Neural networks for symbolic mathematics

[Philip Thrift]

https://twitter.com/philipthrift/status/1232208852495540226


@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/f01b033d-c36d-4860-98a8-9ff196fcd95c%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Randomness of quantum processes and computability

[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 6:55:59 AM UTC-7, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 24 Feb 2020, at 05:44, Alan Grayson > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 5:08:16 AM UTC-7, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 21 Feb 2020, at 14:25, Alan Grayson  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, February 21, 2020 at 3:40:51 AM UTC-7, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 20 Feb 2020, at 21:59, Alan Grayson  wrote:
>>>
>>> I think Bruce's position is that quantum processes are inherently random 
>>> and thus NOT computable. Doesn't this conclusion, if true, totally 
>>> disconfirm Bruno's theory that the apparent physical universe comes into 
>>> being by computations of arithmetic pre-existing principles or postulates? 
>>> AG
>>>
>>> On the contrary, Mechanism reduces the apparent indeterminacy to the 
>>> computable. With mechanism, things might be too much non computable, when 
>>> you take the first person indeterminacy into account. Then the math shows 
>>> that this refutation of mechanism does not work, as the computations are 
>>> done with the exact redundancy making the physical reality enough 
>>> computable to get stable histories. 
>>>
>>> Mechanism entails that the physical reality cannot be entirely computed, 
>>> like it predicted that no piece of matter can be cloned. Indeed, it emerges 
>>> from a non computable statistics on infinitely many computation, which are 
>>> not algorithmically recognisable in arithmetic. We can test mechanism by 
>>> measuring its degree of non computability. Too much computable would be 
>>> more problematic than too much non-computable.
>>>
>>> Bruno
>>>
>>
>> I really can't follow the above. What I understand by mechanism (as you 
>> define it), is that the human nervous system, and presumably a human being, 
>> can be duplicated by computers.
>>
>> Yes. If you want, we could define a mechanist practitioners as someone 
>> accepting an artificial prosthesis, like an artificial heart (a pump), or 
>> an artificial kidney ( filter machine), etc. A mechanist is then someone 
>> accepting this whatever organ is concerned, and in particular an artificial 
>> and digital brain.
>>
>> If that's what you mean, can you explain each sentence above. For 
>> example, how does mechanism reduce the apparent indeterminacy to the 
>> computable? And so forth. AG
>>
>> Self-duplication is made possible by the Digital Mechanism. If you agree 
>> that with self-duplication,
>>
>
> *I don't. Although it has some plausibility, there's no way that 
> arithmetic alone can CREATE space and time. A computer can create "points" 
> in a hypothetical grid, and various types of distance formulas, but it 
> cannot create space or time.*
>
> Arithmetic cannot create space and time. I agree with you. That would be 
> rather magical indeed.
>

*Then arithmetic cannot create other worlds! End of story. Case closed. AG *

>
> But once you assume digital mechanism, 
>

*If arithmetic can't create other worlds, it throws grave doubt that 
digital mechanism is true. AG*
 

> and once you understand that the simple arithmetical truth emulates all 
> computations, you can understand that arithmetic create the experience of 
> space-time, and indeed, with, apparently until now, the right redundancy 
> which explain the “many-world” aspect of the physical reality, and that is 
> confirmed mathematically, in the sense that we recover quantum logic for 
> the logic of experimental s-certainty, relatively to the computational 
> states accessible from arithmetic, by universal numbers/machines “living” 
> in there.
> The quantum is explained by the digital “seen from inside”. We get the 
> qubits for the bits when seen from the bits, roughly speaking.
>
> *BTW, what's your definition of physicalism? AG *
>
> The idea that physics is the fundamental science. 
>
> With mechanism, this does not work, (I can show this), and we have to 
> explain the “illusion of a physical world” by a statistic on all machine 
> “dreams", where a dream is just a computation rich enough to support a 
> “self-aware observer” 
>

*So, with a false theory of mechanism, or digital mechanism, and arithmetic 
which you admit can't create space (and probably time as well), you claim 
to derive a self-aware observer? AG*
 

> (which can be defined in arithmetic by a consistent machine having enough 
> rich cognitive abilities (precisely: believing in enough induction axioms, 
> if you have heard about theories like Peano arithmetic, or Zermelo-Fraenkel 
> set theory, those are typical examples of such digital (immaterial) machine.
>

*Yes, I am aware of those axioms, and, as I have written, Peano's axioms 
imply arithmetic, but not IMO, of other worlds. AG *

>
> With mechanism, physics is reduced to computer science or to arithmetic, 
> in the same sense that for most educated people today think that biology 
> can be reduced to physics, in principle of course. 
>
> My first older result is simply that mechanism (the idea that we could 
> su

Re: Wittgenstein's meta-philosophy

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 2/24/2020 6:28 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:



On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 6:24:12 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote:



On 2/24/2020 4:50 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

*ISTM that Peano's Postulates clearly imply positive and negative
integers, zero, and arithmetic. What's the contrary argument?
TIA, AG *


Contrary to what?

Brent


*I'm referring to the argument of those who claim the Peano's Axioms 
don't imply arithmetic (when IMO, they obviously do).  How does that 
argument go?AG

*


Dunno.  How do such arguments go?

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/51399a56-3005-3242-5842-62bef7588ccb%40verizon.net.

Re: Wittgenstein's meta-philosophy

[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 6:24:12 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/24/2020 4:50 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
> *ISTM that Peano's Postulates clearly imply positive and negative 
> integers, zero, and arithmetic. What's the contrary argument? TIA, AG *
>
>
> Contrary to what?
>
> Brent
>

*I'm referring to the argument of those who claim the Peano's Axioms don't 
imply arithmetic (when IMO, they obviously do).  How does that argument 
go?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/6bcfcc5c-d465-4eda-b6d5-5686df52978d%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Wittgenstein's meta-philosophy

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 2/24/2020 4:50 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
*ISTM that Peano's Postulates clearly imply positive and negative 
integers, zero, and arithmetic. What's the contrary argument? TIA, AG *


Contrary to what?

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/417e3b36-2e7c-a3ae-bdd9-2efd14e5acd1%40verizon.net.

Re: Wittgenstein's meta-philosophy

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 9:47:36 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/23/2020 6:43 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 7:29:26 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/23/2020 6:17 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 23 Feb 2020, at 01:12, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
>> everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/22/2020 3:52 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 10:40:12 AM UTC-7, PGC wrote: 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 1:55:39 PM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote: 


 On 20 Feb 2020, at 01:20, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
 everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



 On 2/19/2020 12:15 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



 Wittgenstein is at the core really of *linguistic pragmatism * 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopragmatism

 Languages are tools. There is no truth "out there".


 My view is that "true" means different things in different contexts. 


 And in different modes (of self-reference). The platonists dis 
 understand that the absolute truth requires faith in something beyond “my 
 consciousness” or “consciousness” (to take into account Terren Suydam’ 
 remark).

>>>
>>> Wittgestein up to now still has the upper hand with those old arguments 
>>> over anybody proposing science based ontological packages metaphysically: 
>>> language will seduce people to overgeneralize, to confuse personal 
>>> mysticism with reality, to engage in false equivalencies between terms used 
>>> in formal contexts and everyday use of language, scientism etc. Slowly, 
>>> yours truly is coming around to the idea that folks agreeing on 
>>> ontology/reality/religion, which would guide research in some allegedly 
>>> correct direction; spilling over positive effects into the world... that 
>>> Wittgenstein may prove correct in that this is a confused product of 
>>> muddled armchair thinking, not because of his generally negative stance, 
>>> but because there seem to be positive developments out there that he 
>>> couldn't have informed those arguments with.
>>>
>>> I see/predict metaphysics shifting from the naive armchair forms of 
>>> identity, reality, matter etc. practiced here on this list with profound 
>>> erudition, walking in circles for 20 years now (Wittgenstein says thousands 
>>> of years) to optimization and more efficient pursuit of value and benefit 
>>> questions instead, through say orchestration of highly sophisticated forms 
>>> of organization applied to education, governing, finance, technology, 
>>> problem solving, applied or theoretical etc. that are permissionless, 
>>> universally accessible, require no hierarchy of politics, charlatan 
>>> experts, control freaks, their sycophants, and bibles of some Messiah 
>>> achieving miracles such as eternal life, self-duplication etc.
>>>
>>> Metaphysical setups that place less emphasis on truth, trust, power, 
>>> control, or proof and more emphasis on "can entities such as ourselves be 
>>> highly organized, solve specific survival problems over short and long 
>>> terms, without trusting each other + instead assuming that folks will be 
>>> opportunistic and idealistic?" Example: we don't agree on what reality may 
>>> be, but we do agree on the need for habitable living space in the long 
>>> term, nutrition, water, health, limiting self-destruction, expensive wars, 
>>> standards of living etc. quite clearly. There ARE more appropriate politics 
>>> and economics on the horizon. Metaphysics here, shifting our old-school 
>>> conceptions of what first principles are, and you'd refute Wittgenstein 
>>> instead of running from him. Engineering incentive and not what the game is 
>>> but *how* the game of life on this planet could be. 
>>>  
>>>

 About this, it is clear to me that in “I think thus I am”, Descartes 
 use the “first person” I. Indeed he start from the doubt. Dubito ergo 
 cogito, cogito ergo sum. Descartes did not prove the existence of 
 Descartes, bit of his own consciousness, hoping others can do the same 
 reasoning for themselves. Consciousness always refer to a first person 
 experience implicitly: like God (truth) it is not a thing.

>>>
>>> You concede to Terren that "true means different things in different 
>>> contexts" but everyday like clockwork you still barrage the list with your 
>>> use of "large truth, 3p, reality that cannot be named, mechanism is 
>>> incompatible with physicalism" and all the rest of it. I used to wonder why 
>>> you don't pursue contact with linguists, physicists, a wider audience, and 
>>> philosophers but this has ceased to surprise me. PNGC
>>>
>>
>> I think I finally got it -- what mechanism means for Bruno -- namely, 
>> that a human being can be perfectly simulated by a computer. But if that's 
>> what he means, how does it follow that mechanism is inc

Re: Postulate: Everything that CAN happen, MUST happen.

[Bruce Kellett]

On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 12:10 AM Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> On 23 Feb 2020, at 23:49, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 12:21 AM Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>> On 23 Feb 2020, at 04:11, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>>
>>
>> I don't really understand your comment. I was thinking of Bruno's
>> WM-duplication. You could impose the idea that each duplication at each
>> branch point on every branch is an independent Bernoulli trial with p = 0.5
>> on this (success being defined arbitrarily as W or M). Then, if these
>> probabilities carry over from trial to trial, you end up with every binary
>> sequence, each with weight 1/2^N. Summing sequences with the same number of
>> 0s and 1s, you get the Pascal Triangle distribution that Bruno wants.
>>
>> The trouble is that such a procedure is entirely arbitrary. The only
>> probability that one could objectively assign to say, W, on each Bernoulli
>> trial is one,
>>
>>
>> That is certainly wrong. If you are correct, then P(W) = 1 is written in
>> the personal diary,
>>
>
> I did say "objectively assign". In other words, this was a 3p comment. You
> confuse 1p with 3p yet again.
>
>
> Well, if you “objectively” assign P(W) = 1, the guy in M will subjectively
> refute that prediction, and as the question was about the subjective
> accessible experience, he objectively, and predictably, refute your
> statement.
>


And if you objectively assign p(W) = p(M) = 0.5, then with the W-guy and
the M-guy will both say that your theory is refuted, since they both see
only one city: W-guy, W with p = 1.0, and the M-guy, M with p =1.0..



> If not, tell me what is your prediction in Helsinki again, by keeping in
> mind that it concerns your future subjective experience only.
>


In Helsinki I can offer no value for the probability since, given the
protocol, I know that all probabilities will be realized on repetitions of
the duplication. I cannot infer a probability from just one trial., but the
probability I infer from N repetitions can be any value in [0,1].

Bruce

-- 
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/CAFxXSLR%3DwaxzOKFupNKBVKszHgTW4CB6ruthObap7mqxdL3z7g%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Postulate: Everything that CAN happen, MUST happen.

[Bruce Kellett]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 11:29 PM Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> On 23 Feb 2020, at 23:25, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 12:00 AM Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>> On 22 Feb 2020, at 05:37, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>>
>>
>> I am not sure that I completely understand what Zurek has done here. The
>> problem of carrying the initial amplitdues through a sequence of repeated
>> trials is opaque to me.
>>
>>
>> It seems to me that this is a direct consequence of the linearity of the
>> tensor product.
>>
>> I interpret for example the 1/sqrt(2) in a superposition as describing an
>> infinity of accessible histories, where I can access some particle state
>> (and eigenvalue) with a probability one half. If I make a measurement, that
>> “1/sqrt(2)” is inherited by the state describing me + that particle.
>>
>> I me> (1/sqrt(2) a + 1/sqrt(2) b) = 1/sqrt(2) Ime>Ia> + 1/sqrt(2)
>> Ime>Ib>. The weigth of a has passed on me, by linearity/unitarity.
>>
>
> Sure, you can write 1/sqrt(2) in front of each term. But the relative
> state in each case is the |me>, and that does not depend on the leading
> coefficient.
>
>
> Why? With such an interpretation, QM would not work. The relative
> coefficients gives the superposition state that you are in. You could as
> well say that there is no probabilities in the coin tossing, because each
> “history” is independent of all the counterfactuals, but then there is no
> more any probabilities at all, anywhere.
>

QM works by imposing a probabilistic interpretation on these coefficients:
the Born rule is an additional assumption, it is not inherent in either
collapse theories or Everett many-worlds theories.

When you, in a single trial, see |up> (i.e., the state is |me, who sees
> up>), how does that depend on the 1/sqrt(2)?
>
>
> Because that 1/sqrt(2) told me in advance that once I consider the wave
> of me + the particles,
>


In the 1p picture, you do not know the coefficient in advance -- you can
only infer probabilities from the data obtained in a sequence of trials.

 belong to that superposition. It explains the probability that I observe,
> including if I rotate my experimental device, by trotting differently the
> mixture from the pure state. All use of probabilities are based on
> some theories. The only problem for Everett is that once he uses mechanism,
> he has to extract the wave itself from all computations realised in
> arithmetic (i.e. *all* computations, with their complex redundancies, as we
> accept the Church-Turing thesis).
>
> From the first person perspective, remember -- do not mix in your 3p
> opinions.
>
>
> That is the whole problem: finding a 3p sharable description of the big
> picture which explains the 1p local picture in a way which is coherent with
> all the observers experiences and descriptions.
>


So you admit that you have to mix the 3p and 1p pictures. But in QM we only
have access to the 1p perspective.

Bruce

-- 
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/CAFxXSLRO9_G_WG_d4W7uqqCcNuPB1q2qooO9S%3D_4sR1GwfnYXg%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Randomness of quantum processes and computability

[John Clark]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 8:40 AM Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>> a Halting oracle produces paradoxes,
>
>
> *> I don’t see why you say this.*
>

I have a halting oracle machine and it has 2 input slots, one slot for the
logical blueprints of a computer in digital form and the other slot for a
program, also in digital form, to run on that computer. The oracle machine
will then output either the words "Halt" or "Not Halt" depending on what a
program running on that computer will do. I decide to use the oracle
machine as one part of a new 3 part machine I will call machine X. The
first part of machine X is just a photocopier that makes two copies of its
input and then feeds them into the 2 input slots of the oracle machine. The
last part of machine X is the negator, if it receives a "Not Halt" input
from the oracle machine then the negator will output "Halt" and then stop,
if the negator receives a "Halt" input from the oracle the negator will go
into an infinite loop and never stop. The entire X machine as constructed
has one input slot and one output slot.

I will now input machine X with machine X's own blueprints, so after the
photocopier has done its work the oracle machine will receive identical
inputs in both slots and the oracle machine will have to figure out what
will happen to the X machine when the X machine is fed it's own blueprint
as input. If the oracle says under those circumstances the X machine will
halt then the X machine will never halt, and if the oracle says the X
machine will not halt then the X machine will print "Halt" and stop. So the
halting oracle machine always makes predictions that are wrong. So there is
no such thing as a halting oracle machine. QED.

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/CAJPayv2kWy03pZRds8M1tsqAPjfmvOU3t__dy0Hoaqa2hgQ%2Byg%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: The real numbers are not interpretable in the complex numbers as a field

[Philip Thrift]

What is proved:


RR is not a definable subset of C: There is no purely field-theoretic 
property 
φ(x)φ(x), expressible in the language of fields, that holds in CC of all 
and only the real numbers xx. But more: not only is RR not definable in CC as 
a subfield, we cannot even define a copy of RR in CC in the language of 
fields. We cannot interpret RR in CC in the language of fields.


@philipthrift

On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 9:12:50 AM UTC-6, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> I will have to look at Hamkins's web entry to understand this. It seems to 
> me there is a rather trivial embedding homomorphism R --> C one can appeal 
> to to define the reals within C. 
>
> LC
>
> On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 6:19:54 AM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote:
>>
>>
>> https://twitter.com/JDHamkins/status/1231910305439064064
>>
>> Theorem. The real numbers are not interpretable in the complex numbers as 
>> a field.
>>
>> The result, well-known in model theory, often surprises mathematicians, 
>> who sometimes expect to easily define R in C.  Yet, this isn't possible.
>>
>> @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/bc96d0dd-b461-4450-9140-a7bdbe563fde%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Mecanism, God, the Soul, and other silly secret sauce theories

[John Clark]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 10:05 AM Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The best I can think of is with the Taoist issue with nothingness. Does
> nothingness exist? If it does exist then it is not really nothing, and if
> it does not exist then there must be something. The conclusion then is that
> nothingness is self-contradictory.


The best definition of "nothingness" I've ever heard is infinite unbounded
homogeneity.

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/CAJPayv1zdSjj8FhdqomkL_WvDUkkuUR5e16%2BBDhT18hVVi1kYw%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: The real numbers are not interpretable in the complex numbers as a field

[Lawrence Crowell]

I will have to look at Hamkins's web entry to understand this. It seems to 
me there is a rather trivial embedding homomorphism R --> C one can appeal 
to to define the reals within C. 

LC

On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 6:19:54 AM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
> https://twitter.com/JDHamkins/status/1231910305439064064
>
> Theorem. The real numbers are not interpretable in the complex numbers as 
> a field.
>
> The result, well-known in model theory, often surprises mathematicians, 
> who sometimes expect to easily define R in C.  Yet, this isn't possible.
>
> @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/efe2f396-7029-4bd8-a9ea-2bca1427b7fb%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Mecanism, God, the Soul, and other silly secret sauce theories

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 7:15:40 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sun, Feb 23, 2020 at 9:32 PM Alan Grayson  > wrote:
>
> *> IMO, there's nothing mysterious about Bruno's definition of mechanism. 
>> It's what's generally believed by most physicists; namely, that everything 
>> in the universe can be explained by the interaction of particles (and 
>> waves), *
>
>
> Or to say the same thing more simply, every event has a cause, there is no 
> logical reason that must be true but it's a good working assumption to 
> start with. All physicists think its true except at the quantum level, and 
> with 2 exceptions even religious people think it's true; the exceptions are 
> the Soul's actions and God's actions which they think are events without a 
> cause, which is the very definition of random.  
>
> Yet in direct contradiction to that religious people are constantly 
> talking about the logical reasons, the causes, for God's actions. For 
> example they believe God made the hurricane hit the city BECAUSE he was 
> angry. Why was God angry? God was angry because of gay marriage. Why would 
> gay marriage make God angry? Because it's morally wrong. What makes 
> something morally wrong?. It's unclear how religious people think this 
> chain of questions will terminate or even if they think it will terminate 
> at all, to tell the truth I don't think most have even given it any thought.
>

In *Euthyphro* by Plato there is a dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro 
on whether the gods, or for our purposes I will use God, is truthful and 
virtuous because He follows truth and virtue or whether God makes it so. If 
God follows truth and virtue then God is subordinate to that and is then 
not all omnipotent. If on the other hand God creates truth and virtue then 
those are subject to the will and whim of a conscious being and thus not 
absolute. The issue leads to a sort of pardox. This was reasoned in the 5th 
century BCE, and to this day to tears a hole in any statement by religious 
people that they have "the Truth."

I don't follow Bruno's ideas along these lines well. I can well enough 
understand how Loeb's theorem leads to semantics and a second order system 
that is beyond first order logic that is from a language-programming 
perspective purely syntactic. How this impacts physics is somewhat less 
clear. The best I can think of is with the Taoist issue with nothingness. 
Does nothingness exist? If it does exist then it is not really nothing, and 
if it does not exist then there must be something. The conclusion then is 
that nothingness is self-contradictory. From a physics perspective we do 
have something along those lines with a false vacuum that is unstable, 
which by symmetry breaking or tunneling transitions into a physical vacuum 
plus particles and radiation. The pure vacuum is unstable. 

LC
 

>
> >> Self-duplication is made possible by the Digital Mechanism. If you 
>>> agree that with self-duplication,
>>
>>
> *> I don't. *
>
>
> So you believe in the 18'th century idea of vitalism, the idea that 
> everything interesting about the universe is caused by a secret sauce that 
> science can never explain. But strangely you do believe you're the same 
> person you were a year ago even though the atoms you had in your body then 
> have all been replaced by new atoms. For reasons never made clear you think 
> that doesn't count. I must conclude that you don't believe in 
> self-duplication for emotional reasons not intelectual ones, the same 
> reason you don't believe in the Many Worlds quantum interpretation.
>
> *> **there's no way that arithmetic alone can CREATE space and time. *
>
>
> There is no way arithmetic alone can create ANYTHING, but bizarrely Bruno 
> believes it can. That's why I say although he uses the word constantly I 
> have no idea what Bruno means by "mechanism". 
>
> *> A computer can create "points" in a hypothetical grid, and various 
>> types of distance formulas, but it cannot* [...]
>
>
> A computer is NOT "arithmetic alone", a computer is made of matter and 
> uses energy. Bruno is the one who thinks arithmetic alone can do things not 
> me, in fact he thinks it can do everything.
>
> * > **what's your definition of physicalism?*
>
>
> I have none, I never use the word and have no use for it.
>
> 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/a28a3791-a594-47da-a4c0-8ecdbe462389%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Randomness of quantum processes and computability

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 24 Feb 2020, at 05:44, Alan Grayson  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 5:08:16 AM UTC-7, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 21 Feb 2020, at 14:25, Alan Grayson > 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Friday, February 21, 2020 at 3:40:51 AM UTC-7, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 20 Feb 2020, at 21:59, Alan Grayson > wrote:
>>> 
>>> I think Bruce's position is that quantum processes are inherently random 
>>> and thus NOT computable. Doesn't this conclusion, if true, totally 
>>> disconfirm Bruno's theory that the apparent physical universe comes into 
>>> being by computations of arithmetic pre-existing principles or postulates? 
>>> AG
>> 
>> 
>> On the contrary, Mechanism reduces the apparent indeterminacy to the 
>> computable. With mechanism, things might be too much non computable, when 
>> you take the first person indeterminacy into account. Then the math shows 
>> that this refutation of mechanism does not work, as the computations are 
>> done with the exact redundancy making the physical reality enough computable 
>> to get stable histories. 
>> 
>> Mechanism entails that the physical reality cannot be entirely computed, 
>> like it predicted that no piece of matter can be cloned. Indeed, it emerges 
>> from a non computable statistics on infinitely many computation, which are 
>> not algorithmically recognisable in arithmetic. We can test mechanism by 
>> measuring its degree of non computability. Too much computable would be more 
>> problematic than too much non-computable.
>> 
>> Bruno
>> 
>> I really can't follow the above. What I understand by mechanism (as you 
>> define it), is that the human nervous system, and presumably a human being, 
>> can be duplicated by computers.
> 
> 
> Yes. If you want, we could define a mechanist practitioners as someone 
> accepting an artificial prosthesis, like an artificial heart (a pump), or an 
> artificial kidney ( filter machine), etc. A mechanist is then someone 
> accepting this whatever organ is concerned, and in particular an artificial 
> and digital brain.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> If that's what you mean, can you explain each sentence above. For example, 
>> how does mechanism reduce the apparent indeterminacy to the computable? And 
>> so forth. AG
> 
> 
> Self-duplication is made possible by the Digital Mechanism. If you agree that 
> with self-duplication,
> 
> 
> I don't. Although it has some plausibility, there's no way that arithmetic 
> alone can CREATE space and time. A computer can create "points" in a 
> hypothetical grid, and various types of distance formulas, but it cannot 
> create space or time.


Arithmetic cannot create space and time. I agree with you. That would be rather 
magical indeed.

But once you assume digital mechanism, and once you understand that the simple 
arithmetical truth emulates all computations, you can understand that 
arithmetic create the experience of space-time, and indeed, with, apparently 
until now, the right redundancy which explain the “many-world” aspect of the 
physical reality, and that is confirmed mathematically, in the sense that we 
recover quantum logic for the logic of experimental s-certainty, relatively to 
the computational states accessible from arithmetic, by universal 
numbers/machines “living” in there.
The quantum is explained by the digital “seen from inside”. We get the qubits 
for the bits when seen from the bits, roughly speaking.





> BTW, what's your definition of physicalism? AG 

The idea that physics is the fundamental science. 

With mechanism, this does not work, (I can show this), and we have to explain 
the “illusion of a physical world” by a statistic on all machine “dreams", 
where a dream is just a computation rich enough to support a “self-aware 
observer” (which can be defined in arithmetic by a consistent machine having 
enough rich cognitive abilities (precisely: believing in enough induction 
axioms, if you have heard about theories like Peano arithmetic, or 
Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, those are typical examples of such digital 
(immaterial) machine.

With mechanism, physics is reduced to computer science or to arithmetic, in the 
same sense that for most educated people today think that biology can be 
reduced to physics, in principle of course. 

My first older result is simply that mechanism (the idea that we could survive 
with a digital brain/body) is incompatible with weak-materialism or with 
physicalism (the idea that there is a physical universe having a fundamental 
ontology, not reducible to any other science).

Bruno










> like in the Washington-Moscoow thought experiment, the person is unable to 
> predict his immediate particular personal future feeling, despite being 
> certain (assuming Mechanism and all default hyoptheses) that it will be 
> either like feeling to be in Moscow or like feeling to be in Washington, then 
> you understand that mechanism entails the existence of a personal, subjective 
> (first person) indeterminacy.
> 
> 

Re: Randomness of quantum processes and computability

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 23 Feb 2020, at 14:34, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Feb 23, 2020 at 7:12 AM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> > The BB is computable already with the Halting oracle
> 
> But a Halting oracle produces paradoxes,


I don’t see why you say this. The quantum oracle is just a (non computable) set 
of numbers, and it has been used by Turing and others to show that even with 
such oracle, we cannot solve some problem in arithmetic, like the totality 
problem TOT (deciding if a number code for a total or strictly partial 
computable functions). 

Of course, with an oracle for TOT you can solve the halting problem, but the 
pont is that with the halting oracle, you still cannot decide TOT. This shows 
that TOT is more unsolvable than HALT, or that HALT is simpler than TOT. This 
is the starting result of the study of the degrees of unsolvability, which is 
mainly Recursion Theory.

All this means that adding “divine abilities” to machine, does NOT overcome 
incompleteness. The universal machine is Sigma_1 complete. HALT is Pi_1 
complete, TOT is Pi_2 complete (like quantified G, btw). To be the code of a 
finite set is Sigma_2 complete, to be the code of a recursive set is sigma_3 
complete, etc.




> and I don't just mean weird situations I mean genuine logical contradictions.

There is no contradiction coming from the existence of an oracle for the 
halting problem.

See my older post to see how to modify a Turing machine so that the can consult 
an oracle.
(I can explain again if you want).

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/CAJPayv0kygvSqQo0WhGOF-2rUQMmGfcoDeEv1FNroE93Lx3bQA%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/6AF8D338-E5AB-4B8E-944C-0C5B7BDCC774%40ulb.ac.be.

Mecanism, God, the Soul, and other silly secret sauce theories

[John Clark]

On Sun, Feb 23, 2020 at 9:32 PM Alan Grayson  wrote:

*> IMO, there's nothing mysterious about Bruno's definition of mechanism.
> It's what's generally believed by most physicists; namely, that everything
> in the universe can be explained by the interaction of particles (and
> waves), *


Or to say the same thing more simply, every event has a cause, there is no
logical reason that must be true but it's a good working assumption to
start with. All physicists think its true except at the quantum level, and
with 2 exceptions even religious people think it's true; the exceptions are
the Soul's actions and God's actions which they think are events without a
cause, which is the very definition of random.

Yet in direct contradiction to that religious people are constantly talking
about the logical reasons, the causes, for God's actions. For example they
believe God made the hurricane hit the city BECAUSE he was angry. Why was
God angry? God was angry because of gay marriage. Why would gay marriage
make God angry? Because it's morally wrong. What makes something morally
wrong?. It's unclear how religious people think this chain of questions
will terminate or even if they think it will terminate at all, to tell the
truth I don't think most have even given it any thought.

>> Self-duplication is made possible by the Digital Mechanism. If you agree
>> that with self-duplication,
>
>
*> I don't. *


So you believe in the 18'th century idea of vitalism, the idea that
everything interesting about the universe is caused by a secret sauce that
science can never explain. But strangely you do believe you're the same
person you were a year ago even though the atoms you had in your body then
have all been replaced by new atoms. For reasons never made clear you think
that doesn't count. I must conclude that you don't believe in
self-duplication for emotional reasons not intelectual ones, the same
reason you don't believe in the Many Worlds quantum interpretation.

*> **there's no way that arithmetic alone can CREATE space and time. *


There is no way arithmetic alone can create ANYTHING, but bizarrely Bruno
believes it can. That's why I say although he uses the word constantly I
have no idea what Bruno means by "mechanism".

*> A computer can create "points" in a hypothetical grid, and various types
> of distance formulas, but it cannot* [...]


A computer is NOT "arithmetic alone", a computer is made of matter and uses
energy. Bruno is the one who thinks arithmetic alone can do things not me,
in fact he thinks it can do everything.

* > **what's your definition of physicalism?*


I have none, I never use the word and have no use for it.

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/CAJPayv1H4HCA%2Bq05aD5g6czZguArekhFH08SKJDzBd1BAaQkqw%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Postulate: Everything that CAN happen, MUST happen.

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 23 Feb 2020, at 23:49, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 12:21 AM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> On 23 Feb 2020, at 04:11, Bruce Kellett  > wrote:
>> 
>> I don't really understand your comment. I was thinking of Bruno's 
>> WM-duplication. You could impose the idea that each duplication at each 
>> branch point on every branch is an independent Bernoulli trial with p = 0.5 
>> on this (success being defined arbitrarily as W or M). Then, if these 
>> probabilities carry over from trial to trial, you end up with every binary 
>> sequence, each with weight 1/2^N. Summing sequences with the same number of 
>> 0s and 1s, you get the Pascal Triangle distribution that Bruno wants.
>> 
>> The trouble is that such a procedure is entirely arbitrary. The only 
>> probability that one could objectively assign to say, W, on each Bernoulli 
>> trial is one,
> 
> That is certainly wrong. If you are correct, then P(W) = 1 is written in the 
> personal diary,
> 
> I did say "objectively assign". In other words, this was a 3p comment. You 
> confuse 1p with 3p yet again.

Well, if you “objectively” assign P(W) = 1, the guy in M will subjectively 
refute that prediction, and as the question was about the subjective accessible 
experience, he objectively, and predictably, refute your statement. 

If not, tell me what is your prediction in Helsinki again, by keeping in mind 
that it concerns your future subjective experience only. 



> 
> which is taken with in the duplication box. But then the guy in M will open 
> its diary and see that his P = 1 is refuted. It is enough that once copy 
> refute a prediction to abandon it as valid.
> 
>> since W certainly occurs for each trial.
> 
> Not from the first person perspective.
> 
> Same comment as above. You use a basic confusion between 3p and 1p 
> perspectives to criticize the clear points that I am making.

But then you are changing the question that I asked, and which indeed requires 
the distinction between 1p and 3p, which you don’t here.




> 
> Sometimes it could be M, and the first person experience of “felling being in 
> M” is logical incompatible (with the protocole described here) with the 
> experience of “feeling to be in W”. No copies at all will feel to be in the 
> two cities at once. That never occurs.
> 
> I have never claimed that they will confuse 0 and 1 in their binary diary 
> records. It is just that on repetition of the duplication trials, all diaries 
> record different strings. And each diary is a legitimate source from which an 
> observer can infer a probability value.

No, they have to be the same prediction for the majority of the copies. When 
comparing their diaries, they can see that the best prediction which would have 
maximalise the benefits in case of bet (in entire duplicated populations) is 
given by the binomial coefficient proportion.



> These probability values cover the complete range p contained in [0,1]. There 
> is no unique or natural probability for this scenario. Any probability 
> interpretation that you impose is entirely arbitrary.

So to bet on "Space Odyssey" is as good than betting on white noise in the  
"2^(16180 * 1) * (60 * 90) * 24-duplication-movie experience"? (Cf my 
preceding post).

Bruno




> 
> Bruce
> 
> Bruno
> 
>> In other words, there is no natural probability associated with this 
>> duplication process, so imposing one is ad hoc and arbitrary.
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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/CAFxXSLQ0a%2BzKLd1%2BNzN2qLDi_Osa4r%2BqP9BS9W%2BtWfD_np-z%3DQ%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/18D70312-E638-4C0A-80B6-D5BE6617F540%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Postulate: Everything that CAN happen, MUST happen.

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 23 Feb 2020, at 23:40, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 12:07 AM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> On 22 Feb 2020, at 23:10, Bruce Kellett  > wrote:
>> The arguments that I have developed here, based on Kent's insight, take 
>> Many-worlds at face value. Then the theory is clearly incoherent, or at 
>> least incompatible with observation. However, if you take a classical 
>> deterministic theory, such as Bruno's WM-duplication thought experiment, 
>> then there is no way you can sensibly interpret such a theory 
>> probabilistically.
> 
> It is the experiences obtained which cannot avoid the probabilities. That is 
> the cute part: we get 1p unavoidable probabilities from a 3p purely 
> deterministic picture.
> 
> The problem is that different observers infer different probabilities from 
> their individual 1p perspectives -- there is no 3p probability in these 
> purely deterministic pictures.

With mechanism, they know that they cannot favour any private account, but 
verify them by listing, and taking into account all the histories, brought bay 
all 1p experiences. The 3p probabilities are, like anything 3p sharable, only 
inferred; Nobody can observe a probability. And you are right, there is no 3p 
probabilities in the 3p pictures given by Mechanism and/or Everett. That is 
what people appreciate, the probabilities are pure 1p. But still objectively 
defined and studied, like in QM.

Bruno



> 
> Bruce
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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/CAFxXSLS-FzGfXJkZ%3DrZyDfDQvnbYnDEDcNsiOn4%3DkA4qni62QA%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/CB8A24EF-885B-441A-8BE5-73F6D0B9C36D%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Postulate: Everything that CAN happen, MUST happen.

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 23 Feb 2020, at 23:36, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Feb 23, 2020 at 11:36 PM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> On 21 Feb 2020, at 11:41, Bruce Kellett  > wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 9:30 PM Bruno Marchal > > wrote:
>> 
>> But that argument would work for coin tossing too. That eliminate basically 
>> all probabilistic inference, it seems to me. A dwarf and a giant would not 
>> accept the Gaussian distribution of height.
>> 
>> 
>> You still don't get it, do you? The argument applies to all possible bit 
>> strings of length N. You do not get that from coin tosses in a single world. 
>> It is only when you claim that all possible results exist in separate 
>> branching worlds that the problem arises.
> 
> I don’t see the relevance of the numbers of sequences with as much the same W 
> than M have any relevance with the inference of probabilities. It is low, and 
> the proportion is the same with or without the annihilation of the copies, 
> i.e. with self)duplication and coin tossing. I missed your point indeed, but 
> I don’t see the relevance. May be you elaborate.
> 
> In the coin tossing experiment, with N trials you get just a single binary 
> string. With WM-dulicatin and N replications, you get all 2^N possible binary 
> strings. I think this is a significant difference between the two cases.

Sure. The point is that the second explains the first in the quantum coin 
tossing.



> 
>> So it is a problem for your WM-duplication, and for Everett.
> 
> At least you see that connection (which John Clark seems to miss).
> 
> 
>> But not for single world theories. Statistical inference is perfectly intact 
>> as it is used in this world.
> 
> I don’t see  why this should not be the case in the WM self-dup, except for a 
> meagre, and negligible set of histories. It is the same in single world: 
> winning the big lottery three times in a row is rare.
> 
> That is where you make a fundamental mistake. The sequences with very 
> unbalanced numbers of W and M are not rare in the WM-duplication case -- they 
> always occur.

Yes, but they have the same  relative rarity than in the case where only one 
history is actualised. All balanced and unbalanced proportion of W and M are 
given by the Pascal triangle or Gauss, in this particular experience, and 
assuming the default theoretical hypotheses (‘course).




> The argument I have put forward shows that (always taking the first-person 
> perspective) observers with these unbalanced sequences have every much right 
> to use their data to infer a probability value as do those observers who get 
> approximately equal numbers of Ws and Ms.

Yes, but the vast majority of histories will be better predicted by “white 
noise”, or “I don’t know”, etc. If you are OK with the first person 
indeterminacy, that is enough for the reasoning, as eventually, we will not 
have classical probabilities, but the quantum one, or similar to the quantum 
one.




> There is no principled way from the 1p perspective in which you can 
> distinguish these possibilities.

Directly no. But by repeating those experiences, and doing some others, you can 
try a theory, and in this case the mechanist theory, that is the 1p-plural 
statistic on the computations gives (or points toward) the statistics that we 
have inferred from the observation. 



> So all sets of results are equally valid, as are all different probability 
> estimates.

That seems to me to be tautologically true, whatever probabilities that we use. 
By duplicating the probabilities, to maximise your choice of winning, is the 
same, independently of the realisation, or not, of the alternate experience. 
The point is that a mechanist as to accept that he survives (in the usual 
clinical sense) with a self)duplication, and he can bet in advance that he will 
see only one city, and understand (using mechanism) that he cannot write which 
one in advance, as he knows that the other guy, or himself, will disprove it 
with probability one.


> 
> Hence, there is no single preferred probability in the WM-duplication 
> scenario.

Consider a screen with 16180 * 1 black and white pixels. And I multiply you 
by the 2^(16180 * 1) configuration every 1/24 seconds, and this during 90 
minutes, That makes 2^(16180 * 1) * (60 * 90) * 24 copies at the end of the 
“movie” projection. You are asked, before the “movie” what do you expect to be 
the more portable experience between:

 - White noise, or
 - 2001, Space Odyssey with Tibetan subtitle (a black and white version).

It is easy to show that the white noise will be confirmed by a vast majority of 
observers, and that is what is counted, to infer the 1p most probable 
experience.

Yes, there is guy who will see the movie "2001, Space Odyssey with Tibetan 
subtitle”. In fact all black and white movies will be seen, with subtitle in 
all possible languages (even some non-existing one), and

Re: Wittgenstein's silliness

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 7:26:37 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 8:58:15 AM UTC-6, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> *>  Language as with any symbolic system is incomplete. So any symbolic 
>> structure will by Gödel's theorem be incapable of proving it's consistency. 
>> Wittgenstein seemed to recognize this and backed away from his Tractus.*
>
>  
> He backed away from Tractatus but not in the right direction. Some people, 
> including me, have lost a lot of respect for Wittgenstein due to the so 
> called "notorious paragraph" in his book "Remarks on the Foundations of 
> Mathematics" which he wrote 20 years after Tractatus. Wittgenstein says: 
>
> "I imagine someone asking my advice; he says: “I have constructed a 
> proposition (I will use ‘P’ to designate it) in Russell’s symbolism, and 
> by means of certain definitions and transformations it can be so 
> interpreted that it says ‘P is not provable in Russell’s system’. Must I 
> not say that this proposition on the one hand is true, and on the other 
> hand is unprovable? For suppose it were false; then it is true that it is 
> provable. And that surely cannot be! And if it is proved, then it is proved 
> that is not provable. Thus it can only be true, but unprovable.” Just as 
> we ask, “‘Provable’ in what system?”, so we must also ask, “‘true’ in what 
> system?” ‘True in Russell’s system’ means, as was said: proved in Russell’s 
> system; and ‘false in Russell’s system’ means: the opposite has been proved 
> in Russell’s system. – Now what does your “suppose it is false” mean? In 
> the Russell sense it means ‘suppose the opposite is proved in Russell’s 
> system’"
>
> Wittgenstein seems to equate proof with truth and think a bridge has 
> collapsed in one logical system and the same bridge has NOT collapsed in 
> another logical system. It's silliness like this that gives philosophy a 
> bad name. To answer Wittgenstein's question "True in what system?" I would 
> say true in the ultimate system, physical reality. The variables that make 
> up the bridge have either caused it to reach a lower level of potential 
> energy (aka collapsed) or they have not. And if the pattern of physical 
> electrical charges inside a physical computer are set up in such a way that 
> it will detonate an H-bomb when it finds 3 integers that satisfy the 
> equation X^3 +Y^3 =Z^3 then it is true that the physical computer will 
> never set off the physical bomb. That's why I say mathematics is just a 
> language and physics is more fundamental than mathematics and is the 
> ultimate arbiter of truth.  
>
> John K Clark  
>

I appears Wittgenstein iterated the second of Gödel's theorem in a 
qualitative sense. The truth value is a sort of self-referential inference. 

The connection to physics is interesting. There is an interesting result 
with the idea of infinite entanglements and mathematics.

MIP*=RE
by Scott Aaronson 
January 14th, 2020
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4512

ref: https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.04383

Verifying proofs to very hard math problems is possible with infinite 
quantum entanglement
by Tom Siegfried
February 17, 2020
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-quantum-technique-highlights-math-mysterious-link-physics

This appears to be a quantum mechanical dualism to the Hogarth-Malament 
spacetimes and hypercomputation. 

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/5a166033-a1a5-4d59-84e0-18b8cad5c42e%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Postulate: Everything that CAN happen, MUST happen.

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 23 Feb 2020, at 23:25, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 12:00 AM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> On 22 Feb 2020, at 05:37, Bruce Kellett  > wrote:
>> 
>> I am not sure that I completely understand what Zurek has done here. The 
>> problem of carrying the initial amplitdues through a sequence of repeated 
>> trials is opaque to me.
> 
> It seems to me that this is a direct consequence of the linearity of the 
> tensor product.
> 
> I interpret for example the 1/sqrt(2) in a superposition as describing an 
> infinity of accessible histories, where I can access some particle state (and 
> eigenvalue) with a probability one half. If I make a measurement, that 
> “1/sqrt(2)” is inherited by the state describing me + that particle. 
> 
> I me> (1/sqrt(2) a + 1/sqrt(2) b) = 1/sqrt(2) Ime>Ia> + 1/sqrt(2) Ime>Ib>. 
> The weigth of a has passed on me, by linearity/unitarity. 
> 
> Sure, you can write 1/sqrt(2) in front of each term. But the relative state 
> in each case is the |me>, and that does not depend on the leading coefficient.

Why? With such an interpretation, QM would not work. The relative coefficients 
gives the superposition state that you are in. You could as well say that there 
is no probabilities in the coin tossing, because each “history” is independent 
of all the counterfactuals, but then there is no more any probabilities at all, 
anywhere.



> When you, in a single trial, see |up> (i.e., the state is |me, who sees up>), 
> how does that depend on the 1/sqrt(2)?

Because that 1/sqrt(2) told me in advance that once I consider the wave of me + 
the particles,  belong to that superposition. It explains the probability that 
I observe, including if I rotate my experimental device, by trotting 
differently the mixture from the pure state. All use of probabilities are based 
on some theories. The only problem for Everett is that once he uses mechanism, 
he has to extract the wave itself from all computations realised in arithmetic 
(i.e. *all* computations, with their complex redundancies, as we accept the 
Church-Turing thesis).




> From the first person perspective, remember -- do not mix in your 3p opinions.

That is the whole problem: finding a 3p sharable description of the big picture 
which explains the 1p local picture in a way which is coherent with all the 
observers experiences and descriptions. The mind-body problem is the 1p/3p 
relation problem. Thanks to QM weirdness, physicist are brought to it.

Bruno



> 
> Bruce
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> Zurek seems to rely on the number of envariant environmental states somehow. 
>> I will have to look into this further: it all needs a little untangling. I 
>> can't quite see how the weights carry through repeated measurements -- the 
>> state is surely a new state in each branched world.
>> 
>> Bruce
>> 
>> -- 
>> 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/CAFxXSLQ3xDwGaSg8wUEweT%3Dh%2BncYeD0MJE8jyTmn6CgPN8jhRQ%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/7FCD6C6F-5881-4034-98A0-C1AF24207D24%40ulb.ac.be
>  
> .
> 
> -- 
> 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/CAFxXSLQaBuqAyu7Z5c-vbe-yqR4LRnEOZJwbnZ4-sHd869TMzQ%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...@googlegro

The real numbers are not interpretable in the complex numbers as a field

[Philip Thrift]

https://twitter.com/JDHamkins/status/1231910305439064064

Theorem. The real numbers are not interpretable in the complex numbers as a 
field.

The result, well-known in model theory, often surprises mathematicians, who 
sometimes expect to easily define R in C.  Yet, this isn't possible.

@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/05ab100f-db00-4b92-b9c7-244adac9d808%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Wittgenstein's meta-philosophy

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 7:47:41 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 22 Feb 2020, at 18:40, PGC > wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 1:55:39 PM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 20 Feb 2020, at 01:20, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
>> everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/19/2020 12:15 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Wittgenstein is at the core really of *linguistic pragmatism * 
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopragmatism
>>
>> Languages are tools. There is no truth "out there".
>>
>>
>> My view is that "true" means different things in different contexts. 
>>
>>
>> And in different modes (of self-reference). The platonists dis understand 
>> that the absolute truth requires faith in something beyond “my 
>> consciousness” or “consciousness” (to take into account Terren Suydam’ 
>> remark).
>>
>
> Wittgestein up to now still has the upper hand with those old arguments 
> over anybody proposing science based ontological packages metaphysically: 
> language will seduce people to overgeneralize, to confuse personal 
> mysticism with reality, to engage in false equivalencies between terms used 
> in formal contexts and everyday use of language, scientism etc. Slowly, 
> yours truly is coming around to the idea that folks agreeing on 
> ontology/reality/religion, which would guide research in some allegedly 
> correct direction; spilling over positive effects into the world... that 
> Wittgenstein may prove correct in that this is a confused product of 
> muddled armchair thinking, not because of his generally negative stance, 
> but because there seem to be positive developments out there that he 
> couldn't have informed those arguments with.
>
> I see/predict metaphysics shifting from the naive armchair forms of 
> identity, reality, matter etc. practiced here on this list with profound 
> erudition, walking in circles for 20 years now (Wittgenstein says thousands 
> of years) to optimization and more efficient pursuit of value and benefit 
> questions instead, through say orchestration of highly sophisticated forms 
> of organization applied to education, governing, finance, technology, 
> problem solving, applied or theoretical etc. that are permissionless, 
> universally accessible, require no hierarchy of politics, charlatan 
> experts, control freaks, their sycophants, and bibles of some Messiah 
> achieving miracles such as eternal life, self-duplication etc.
>
> Metaphysical setups that place less emphasis on truth, trust, power, 
> control, or proof and more emphasis on "can entities such as ourselves be 
> highly organized, solve specific survival problems over short and long 
> terms, without trusting each other + instead assuming that folks will be 
> opportunistic and idealistic?" Example: we don't agree on what reality may 
> be, but we do agree on the need for habitable living space in the long 
> term, nutrition, water, health, limiting self-destruction, expensive wars, 
> standards of living etc. quite clearly. There ARE more appropriate politics 
> and economics on the horizon. Metaphysics here, shifting our old-school 
> conceptions of what first principles are, and you'd refute Wittgenstein 
> instead of running from him. Engineering incentive and not what the game is 
> but *how* the game of life on this planet could be. 
>  
>
>>
>> About this, it is clear to me that in “I think thus I am”, Descartes use 
>> the “first person” I. Indeed he start from the doubt. Dubito ergo cogito, 
>> cogito ergo sum. Descartes did not prove the existence of Descartes, bit of 
>> his own consciousness, hoping others can do the same reasoning for 
>> themselves. Consciousness always refer to a first person experience 
>> implicitly: like God (truth) it is not a thing.
>>
>
> You concede to Terren that "true means different things in different 
> contexts”
>
>
> Yes, that is well illustrated in the different type of knowledge, (like p, 
> []p, []p & p, …), but also in the infinity of “[]”, different for each 
> machine/number.
>
>
>
> but everyday like clockwork you still barrage the list with your use of 
> "large truth, 3p, reality that cannot be named, mechanism is incompatible 
> with physicalism" and all the rest of it.
>
>
> I just assume the Mechanist hypothesis, and derive from it that we cannot 
> assume more than elementary arithmetic for the ontology, and then the 
> phenomenology (mathematically obtained, but intuitively explainable with 
> variate thought experiences) shows the appearance of those variate notion 
> of truth.
> I don’t claim mechanism is true, of course, but I derive its consequences, 
> and I show that some are testable.
>
> Bruno
>
>
Wittgenstein did appeal to a language form that is close to or might be 
compared to first order logic. Generally language used and how we reference 
language to objects is beyond this, and it has some element of semantics. 
This does take one potentially into the Loeb theorem, su

Re: Wittgenstein's meta-philosophy

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 10:47:36 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/23/2020 6:43 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 7:29:26 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/23/2020 6:17 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 23 Feb 2020, at 01:12, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
>> everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/22/2020 3:52 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 10:40:12 AM UTC-7, PGC wrote: 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 1:55:39 PM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote: 


 On 20 Feb 2020, at 01:20, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
 everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



 On 2/19/2020 12:15 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



 Wittgenstein is at the core really of *linguistic pragmatism * 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopragmatism

 Languages are tools. There is no truth "out there".


 My view is that "true" means different things in different contexts. 


 And in different modes (of self-reference). The platonists dis 
 understand that the absolute truth requires faith in something beyond “my 
 consciousness” or “consciousness” (to take into account Terren Suydam’ 
 remark).

>>>
>>> Wittgestein up to now still has the upper hand with those old arguments 
>>> over anybody proposing science based ontological packages metaphysically: 
>>> language will seduce people to overgeneralize, to confuse personal 
>>> mysticism with reality, to engage in false equivalencies between terms used 
>>> in formal contexts and everyday use of language, scientism etc. Slowly, 
>>> yours truly is coming around to the idea that folks agreeing on 
>>> ontology/reality/religion, which would guide research in some allegedly 
>>> correct direction; spilling over positive effects into the world... that 
>>> Wittgenstein may prove correct in that this is a confused product of 
>>> muddled armchair thinking, not because of his generally negative stance, 
>>> but because there seem to be positive developments out there that he 
>>> couldn't have informed those arguments with.
>>>
>>> I see/predict metaphysics shifting from the naive armchair forms of 
>>> identity, reality, matter etc. practiced here on this list with profound 
>>> erudition, walking in circles for 20 years now (Wittgenstein says thousands 
>>> of years) to optimization and more efficient pursuit of value and benefit 
>>> questions instead, through say orchestration of highly sophisticated forms 
>>> of organization applied to education, governing, finance, technology, 
>>> problem solving, applied or theoretical etc. that are permissionless, 
>>> universally accessible, require no hierarchy of politics, charlatan 
>>> experts, control freaks, their sycophants, and bibles of some Messiah 
>>> achieving miracles such as eternal life, self-duplication etc.
>>>
>>> Metaphysical setups that place less emphasis on truth, trust, power, 
>>> control, or proof and more emphasis on "can entities such as ourselves be 
>>> highly organized, solve specific survival problems over short and long 
>>> terms, without trusting each other + instead assuming that folks will be 
>>> opportunistic and idealistic?" Example: we don't agree on what reality may 
>>> be, but we do agree on the need for habitable living space in the long 
>>> term, nutrition, water, health, limiting self-destruction, expensive wars, 
>>> standards of living etc. quite clearly. There ARE more appropriate politics 
>>> and economics on the horizon. Metaphysics here, shifting our old-school 
>>> conceptions of what first principles are, and you'd refute Wittgenstein 
>>> instead of running from him. Engineering incentive and not what the game is 
>>> but *how* the game of life on this planet could be. 
>>>  
>>>

 About this, it is clear to me that in “I think thus I am”, Descartes 
 use the “first person” I. Indeed he start from the doubt. Dubito ergo 
 cogito, cogito ergo sum. Descartes did not prove the existence of 
 Descartes, bit of his own consciousness, hoping others can do the same 
 reasoning for themselves. Consciousness always refer to a first person 
 experience implicitly: like God (truth) it is not a thing.

>>>
>>> You concede to Terren that "true means different things in different 
>>> contexts" but everyday like clockwork you still barrage the list with your 
>>> use of "large truth, 3p, reality that cannot be named, mechanism is 
>>> incompatible with physicalism" and all the rest of it. I used to wonder why 
>>> you don't pursue contact with linguists, physicists, a wider audience, and 
>>> philosophers but this has ceased to surprise me. PNGC
>>>
>>
>> I think I finally got it -- what mechanism means for Bruno -- namely, 
>> that a human being can be perfectly simulated by a computer. But if that's 
>> what he means, how does it follow that mechanism is in

Re: Postulate: Everything that CAN happen, MUST happen.

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 7:17:56 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/23/2020 4:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
> > 
> > Can you write a program much shorter than this sequence, and generating 
> it? 
> > 
> > 
> 100011011100101001001010001011000111011100110111000100101000
>  
>
>
> Sure.  Just compress it with something like LZW. 
>
>
>
Don't you need to attach to the compressed sequence the code for the 
LZW-decompressor?

@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/ec8aa540-618a-44b8-a02e-51e34391e8df%40googlegroups.com.