
> this can cause interference bands. 
>
> John K Clark 
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion 

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 5:46:13 PM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 3:34:10 PM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote:
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>> Sean Carroll's many-selves
>>
>
> And the good news is ... the one in this world is going bald. AG 
>


And (many would say) going crazy.

There is obviously (in his view) a world where a Sean Carroll is a "one 
world" quantum theorist. 


@philipthrift



>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsXCwUsuvKo
>>
>>
>>
>> @philipthrift
>>
>> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/
>>>
>>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/3b7a3a0d-b3e0-43ef-b886-c393eb35c9b0%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 3:34:10 PM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>  
>
> Sean Carroll's many-selves
>

And the good news is ... the one in this world is going bald. AG 

>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsXCwUsuvKo
>
>
>
> @philipthrift
>
> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote:
>>
>>
>> https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/
>>
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/67f68047-52d5-485e-9e22-894cc4a17862%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Philip Thrift]

 

Sean Carroll's many-selves


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsXCwUsuvKo



@philipthrift

On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>
> https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/30e7843f-d5f0-4873-8855-82f3dd81aebe%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Quantum immortality

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 9/15/2019 5:54 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 13 Sep 2019, at 22:17, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote:




On 9/13/2019 4:18 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



Le ven. 13 sept. 2019 à 13:16, Bruce Kellett > a écrit :


On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:49 PM Bruno Marchal mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:

On 12 Sep 2019, at 01:50, Bruce Kellett
mailto:bhkellet...@gmail.com>> wrote:

On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 1:55 AM Bruno Marchal
mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:

On 11 Sep 2019, at 01:30, Bruce Kellett
mailto:bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>> wrote:

From: *Bruno Marchal* mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>>

On 8 Sep 2019, at 13:59, Bruce Kellett
mailto:bhkellet...@gmail.com>> wrote:

If the only relevance you can find for many worlds
is quantum immortality, then many worlds is indeed
dead. Quantum immortality has been shown many times
to be a complete nonsense.


Really. I did not known that. Could you give the
references.


Follow the Wikipedia entry on quantum suicide.


That is not what I mean by a  reference.


I later gave a reference to the paper by Mallah -- whom you
know of, apparently. The paper is available at

https://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0187





Yes, the oldest participant in this list have know Jacques
Mallah, who participated a lot in this list.

Mallah is wrong here:

<<
Max Tegmark publicized the QS idea, but in some ways he is
more of a moderate on the issue than most of its believers
are. If he were to follow in the footsteps of Don Page
and alter his views, recanting belief in QS, it would be a
great help in exposing the belief as a fallacy, and I hold
out hope that it is possible that he will do so.

In his paper [Tegmark 1] QS is explained as follows:

“Since there is exactly one observer having perceptions both
before and after the trigger event, and since it occurred
too fast to notice, the MWI prediction is that” (the
experimenter) “will hear “click” with 100% certainty.”

That is a rather odd statement because he is certainly aware
that in the MWI there is no sense in which it can be
rightfully said that “there is exactly one observer” either
before


or after the experiment. The ket notation may be unhelpful
here; indeed, if the tensor product of kets on the left hand
side were expanded instead of factoring out the
observer, there would appear to have been “two observers”
initially.
>>


I don't get Mallah's point here, either. I will have to look
more clearly at his argument against QS. I don't think that case
is a clear-cut as for QI. The fact that I am not the oldest
person around is clear evidence against QI.


It's wrong, that imply you can nerver have been young.


And I am young, therefore quantum immortality is wrong. But exactly 
where is it wrong. There seem to be two different ideas of quantum 
immortality.  In one verison, the everything-happens version, is that 
whatever your state there is a physically possible way for you to 
survive...like invoking Bruno's magic cosmic rays that just happen to 
trigger the right nerves for the brain damaged student to ace her test.



Just to be clear, nobody believes in such magic cosmic rays. They have 
a probability zero in all histories, and I used them only to 
illustrate a point (indeed, they are replaced by the movie projection 
at the following step).


The computationalist immortality does not rely on such magic. To be sure.




In this version, no matter your age or circumstance, there will be a 
'you' that remembers your age and circumstance indefinitely far into 
the future.


The other version says that almost all Everettian 'copies' of your 
future will die but there's a non-zero probability of one still 
existing at any future time.  So then the relative measure of your 
future self depends on the ratio of copies that haven't died to those 
that have.  This implicitly assumes that whatever event that causes 
you to die does not also cause a surviving copy to be created (i.e. 
it's not a Tegmark machine gun).


I don’t see the difference. In all cases, when old and sick, surviving 
is like a white rabbit. The immortality comes only from the fact that 
no matter how the probability of surviving is small, from “your" first 
person view, death is not an experience, and “you” are always there.


But that's the probability of you surviving conditional on you knowing 
it.  That doesn't even take immortality. It's true even at a time when 
there is no one who remembers being you.  I'm discussing what you 
observe about the age of 

Re: Why Consciousness Cannot Be Algorithmic

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 03:17, John Clark  wrote:

>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:24 PM Philip Thrift 
> wrote:
>
> *> I really couldn't follow this paper - many worlds (of QM) vs.
>> multiverse (of cosmology) seemed all mixed up.*
>>
>
> I think the guy is a bit of an idiot. He starts off badly by equating
> intelligence and consciousness and then it gets worse when he  defines the
> personal pronoun "I" by what will happen in the future rather than what
> actually happened in the past. And that was all in the first paragraph, I
> didn't read any further.
>

He does not talk about intelligence at all, and his conceptual problem is
that he can’t imagine one person anticipating becoming one or other of his
copies in the future.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAH%3D2ypUv0%3D_4HO0w%2Bib2MumFjTGA%2BTDZ6w6O1dEkhA9eEZNBMg%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Why Consciousness Cannot Be Algorithmic

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

You mean human consciousness or something bigger? 


-Original Message-
From: 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Sun, Sep 15, 2019 7:39 am
Subject: Re: Why Consciousness Cannot Be Algorithmic

The reason is much simpler: "Physics" is just an idea in consciousness.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/83cd060e-aad2-4f17-ad6a-be72abb4aa08%40googlegroups.com.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1186531957.7646684.1568579287466%40mail.yahoo.com.

Re: Why Consciousness Cannot Be Algorithmic

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Well, if consciousness is wholly indexical (the original word by Liebniz)  why 
not then have a mechanism for data transfer to another cosmos, to the clone, 
the nearest, closest, continuer? Yeah, this only confuses things, but it's an 
idea by the cell biologist Bob Lanza 20 years ago. Non-satisfying, and I can go 
ahead and invoke unicorns too. However, data preservation is kind of related to 
this via, computer science & cosmology (originally the black hole bet, tween 
Hawking & Susskind). 


-Original Message-
From: Philip Thrift 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Sun, Sep 15, 2019 1:39 am
Subject: Re: Why Consciousness Cannot Be Algorithmic

In Sabine Hossenfelder's post on Sean Carroll's Many Worlds book
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/09/book-review-something-deeply-hidden-by.html

someone raised conscious beings:
Martien  9:05 AM, September 12, 2019
One of the arguments of Philip Ball against the Many Worlds Interpretation is 
that he believes that the 'self' or 'soul' cannot branch of in different 
multiverses. This doesn't seem to be a good argument to me. Imagine one would 
be able to make a clone of me, kind of twin, in this world. Both versions of me 
would descent from me (Martien) and live on as Martien-a and Martien-b. An 
identicical history and memory upto a point in time, and hereafter they live 
their own lives. In principle the same could be argued for splittng universes. 
It is akin to speciation of life-forms. Maybe Ball's objection comes from a 
(religious) belief in a soul which can exist separate from a body, I don't know.
The link: 
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-many-worlds-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-has-many-problems-20181018/

Philip Thrift  5:05 AM, September 13, 2019
Actually, Philip Ball's article seems to suggest that MWI leads to 
consciousness being either immaterial or nonexistent (it is some sort of 
illusion, or confusion)"And if consciousness — or mind, call it what you 
will — were somehow able to snake along just one path in the quantum 
multiverse, then we’d have to regard it as some nonphysical entity immune to 
the laws of (quantum) physics. For how can it do that when nothing else does?"
But some of the scientific sort are (when one examines closely their "theory") 
what Galen Strawson calls* "consciousness deniers", so MWI may be a type of 
consciousness denial - the denial that there one has a real 
'self':https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/


Martien 10:18 AM, September 13, 2019
But why along just one path?

Philip Thrift 2:31 AM, September 14, 2019
Selves (unlike "basic" brains) are not considered (very much, if at all) by 
scientists as something to be part of scientific theories. So maybe there are 
(self-less) brains, being split every Planck-time second, and then each one 
independently going on doing what it does. But selves (self-full brains) doing 
that seems to me to create a nightmarish scenario of spit personalities.
Galen Strawson - What are Selves?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh0qASdSsNY


Martien  9:28 AM, September 14, 2019
Imagine God as creator of the multiverse having to send zillions copies of a 
deceased sinner to hell or purgatory, that is those who did nor repell their 
sins. Assuming of course that God and hell are not part of the splitting.

@philipthrift
On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 5:43:33 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:


On Sun, 15 Sep 2019 at 05:24, Philip Thrift  wrote:



I really couldn't follow this paper - many worlds (of QM) vs. multiverse (of 
cosmology) seemed all mixed up.

The author essentially disagrees with the idea that a person can be copied, 
whatever the mechanism.

On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 9:45:10 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
This should be of interest to the list:

Refuting Strong AI: Why Consciousness Cannot Be Algorithmic
Andrew Knight

Cite as:    arXiv:1906.10177 [physics.hist-ph]
  (or arXiv:1906.10177v1 [physics.hist-ph] for this version)

Brent


--

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/c61962ba-ac5d-43c0-a2f0-640d9b704fad%40googlegroups.com.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2024549627.7670389.1568579207978%40mail.yahoo.com.

Re: A modest proposal

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

If we've got a hard to limit, Set, then more or less, is 'good enough for 
government work!' Also, shall I invoke the old notion of an infinite universe, 
or even (by our standards) near, infinite? It does the same thing that MWI 
does, and doesn't require quantum mechanics. 


-Original Message-
From: Philip Thrift 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Sat, Sep 14, 2019 7:20 am
Subject: Re: A modest proposal



On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 5:36:45 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
 

As for me... I think Many Worlds is probably more or less correct, 
 John K Clark


More (or less) correct than correct that what?
@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.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/5a08ce31-b16e-4675-82b5-287ad3f2b61a%40googlegroups.com.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1983696817.7678634.1568578629975%40mail.yahoo.com.

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

That's genius, Evgenii, sheer, unadulterated, genius!  


-Original Message-
From: Evgenii Rudnyi 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Sat, Sep 14, 2019 2:09 am
Subject: Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

Am 13.09.2019 um 03:11 schrieb spudboy100 via Everything List:
> On that Evgenii, we do concur. Yet, big companies or big governments probably 
> head to this guy's door, if they need something to ask?Now, that may not be a 
> big deal unless he is contributing to the DoD? 

By organizing a military strike from the parallel universe?

Evgenii

>Those comprising this group have interesting mathematical & quantum and 
>cosmological philosophy, but we are not so prominent. The thinkers here 
>participate because they love these topics, but their immediate impacts are 
>something far off, potentially. Now, for me, MWI is fun, in the sense of 
>science fiction is fun--unless we can somehow do trade somehow between 
>Earths?I will buy Carroll's book if only for this reason. "A hominid's reach 
>must exceed his grasp, or what's a multiverse for?" If he is absolutely wrong 
>and we can prove it, then, very well, onward, to the World Series (Think FIFA 
>World Cup).
> 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/aeee42ec-d121-97e6-028e-3f2fea3a7c81%40rudnyi.ru.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1418255028.7709172.1568578414166%40mail.yahoo.com.

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:05 PM Alan Grayson 
wrote:

>
>
> On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 9:58:53 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:36 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:01:23 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:02 AM Alan Grayson 
 wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 4:34:28 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:06 PM Alan Grayson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:46:27 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:36 AM Alan Grayson 
 wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 12:34:18 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, September 13, 2019, Alan Grayson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:42:00 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:25 AM Alan Grayson <
 agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5:24:11 AM UTC-6, Bruno
> Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 13 Sep 2019, at 04:26, Alan Grayson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 11:01:54 AM UTC-6, Alan
>> Grayson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 7:45:22 AM UTC-6,
>>> Lawrence Crowell wrote:

 On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:20:46 AM UTC-5, Philip
 Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5,
> Alan Grayson wrote:
>>
>>
>> https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/
>>
>
>
>
> Many Worlds is where people go to escape from one world of
> quantum-stochastic processes. They are like vampires, but 
> instead of
> running away from sunbeams, are running away from 
> probabilities.
>
> @philipthrift
>

 This assessment is not entirely fair. Carroll and Sebens
 have a paper on how supposedly the Born rule can be derived 
 from MWI  I
 have yet to read their paper, but given the newsiness of this 
 I might get
 to it. One advantage that MWI does have is that it splits the 
 world as a
 sort of quantum frame dragging that is nonlocal. This nonlocal 
 property
 might be useful for working with quantum gravity,

 I worked a proof of a theorem, which may not be complete
 unfortunately, where the two sets of quantum interpretations 
 that
 are ψ-epistemic and those that are ψ-ontological are not 
 decidable. There
 is no decision procedure which can prove QM holds either way. 
 The proof is
 set with nonlocal hidden variables over the projective rays of 
 the state
 space. In effect there is an uncertainty in whether the hidden 
 variables
 localize extant quantities, say with ψ-ontology, or
 whether this localization is the generation of information in 
 a local
 context from quantum nonlocality that is not extant, such as 
 with
 ψ-epistemology. Quantum interprertations are then
 auxiliary physical axioms or postulates. MWI and within the 
 framework of
 what Carrol and Sebens has done this is a ψ-ontology, and
 this defines the Born rule. If I am right the degree of 
 ψ-epistemontic
 nature is mixed. So the intriguing question we can address is 
 the nature of
 the Born rule and its tie into the auxiliary postulates of 
 quantum
 interpretations. Can a similar demonstration be made for the 
 Born rule
 within QuBism, which is what might be called the dialectic 
 opposite of MWI?

 To take MWI as something literal, as opposed to maybe a
 working system to 

Re: Why Consciousness Cannot Be Algorithmic

[John Clark]

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:24 PM Philip Thrift  wrote:

*> I really couldn't follow this paper - many worlds (of QM) vs. multiverse
> (of cosmology) seemed all mixed up.*
>

I think the guy is a bit of an idiot. He starts off badly by equating
intelligence and consciousness and then it gets worse when he  defines the
personal pronoun "I" by what will happen in the future rather than what
actually happened in the past. And that was all in the first paragraph, I
didn't read any further.

John K Clark

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2a56MLs%2B_8U5MS3HxcVwyeT6_itGMdJ92YsNti%2BFp%3DgQ%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 9:58:53 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:36 AM Alan Grayson  > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:01:23 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:02 AM Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>


 On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 4:34:28 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:06 PM Alan Grayson  
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:46:27 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:36 AM Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>


 On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 12:34:18 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019, Alan Grayson  
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:42:00 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:25 AM Alan Grayson <
>>> agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>


 On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5:24:11 AM UTC-6, Bruno 
 Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 13 Sep 2019, at 04:26, Alan Grayson  
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 11:01:54 AM UTC-6, Alan 
> Grayson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 7:45:22 AM UTC-6, Lawrence 
>> Crowell wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:20:46 AM UTC-5, Philip 
>>> Thrift wrote:



 On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan 
 Grayson wrote:
>
>
> https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/
>



 Many Worlds is where people go to escape from one world of 
 quantum-stochastic processes. They are like vampires, but 
 instead of 
 running away from sunbeams, are running away from 
 probabilities.

 @philipthrift

>>>
>>> This assessment is not entirely fair. Carroll and Sebens 
>>> have a paper on how supposedly the Born rule can be derived 
>>> from MWI  I 
>>> have yet to read their paper, but given the newsiness of this I 
>>> might get 
>>> to it. One advantage that MWI does have is that it splits the 
>>> world as a 
>>> sort of quantum frame dragging that is nonlocal. This nonlocal 
>>> property 
>>> might be useful for working with quantum gravity,
>>>
>>> I worked a proof of a theorem, which may not be complete 
>>> unfortunately, where the two sets of quantum interpretations 
>>> that 
>>> are ψ-epistemic and those that are ψ-ontological are not 
>>> decidable. There 
>>> is no decision procedure which can prove QM holds either way. 
>>> The proof is 
>>> set with nonlocal hidden variables over the projective rays of 
>>> the state 
>>> space. In effect there is an uncertainty in whether the hidden 
>>> variables 
>>> localize extant quantities, say with ψ-ontology, or whether 
>>> this localization is the generation of information in a local 
>>> context from 
>>> quantum nonlocality that is not extant, such as with 
>>> ψ-epistemology. Quantum interprertations are then auxiliary 
>>> physical axioms or postulates. MWI and within the framework of 
>>> what Carrol 
>>> and Sebens has done this is a ψ-ontology, and this defines 
>>> the Born rule. If I am right the degree of ψ-epistemontic 
>>> nature is mixed. So the intriguing question we can address is 
>>> the nature of 
>>> the Born rule and its tie into the auxiliary postulates of 
>>> quantum 
>>> interpretations. Can a similar demonstration be made for the 
>>> Born rule 
>>> within QuBism, which is what might be called the dialectic 
>>> opposite of MWI?
>>>
>>> To take MWI as something literal, as opposed to maybe a 
>>> working system to understand QM foundations, is maybe taking 
>>> things too 
>>> far. However, it is a part of some open questions concerning 
>>> the 
>>> fundamentals 

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 10:08:00 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:45 AM Alan Grayson  > wrote:
>
>>
>> and COOLER after 380,000 years had elapsed. All of the foregoing makes a 
>>> decent case for a universe which was very very tiny right after the BB. 
>>> AG 
>>>
>>
>> I still see no connection between the temperature at time 380,000 
>> years, and the size of the universe.  Can you do more to explain more 
>> why 
>> you think there is a relation?  I can see how you might relate the 
>> initial 
>> temperature and density at an earlier time to the temperature and 
>> density 
>> after 380,000 years, but I am not seeing how you relate the size of the 
>> universe to either the temperature or density at time 380,000 years.
>>
>
>> *Oh, because the temperature is decreasing from just after the BB to 
>> 380,000 years, we need a very small universe to inflate to explain the 
>> current homogeneity. Otherwise the present large scale homogeneity is only 
>> explicable by appealing to highly improbable chance in a causally 
>> disconnected universe, our present universe. AG *
>>
>
> Inflation requires a *minimum* starting size (which can be microscopic), 
> and *minimum* duration of inflation (which can be as little as ~100 
> doublings) taking as little as 10^-35 seconds, but as far as I know these 
> are only the minimums to be congruent with observations.  Inflation, by no 
> means requires the preinflation universe to be tiny, nor the time period of 
> inflation to be short.  Either the preinflation size could be unboundedly 
> large, or the inflation duration could be unboundedly long.
>
> Jason
>
> If inflation is to solve large scale homogeneity in a causally 
non-connected universe, which is the case of our present observable 
universe, it must start with a very small universe that IS causally 
connected. I think this is pretty obvious, unless you want to insist that 
the large scale homogeneity is purely accidental -- which I do not. AG

Incidentally, I didn't claim that inflation per se is totally speculative. 
It solves a number of problems so it is more than pure speculation. I was 
then referring to speculation that some parts of the total universe, either 
within our observable or unobservable regions, or in the presumed 
substratum from which bubbles arise, or in other bubbles, are experiencing 
any types of inflations. The only inflation that I am discussing is within 
our bubble, and perhaps extended to our unobservable regions by applying 
the Cosmological Principle. AG

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/6a194f84-0b93-4f61-9f8e-e55966674c27%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:45 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:

>
> and COOLER after 380,000 years had elapsed. All of the foregoing makes a
>> decent case for a universe which was very very tiny right after the BB. 
>> AG
>>
>
> I still see no connection between the temperature at time 380,000
> years, and the size of the universe.  Can you do more to explain more why
> you think there is a relation?  I can see how you might relate the initial
> temperature and density at an earlier time to the temperature and density
> after 380,000 years, but I am not seeing how you relate the size of the
> universe to either the temperature or density at time 380,000 years.
>

> *Oh, because the temperature is decreasing from just after the BB to
> 380,000 years, we need a very small universe to inflate to explain the
> current homogeneity. Otherwise the present large scale homogeneity is only
> explicable by appealing to highly improbable chance in a causally
> disconnected universe, our present universe. AG *
>

Inflation requires a *minimum* starting size size (which can be
microscopic), and *minimum* duration of inflation (which can be as little
as ~100 doublings) taking as little as 10^-35 seconds, but as far as I know
these are only the minimums to be congruent with observations.  Inflation,
by no means requires the preinflation universe to be tiny, nor the time
period of inflation to be short.  Either the preinflation size could be
unoundedly large, or the inflation duration could be unboundedly long.

Jason

Jason

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUgapt_8w%2BJ6hpaA28bqovxiDG5Y39R9PdS3Sc1tZ01%3Dcw%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:36 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:

>
>
> On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:01:23 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:02 AM Alan Grayson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 4:34:28 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:06 PM Alan Grayson 
 wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:46:27 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:36 AM Alan Grayson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 12:34:18 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Friday, September 13, 2019, Alan Grayson 
 wrote:

>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:42:00 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:25 AM Alan Grayson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5:24:11 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal
>>> wrote:


 On 13 Sep 2019, at 04:26, Alan Grayson 
 wrote:



 On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 11:01:54 AM UTC-6, Alan
 Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 7:45:22 AM UTC-6, Lawrence
> Crowell wrote:
>>
>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:20:46 AM UTC-5, Philip
>> Thrift wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan
>>> Grayson wrote:


 https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/

>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Many Worlds is where people go to escape from one world of
>>> quantum-stochastic processes. They are like vampires, but 
>>> instead of
>>> running away from sunbeams, are running away from probabilities.
>>>
>>> @philipthrift
>>>
>>
>> This assessment is not entirely fair. Carroll and Sebens have
>> a paper on how supposedly the Born rule can be derived from MWI  
>> I have yet
>> to read their paper, but given the newsiness of this I might get 
>> to it. One
>> advantage that MWI does have is that it splits the world as a 
>> sort of
>> quantum frame dragging that is nonlocal. This nonlocal property 
>> might be
>> useful for working with quantum gravity,
>>
>> I worked a proof of a theorem, which may not be complete
>> unfortunately, where the two sets of quantum interpretations that
>> are ψ-epistemic and those that are ψ-ontological are not 
>> decidable. There
>> is no decision procedure which can prove QM holds either way. 
>> The proof is
>> set with nonlocal hidden variables over the projective rays of 
>> the state
>> space. In effect there is an uncertainty in whether the hidden 
>> variables
>> localize extant quantities, say with ψ-ontology, or whether
>> this localization is the generation of information in a local 
>> context from
>> quantum nonlocality that is not extant, such as with
>> ψ-epistemology. Quantum interprertations are then auxiliary
>> physical axioms or postulates. MWI and within the framework of 
>> what Carrol
>> and Sebens has done this is a ψ-ontology, and this defines
>> the Born rule. If I am right the degree of ψ-epistemontic
>> nature is mixed. So the intriguing question we can address is 
>> the nature of
>> the Born rule and its tie into the auxiliary postulates of 
>> quantum
>> interpretations. Can a similar demonstration be made for the 
>> Born rule
>> within QuBism, which is what might be called the dialectic 
>> opposite of MWI?
>>
>> To take MWI as something literal, as opposed to maybe a
>> working system to understand QM foundations, is maybe taking 
>> things too
>> far. However, it is a part of some open questions concerning the
>> fundamentals of QM. If MWI, and more generally postulates of
>> quantum interpretations, are connected to the Born rule it makes 
>> for some
>> interesting things to think about.
>>
>> LC
>>
>
> If you read the link, it's pretty 

Re: Observation versus assumption

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 15 Sep 2019, at 12:12, PGC  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 5:36:54 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 9 Sep 2019, at 13:07, PGC > wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 1:48:41 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>> Let us discuss ideas, and if you disagree with one thing I say, it would be 
>> nice to explain what.
>> 
>> Why? So you can dismiss it until a Stanford entry is written for you to 
>> dismiss with the infamous correct scientific attitude we see advertised here 
>> in recent months? There are dozens of ways to refute the premisses of not 
>> one but many things you say. Assuming an albeit countable infinity of 
>> transcendental objects/properties ontologically, while accusing 
>> "physicalists" for assuming infinities maliciously for years… 
> 
> That contradicts directly my premise, which are YD and CT. On the contrary, I 
> have insisted many times that analysis and physics are in the derived 
> phenomenology of the universal machine. I do not assume anything more than 
> what is needed to prove the existence of the computations. 
> 
> Nobody denies the existence of abstractions. Their reality remains a matter 
> of personal speculation/mysticism.

Well they depend on the theory we use. With mechanism, we need to define 
machine with enough precision, and that requires top assume many abstract 
ideas, but usually taught in primary school. 




> Therefore branding people as "physicalists" for not entertaining particular 
> personal speculation includes a blame quality that isn't supported by 
> evidence. It is aggressive, Christian-like, and its merit in scientific terms 
> is dubious. 

Not at all. Physicalist have the right to defend their idea, but my point is 
that physicalism and mechanism, are inconsistent when taken together.

All what I show is that Mechanism is testable experimentally, I explain why, 
and I explain also that the contemporary physics assess Mechanism, and not 
materialism.





>  
> 
>> Which is it by the way? Do they assume such because a) they are evil or 
>> because b) they are stupid/naive? Or is it a superposition?
> 
> Physicalist have to assume some magical things to explain how some 
> computations are “more real” or “the only one able to make a computation 
> supporting consciousness”.
> 
> You're trying to escape the question. 
> 
> If the amount of magic is a measure here,

A measure on what? It cannot be a measure on computations, as this bring back 
the conclusion that they deny. So what is it?




> then why are the alleged physicalists wrong in some hard definite sense? 
> Because of incompatibility? Peano arithmetic is powerful and entails 
> unsolvable phenomena that could be argued to be just as magical/red flags for 
> a coherent ontology; i.e. including phenomena not amenable to explanation and 
> therefore just as magical.

OK. But that sort of “magic” is what Gödel has discovered, an the whole 
computer science is based upon. Then, once assuming Mechanism, we are 
confronted with it. 




> Arithmetic is incompatible with itself in the sense that "mechanism" is 
> hardly as clear a concept as would be suggested by the type of usage on this 
> list; i.e. hiding unsolvable attributes that make it much less clear than 
> "2+2=4" would have readers assume, which is more of a rhetorical move than an 
> argument. 

Arithmetic is incompatible with itself? You lost me here.




>  
>  
> But then, it has to be non Turing emulable, because, if it is, it is already 
> emulated an infinity of times in arithmetic. That can be proved in Peano 
> arithmetic, which, typically, do not assume the axiom of infinity, like 
> Euclid proves correctly the existence of an infinity of prime numbers, 
> without assuming any infinity in the theory.
> Maybe the confusion is here: proving that there are infinitely many things 
> can be done without assuming an infinity. It lies enough to prove the 
> existence of some order, and to prove that for each x we can find something 
> “bigger” than x for that order.
> 
> Nah, it's the double standard of assuming folks to be naive while living with 
> arithmetic's considerable unsolvable/magical issues. 

The degree of unsolvability of arithmetic is with us, even without mechanism, 
but with mechanism, it becomes an explanation and even a solution to many 
unsolved problem, usually put under the rug by believer in Matter.



> 
> Imagine everybody receives the perfect education concerning these issues: 
> what merit would arise? A sense of perfect humility and some more precise 
> appraisal of why nothing can be explained?

You mean why some thing cannot be explained. 




> A non-explanation with the pretense of explanation.

It is a theory with means of verification. And the theory explains many things 
already, like why the physical laws are mathematical, why they are statistical, 
why they are inference and quantum-like formalism, and all this from arithmetic 
and the 

Re: Observation versus assumption

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 13 Sep 2019, at 20:55, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 2:21 PM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> > See papers by handy, or the book by Odifreddy,
> 
> Can the papers by handy or the book by Odifreddy make a calculation? If not 
> why not?

Because it is a book, and not a computer.

Even in arithmetic, a book cannot do a computation, but a computer, indeed all 
computer can.





>  
> > which explains that computer science is basically an abstract theory of 
> > localness.
> 
> That's fine but...ah,,, Bruno,...  it may surprise you but computer science 
> involves computers, and they are made of matter that obeys the laws of 
> physics.


Only physical computer are made of matter. Arithmetical computer are not made 
of atom. The universal Turing machine is not made of anything material, and is 
described by a finite set of quadruples.

Here you talk like if you knew that a physical universe exists in some special 
sense making them more real than an immaterial computer in arithmetic, but that 
is your act of faith, and it cannot be invoked when doing science.




>  
> > That is why physical real FTL action at a distance would be a threat to 
> > mechanism,
> 
> Faster Than Light? Faster? The very concept of speed is meaningless in the 
> context of pure numbers because speed is change in distance divided by time 
> and we're talking about pure numbers that can't see distance and can't change 
> and can't see time.


I use the fact that the violation of Bell’s inequality might emerge from the 
arithmetical physics, which is given by the material modes of self-reference 
([]p & p with p sigma_1, or []p & <>t (& p)).

With mechanism, the physical reality does not disappear. It just becomes 
secondary. Physics becomes the study of the universal machine’s observable.





>  
> > despite some form of physical non-localness are still possible. 
> 
> The idea of locality depends on distance and if you only have numbers


We much more than the numbers. We have the laws of addition and multiplication, 
which makes the numbers able to emulate all universal machine, including all 
quantum computers. Indeed the physics will arise from a statistic involving 
those infinitely many computations.





> it has been proven that there is NOT a unique way to measure distance, but 
> with physics there IS a unique way to measure distance in 4D spacetime. With 
> the The p-adic absolute value metric there are infinite ways to measure 
> distance and all of them are internally self consistent. With 3-adic for 
> example the distance 3 is from zero is 1/3 and the distance 8/45 is from zero 
> is 9.
> 
> > Eventually “locality” admits an abstract definition,
> 
> Definitions don't change reality! 


We certainly agree on this. 2+2=4 whatever the definition are chosen. 




> And ALL definitions are derivative, when you start demanding definitions of 
> the words in the definition eventually you must always come back to an 
> example in the physical world. Always.


Because the physical word is your assumption. I assume only elementary 
arithmetic, so the definition ends up about agreement with x+0 = x, etc.





>  It's the only thing that gives definitions meaning.


In the materialist theory, perhaps, but then it is inconsistent with Mechanism.



> 
> > More simply, like in the passage deleted, 7 is changed into 8 relatively to 
> > the memory of some Register
> 
> Changed? How do you change something made of pure numbers?

What is wrong with the explanation that I gave (but don’t see in the quote)? 
May be below.




> In fact how do you build a register or construct anything else from pure 
> numbers? Assuming there is more than one pure number register in the 
> multiverse how can the number 8 know which register to go into and kick out 
> number 7 that is hiding inside?


By following the instructions in the quadruplets. Which, as Gödel shows in all 
details, can be encoded in numbers, and the “change” instructions are coded 
through primitive recursive relations, all manageable through addition and 
multiplication. The only real hard things to do is to represented the 
exponential function, but Gödel used the Chinese lemma to do that.




>  
> > or Turing machine’s (local) tape.
> 
> A Turing Machine is made of matter

Not at all. That is simply wrong, as anyone can verify in any dictionary, 
books, etc.




> that obeys the laws of physics and so is the tape, and in pure numbers 
> "local" has no unique meaning.


Wrong.



>  
> >> All machines change. No polynomial changes. Therefore a polynomial can not 
> >> simulate a register machine or any other sort of machine.
> 
> > Then GR is false.
> 
> That's pretty silly even for you.

GR admits static space time (block universe description). Time is an illusion 
in GR, and of course, that is true with Mechanism, where time is a relative 
indexical.



> 
> > You assume a primary physical time. I do not,
> 
> I don't assume I 

Re: A modest proposal

[John Clark]

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:18 PM Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every
>> possible way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, but
>> that's not all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact with
>> the ticket in every possible way. Some interactions result in great wealth,
>> some result in no profit, and some result in oblivion as in the suicide
>> scenario.
>>
>
> > The Schödinger equation says nothing of the sort.
>

It says when an electron moves from point A to point B it can do so by any
path, although some paths are more likely than others.


> > It is not a Charlie Parker "anything goes" system. It just tells how
> probability amplitudes that define a state or wave in a Fourier sum evolves
> with time. [...] It would be argued there are some MWI splittings that
> may play a role in determining the lottery number on the winning ticket,
> but there is no way this can at all be localized or identified.
>


The Schödinger Equation says the wave function is a direct
representation of reality, and the Many World's people say that too, they
say that's all that is needed. I admit it doesn't seem that way because
when we observe an electron hitting a photographic plate we don't see a
wave function and we don't see a large blob we see a small localized spot
at a definite place. So some people concluded that Schödinger's Equation
wasn't enough and they tacked on a lot of extra stuff about it collapsing
when a observation is made, something the equation itself doesn't even hint
at. Many Worlds says the extra stuff is unnecessary and Schödinger's
Equation is all that is needed.

When you observe a electron, in other words when you become entangled with
the electron, in still other words when both you and the electron have the
same quantum wave function, there is a connection between the "you "system
and the "electron" system. That combined you-electron system obeys
Schödinger's Equation and the system smoothly evolves into a entangled
state, a superposition of every place the electron could have been and you
observing the electron at that location.

But rather than say the combined you-electron system having evolved into a
superposition of all possible states Many World's says it evolves into
every possible observer. We don't end up with one observer who has many
ideas where the electron was seen, instead we end up with many worlds each
with an observer in it with a single definite idea of where the electron
was seen.


> > As for below the Wheeler Delayed Choice experiment in the MWI setting a
> measurement of whether the electron went through a slit is performed after
> it has passed.
>

Many Worlds can explain delayed choice without invoking backward causality.
The photon hits a half silvered mirror so 50% of the time the photon takes
path A and 50% of the time it takes path B. At the end of each path is a
detector which destroys the photon and sends the information on which path
the photon took to a physical memory system of some sort that, just like
everything else, must obey Schödinger's Equation.

Many Worlds says if there is a change the universe splits and in this case
the only difference is a change in the physical memory,  in one universe
the memory is it going through path A and the other it remembers it going
throughpath B. But if you then use quantum erasure then the physical state
of the memory is no longer different, they are in the exact same state, so
there is no longer any difference between the 2 universes, so they merge
back together. But now the single universe seems to have indications the
photon followed path A only and indications it followed path B only and
this can cause interference bands.

John K Clark

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0Y%2B1DL%2BVfdrmWTUSXBmDnLVqPPmxZ%2BYfBi3xqawCg30g%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Quantum immortality

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 13 Sep 2019, at 22:57, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/13/2019 3:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> On 11 Sep 2019, at 16:51, smitra  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Back to basics. There exists a universal wavefunction that evolves 
>>> according to the Schrodinger equation. Observers are internal structures in 
>>> this description. Whether or not one believes that the Born rule can be 
>>> derived or not, what matters in practice is that you'll end up having to 
>>> use it, so you have to assign a measure for observations that is given by 
>>> the summation of the squared modulus of the states that correspond to those 
>>> observations. The information about personal identity must then also be 
>>> extracted from the wavefunction, so one cannot insert this in an ad hoc way.
>>> 
>>> Quantum immortality is therefore wrong because the measure of the states 
>>> that correspond to extremely old observers is small.
>> 
>> The same reasoning would apply to “quantum suicide”, where it is clear that 
>> we survive all the time; given that we cannot take into account the world 
>> where we do not.
>> 
>> If in H you are multiplied in W and M, but directly killed in M, you survive 
>> in W with probability one. That is why we add p or <>t to []p to transform 
>> the logic of belief ([]p) into a probability logic ([]p & <>t).
> 
> Suppose you live a few seconds in M.  Do you then survive in W with 
> probability 0.5?

Assuming you do die in M, even after some years, the probability in H to be 
feeling the one in W will be one, assuming you never dies in W. But this 
assumes mortality, and some transitivity of the probability rules, so the  
question is very complex. The probability in H to be W or M, for a short time,  
is one half, but the probability to be in the place where you stay for a long 
time, will be close to one in a sort of retrospective way. 

All this comes from a simple fact: absolute-death is not a first person 
experience. There is no entry in the first person diary which mention “I died 
today”.

The difficulty is that the first person renormalise the probabilities all the 
time, and that is why making them transitive leads to paradoxes.

Let me try to illustrate. You are in H, just before the WM-duplication. You are 
told in advance that in W you will get a cup of tea, and then be killed. In W 
you get a cup of coffee, and not killed. What is the probability (in H) that 
you will get a cup of tea. It is 1/2. But what is the probability, in H, that 
you will have a long lasting memory of having drink a cup of coffee after that 
experiments: It is 1. In fact, in Moscow, you could (although it is 
psychologically very difficult) still bet that “you” will have a memory of 
having doing coffee, and just an amnesia of M and its cup of tea. This also 
gives some sense that we survive more in our kids and in the value we transmit 
to them, than in bodies and personal first person happening. 

Now, that renormalisation process is not easy, a bit like in QFT, we get 
infinities which are hard to subtract. 


Bruno





> 
> Brent
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/76a574e1-dc37-c7eb-33f1-1e12d18ec5a6%40verizon.net.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/5FB6A2DC-B54A-45BE-ADFA-653C21C8FB35%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Quantum immortality

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 13 Sep 2019, at 22:28, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/13/2019 10:59 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 6:38 PM Bruce Kellett > > wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 2:55 AM Jason Resch > > wrote:
>> On Tuesday, September 10, 2019, Bruce Kellett > > wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 10:18 AM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>> mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> 
>> wrote:
>> On 9/10/2019 4:30 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>> > Another argument that has been given here before is that if quantum 
>> > immortality is true, then we should expect to see a number of people 
>> > who are considerably older than the normal life expectancy -- and we 
>> > do not see people who are two or three hundred years old. Even if the 
>> > probabilities are very low, there have been an awful lot of people 
>> > born within the last 500 or so years -- some must have survived on our 
>> > branch if this scenario is true.
>> 
>> My argument was that each of us should find ourselves to be much older 
>> than even the oldest people we know.
>>  
>> That is probably the best single argument against quantum immortality: if QI 
>> is true, then the measure of our lifetime after one reaches a normal 
>> lifetime is infinitely greater than the measure before age , say, 120 yr. So 
>> if one finds oneself younger than 120 years, QI is false, and if MWI is 
>> still considered to be true, there must be another argument why MWI does not 
>> imply QI.
>> 
>> 
>> Why do you think that measure only increases with age? On an objective level 
>> it only decreases.
>> 
>> As Bruno would say, "you confuse the 1p with the 1pp." I am talking about my 
>> personal measure of the number of years I have lived. As I get older, the 
>> number of years I have lived increases. If I live to 1000, I have lived more 
>> years between 100 and 1000 than between 1 and 100. This is arithmetic, after 
>> all.
>> 
>> I see.  This reasoning works only under the assumption that finding yourself 
>> in any particular year across your infinite lifespan is equiprobable (i.e. 
>> you can ignore the effects of the number or measure of the various yous in 
>> other branches).  This is what I thought you mean by measure, in terms of 
>> how to calculate probabilities / weights of the various branches.
>>  
>> 
>> But this discussion has gone off the rails. It started as a discussion of 
>> quantum immortality, and the arguments against this notion, even in MWI. The 
>> arguments against QI that have been advanced are that life-threatening 
>> events tend not to be binary or quantum, but rather we enter a period of 
>> slow decline, due to illness or other factors. Consequently, there is no 
>> reason for us to expect to be immortal, even in MWI.
>> 
>> I don't see how that last sentence follows.  It is true MWI doesn't 
>> guarantee we should expect to always survive in the same condition, but it 
>> does guarantee we should survive in some form.
> 
> But what does "we" refer to. Are you saying Jason, with the memories he has 
> at this moment, will always have a successor in the future.   Or are you 
> saying there'll always be a Jason that shares my childhood memories or my 
> memories of last year when that lightning bolt just missed me.
> 
>>  
>> The other argument is that if QI is true, then you would expect to be very 
>> old.
>> 
>> We only know we are very old if our memories accumulate without limit, but 
>> MWI does not guarantee persistence of memory.  It also follows from this 
>> that to know one is immortal (has lived an infinite number of years) 
>> requires an infinitely large brain and memory capacity.
> 
> I don't have to remember everything that happened over 80yrs to know I'm 
> 80yrs old.  In fact I only need to remember my birthday.


And memory is fallible, and memory of age has no more meaning when your age is 
bigger that the nameable or describable number, which happens very soon, 
relatively, for the immortal being trying to keep track of their birthday. 

Immortality is when you are to old to be able to even name your age. After 
that, you have always the same age.

Mortality is an illusion enjoyed by the gods when tired of eternity. It is very 
long 

Bruno


What, you ask, was the beginning of it all?

And it is this ...
Existence that multiplied itself
For sheer delight of being
And plunged into numberless trillions of forms
So that it might
Find 
Itself
Innumerably (Shri Aurobindo)


> 
> Brent
> 
>>  
>>  
>> This argument was advanced by Mallah (arXiv: 0905.0187) and has not been 
>> satisfactorily rebutted.
>> 
>> Mallah used to contribute to this list.  You can review some of his past 
>> discussions in the archives which debate this very point: 
>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/everything-list/Mallah%7Csort:date
>>  
>> 

Re: An AI can now pass a 12th-Grade Science Test

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 7:51:55 AM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 9:51:01 AM UTC-6, Alan Grayson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> *Bruno seems to think that if some imaginary entity is "computable", it 
> can and must exist as a "physical" entity -- which is why I think he adds 
> "mechanism" to his model for producing conscious beings. But this, if 
> correct, seems no different from equating a map to a territory. If we can 
> write the DNA of a horse with a horn, does this alone ipso facto imply that 
> unicorns are existent beings? AG *
>

Ones that don't fly:

https://kera.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/unicorn-dna/unicorn-dna/

@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.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/02172c38-3c3b-42c0-8bd7-e62a034fa19e%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Quantum immortality

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 13 Sep 2019, at 22:17, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/13/2019 4:18 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Le ven. 13 sept. 2019 à 13:16, Bruce Kellett > > a écrit :
>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:49 PM Bruno Marchal > > wrote:
>> On 12 Sep 2019, at 01:50, Bruce Kellett > > wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 1:55 AM Bruno Marchal >> > wrote:
>>> On 11 Sep 2019, at 01:30, Bruce Kellett >> > wrote:
 From: Bruno Marchal mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>>
>> On 8 Sep 2019, at 13:59, Bruce Kellett > > wrote:
>> 
>> If the only relevance you can find for many worlds is quantum 
>> immortality, then many worlds is indeed dead. Quantum immortality has 
>> been shown many times to be a complete nonsense.
> 
> Really. I did not known that. Could you give the references.
 Follow the Wikipedia entry on quantum suicide.
 
>>> That is not what I mean by a  reference.
>>> 
>>> I later gave a reference to the paper by Mallah -- whom you know of, 
>>> apparently. The paper is available at
>>> 
>>> https://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0187 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Yes, the oldest participant in this list have know Jacques Mallah, who 
>> participated a lot in this list.
>> 
>> Mallah is wrong here:
>> 
>> <<
>> Max Tegmark publicized the QS idea, but in some ways he is more of a 
>> moderate on the issue than most of its believers are. If he were to follow 
>> in the footsteps of Don Page and alter his views, recanting belief in QS, it 
>> would be a great help in exposing the belief as a fallacy, and I hold out 
>> hope that it is possible that he will do so.
>> 
>> In his paper [Tegmark 1] QS is explained as follows:
>> 
>> “Since there is exactly one observer having perceptions both before and 
>> after the trigger event, and since it occurred too fast to notice, the MWI 
>> prediction is that” (the experimenter) “will hear “click” with 100% 
>> certainty.”
>> 
>> That is a rather odd statement because he is certainly aware that in the MWI 
>> there is no sense in which it can be rightfully said that “there is exactly 
>> one observer” either before
>> 
>> 
>> or after the experiment. The ket notation may be unhelpful here; indeed, if 
>> the tensor product of kets on the left hand side were expanded instead of 
>> factoring out the observer, there would appear to have been “two observers” 
>> initially.
>> >>
>> 
>> I don't get Mallah's point here, either. I will have to look more clearly at 
>> his argument against QS. I don't think that case is a clear-cut as for QI. 
>> The fact that I am not the oldest person around is clear evidence against QI.
>> 
>> It's wrong, that imply you can nerver have been young.
> 
> And I am young, therefore quantum immortality is wrong.  But exactly where is 
> it wrong. There seem to be two different ideas of quantum immortality.  In 
> one verison, the everything-happens version, is that whatever your state 
> there is a physically possible way for you to survive...like invoking Bruno's 
> magic cosmic rays that just happen to trigger the right nerves for the brain 
> damaged student to ace her test. 


Just to be clear, nobody believes in such magic cosmic rays. They have a 
probability zero in all histories, and I used them only to illustrate a point 
(indeed, they are replaced by the movie projection at the following step).

The computationalist immortality does not rely on such magic. To be sure.




> In this version, no matter your age or circumstance, there will be a 'you' 
> that remembers your age and circumstance indefinitely far into the future.  
> 
> The other version says that almost all Everettian 'copies' of your future 
> will die but there's a non-zero probability of one still existing at any 
> future time.  So then the relative measure of your future self depends on the 
> ratio of copies that haven't died to those that have.  This implicitly 
> assumes that whatever event that causes you to die does not also cause a 
> surviving copy to be created (i.e. it's not a Tegmark machine gun). 

I don’t see the difference. In all cases, when old and sick, surviving is like 
a white rabbit. The immortality comes only from the fact that no matter how the 
probability of surviving is small, from “your" first person view, death is not 
an experience, and “you” are always there. But you can become amnesiac, and the 
question of immortality without any amnesia is very different from more general 
form of immortality.

There is no absolute personal identity. It is a relative indexical, useful for 
short and middle term planning, but full technological immortality with no 
amnesia does not make much sense. To forget might be the most key element in 
the ability to become conscious or borrow the arithmetical 

Re: An AI can now pass a 12th-Grade Science Test

[Alan Grayson]

On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 9:51:01 AM UTC-6, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 9:07:58 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 9:18 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:
>>
>> >> The only thing I can ascribe consciousness to with absolute certainty 
 is me. As for intelligence, if something, man or machine, has no way of 
 knowing when it made a mistake or got a question wrong it will never 
 get any better, but if it has feedback and can improve its ability to 
 correctly answer difficult questions then it is intelagent. The only 
 reason 
 I ascribe intelligence to Einstein is that he greatly improved his ability 
 to answer difficult physics questions (like what is the nature of space 
 and 
 time?), he was much better at it when he was 27 than when he was 7.  

>>>
>>> *> The point I am making is that modern computers programmed by skillful 
>>> programmers, can improve the "AI"'s performance. *
>>>
>>
>> Well yes. Obviously a skilled programer can improve a AI but that's not 
>> the only thing that can, a modern AI programs can improve its own 
>> performance.
>>
>
> I just meant to indicate it can be programmed to improve its performance, 
> but I see nothing to indicate that it's much different from ordinary 
> computers which don't show any property associated with, for want of a 
> better word, WILL. AG 
>
>>  
>>
>>> *> I see nothing to specially characterize this as "artifical 
>>> intelligence". What am I missing from your perspective? AG*
>>>
>>
>> It's certainly artificial and if computers had never been invented and a 
>> human did exactly what the computer did you wouldn't hesitate for one 
>> nanosecond in calling what the human did intelligent, so why in the world 
>> isn't it Artificial Intelligence?  
>>
>
> OK, AG 
>
>>
>>  John K Clark
>>
>
*Bruno seems to think that if some imaginary entity is "computable", it can 
and must exist as a "physical" entity -- which is why I think he adds 
"mechanism" to his model for producing conscious beings. But this, if 
correct, seems no different from equating a map to a territory. If we can 
write the DNA of a horse with a horn, does this alone ipso facto imply that 
unicorns are existent beings? AG *

>
>>
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>>> -- 
>>> 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 everyth...@googlegroups.com.
>>> To view this discussion on the web visit 
>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/02eba413-dc29-4621-9692-ae9e8cfba125%40googlegroups.com
>>>  
>>> 
>>> .
>>>
>>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/30bd8cd9-3132-4699-8437-3a22b4c6d293%40googlegroups.com.

Re: "The Delusion of Scientific Omniscience" (John Horgan)

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 7:02:37 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 13 Sep 2019, at 13:11, Philip Thrift > 
> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> It seems though that while I was referencing a material 
>> pan[propto]psychism - where elementary constituents of matter that ends up 
>> in an integrated brain have proto-experientiality - what you have is a 
>> *numerical 
>> pan[proto[psychism*, where there are elementary numeral constituents in 
>> things that are not brains that possess a proto-consciousness. (Even rocks 
>> of certain types have been shown to be a kind of signal processors.) If 
>> fact, a numerical reality reveals a panpsychism of a numerical nature even 
>> more explicitly than a material one.
>>
>>
>> Mechanism assumes only the natural numbers with their laws of addition 
>> and multiplication (or Turing equivalent like S and K + the application 
>> laws).
>>
>> There is no consciousness in numbers. Consciousness relies on complex 
>> Turing universal number relations, which can be proved to exist (in 
>> elementary arithmetic), and which describes a non trivial discourse on the 
>> par of the machine, including the physical discourse, making Mechanism 
>> refutable (but confirmed up to now).
>>
>> Rock simply do not exist per se. They belong to appearances emerging from 
>> long computational histories and their first person statistics. 
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>
> Consciousness relies on complex Turing universal number relations, which 
> can be proved to exist (in elementary arithmetic), and which describes a 
> non trivial discourse on the par of the machine, including the physical 
> discourse, making Mechanism refutable (but confirmed up to now).
>
>
> This universality of this consciousness in this "arithmetical reality" 
> (whatever it's called) is on a par with panpsychism in a material reality. 
> (It just appears to me.)
>
>
> I am not sure. An arithmetical version of panpsychism would assert that 
> all numbers think, when actually, the thinking is only in sufficiently 
> complex number relations. Then materialism makes this worst, if I can say, 
> by introducing some “inert substance” as matter is called sometimes, and 
> endow it with thinking, which seems mysterious (how could “inert matter” 
> think?). And Mechanism aggravates the position of materialism by throwing 
> some doubt about the primary ontological nature of matter.
>
> Thinking is essentially dynamical and relational, even for the part 
> requiring consciousness, despite this one is related to both the dynamics 
> (captured by the provability predicate) and truth (which is admittedly 
> statical).
>
> There are interesting argument that bacteria and plant are already 
> thinking and perhaps conscious. Like there are interesting argument that 
> machines can think. Once we accept Panpsychism, those arguments do no more 
> make sense, as everything is thinking. That gives a situation where we can 
> believe that machine are thinking, and still say no to the doctor, because 
> the machine might be able to think just because it is made of matter, which 
> is completely changed with an artificial digital brain. 
>
> If I change the blade of my knife, and then the handle, did my knife 
> survived?
>
> If everything is thinking/conscious, what is the difference between 
> someone alive and a corpse?
>
> Bruno
>
>


The claim of panprotopsychism*  is not that simple material (or in this 
case, arithmetical) entities think, but they manifest the (proto-thinking) 
ingredients that when combined into more complex entities think.

* Basically all the current proponents of panpsychism are of the "proto" 
variety, and all reject the accusation that they are saying everything 
thinks. (And I guess some on the anti-panpsychism side would say that dogs 
or cats, which could be true, don't think, or that human thinking is an 
illusion.) But no matter how many (Goff, Strawson, Morch, ...) say this, no 
critic listens.

@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.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/0e8d07f0-58a7-462d-8d12-055db9951ccf%40googlegroups.com.

Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:13:02 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 9/14/2019 1:27 PM, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:28 AM Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> > t*hat classical probability for a winning ticket is determined by some 
>> quantum superposition of states that give a probability for a ticket to be 
>> printed with some set of numbers, or for some probability of tickets being 
>> distributed in some way.*
>>
>
> The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every possible 
> way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, 
>
>
> It predicts that at some point well before the number is picked, at time 
> at which quantum level effects can be amplified to different ball 
> selections.  That would not be the case nano-seconds before the pick, or 
> milliseconds before, and maybe not hours before.
>
>
That is the point, and quantum interpretations have these dubious issues. 
Copenhagen has problems with defining what is meant by the partition of 
quantum and classical domains. Maybe this is a manifestation of the 
subjectivity inherent in entropy, where classicality is a change in 
information available to a local observer. With MWI there is the more 
complete nonlocality, which means there is an uncertainty in the meaning of 
a locality to a splitting of worlds. QuBism simply says a decoherent event 
or measurement is a Bayesian update, where this is a change in local 
information content, but it forces this as a determinant by a local 
processor or mind. That leads to a sort of solipsism; quantum outcomes have 
no objective basis.  

It may well be that these problems in total are telling us something. I am 
not at all concerned with whether any quantum interpretation is "true" and 
others "false," so much as I find it curious we have an apparent need for 
these and whether these are connected to the Born rule, or the decidability 
of the Born rule. Quantum interpretations also seems to play with some sort 
of dualism between locality and quantum nonlocality.

LC
 

> but that's not all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact 
> with the ticket in every possible way. 
>
>
> Only if you and the powerball are not influenced by that the same random 
> quantum events that got amplified to determine the ball AND to determine 
> your choice of number.
>
> Some interactions result in great wealth, some result in no profit, and 
> some result in oblivion as in the suicide scenario.
>  
>
>> * > In performing this quantum suicide experiment one is forcing the 
>> situation in something similar to a Wheeler delayed choice experiment.*
>>
>
> I don't see the analogy at all. Regardless of if you perform the quantum 
> suicide experiment or not every possible lottery ticket was printed, and 
> you bought every possible lottery ticket, and every possible number was 
> picked as the winning number. The past is not changed but the future is 
> changed depending on if you performed the experiment, if you do then in the 
> future there is no universe in the multiverse where you're looking at a 
> losing ticket, if you don't do the experiment then there is; but the past 
> is the same in both cases. 
>
> So the multiverse contains 2 very general types of "you", universes where 
> you decide to do the experiment and always end up looking at a winning 
> ticket (a universe for every possible winning number), and universes where 
> you decide not to do the experiment and always end up looking at numbers 
> most of which are losing numbers. But in either case I don't see why backward 
> causality is needed.
>
> > *with this suicide experiment there is a quantum outcome prior to the 
>> final experimental end that demolishes the appearance of superposition. How 
>> is that localized?  *
>>
>
> By just looking at the lottery ticket. Normally there would be far more 
> versions of you looking at a losing ticket than a winning one, but in the 
> suicide experiment there are not as many versions of you but all of them 
> are looking at a winning ticket. 
>
>
> I can think of an interesting variation on the suicide experiment. I 
> decide to do it but I offer you a side bet and give you a thousand to one 
> odds that I have the winning ticket; if my ticket loses I will give you a 
> thousand dollars if I win you only have to give me one dollar. The logical 
> thing for both of us is to make the bet (if we make the big assumption that 
> Many Worlds is true), you calculate that there is only one chance in 80 
> million of me winning so you know you are almost certain to win a thousand 
> dollars, and I calculate I will win an additional dollar with 
> absolute certainty to go with my vast lottery winnings. Yes in most 
> universes my estate will owe you a thousand dollars but I no longer exist 
> in them so I have no use for that money. It's a win win bet.
>
>
> But as Mallah points out, all you are doing is pruning those of your 
> future lives in which you 

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 6:36:25 AM UTC-6, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:01:23 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:02 AM Alan Grayson  
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 4:34:28 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:06 PM Alan Grayson  
 wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:46:27 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:36 AM Alan Grayson  
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 12:34:18 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Friday, September 13, 2019, Alan Grayson  
 wrote:

>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:42:00 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:25 AM Alan Grayson  
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5:24:11 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal 
>>> wrote:


 On 13 Sep 2019, at 04:26, Alan Grayson  
 wrote:



 On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 11:01:54 AM UTC-6, Alan 
 Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 7:45:22 AM UTC-6, Lawrence 
> Crowell wrote:
>>
>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:20:46 AM UTC-5, Philip 
>> Thrift wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan 
>>> Grayson wrote:


 https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/

>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Many Worlds is where people go to escape from one world of 
>>> quantum-stochastic processes. They are like vampires, but 
>>> instead of 
>>> running away from sunbeams, are running away from probabilities.
>>>
>>> @philipthrift
>>>
>>
>> This assessment is not entirely fair. Carroll and Sebens have 
>> a paper on how supposedly the Born rule can be derived from MWI  
>> I have yet 
>> to read their paper, but given the newsiness of this I might get 
>> to it. One 
>> advantage that MWI does have is that it splits the world as a 
>> sort of 
>> quantum frame dragging that is nonlocal. This nonlocal property 
>> might be 
>> useful for working with quantum gravity,
>>
>> I worked a proof of a theorem, which may not be complete 
>> unfortunately, where the two sets of quantum interpretations 
>> that 
>> are ψ-epistemic and those that are ψ-ontological are not 
>> decidable. There 
>> is no decision procedure which can prove QM holds either way. 
>> The proof is 
>> set with nonlocal hidden variables over the projective rays of 
>> the state 
>> space. In effect there is an uncertainty in whether the hidden 
>> variables 
>> localize extant quantities, say with ψ-ontology, or whether 
>> this localization is the generation of information in a local 
>> context from 
>> quantum nonlocality that is not extant, such as with 
>> ψ-epistemology. Quantum interprertations are then auxiliary 
>> physical axioms or postulates. MWI and within the framework of 
>> what Carrol 
>> and Sebens has done this is a ψ-ontology, and this defines 
>> the Born rule. If I am right the degree of ψ-epistemontic 
>> nature is mixed. So the intriguing question we can address is 
>> the nature of 
>> the Born rule and its tie into the auxiliary postulates of 
>> quantum 
>> interpretations. Can a similar demonstration be made for the 
>> Born rule 
>> within QuBism, which is what might be called the dialectic 
>> opposite of MWI?
>>
>> To take MWI as something literal, as opposed to maybe a 
>> working system to understand QM foundations, is maybe taking 
>> things too 
>> far. However, it is a part of some open questions concerning the 
>> fundamentals of QM. If MWI, and more generally postulates of 
>> quantum interpretations, are connected to the Born rule it makes 
>> for some 
>> interesting things to think about.
>>
>> LC

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:01:23 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:02 AM Alan Grayson  > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 4:34:28 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:06 PM Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>


 On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:46:27 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:36 AM Alan Grayson  
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 12:34:18 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Friday, September 13, 2019, Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>


 On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:42:00 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:25 AM Alan Grayson  
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5:24:11 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 13 Sep 2019, at 04:26, Alan Grayson  
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 11:01:54 AM UTC-6, Alan 
>>> Grayson wrote:



 On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 7:45:22 AM UTC-6, Lawrence 
 Crowell wrote:
>
> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:20:46 AM UTC-5, Philip 
> Thrift wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan 
>> Grayson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Many Worlds is where people go to escape from one world of 
>> quantum-stochastic processes. They are like vampires, but 
>> instead of 
>> running away from sunbeams, are running away from probabilities.
>>
>> @philipthrift
>>
>
> This assessment is not entirely fair. Carroll and Sebens have 
> a paper on how supposedly the Born rule can be derived from MWI  
> I have yet 
> to read their paper, but given the newsiness of this I might get 
> to it. One 
> advantage that MWI does have is that it splits the world as a 
> sort of 
> quantum frame dragging that is nonlocal. This nonlocal property 
> might be 
> useful for working with quantum gravity,
>
> I worked a proof of a theorem, which may not be complete 
> unfortunately, where the two sets of quantum interpretations that 
> are ψ-epistemic and those that are ψ-ontological are not 
> decidable. There 
> is no decision procedure which can prove QM holds either way. The 
> proof is 
> set with nonlocal hidden variables over the projective rays of 
> the state 
> space. In effect there is an uncertainty in whether the hidden 
> variables 
> localize extant quantities, say with ψ-ontology, or whether 
> this localization is the generation of information in a local 
> context from 
> quantum nonlocality that is not extant, such as with 
> ψ-epistemology. Quantum interprertations are then auxiliary 
> physical axioms or postulates. MWI and within the framework of 
> what Carrol 
> and Sebens has done this is a ψ-ontology, and this defines 
> the Born rule. If I am right the degree of ψ-epistemontic 
> nature is mixed. So the intriguing question we can address is the 
> nature of 
> the Born rule and its tie into the auxiliary postulates of 
> quantum 
> interpretations. Can a similar demonstration be made for the Born 
> rule 
> within QuBism, which is what might be called the dialectic 
> opposite of MWI?
>
> To take MWI as something literal, as opposed to maybe a 
> working system to understand QM foundations, is maybe taking 
> things too 
> far. However, it is a part of some open questions concerning the 
> fundamentals of QM. If MWI, and more generally postulates of 
> quantum interpretations, are connected to the Born rule it makes 
> for some 
> interesting things to think about.
>
> LC
>

 If you read the link, it's pretty obvious that Carroll believes 
 the many worlds of the MWI, literally exist. AG 

>>>
>>> Carroll also believes that 

Re: Quantum immortality

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 13 Sep 2019, at 13:53, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 2:14 AM Quentin Anciaux  > wrote:
> 
> > Wel if by "dualist soul" you mean something immaterial about our 
> > consciousness (like I don't know information) can be duplicated then yes it 
> > is dualist and any computational theory of mind is dualist in this sense 
> > then.
> 
> Yes I agree completely. I'm a dualist but there is nothing mystical about 
> that, I just believe that nouns and adjectives refer to different things, 
> nouns refer to physical objects and adjectives refer to nouns. 

A noun refers to any object (that a mind can conceive).

With mechanism, you are not identical with your atoms configurations, which 
change all the time already, and even more when each morning you change of body 
(which makes sense in the Mechanism frame).

But you keep your noun in the process, and indeed, with Mechanism you are the 
owner of your body, but you are not identical with your body.

But you are right: if you believe in mind and matter you are a dualist. The 
problem is how you relate the mind and the body.

If ten very different computers (physical or not) emulate your current brain 
process, you will have ten bodies, and your mind will not be related to “only 
one” of them. Your consciousness is not localised, and eventually the idea of 
locality of consciousness is a mind construct (again, assuming Mechanism all 
along).



> 
> > I suppose you would say that if someone believe "he" can be copied and 
> > uploaded in a virtual environment then he is a dualist 
> 
> I agree again. A standard dictionary will say Information is a noun but I 
> think that demonstrates an inconsistency in human language because adjectives 
> describe nouns and so does information. In the case of uploads information 
> describes the way generic atoms are arranged, and this time I agree with the 
> dictionary, atoms are nouns. Arrange atoms one way and they're me, arrange 
> those exact same atoms another way and they're you.

Atoms are not really nouns, but atoms can have nouns, but then numbers have 
noun too. To say that noun applied only to physical material token necessity 
the belief in some primary substance, which does not work with digital 
mechanism.

Bruno



> 
>  John K Clark
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2DGXZzQfdH4wxwO0YXMaB7SAOP12XoK2C7oimWPskxdQ%40mail.gmail.com
>  
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/015EF49C-275D-4D2A-9719-A4780112D457%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: An AI can now pass a 12th-Grade Science Test

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 13 Sep 2019, at 23:25, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/13/2019 4:02 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> On 12 Sep 2019, at 06:52, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 9/11/2019 9:33 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote:
 On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 10:43:40AM -0700, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything 
 List wrote:
> On 9/9/2019 10:16 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 09, 2019 at 07:34:19PM -0700, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything 
>> List wrote:
>>> On 9/9/2019 6:55 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote:
 On Mon, Sep 09, 2019 at 06:40:44PM -0700, 'Brent Meeker' via 
 Everything List wrote:
> Why escape to space when there a lots of resources here?  An AI with
> access to everything connected to the internet shouldn't have any
> trouble taking control of the Earth.
 [...]
 
 You reason like human - "I will stay here because it is nice and I can
 have internet".
 
 [...]
> Cooperation is one of our most important survival strategies.  Lone
> human beings are food for vultures.
> 
>  Humans in tribes rule the world.

 This is just one of those godlike delusions I have written
 about. Either this or you can name even one such tribe. Hint: explain
 how many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions those rulers have
 prevented during last decade.
>>> I only meant relative to other sentient beings.  Of course no one has 
>>> changed the speed of light either and neither will a super-AI. My point is 
>>> that cooperation is an inherent trait of humans, selected by evolution.  
>>> But an AI will not necessarily have that trait.
>> There is not total (everywhere defined) universal Turing machine, so they 
>> are born with a conflict between security (limiting itself to a subset of 
>> the total recursive functions) and liberty/universality (getting all total 
>> computable function, but then also some strictly partial one, and never 
>> being able to know that in advance).
>> That explain why the universal machine are never satisfied, and evolves, in 
>> a escaping forward sort of way. Cooperation and evolution is inevitable in 
>> the setting.
> 
> Cooperation with who? 

In between the universal machines.



> and at what cost? 

The risk of loosing our universality/liberty, like when being exploited. That 
can lead to the apparition of a new universal machine, like when cells 
cooperate in a multicellular organism, many will specialise in one task, like a 
muscular cells, or a digestive cells, or a neurone etc. They remain universal, 
but can no more exercise their universality. But the new organism will be able 
to do that, soon or later.





> That's like saying our cooperation with cattle is inevitable.


It is a very particular case, but it was probably inevitable, although this 
form of cooperation is more like exploitation. The cattle does not benefit much 
when “cooperating" with humans, nor do the aphids when used by ants for they 
“honey”. Well, they do get some protection from predators, like the cattle get 
some protection from the wolves.



>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
 [...]
>> nice air of being godlike. Again, I guess AI will have no need for
>> feeling like this, or not much of feelings at all. Feeling is
>> adversarial to judgement.
> I disagree.  Feeling is just the mark of value,  and values are
> necessary for judgement, at least any judgment of what action to
> take.
 I disagree. I can easily give something a value without feeling about
 it. Example: gold is just a yellow metal. I know other people value it
 a lot, so I might preserve it for trading, but it does not make very
 good knives. Highly impractical in the woods or for plowing
 fields. But it might be used for catching fish, perhaps. They seem to
 like swallowing little blinking things attached to a hook.
>>> I was referring to fundamental values.  Of course many things, like gold 
>>> and fish hooks, have instrumental value which derive from there usefulness 
>>> in satisfying fundamental values, the ones that correlate with feelings.  
>>> If the AI has no fundamental values, it will have no instrumental ones too.
>> It will have all of this with simple universal goal, like “help yourself”, 
>> or “do whatever it takes to survive”.
> 
> Why would it even have a simple goal like "survive”? 

It is a short code which makes the organism better for eating and avoiding 
being eaten.




> And to help yourself is saying no more that it will have some fundamental 
> goal...otherwise there's no distinction between "help" and "hurt”.

It helps to eat, it hurts to be eaten. It is the basic idea.

Bruno



> 
> Brent
> 
>> That can be expressed through small codes (genetic, or not). The probability 
>> that such code appears on Earth might still be very low, making us rare in 
>> the local physical reality, even if provably 

Re: "The Delusion of Scientific Omniscience" (John Horgan)

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 13 Sep 2019, at 13:11, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5:25:16 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 11 Sep 2019, at 20:47, Philip Thrift > 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:02:30 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 10 Sep 2019, at 21:28, Philip Thrift > wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tuesday, September 10, 2019 at 12:09:19 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> 
 On 8 Sep 2019, at 12:51, Philip Thrift > wrote:
 
 
 
 On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 5:40:55 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 > On 7 Sep 2019, at 07:14, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
 > > wrote: 
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > On 9/6/2019 9:51 PM, Philip Thrift wrote: 
 >> 
 >> I would put "Horganism" another way. 
 >> 
 >> Science tells stories/theories, and some are successful in their 
 >> application. But we don't know if any of the stories are the final ones 
 >> to be told, or even close to being final. (They probably are not.) 
 >> There is no settled story of gravity yet, much less consciousness. One 
 >> reads about a new story of gravity in science news every week, it 
 >> seems. 
 >> 
 >> David Chalmers' conclusion is ... 
 >> 
 >> "I think that the Hegelian [dialectical] argument gives good reason to 
 >> take both panpsychism and panprotopsychism very seriously. If we can 
 >> find a reasonable solution to the combination problem for either, this 
 >> view would immediately become the most promising solution to the 
 >> mind–body problem. So the combination problem deserves serious and 
 >> sustained attention." 
 >> - http://consc.net/papers/panpsychism.pdf 
 >>  
 > 
 > Zero predictive power and it's not clear that it's consistent with the 
 > rest of neurophysics. 
 
 + zero explanation power at all, also. 
 
 Bruno 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 But panpsychism more explanatory than consciousness from numbers. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> “Pan” is not well defined. The proposition  "my cup of tea is conscious” is 
>>> not well defined for me.
>>> 
>>> What is the panpsychist theory of consciousness? If everything is 
>>> conscious, “consciousness seems trivialised”.
>>> 
>>> With the number, and their + and * laws, we can define the universal 
>>> digital machine, and study what they can prove about themselves, including 
>>> what they cannot prove, but still guess, and incompleteness makes the 
>>> standard definition of the greeks making sense. The universal machine has 
>>> already an interesting discourse about, not just his body, but its souls, 
>>> its physics, etc.  
>>> 
>>> It is coherent with both AI, and the theory of evolution (which is already 
>>> used on mechanism).
>>> 
>>> Consciousness also get a role, as it provides semantic which accelerate the 
>>> computation relatively to the universal machine which run the subject, 
>>> allowing a greater number of degree of freedom.
>>> 
>>> A very interesting video on the Limbic system, and its relation with 
>>> emotion is here:
>>> 
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAOnSbDSaOw 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Panpsychism assumes matter, making it inconsistent with digital mechanism 
>>> (that is not obvious, ask for explanation if interested). 
>>> But even without that still a bit ignored fact, panpsychism makes the 
>>> functioning of the brain quite mysterious. With mechanism, consciousness is 
>>> a mathematical semantic fixed point, related to the neural loops, whose 
>>> importance is well illustrated in that video.
>>> 
>>> Panpsychism has not yet a testable theory, which might change tomorrow, but 
>>> again, it speculates on very strong axioms, which cannot be used to 
>>> invalidate a much simpler theory, not yet contradicted by any facts.
>>> 
>>> Bruno
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>   consciousness is a mathematical semantic fixed point, related to the 
>>> neural loops
>>> 
>>> It depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
>>> 
>>> "is" could be a descriptive relationship, like a program of a tornado is 
>>> not a tornado.
>> 
>> No problem with this.
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> But if tornados are just mental creations,
>> 
>> Mechanism does not implies this. Tornados are not ontologically real, but 
>> they are phenomenologically real, and their existence depends in fine on 
>> natural number relations, which are not mental creation, at least not human 
>> mental creations.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> where everything mental is a numerical fixed point, then all reality *is* 
>>> numerical simulation.
>> 
>> Consciousness and other semantical notion are fixed point of partially 
>> computable functional. But most of arithmetic are not, unless you intent 
>> them, but them it relies on fixed point of transformation in your brain, 
>> which, as a phenomenological object, will be a fixed point at a 

Re: Why Consciousness Cannot Be Algorithmic

['Cosmin Visan' via Everything List]

The reason is much simpler: "Physics" is just an idea in consciousness.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/83cd060e-aad2-4f17-ad6a-be72abb4aa08%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Entropy of early universe

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 12:13:27 AM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:12:34 AM UTC-6, Alan Grayson wrote:
>>
>> If the early universe, say before the emergence of the CMBR, consisted of 
>> a random collection of electrons and photons, wouldn't this correspond to a 
>> *high*, not low entropy? Wouldn't it be analogous to gas with many 
>> possible states? Yet cosmologists seem hard pressed to explain an initial 
>> or early state assuming the entropy is low. AG
>>
>
> When I was an undergraduate I took a course in Classical Thermodynamics 
> and recall being satisfied that entropy was well-defined. I never took a 
> course in Classical Statistical Mechanics, but I've seen Boltzmann's 
> equation for S and wonder how N, the number of possible states is defined. 
> If we have a gas enclosed in a container, we can divide it into occupation 
> cells of fixed volume to calcuate S. But why can't we double the number of 
> cells by reducing their volume by half? How then is S well defined in the 
> case of Classical Statistical Mechanics? TIA, AG
>

There is the classical definition S = ∂E/∂T for isobaric systems. Yet in 
general entropy is a rather subjective and slippery concept. With the 
Boltzmann formula S = k log(Ω) for Ω the volume of phase space any 
uncertainty in Ω results in tiny errors because of the logarithm. 

LC

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/90f1b9a3-652c-498d-a6ef-3f30dabc1973%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Observation versus assumption

[PGC]

On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 5:36:54 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 9 Sep 2019, at 13:07, PGC > wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 1:48:41 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> Let us discuss ideas, and if you disagree with one thing I say, it would 
>> be nice to explain what. 
>>
>
> Why? So you can dismiss it until a Stanford entry is written for you to 
> dismiss with the infamous correct scientific attitude we see advertised 
> here in recent months? There are dozens of ways to refute the premisses 
> of not one but many things you say. Assuming an albeit countable infinity 
> of transcendental objects/properties ontologically, while accusing 
> "physicalists" for assuming infinities maliciously for years… 
>
>
> That contradicts directly my premise, which are YD and CT. On the 
> contrary, I have insisted many times that analysis and physics are in the 
> derived phenomenology of the universal machine. I do not assume anything 
> more than what is needed to prove the existence of the computations. 
>

Nobody denies the existence of abstractions. Their reality remains a matter 
of personal speculation/mysticism. Therefore branding people as 
"physicalists" for not entertaining particular personal speculation 
includes a blame quality that isn't supported by evidence. It is 
aggressive, Christian-like, and its merit in scientific terms is dubious. 
 

>
> Which is it by the way? Do they assume such because a) they are evil or 
> because b) they are stupid/naive? Or is it a superposition?
>
>
> Physicalist have to assume some magical things to explain how some 
> computations are “more real” or “the only one able to make a computation 
> supporting consciousness”. 
>

You're trying to escape the question. 

If the amount of magic is a measure here, then why are the alleged 
physicalists wrong in some hard definite sense? Because of incompatibility? 
Peano arithmetic is powerful and entails unsolvable phenomena that could be 
argued to be just as magical/red flags for a coherent ontology; i.e. 
including phenomena not amenable to explanation and therefore just as 
magical. Arithmetic is incompatible with itself in the sense that 
"mechanism" is hardly as clear a concept as would be suggested by the type 
of usage on this list; i.e. hiding unsolvable attributes that make it much 
less clear than "2+2=4" would have readers assume, which is more of a 
rhetorical move than an argument.   
 

> But then, it has to be non Turing emulable, because, if it is, it is 
> already emulated an infinity of times in arithmetic. That can be proved in 
> Peano arithmetic, which, typically, do not assume the axiom of infinity, 
> like Euclid proves correctly the existence of an infinity of prime numbers, 
> without assuming any infinity in the theory.
> Maybe the confusion is here: proving that there are infinitely many things 
> can be done without assuming an infinity. It lies enough to prove the 
> existence of some order, and to prove that for each x we can find something 
> “bigger” than x for that order.
>

Nah, it's the double standard of assuming folks to be naive while living 
with arithmetic's considerable unsolvable/magical issues. 

Imagine everybody receives the perfect education concerning these issues: 
what merit would arise? A sense of perfect humility and some more precise 
appraisal of why nothing can be explained? A non-explanation with the 
pretense of explanation. Do nothing to not be false, thus we my never be 
false but with the bar so low, we'll never be able to enjoy anything 
either, as joy entails at least some degree of surprise/indeterminacy and 
loss of control. There's a cynical, controlling quality in this discourse 
that has enforces the christian style blame discourses. PGC
 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/a961178c-608f-423a-9d4b-54c6aa244ca1%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Another physicist in mental decline (Sean Carroll)

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 12:02 AM Alan Grayson 
wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 4:34:28 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:06 PM Alan Grayson  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:46:27 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:36 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 12:34:18 AM UTC-6, Jason wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, September 13, 2019, Alan Grayson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:42:00 PM UTC-6, Jason wrote:



 On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 8:25 AM Alan Grayson 
 wrote:

>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5:24:11 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 13 Sep 2019, at 04:26, Alan Grayson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 11:01:54 AM UTC-6, Alan
>> Grayson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 7:45:22 AM UTC-6, Lawrence
>>> Crowell wrote:

 On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 4:20:46 AM UTC-5, Philip
 Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 11:45:41 PM UTC-5, Alan
> Grayson wrote:
>>
>>
>> https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll-thinks-we-all-exist-on-multiple-worlds/
>>
>
>
>
> Many Worlds is where people go to escape from one world of
> quantum-stochastic processes. They are like vampires, but instead 
> of
> running away from sunbeams, are running away from probabilities.
>
> @philipthrift
>

 This assessment is not entirely fair. Carroll and Sebens have a
 paper on how supposedly the Born rule can be derived from MWI  I 
 have yet
 to read their paper, but given the newsiness of this I might get 
 to it. One
 advantage that MWI does have is that it splits the world as a sort 
 of
 quantum frame dragging that is nonlocal. This nonlocal property 
 might be
 useful for working with quantum gravity,

 I worked a proof of a theorem, which may not be complete
 unfortunately, where the two sets of quantum interpretations that
 are ψ-epistemic and those that are ψ-ontological are not 
 decidable. There
 is no decision procedure which can prove QM holds either way. The 
 proof is
 set with nonlocal hidden variables over the projective rays of the 
 state
 space. In effect there is an uncertainty in whether the hidden 
 variables
 localize extant quantities, say with ψ-ontology, or whether
 this localization is the generation of information in a local 
 context from
 quantum nonlocality that is not extant, such as with
 ψ-epistemology. Quantum interprertations are then auxiliary
 physical axioms or postulates. MWI and within the framework of 
 what Carrol
 and Sebens has done this is a ψ-ontology, and this defines the
 Born rule. If I am right the degree of ψ-epistemontic nature
 is mixed. So the intriguing question we can address is the nature 
 of the
 Born rule and its tie into the auxiliary postulates of quantum
 interpretations. Can a similar demonstration be made for the Born 
 rule
 within QuBism, which is what might be called the dialectic 
 opposite of MWI?

 To take MWI as something literal, as opposed to maybe a working
 system to understand QM foundations, is maybe taking things too 
 far.
 However, it is a part of some open questions concerning the 
 fundamentals of
 QM. If MWI, and more generally postulates of quantum
 interpretations, are connected to the Born rule it makes for some
 interesting things to think about.

 LC

>>>
>>> If you read the link, it's pretty obvious that Carroll believes
>>> the many worlds of the MWI, literally exist. AG
>>>
>>
>> Carroll also believes that IF the universe is infinite, then
>> there must exist exact copies of universes and ourselves. This is
>> frequently claimed by the MWI true believers, but never, AFAICT, 
>> proven, or
>> even plausibly argued.
>>
>>