Re: No MWI
On May 14, 9:47 pm, daddycay...@msn.com wrote: > On May 14, 4:45 pm, Colin Hales wrote: > > > > > At the same time position 1 completely fails to explain an > > observer of the kind able to do 1a. > > I would say that position 2 fails to explain the observer too, you > have to actually explain the observer to claim that a position > explains the observer. But position 2 at least provides the topology > to allow doubt, so that there is room for an observer to be explained > in the future. > > > ... > > Yet position 1 behaviour stops you from finding position 2 ... > > and problems unsolved because they are only solvable by position 2 > > remain unsolved merely because of 1b religiosity. > > If what you mean by religiosity is the disallowance of doubt, then yes > by definition position 1 has religiosity and position 2 does not. I > agree that disallowance of doubt is not a good thing to have. I think > you said that physicists would also agree, but that they don't > practice that way. I think it's just a matter of frame of mind. In > math we do that a lot, where we suppose that something is true and see > where it leads. I guess in physics the supposing just lasts longer. > And the supposing in physics is in the form of math. What other form > could supposing in physics possibly take? It seems that anything you > suppose true you can put in the form of a mathematics statement. I > think it all boils down to the fact that we have to keep remembering > that we were just supposing, and be able to step back out of it and > suppose something else. I think that's where having lots of people it > an advantage, some people are the really dedicated logical inference > one step at a time see where the supposition leads, do many > experiments, etc. Other people are the broad brush outside of the box > thinkers that think up lots of different possibilites. > > > > > > > Hmmm. Just in case there's a misunderstanding of position 2, here's > > their contrast rather more pointedly: > > > Position 1 > > 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves > > when we look. > > 1b Reality is literally made of the mathematics 1a. (I act as if this > > were the case) > > > Position 2 > > 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves > > when we look. > > 1b There's a *separate* mathematics of an underlying reality which > > operates to produce an observer who sees the reality behaving as per 1a > > maths. > > 1c There's the actual underlying reality, which is doubted (not claimed) > > to 'be' 1b or 1a. > > I think that your first description of position 2 seemed to > necessitate some kind of basic matter that things are made of. But I > think your second description of position 2 (above, by the way, 2a, > 2b, 2c typo above) doesn't necessarily require that. In face your 2c > above says that the underlying reality is doubted to be 1b or 1a. I > think that your doubt and underlying reality could all be placed in 2b > instead and you could get rid of 2c. I think that Bruno's G might > correspond to 2a and G* might correspond to 2b, and viola, comp! > > Tom> i.e. in the case where you put the doubt and underlying reality into 2b, then G* could correspond to 2b. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No MWI
On May 14, 4:45 pm, Colin Hales wrote: > > At the same time position 1 completely fails to explain an > observer of the kind able to do 1a. I would say that position 2 fails to explain the observer too, you have to actually explain the observer to claim that a position explains the observer. But position 2 at least provides the topology to allow doubt, so that there is room for an observer to be explained in the future. > ... > Yet position 1 behaviour stops you from finding position 2 ... > and problems unsolved because they are only solvable by position 2 > remain unsolved merely because of 1b religiosity. If what you mean by religiosity is the disallowance of doubt, then yes by definition position 1 has religiosity and position 2 does not. I agree that disallowance of doubt is not a good thing to have. I think you said that physicists would also agree, but that they don't practice that way. I think it's just a matter of frame of mind. In math we do that a lot, where we suppose that something is true and see where it leads. I guess in physics the supposing just lasts longer. And the supposing in physics is in the form of math. What other form could supposing in physics possibly take? It seems that anything you suppose true you can put in the form of a mathematics statement. I think it all boils down to the fact that we have to keep remembering that we were just supposing, and be able to step back out of it and suppose something else. I think that's where having lots of people it an advantage, some people are the really dedicated logical inference one step at a time see where the supposition leads, do many experiments, etc. Other people are the broad brush outside of the box thinkers that think up lots of different possibilites. > Hmmm. Just in case there's a misunderstanding of position 2, here's > their contrast rather more pointedly: > > Position 1 > 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves > when we look. > 1b Reality is literally made of the mathematics 1a. (I act as if this > were the case) > > Position 2 > 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves > when we look. > 1b There's a *separate* mathematics of an underlying reality which > operates to produce an observer who sees the reality behaving as per 1a > maths. > 1c There's the actual underlying reality, which is doubted (not claimed) > to 'be' 1b or 1a. > I think that your first description of position 2 seemed to necessitate some kind of basic matter that things are made of. But I think your second description of position 2 (above, by the way, 2a, 2b, 2c typo above) doesn't necessarily require that. In face your 2c above says that the underlying reality is doubted to be 1b or 1a. I think that your doubt and underlying reality could all be placed in 2b instead and you could get rid of 2c. I think that Bruno's G might correspond to 2a and G* might correspond to 2b, and viola, comp! Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Temporary Reality
On May 7, 1:42 am, Kim Jones wrote:
> So - going back to God then, let's maybe do an OPV on him/her/it
>
> Hint:
>
> If I can't do an OPV on God, then I'm not convinced that:
>
> 1. God is a person (100% convinced)
>
> 2. There is a God (74% convinced)
>
People here keep thinking that I am trying to "convince" people that
God is a person and/or that there is a God. Let me give you a hint
that that's not the kind of thing that I would think is worthwhile to
try to "convince" people about my wife. ("convince" Wow, we
westerners sure thing we have a lot of power.) And even if I thought
that it was worthwhile, I certainly wouldn't go about try to
accomplish that by doing an OPV with that person about my wife.
But thanks, this brings up something I forgot to mention explicitly
about what I think is essential about being a person: relationship
with other people. Not OPVs, too third-person for personhood. It
takes two to tango. Sorry to all of us who have been caught up in
individualism. I am a rock, I am an island. Islands do too die.
Perhaps this is what you were trying to get at with your own take on a
belief that God is a person, a feeling that it's somehow more
"symmetrical" than "organized religion" has tried to keep us
believing.
Tom
> best regards,
>
> Kim
>
> 42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
>
> - Steven Wright
>
> Email:
> kmjco...@mac.com
> kimjo...@ozemail.com.au
>
> Web:http://web.mac.com/kmjcommp/Plenitude_Music
>
> Phone:
> (612) 9389 4239 or 0431 723 001
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Re: Temporary Reality
On May 6, 12:47 pm, Jesse Mazer wrote: > > Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 11:33:52 -0700 > > Subject: Re: Temporary Reality > > From: daddycay...@msn.com > > To: everything-list@googlegroups.com > > > On May 4, 6:13 am, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> 2009/5/4 : > > >>> I agree that religion, and a lot of other stuff, produces a lot of > >>> fake certainty. Not good. So that implies that atheism is the way to > >>> go? > > >>> But doesn't it make sense that if God were personal, and a human > >>> person like us could relate to him/her as a person, then that would > >>> result in expanding our consciousness? > > >> Perhaps. But saying that something would be nice doesn't have any any > >> bearing whatsoever on whether it is so. > > >> -- > >> Stathis Papaioannou > > > The purpose of my questions was to question the suggested advantage of > > using atheism as the [preferred] fixed point from which to view the > > universe [by a person]. As part of the process of calling Kim's > > suggestion into question, I'm suggesting the the consideration of the > > possibility that the fact that we are persons is more profound than > > simply being inescapable, but is fundamental. > > What do you mean when you say that *we* are "persons", though? I think that knowing what a person is is sort of like knowing what consciousness is. We just have to go right ahead and be a person and relate to other persons, in faith. Rather like relating to my wife. I've given up trying to figure her out, draw up a theory on who she is and why, and based on that theory algorithmically (is that word allowed in here?) come up with what therefore I should do in each situation. I have to just be me and it seems to usually work out, thankfully. Sorry I can't be more precise. > The word can carry different hidden connotations for different people. Would > you say that a deterministic A.I. computer program could be a "person" or > does the word suggest free will or a soul? Does the word suggest we have some > sort of essential self that remains unchanged over time, in contrast to the > view of the self as an ever-changing dynamical process that's suggested by > modern neuroscience (and perhaps also by Buddhism)? Do "persons" have natural > boundaries or can there be something subjective about where one person ends > and another begins--for example, would it be wrong in any absolute sense to > view my left and right brain as two separate persons cooperating and sharing > information by a high-bandwidth channel? If technology allowed different > human brains to share information in the same way, a la the "Borg" in Star > Trek, could the resulting collective mind be seen as a single person? Some > mystical/idealist philosophies might say that our minds are already all > connected on a sort of subconscious or implicit level, and that "God" is a > name for this sort of collective self shared by all of us...I sometimes think > that something like this could be true in some sort of transhumanist "Omega > Point" theory in which intelligence is destined to expand towards infinite > complexity, with every "smaller" mind existing both as an entity in itself > but also recreated within "larger" minds further in the future (I offered > some speculations about this in the context of reconciling the ASSA with > quantum immortality > athttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/msg/988c1148d589747d)- Hide > quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Temporary Reality
On May 6, 3:14 pm, Kim Jones wrote: > On 07/05/2009, at 4:33 AM, daddycay...@msn.com wrote: > > > The purpose of my questions was to question the suggested advantage of > > using atheism as the [preferred] fixed point from which to view the > > universe [by a person]. > > OK - the only advantage I am suggesting is that atheism be seen as a > "staging post" to a future, more "correct" theology. As such, atheism > could be serving a strictly beneficial purpose at this time. Why I > refer to it as temporary reality. It may actually be necessary to be > wrong about something to provoke the mind to jump off the rails of its > habitual patterns of recognition in order to open up the perception to > something hitherto unseen. This is what Lateral Thinking does. By > being openly wrong or outrageously inaccurate about something, the > local equilibrium of the mind is perturbed and the possibility of > "movement" can follow. Your suggestion that a relationship with God > expands consciousness is fine. IF such a thing were true THEN the > conclusion follows. I also offer the thought that IF God exists THEN > we may have to ditch all organised religion at some stage to allow for > "correct theology" to see the light of day. This process actually > appears to be underway in many parts of the globe which is why I'm > talking about it. > Yes, it seems to me that the process of relating to God as a person and therefore expanding consciousness would result in continuously "ditching all organized religion" as you put it, i.e. continously having the old skins slough off to make way for the new. Such is the way of life. > Bruno's suggestions about the "nature of God" (a person, a thing, a > mathematical "truth", an experience of altered states, a relationship > etc.) is the kind of thought that would probably only occur to an > already-expanded consciousness. > > > As part of the process of calling Kim's > > suggestion into question, I'm suggesting the the consideration of the > > possibility that the fact that we are persons is more profound than > > simply being inescapable, but is fundamental. > > Couldn't agree more. If you want my tuppence worth on this I say we > are all of us "God". Religion says that Man was made in the image of > God. Well, it could obviously be the other way around. Whatever the > relationship, it is clearly a symmetrical one. > > K --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Temporary Reality
On May 4, 6:13 am, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/5/4 : > > > > > I agree that religion, and a lot of other stuff, produces a lot of > > fake certainty. Not good. So that implies that atheism is the way to > > go? > > > But doesn't it make sense that if God were personal, and a human > > person like us could relate to him/her as a person, then that would > > result in expanding our consciousness? > > Perhaps. But saying that something would be nice doesn't have any any > bearing whatsoever on whether it is so. > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou The purpose of my questions was to question the suggested advantage of using atheism as the [preferred] fixed point from which to view the universe [by a person]. As part of the process of calling Kim's suggestion into question, I'm suggesting the the consideration of the possibility that the fact that we are persons is more profound than simply being inescapable, but is fundamental. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Temporary Reality
On May 5, 1:27 am, Kim Jones wrote: > On 04/05/2009, at 12:57 PM, daddycay...@msn.com wrote: > > > But doesn't it make sense that if God were personal, and a human > > person like us could relate to him/her as a person, then that would > > result in expanding our consciousness? > > > Tom > > What particular (and verifiable) personal interactions with God would > you be able to claim Tom? > If you look at what I wrote, I am not claiming anything. > Many people make this stupefying claim from time to time, but none > have ever been independently verified to my knowledge. > > But then I guess it would no longer be "personal". That's the trouble > with "experiences of God". Being so personal, you can only wait for > your own personal experience to turn up. What if it doesn't? > > Best regards, > > Kim Jones If you look at what I wrote, I am simply asking about two logical implications. The first question is in the form of, "Does A imply B?": > I agree that religion, and a lot of other stuff, produces a lot of fake > Not good. So that implies that atheism is the way to go? The second question is in the form of, "Doesn't C imply D?": > But doesn't it make sense that if God were personal, and a human > person like us could relate to him/her as a person, then that would > result in expanding our consciousness? Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Temporary Reality
I agree that religion, and a lot of other stuff, produces a lot of fake certainty. Not good. So that implies that atheism is the way to go? But doesn't it make sense that if God were personal, and a human person like us could relate to him/her as a person, then that would result in expanding our consciousness? Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: language, cloning and thought experiments
I noticed someone taking my name in vain. ;) (though experiment where I, Tom, am a clone of Will Riker) The magic of thought experiments, it's amazing. I felt my measure decrease, but only after I read the thought experiment. I trust this will not derail anyone's personal identity here, but I have some subjectively random thoughts. The importance of, the necessary dependence of any model of reality on, our subjective view of things has struck me lately. For instance, I brought up the "should I worry about a clone dying?" question a while back. This seems totally subjective to me. And that's not a put-down, it's an observation. What if we started thinking about making a clone as sort of like having a baby? Then it would suddenly change from being something uncertain to something exhilating, plus there probably wouldn't be any diapers involved. I'm not suggesting we do that, just performing a thought experiment. When we die, the "personal identity" pain is less if we have passed on something of ourselves in some way. But then of course we care if that passed-on stuff is discontinued, for instance if one of our children die, or a symphony we've written is forgotten. The Golden Rule still applies. The latest Scientific American has an article about non-locality, and it seems to me that this is related to this topic, through the causal- chain aspect of it. One thought-picture that was used to try to convey non-locality is that it is like a fist punching in Chicago and a face being hurt in Los Angeles. So it occurred to me that it is only in the presence of a consciously-aware assignment of cause that a causal chain is present. We are not omniscient, there is always something in a universe which cannot be predicted by any model within that universe. There are always those faces feeling pain for which we have no knowledge of the cause, so how can we claim that everything has a cause? So effectively there are things happening in any universe which have no cause. But what does that mean (subjectively of course) to us? It shouldn't stop us from trying to find causes and do predictions, since this works for everything that we need to work, macroscopic things, local things. Just rambing here, it seems to me that the whole quantum entanglement/non-locality thing is fairly intuitive. It is based on the fact that you need at least three things to have meaning. (For instance, the distance between two points by themselves is meaningless.) And one of those things seems to be consciousness. Tom (Riker's brother) P.S. On your groggy morning, does the fact that you can have an infinitely long tail but have a finite area underneath it have any bearing? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: *THE* PUZZLE (was: ascension, Smullyan, ...)
Bruno,
Taking your assumption that I am a machine or number and so I can be
plugged into an equation (You = Tom or George...), I will say speaking
for myself that I would like a couple of days to think about this. If
we all are one person, then I will not be surprised that George feels
the same way. However, the "or" in the equation "You = Tom or
George..." is already non-constructive. :)
On the topic of non-constructiveness, the controversial use of the
excluded middle is in the context of infinity, not in the finite. I
previously agreed that you did not leave the finite. But now I have a
doubt. It seems that the diagonalization step you have already taken
actually uses the excluded middle for a countable infinity. Given a
(countably infinite) sequence of functions f1, f2, ..., you say that
fn(n)+1 must either be in the sequence OR not in the sequence.
But I will take some of my rare spare time (which I always have by
diagonalization) to think some more about this absoluteness of
computability and Church Thesis, etc. and try to understand this and
solve the puzzle of where your straw-man argument is wrong.
Speaking of straw-men, it seems you are saying that machines simply
running programs, without axioms and inference rules, are like zombies.
Zombies are how I would traditionally think of machines, but you seem
to be saying that the axioms and inference rules somehow breathe life
into the machine.
Tom
-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 16:38:28 +0200
Subject: Re: *THE* PUZZLE (was: ascension, Smullyan, ...)
Hi,
Here is a little test, just for singling out a typical non
intuitionistic (non constructive) argument.
Such kind of argument makes me recall the tale: "The Little Prince"
written by the French pilot and novelist St-Exupery, where the Little
Prince asked the narrator (a pilot) to draw a sheep. But he can't draw
at all and fails badly in all his attempt to draw a sheep, so that
after a while, and because the Little Prince insisted so much,
eventually he decided to draw just a box, and told the little Prince
that the sheep was in the box.
Well, classical mathematicians does that all the time: actually they do
it each time they prove the existence of some object without exhibiting
precisely that object. Constructivist and engineers can be
disappointed, but platonist or classical mathematicians are quite cool
with such non-constructive proof.
I know by experience that even if I give the solution of the *puzzle*,
many people does not really see the non constructive step. So let me
first illustrate such a non-constructive reasoning on a very cute
example.
It is a "well known" proof that there exist irrational numbers x, y,
such that x^y is rational. We don't ask that x should be different of
y. The question is really (in english): is it possible that a
irrational number exponentiated by an irrational number gives a
rational number?
(I recall that a positive real number r is rational iff there exist
natural numbers n and m such that r is equal to m/n. r will be said
to be irrational if r is not rational. A typical irrational number is
the square root of 2, written sqrt(2)).
Here is the delightful proof by Jarden.
First note that a real number is either rational or ... irrational.
Right?
Well, if you say "yes" to this, you have already leave the constructive
area You have accepted the principle of excluded middle saying that
for any well-defined proposition p, either p is true, or p is false. In
this case p is, for some real number r, the proposition "r is
rational". The excluded middle principle gives then: "r is rational or
r is not rational", or "r is rational or is irrational".
Good ... So you agree that the real number sqrt(2) ^ sqrt(2), that is:
the (square root of two) exponentiated up to the (square root of two)
is rational or irrational. Right?
So we have just two cases to consider:
1) sqrt(2) ^ sqrt(2) is rational. Well, in that case we have a
solution: x = y = sqrt(2).
2) sqrt(2) ^ sqrt(2) is irrational. In that case just take x =
(sqrt(2) ^ sqrt(2)), and y = sqrt(2). Then, if you remember elementary
algebra, i.e. that ((a^b)^c) = a^(bc), then you see that x^y = 2 which
is rational of course.
So in all cases we have end up with an irrational which exponentiated
up to some irrational gives a rational, and we have solve the existence
problem. If you ask me a precise (constructive) solution, this
reasoning is not satisfactory. But the reasoning is far from hopeless:
the solution is given to you in a box, the box (set) containing the
couple (sqrt(2) , sqrt(2)) and the couple (sqrt(2) ^ sqrt(2) ;
sqrt(2)). I can, like St-Exupery, tell you that the solution is in the
two-elements box:
{ (x = sqrt(2) ; y = sqrt(2)) (x = sqrt(2) ^ sqrt(2) ; y =
sqrt(2)) }
But I cannot tell you which one, among the two solutions, is the
correct one.
Put in a d
Re: why can't we erase information?
I'm not a physicist, so I'm asking a question. How much of this "we have no information loss in this universe" prinicple are we simply assuming at the outset? I know that a lot of it is unverified theory, like in the case of Stephen Hawking's black hole vs. no black hole from infinity argument, etc. For instance, are we simply assuming, by the sacred laws of thermodynamics, that in the quantum background there is always an antiparticle for each particle in order to annihilate each other? Or could it be that particles and antiparticles appear and disappear asymmetrically on their own, under our observational radar, even though that wouldn't be elegant? Perhaps all these undetectable asymmetries add up to cancel out any observable asymmetries. Weirder things have happened in quantum physics. Are we assuming by elegance that there is no information loss? You can just tell me to go back to my math if you want. Tom > > Saibal Mitra wrote: > > How would an observer know he is living in a universe in which information > > is lost? Information loss means that time evolution can map two different > > initial states to the same final state. The observer in the final state > > thus > > cannot know that information really has been lost. > > If the universe allows two different states to evolve into the same final > state, the second law of thermodynamics wouldn't hold, and we would be able > to (in principle) contruct perpetual motion machines. > > I don't know why you say this can't be detected by an observer. In theory > all we have to do is prepare two systems in two different states, and then > observe that they have evolved into the same final state. Of course in > practice the problem is "which two different states?" And as I suggest > earlier, it may be that for anthropic reasons one or both of these states is > very difficult to access. > Yes, in principle you could observe such a thing. But it may be that generic models exhibiting information loss look like model that don't have information loss to internal observers. 't Hooft's deterministic models are an example of this. I'm also skeptical about observers being able to make more efficient machines. The problem with that, as I see it (I haven't read Lloyd's book yet) is as follows. Consider first a model without information loss, like our own universe. What is preventing us from converting heat into work with 100% efficiency is lack of information. If we had access to all the information that is present then you could make an effective Maxwell's Daemon. Lacking such information, Maxwell's Deamon has to make measurements, which it has to act on. But eventually it has to clear it's memory, and that makes it ineffective. To get rid of this problem Maxwell's Daemon would have to be able to reset its memory without changing the state of the rest of the universe. This could possibly be done in an universe with information loss, but that could only work if the Daemon has control over the information loss process. If information loss interferes with the actions of the Daemon, then it isn't much use. You could also think of the possiblity of some ''physical process'' which would be sort of a ''passive Maxwell's Deamon'' that could reduce the entropy in such universe. Using that you could create a temperature difference between two objects. To extract work you now need to let heat flow between the two objects. So, at that stage you need an entropy to increase again. So, to me this doesn't seem to be a generic world in which you have information loss, rather a world in which it is preserved but where it can be overruled at will. The benefits come from that magical power. Saibal - Defeat Spammers by launching DDoS attacks on Spam-Websites: http://www.hillscapital.com/antispam/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: why can't we erase information?
I've heard it said that the conservation of information can be described as "you can always reconstruct the past from the present." Does this description shed any light on this question? Another thought is that this question assumes reductionism and a closed system. Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Intensionality (was: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE)
Another categorization of this dichotomy could be the Plato universals corresponding to Intensional definitions and the possible, vs. the Aristotle particulars corresponding to the Extensional definitions and the actual. The Intensional can also be associated with mathematical descriptions and algorithmic complexity, whereas Extensional is when something is defined by listing all of its components without assigning any order to it or doing any information compression. I think that it takes a person to do the Intensional, to assign order, beauty or meaning. My belief is that we as finite persons cannot reduce that to numbers, fully understanding it in a reductionist way. I think this is what Stephen was getting at with Intensionality, and perhaps what is also called simple apprehension, intuition. I guess this could be Bruno's distinction between the inside view (G) of only the world that is accessible to us through proof, versus being able to somehow comprehend truth, beauty and order directly (G*). I think there might be some confusion sometimes with what math and numbers are about. I think that math is about Intensionality, seeing truth, beauty and order. By definition, this is saying that we are leaving out a lot of the particulars, we are compressing information. Some people (particularly the reductionist view) say that math brings us closer to understanding everything about the universe. They look at numbers and say wow numbers are very precise, so this means we can do the same thing with the universe. Perhaps in a way math does bring us closer or give us a better understanding, but I think it is wrong to believe that "closer" means that we can have a goal of actually understanding everything. It is like Zeno's paradox, yes we are getting closer, but what does that mean? I think that we have to always take the humble stance that there will always be something that we don't understand. Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Do prime numbers have free will?
John, As I was typing that post, I thought about the fact that I was leaving out the word "positive" but I left it out anyway. I should have typed "a prime is a positive integer having no factors other than 1 and itself." While I'm at it, I wanted to correct something else in the same post. Instead of 1) The reductionist definition that something can be predicted by the sum of atomic parts and rules. I think I should have said 1) The reductionist definition that something is determined by the sum of atomic parts and rules. Saying "is determined by" is theoretical and so covers the cases like with a coin when limitations and uncertainties prohibit actual prediction. I guess this is a difference between the primes and tossing a coin. But perhaps it's only a difference of degree, because when you add and multiply there is always the chance that you will make an error. But then you can repeat the computation, whereas you can't repeat the *same* coin toss. How does this relate to free will? I probably don't want to talk about that too much. There's *probably* a *deterministic* reason for that too. ;) Tom -Original Message- From: John M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 11:57:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Do prime numbers have free will? Tom, I did not shoot my mouth about free will, because of my esteem for Bruno. Now, however, your definition of the primes tickled my mathematical ignorance and I ask you: IF - as you wrote, ">a prime is an integer having no factors other than >1 and itself. < (I heard that somewhere already) My question: is a 'number' the same as its negative, eg. is 2 = -2? because if not, then a prime number "p" is both equal to p.1 and 1.p, (so far so good,) but it is also p = -1.-p -- factors different from the prime itself and 1. (And please spare me of the [..] absolut values) What say you? John --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Bruno, > > To help us understand this: How is this different > from saying the toss > of a coin is both unpredictable and yet determined > by laws? > > Another thought is that there are the two extremes > of the meaning of > "law": > > 1) The reductionist definition that something can be > predicted by the > sum of atomic parts and rules. > With the primes it is the integers and addition and > multiplication. > With a coin supposedly it is "atoms" and the laws of > physics. > 2) The statistical definition that something follows > a certain > distribution over many trials. > With the primes it would be the prime number theorem > or more precise > bounds on the distribution of the primes. With a > coin it would be the > binomial distribution. > > This brought up another thought. The definition of > the primes is a > negative definition, an integer having no factors > other than 1 and > itself. Of course this is what makes it difficult > to determine if a > large number is prime. But is there something about > a negative > definition that sets us up for... what... not being > able to understand > something? This also reminds me of the > diagonalization process, > defining something by saying it is not something > else, like Chaitin > does with his Omega, and of course Cantor with the > reals (resulting in > the mystery of the continuum hypothesis). Another > famous negative > definition is that of infinity, which causes so many > weirdnesses in > divergent series, and talking about the multiverse, > etc. > > Perhaps free will is such a mytery because it can be > defined only > negatively. Free from what? > > Tom > > -Original Message- > From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: FoR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: everything-list@googlegroups.com > Sent: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 17:42:03 +0200 > Subject: Do prime numbers have free will? > > Hi, > > I love so much this citation (often quoted) of D. > Zagier, which seems > to me to describe so well what is peculiar with ... > humans, which > behaviors are simultaneously completely determinated > by numbers/math or > waves/physics and at the same time are so much rich > and unpredictible. > I find instructive to see that primes already > behaves like that > > > "There are two facts about the distribution of prime > numbers of which I > hope to convince you so overwhelmingly that they > will be permanently > engraved in your hearts. The first is that, despite > their simple > definition and role as the building blocks of the > natural numbers, the > prime numbers...grow like weeds among the natural > numbers, seeming to > obey no other law than that of chance, and nobody > can predict where the > next one will sprout. The second fact is even more > astonishing, for it > states just the opposite: that the prime numbers > exhibit stunning > regularity, that there are laws governing their > behaviour, and that > they obey these laws with almost military > precision." > > > > > Bruno > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > >
Re: Do prime numbers have free will?
Bruno, To help us understand this: How is this different from saying the toss of a coin is both unpredictable and yet determined by laws? Another thought is that there are the two extremes of the meaning of "law": 1) The reductionist definition that something can be predicted by the sum of atomic parts and rules. With the primes it is the integers and addition and multiplication. With a coin supposedly it is "atoms" and the laws of physics. 2) The statistical definition that something follows a certain distribution over many trials. With the primes it would be the prime number theorem or more precise bounds on the distribution of the primes. With a coin it would be the binomial distribution. This brought up another thought. The definition of the primes is a negative definition, an integer having no factors other than 1 and itself. Of course this is what makes it difficult to determine if a large number is prime. But is there something about a negative definition that sets us up for... what... not being able to understand something? This also reminds me of the diagonalization process, defining something by saying it is not something else, like Chaitin does with his Omega, and of course Cantor with the reals (resulting in the mystery of the continuum hypothesis). Another famous negative definition is that of infinity, which causes so many weirdnesses in divergent series, and talking about the multiverse, etc. Perhaps free will is such a mytery because it can be defined only negatively. Free from what? Tom -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: FoR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 17:42:03 +0200 Subject: Do prime numbers have free will? Hi, I love so much this citation (often quoted) of D. Zagier, which seems to me to describe so well what is peculiar with ... humans, which behaviors are simultaneously completely determinated by numbers/math or waves/physics and at the same time are so much rich and unpredictible. I find instructive to see that primes already behaves like that "There are two facts about the distribution of prime numbers of which I hope to convince you so overwhelmingly that they will be permanently engraved in your hearts. The first is that, despite their simple definition and role as the building blocks of the natural numbers, the prime numbers...grow like weeds among the natural numbers, seeming to obey no other law than that of chance, and nobody can predict where the next one will sprout. The second fact is even more astonishing, for it states just the opposite: that the prime numbers exhibit stunning regularity, that there are laws governing their behaviour, and that they obey these laws with almost military precision." Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE
Quentin:
I don't know from your wink at the end whether you are half-serious or
not.
But just in case (and Bruno can do better than I can on this), I think
I can correctly appeal to Peano's distinction between mathematical and
linguistic paradox. The meaning of the symbols is defined at a higher
level than the encoding itself. Your statement turns on the word
"chosen", which is a verb. This goes back to my other post in this
thread that, in order to keep from going into an infinite regress of
meaninglessness, defining meaning ultimately requires a person.
Tom
-Original Message-
From: Quentin Anciaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 19:02:14 +0200
Subject: Re: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE
Le Lundi 3 Avril 2006 18:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit :
> GWTW = "01001010110 ... binary("Frankly, my dear,...") ...
01001101001".
Depending on the chosen encoding scheme, the binary representation
could be
any finite binary string, even this '0' or '1', in this case all the
information is in fact contained in the encoding scheme (which itself
of
course can be represented as a binary string using another encoding
scheme,
and this ad infinitum ;)
Quentin
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Re: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE
Can this be shown with an extension of a "pre-fix/don't care bits"
argument? I'm just making this up on the spot, so I'm sticking my neck
out. It's not rigorous, but it could go something like this:
The binary (say) recording of "Gond With The Wind" can be viewed as one
huge but finite binary sequence of n bits:
GWTW = "01001010110 ... binary("Frankly, my dear,...") ... 01001101001".
Actually we can consider all numbers to be an infinitely long binary
sequence, finite ones having an infinite number of leading 0's. So...
1. Of all binary numbers, the probability that the 1st through nth bits
= GWTW is 1/(2^n).
2. So doesn't it follow that, likewise, the probability that the 2nd
through (n+1)th bits = GWTW is 1/(2^n)?
3. So the probability that either #1 or #2 is true is 2/(2^n) =
1/(2^(n-1)). (What about both being true? See step #4.)
4. Now if it weren't for one complication, we would be able to say by
induction the probability that GWTW will be found in the first 2n bits
would be 1 (which obviously is false). The complication is that as we
look at more bits in the pre-fix, there is a relatively small
probability that, depending on the nature of the patterns of 0's and
1's in GWTW, we could find GWTW more than once in the extended prefix.
(e.g. To find GWTW more than once in the first n+1 bits, GWTW would
have to be either all 1's or all 0's.) So we would have to refrain
from counting those certain "multiple occurrence containing" numbers
more than once, slightly decreasing the probability. However, we can
hand-wave and say that this probability is small and thus does not take
us far from a probability of 1 of finding GWTW in a number.
Especially considering all infinitely long numbers, intuitively I'd
guess it's a subset of measure zero that doesn't have a given finite
string inside it somewhere. It might be analogous to saying,"What is
the measure of a subset of the reals that can be described as a
quotient a/b, given that b is fixed." Well we know that is a subset of
the rationals which has measure zero in the reals.
More along the lines of this thread, I'm aware of the weirdnesses in
divergent series, and that it depends on the definition of
divergence/convergence and its context (for instance analytic
continuation). This again gets to the controversial borders of what
mathematics is, and how it relates to reality, and what topology if any
we should choose for Everything (why the complex plane?).
Tom
-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 15:47:29 +0200
Subject: Re: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE
Let us just take the numbers, I mean the finite numbers 0, 1, 2, ...
But let us take them all.
Then it can be shown that numbers without an encoding of "Gone with the
wind" are quite exceptional. Almost all natural numbers, written in
any base, has an encoding of "Gone with the wind", and of the complete
work of Feynman too, and the complete archive of the everything-list.
In the land of big numbers those numbers *who don't* are rare and
exceptional.
It is not entirely obvious. There is a proof of this in the Hardy and
Wright Introduction to Number Theory.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198531710/103-1630254-7840640?
v=glance&n=283155
Bruno
Le 31-mars-06, à 23:34, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit :
>
> John,
>
> If I understand what you're asking: A digital recording of "Gone With
> The Wind", say on a CD, is recorded in bits, binary digits, 1's and
> 0's. You can also express pi in binary, it's simply the base-2
> representation of pi, all 1's and 0's, just like the movie recording.
> So you have an infinite sequence of 0's and 1's which is the
> representation of pi in which to search for the finite sequence of the
> movie recording.
>
> Tom
>
> -Original Message-
> From: John M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:59:20 -0800 (PST)
> Subject: Re: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE
>
>
> Tom,
>
> may I humblly ask for an example, HOW you would
> imagine the 'sequence' in pi's infinite variety of
> numbers the connotation for "Gone With The Wind - the
> movie?"
> Just 'per apices', show the kind of sequence included,
> I don't want all the details.
>
> Thank you
>
> John M
>
> --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> Interesting! This reminds me of the old standby
>> example of being able to
>> find any sequence of digits in the digits of pi, and
>> therefore being able to
>> find whole digital "recordings" of "Gone With The
>> Wind" or anything you desire,
>> including your-whole-life-as-you-desire-it-to-be, if
>> you search long enough.
>> ;) But that's the key, in my view. It requires
>> desiring, searching and
>> finding. That requires a person. Similarly, it
>> requires a person to combine
>> addition and multiplication. This is because it
>> requires a person to think of
>> grouping things. This
Re: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE
John, If I understand what you're asking: A digital recording of "Gone With The Wind", say on a CD, is recorded in bits, binary digits, 1's and 0's. You can also express pi in binary, it's simply the base-2 representation of pi, all 1's and 0's, just like the movie recording. So you have an infinite sequence of 0's and 1's which is the representation of pi in which to search for the finite sequence of the movie recording. Tom -Original Message- From: John M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:59:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE Tom, may I humblly ask for an example, HOW you would imagine the 'sequence' in pi's infinite variety of numbers the connotation for "Gone With The Wind - the movie?" Just 'per apices', show the kind of sequence included, I don't want all the details. Thank you John M --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Interesting! This reminds me of the old standby > example of being able to > find any sequence of digits in the digits of pi, and > therefore being able to > find whole digital "recordings" of "Gone With The > Wind" or anything you desire, > including your-whole-life-as-you-desire-it-to-be, if > you search long enough. > ;) But that's the key, in my view. It requires > desiring, searching and > finding. That requires a person. Similarly, it > requires a person to combine > addition and multiplication. This is because it > requires a person to think of > grouping things. This is because it takes a person > to define meaning. > > Tom > > "An equation for me has no meaning unless it > expresses a thought of God." > Ramanujan > "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will > find, knock and the door > will be opened to you." Jesus > > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Riemann Zeta Pythagorean TOE
Interesting! This reminds me of the old standby example of being able to find any sequence of digits in the digits of pi, and therefore being able to find whole digital "recordings" of "Gone With The Wind" or anything you desire, including your-whole-life-as-you-desire-it-to-be, if you search long enough. ;) But that's the key, in my view. It requires desiring, searching and finding. That requires a person. Similarly, it requires a person to combine addition and multiplication. This is because it requires a person to think of grouping things. This is because it takes a person to define meaning. Tom "An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God." Ramanujan "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you." Jesus --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: proper behavior for a mathematical substructure
Why is it that we talk about caring and preference, pleasure and pain, and "proper behavior", when it comes to trying to figure out the basic nature of reality? (I've noticed that a lot of the thought experiments on this list feature pleasure or pain decision making.) For me this is a rhetorical question, because I believe that personhood is at the very core of reality. However, the point of my post is that this is one of those assumptions that we tend to take for granted without thinking about why we can assume it, and what its implications are. Or we just insert it into our thought experiments thinking that we aren't really assuming it as basic to everything but just making the argument more tangible. However, I would discourage this since there are those of us like me who take personhood to be at the core, and so this makes the thought experiment loaded to begin with. On the other hand, can we have a theory of everything without making that assumption? If so, what would that look like? What would the comparison between math and physical reality look like without it? (Perhaps something like the Riemann hypothesis TOE would fall into that category.) Can Wei Dai's approach below be done without it? Tom -Original Message- From: Wei Dai <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:58:31 -0800 Subject: proper behavior for a mathematical substructure Is there a difference between physical existence and mathematical existence? I suggest thinking about this problem from a different angle. Consider a mathematical substructure as a rational decision maker. It seems to me that making a decision ideally would consist of the following steps: 1. Identify the mathematical structure that corresponds to "me" (i.e., my current observer-moment) 2. Identify the mathematical structures that contain me as substructures. 3. Decide which of those I care about. 4. For each option I have, and each mathematical structure (containing me) that I care about, deduce the consequences on that structure of me taking that option. 5. Find the set of consequences that I prefer overall, and take the option that corresponds to it. Of course each of these steps may be dauntingly difficult, maybe even impossible for natural human beings, but does anyone disagree that this is the ideal of rationality that an AI, or perhaps a computationally augmented human being, should strive for? How would a difference between physical existence and mathematical existence, if there is one, affect this ideal of decision making? It's a rhetorical question because I don't think that it would. One possible answer may be that a rational decision maker in step 3 would decide to only care about those structures that have physical existence. But among the structures that contain him as substructures, how would he know which ones have physical existence, and which one only have mathematical existence? And even if he could somehow find out, I don't see any reason why he must not care about those structures that only have mathematical existence. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Numbers
There is also the issue of scientific prediction or induction, the prediction that someone who has murdered is more likely to murder again. I think this is more important that memory when it comes to the issue of the practical societal definition guilt. How can we predict that I might murder in the future, if I haven't yet murdered but a "parallel" version of me has? I think this gets down to the key question raised here before on measure across the multiverse. This is broader than the issue of personal identity, and makes the multiverse in my view very problematic. To hypothesize a multiverse in order to solve the issue of personal identity is only to complicate the matter. Tom -Original Message- From: Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:12:42 +1000 Subject: Re: Numbers Georges, Peter: Arriving at a consistent and reasonable-sounding theory of personal identity in the multiverse is difficult, to say the least. Some list members in the past have argued that all copies of a person have an equal claim to that person's identity, so that we should feel responsible for the actions of even those parallel copies whose memories we will never share. I object to this on the grounds that it is unfair (it's not my fault if a parallel copy commits a crime, nor do I benefit in any way if a parallel copy has a rewarding experience), and also because any criterion for how similar two individuals have to be in order to be considered copies is ultimately arbitrary. I think the clearest way to talk about these matters is to relinquish the notion that two copies could be the "same person" in any objective or absolute sense. This naturally leads to the smallest possible unit of personhood, delimited in time, space and multiverse, and loosely analogous to the (somewhat controvesial) observer moment or observer-moment. In other words, if you say that it was Joe Bloggs at a specific time, place and multiverse branch who did the murder, there can be no argument about the identity of the accused. But if you then ask if this is the same Joe Bloggs a day or a year before or after the murder, the old philosophical arguments about personal identity all arise, and we have to answer that *by convention*, it is, and *by convention*, the older Joe Bloggs in those multiverse branches where he recalls committing the crime, but not the younger Joe Bloggs, and not the older Joe Bloggs in those multiverse branches where (in the absence of a memory disorder) he does not recall committing the crime, deserves to be punished. Stathis Papaioannou >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > Georges Quenot wrote: > >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > >>> Georges Quenot wrote: > If you are a being that have never observed magical events > any duplicate of you "will" never have observed any magical > event either (otherwise you would differ and no longer be > true duplicates). > >>> That doesn't work the other way round. A duplicate of me up to > >>> 16:51 GMT 20 mar 2006 could suddenly start observing them. > >> Your duplicate will know. Not You. And he will no longer > >> be your duplicate. > > > > I am, conventionally, the same person as my previous selves. > > I have their memories. > >No. You may have lost some of them, acquired some new >ones and still share most of them (if the previous self >you consider is not too far in the past). In some sense, >you are the same person and in some sense you are a >different person. > > > My duplicate will have my memories. > >Your duplicate will have the same memories as you. This >is not the same thing. Once your duplicate experience >something different of what you do, his acquired (and >possibly his lost) memories will differ from yours. He >will still share most of your previous common memories >but he will not know your new ones and you will not >know his new ones. If he evenutally encoutered Harry >Potter and you do not, whatever memories you shared >before, you will not share these ones. > > > Or are you saying that I am not the same person as my > > previous selves ? > >As I said above, in some sense, you are the same person >and in some sense you are a different person. I feel I >am the same person as I was 25 years ago and meanwhile >I also feel very different. Maybe you also experienced >something similar. > >Georges. > > _ New year, new job - there's more than 100,00 jobs at SEEK http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fninemsn%2Eseek%2Ecom%2Eau &_t=752315885&_r=Jan05_tagline&_m=EXT --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at htt
Re: Numbers
Of course, we can't be sure when we close ourselves in from any
explanation that is "meaningless".
We can run but we cannot hide from the fact that we will always have to
make assumptions that are without basis. Even when we close ourselves
in from any explanation that is not based on what we can grasp with our
brains, that step itself is ultimately unsupported. This is what I've
called rationalism *in a closed system*. Rationalism in a closed
system, the supposed path to autonomy from the transcendent, itself
requires faith.
Tom
-Original Message-
From: Russell Standish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:00:00 +1100
Subject: Re: Fw: Numbers
On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 11:45:43AM -0500, danny mayes wrote:
> Russell,
>
> Thats a good summary. However, my issue with your conclusion is
this:
> even if I accept that a "machine" or a "prime mover" is not
necessary,
> such explanations are still part of the plenitude and therefore part
of
> reality. So if everything is reducible to math or information, even
if
> you are correct that our reality can exist independent of these
> third-party explanations, such explanations still exist as part of
the
> totality of everything that can exist. What this would mean to me is
> that the reality I experience may occur naturally as a consequence of
> the logical bootstrapping you describe, but it would also be occuring
> through any number of artificial creations at the same time. These
> realities overlap and it would be meaningless for me to try and say
> whether the reality I am experiencing now is one or the other- it is
both.
That is precisely my point. It is meaningless to attribute the
creation of the these universes to any particular creator, or to none
at all. Hence the closure. It is a subtle point. Not everyone gets it,
and I'm not even sure of it myself.
>
> If you accept MWI or the plenitude, there are really only a few ways
to
> avoid the above argument. First, you could argue that our reality is
... deleting the rest, as I'm not trying to avoid the above argument ...
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Re: Numbers
Yes, I was assuming that the descriptions "lose information", or generalize, just as "mammal" is a generalization, and just as Bruno's duplication loses information. Otherwise, I would call it a re-representation of *ALL* the details of something, *as seen from a certain perspective*, into another form. I don't think this is possible with physical things in our universe. This is what I was trying to get at. If we are limiting our discussion to numbers to begin with, then we would have to assume at the outset that the universe is totally representable (not just describable) by numbers in order for the discussion to have any bearing on the final true nature of the universe. I don't assume that. So on a side note: Even if we are talking about just numbers, I don't think that multiplication is all that Platonic of a thing, hence I have a similar idea about the prime factorization of integers. I think that the closest thing to a Platonic representation of 4 is "" rather than "2^2". Math requires a person. I don't think it's possible to prove it otherwise. ;) Tom In a message dated 3/14/2006 7:38:40 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:"Another note about numbering. It seems to be that if you repeatedly make descriptions of descriptions, you eventually end up with all 0's or all 1's, showing that numbers describing numbers is meaningless. Does this also prove that numbers do not have a Platonic existence?" I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that descriptions of descriptions must lose accuracy? If so, why must it?Suppose that something is described by a tape run on a computer - a universal Turing machine. It seems to me that a "true description" of that tape could only be an identical copy. How could a true description of that tape degenerate into a string of all 0's or all --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Numbers
Is isomorphism or a one-to-one correspondence a mathematical concept or a metamathematical (or metaphysical? another complication in the discussion) concept? I take them as mathematical concepts, so that speculating about isomorphisms of things like the multiverse is in itself assuming that the multiverse is mathematical. I don't think we can use the one-to-one correspondence when it comes to metamathematical questions like the multiverse (or philosophy of everything), but this is simply because I assume that the multiverse (or "everything") is metamathematical. Tom -Original Message- From: Quentin Anciaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 22:05:17 +0100 Subject: Re: Numbers Le Jeudi 16 Mars 2006 21:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > Quentin Anciaux wrote: > > What properties of the multiverse would render only one mathematical > > object real and others abstract... > > A non-mathematical property. Hence mathematics alone is not sufficient > to explain > the world. QED. Hmmm... okay, so last questions what is an abstract thing ? what does it means to be abstract ? what render a thing real ? what does it means for it to be real ? what does it means to be real ? An answer like to be real means to exist or to be instantiated in the reality is not an answer. Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Numbers
Georges wrote: > - The multiverse is isomorphic to a mathematical object, This has to be saying simply that the multiverse IS a mathematical object. Otherwise it is nonsense. Another note about numbering. It seems to be that if you repeatedly make descriptions of descriptions, you eventually end up with all 0's or all 1's, showing that numbers describing numbers is meaningless. Does this also prove that numbers do not have a Platonic existence? Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Vimalakirti Machines
Bruno wrote: > So the divine intellect of the Vimalakirti Machine will contains all proposition of the form: > ~B: > more example: > ~B(an asteroid will not hurt earth in 2102) > ~B(an asteroid will hurt earth in 2102) > ~B(1+1 = 4) > ~B(1+1 ? 4) > ~B(PI is rational) > ~B(PI is not rational) > etc. > This gives an infinite set of true propositions *about* the machine, > all beginning by "~B". The modalist will recall that "~B" is equivalent > with "D~", and is of course the same as <~whatever>, > so the divine intellect can be characterized by saying it contains > all "possibilities" (the alethic reading of the diamond "D"). > > This was simple enough, no? So when you say that the divine is the set of propositions that are true about the entity, what you are really saying is that the divine knows about all of the elements in the Universal Set (your ) and so can take the complement of the terrestrial intellect to get all of the things that the terrestrial intellect cannot know. Right? For the Vimalakirti Machine (and also for me today, too, whether I am a machine or not) this includes both of the following. An asteroid will not hit the earth in 2102. An asteroid will hit the earth in 2102. I am uncomfortable taking the complement of something when I don?t know what the Universal Set is. This is akin to the Something vs. Nothing problem. Everything and Nothing are equally mysterious. Doesn?t taking the complement of a discourse by a machine provide no more information than the discourse itself? It seems that you would have to have access to the truth (p) for the "divine intellect" to be any smarter than the "terrestrial intellect". This is what the "divine soul" has, Bp & p. > I let you find the divine soul... For the Vimalakirti Machine, since "Bp" is empty, and thus "Bp & p" is empty, then by your "taking the complement" argument above it would seem to me that you would say that the divine soul "contains all possibilities" also. The fact that p is anded with Bp to begin with shouldn?t make a difference in this case, since the result is empty. The divine soul cannot have access to all truth p, but only the portion of truth covered by Bp, which is empty since Bp is empty. The divine soul is the propositions which are true *about the entity*, not all true propositions. > ... > I hope this helps you to distinguish a discourse made > BY a machine/entity from a discourse made ABOUT > the machine/entity. This is a key to understand the > difference between terrestrial and divine in the > mathematical interpretation of Plotinus. The difference seems to bank on taking the complement. What is your Universal Set? Is it only things that can be expressed by numbers? By the way, I saw that in the Wall Street Journal today there is an article about a man who sold his soul on eBay for $504. I guess his Universal Set is just numbers. :) Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Vimalakirti Machines
Bruno,
In this context, what are you taking to be the truth value of the empty
set?
In other words, how can you say that {Empty set} & p = {Empty set} ?
I thought that you were taking "&" to operate on propositions, not sets.
Doesn't {Empty set} & p mean "saying nothing" in conjunction with "the
truth value of p"?
Going even further back in your statements, how can Bp = {Empty set}
when Bp corresponds to a truth value?
The Dharm-Door of Non-Duality states that {Empty set} is neither true
nor false.
[If this doesn't show up on the list, could you post it there for me.
I have been having trouble registering.]
Tom
-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 16:42:25 +0100
Subject: Vimalakirti Machines
Vimalakirti Machines.
Before going back to the lobian hypostases (point of views) and their
associated possible multiverses (the geometrical structure organizing
the possible collection of the observer-moments, states, worlds,
situations, etc.) it could help to study the same hypostases in the
case of a machine or entity much simpler than a lobian one.
Now there is a machine, reasoner, entity (whatever) which is even
simpler than the type 1 reasoner of Smullyan. You can consider it as a
the wisest of all machine, or the dumbest one (your choice). It has
some relationship with some of Hal Ruhl's intution, I think, and
actually, even the lobian talk will lead us to special sort of non
Kripkean world related to the Vimalakirti machine. The machine just say
nothing. Pure total and eternal silence. It is hard to imagine a
simpler discourse than this one. I call it "Vimalakirti' in honnor of a
buddhist who famously said nothing at the right time and place(**).
I recall the 8 hypostases (as I interpret it in the context of the
interview of some machine or entity):
First there are the four primary hypostases:
p (Truth, the One)
Bp (the Intellect, which splits into two: the terrestrial one, and
the divine one, described by G and G* respectively, in the case you
interview a lobian machine)
Bp & p (The Soul, which miraculously doesn't split, in the loebian
case)
Then there are the four secondary hypostases:
Bp & Dp ("Intelligible Matter", which splits in the loebian case)
Bp & Dp & p("Sensible Matter", which also splits in the loebian
case)
Now, in the interview context, Bp means simply: the machine or entity
will print, or believe, or assert p, if she has not already done so. I
could write B(p) for the sake of readability. For example B(Alice likes
puzzles) means that the machine will assert that Alice likes puzzles,
and B(Bp), = BBp, means the machine will assert Bp, or, given that Bp
means that the machine will assert p, BBp means that the machine will
assert that the machine will assert p. Obviously ~Bp means that the
machine does not asserts p, and B~p means that the machine does assert
~p, and ~B~p means that the machine does not assert ~p. Like always I
will abbreviate ~B~p by Dp.
Now, given the triviality of the discourse of the Vimalakirti machine
(she says nothing), the hypostases will be rather simple too.
p (The truth does not change except for some mundane propositions
concerning perhaps the Vimalakirti machine itself)
Bp terrestrial: this is the discourse of the machine, it can only be
the empty set, given that the machine says nothing.
Bp & p, at the terrestrial level this is again the empty set. OK?
Bp & Dpagain empty
Bp & Dp & p empty again.
So all the terrestrial hypostases are empty!
What can we say about the divine one. I recall that they are defined by
all the propositions which are true *about* the entity, independently
of the fact that the entity asserts them or not.
I let you think before giving the answer tomorrow.
Bruno
(**) Googelizing a little bit I realize that the entire teaching of
Vimalakirti is in english on the net:
http://www.buddhistinformation.com/vimalakirti_nirdesa_sutra.htm
See the end of the section 9 for his famous silence. search on the
dharma-door or on non-duality or on the full title of the 9 section:
9. The Dharma-Door of Non-duality
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: Artificial Philosophizing
Bruno:
That is why I propose simple definitions. Reasoning =
provability = Bp = Beweisbar("p") cf Godel 1931. Soul =
first person = provability-and-truth = Bp & p =
third Plotinus' hypostase. This can look as an oversimplification
but the gap between truth and provability (incarnated in the
corona G* minus G) detrivialises (if I can say) all this.
Tom:
...
On the contrary, I would echo John Mikes' sentiment that
some of your definitions seem too simple for my taste.
I think I would agree with your definition of reasoning
though, but I take issue with your definition of Soul =
first person = provability-and-truth = Bp & p. I think
elsewhere you also define Knowledge as Belief & Truth,
and I have the same problem with that. These definitions
seem too simple. These seem equivalent to accidental
true belief and accidental true proof. They lack the
justification factor. (I feel a reference to G*/G coming. ;) )
Anyway, perhaps we can start a new thread if we want
to talk about this part some more, or this is probably what
you've been trying to explain to us all along in previous threads.
Bruno:
Bp & p seems too simple. Actually, given that I limit myself
in the interview of sound machines, we know that they obey
to Bp -> p, by definition (a sound machine proves only true
statements: so Bp -> p).
So we know Bp and Bp & p are equivalent, so you could at
I should have said that Bp & p seems wrong, not that it's too simple.
I was trying to say that it seems wrong to say that Bp & p gets us
further than Bp, i.e. provability + truth is more than provability. In
order for Bp & p > Bp, it seems to me that we would have to have access
to truth (p) directly, we would have to *know* that we've proved
something to be true, not just that we've been consistent. In order to
be *sound* we have to be given "true truth" for our reasoning to start
with (and then of course be then be consistent with it). This is
similar to why I don't think that knowledge is simply true belief.
Bruno:
first believe that the soul = the intellect. Exercise: what is wrong?
Answer tomorrow :-) (+ answers to Danny and Ben).
Bruno
I don't know what you're trying to get at with soul = intellect. To me
the intellect is simply at the same par with provability and reason.
The intellect has to be given true truth in order for it to come up
with true truth (if it reasons consistently). More than that, the
intellect has to be given true truth and know that it was given true
truth, in order to reason its way to more true truth and know that it
has done so.
Tom
Re: Artificial Philosophizing
Responses interspersed below.
Le 15-févr.-06, à 17:30, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit :
As Bruno said, now we really don't know what a machine is.
Bruno:
Actually I was just saying that no machine can *fully* grasp *all
aspect* of machine. But machines can know what machines are. Only, if a
machine M1 is more complex than M2, M2 will not been able to prove the
consistency of M1, for example. And then if we are machine (comp) such
limitations apply to us, and this provides lot of informations,
including negative one which we can not prove except that we can derive
them from the initial comp act of faith ("yes doctor").
Actually I was referring to what you said in the "belief..." thread
http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@eskimo.com/msg08680.html
where you respond to my statement
This runs counter to the whole PHILOSOPHY (mind you)
of modern science, that we are simply machines, and that
there is no WHY.
with:
This is due to the materialist who like to use the idea
that we are simply machine just to put under the rug
all the interesting open problem of (platonician) theology.
Since Godel's discovery this position is untenable. Now we
know that we don't know really what machines are. With
the comp-or-weaker hyp, we already know that if we are
machine then the physical laws emerges from in a totally
precise and testable way.
Tom:
So in the absense of a precise definition, perhaps we end up running
away from ill-defined words like "machine", "reason", "soul", "faith",
etc., for who knows what personal "reasons".
Bruno:
That is why I propose simple definitions. Reasoning = provability =
Bp = Beweisbar("p") cf Godel 1931. Soul = first person =
provability-and-truth = Bp & p = third Plotinus' hypostase. This can
look as an oversimplification but the gap between truth and provability
(incarnated in the corona G* minus G) detrivialises (if I can say) all
this.
My fault. I will come back on this.
Bruno
Actually, when I was talking about a lack of precise definition, I
wasn't referring to you, Bruno. I was talking about what happens in
the general conversation when we don't define our terms, or when we are
assuming different definitions based on different philosophies
consciously or unconsciously held.
On the contrary, I would echo John Mikes' sentiment that some of your
definitions seem too simple for my taste. I think I would agree with
your definition of reasoning though, but I take issue with your
definition of Soul = first person = provability-and-truth = Bp & p. I
think elsewhere you also define Knowledge as Belief & Truth, and I have
the same problem with that. These definitions seem too simple. These
seem equivalent to accidental true belief and accidental true proof.
They lack the justification factor. (I feel a reference to G*/G
coming. ;) ) Anyway, perhaps we can start a new thread if we want to
talk about this part some more, or this is probably what you've been
trying to explain to us all along in previous threads.
Tom
Re: Artificial Philosophizing
Bruno wrote: ... and note that the coherence of taking simultaneously both a and b above is provided by the incompleteness results (Godel, ...) which can be summarized by "... no machine can grasp all aspect of machine". Bruno Thanks, Bruno, for the above and also your more lengthy response, and also to Jef for your response below. After I posted the question below about Bruno's a) and b) I realised that I had set up a false dichotomy, and I was bracing for the appeal to Godel which Bruno and in a way also Jef responsed with. I've been trying to figure out how best to pose what I was actually trying to get at and I've been busy, but I wanted say thanks for the response. For now, I think that there's a problem with defining what a machine is. As Bruno said, now we really don't know what a machine is. So in the absense of a precise definition, perhaps we end up running away from ill-defined words like "machine", "reason", "soul", "faith", etc., for who knows what personal "reasons". I recognize that part of the problem is a difference in philosophy, the prime example being the Platonic vs. Aristotelian. I guess this underscores the importance of Jeanne's original question about the place for philosophy in subjects like Artificial Intelligence. Perhaps this is obvious to most of us here, but it is an interesting question. In fact, the very question "Why philosophize?" is actually philosophizing. We humans just can't get away from it. It's what we do naturally. And perhaps this is part of what I'm trying to get at. A machine has to be interviewed by a human in order to philosophize. We humans are somehow the source of something from nothing in a way that a machine is not (Jef's "something special about the human experience"). This is part of the definition of a machine, as I see it. Back to thinking. Tom -Original Message- From: Jef Allbright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 20:18:35 -0800 Subject: Re: Artificial Philosophizing On 2/7/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>So Bruno says that: >>a) "I am a machine." >>b) "...no man can grasp all aspect of man" A and b above both make sense to me. >>Jef and Brent say that we are machines >>who (that?) philosophize. I'll agree that was implied by my statement. I suggest we start out by concentrating on the fact that Brent and Jef don't agree with Bruno's b) above. Note that I would in fact agree with both a and b above. > (And also perhaps Bruno doesn't agree with himself (Bruno's a) vs. b) above)). If we truly are machines, then by definition we should be able to (in theory) figure out the "list of instructions" that we follow. But wouldn't this be grasping all aspects of ourselves? If not, then what part of ourselves is outside of the realm of being able to grasp, and if so, how can we say we are machines in a totally closed rationalistic/naturalistic world? Brent and Jef's paragraphs sound mystical to me, as mystical as any other "first truth" assumption. I intentionally adopted a mystical tone in response to Tom's assertion about "modern philosophy" being the "death of humanness" since I was trying to relate to someone who appeared to be saying that there's something essentially special about the human experience. So I agreed, trying to show that from the subjective point of view, the human experience certainly is extraordinary, but that it's all a part of an objectively knowable, but never fully known, world. My viewpoint is mystical to the extent that Albert Einstein and Buckminster Fuller were mystical, acknowledging the mystery of our experience while remaining fully grounded in an empirical but never fully knowable reality. To go to the heart of Tom's assertion about complete self knowledge, in order for a system to fully "know" something, it must contain a complete model of that something within itself, therefore the system that knows must always be more complex than that which it knows. It seems to me that much endless discussion and debate about the nature of the Self, Free Will and Morality hinges on a lack of understanding of the relationship between the subjective and objective viewpoint, and that each tends to expand in ever-increasing spheres of context. Expanding the sphere of subjective understanding across an increasing scope of subjective agents and their interactions provides ever-increasing but never complete understanding of shared values that work. Expanding the sphere of objective understanding provides increasing scope of instrumental knowledge of practices that work. Combining the two by applying increasingly objective instrumental knowledge toward the promotion of increasingly shared subjective values is the very essence of moral decision-making. Paradox is always a case of insuf
Re: Artificial Philosophizing
Georges wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So Bruno says that: a) "I am a machine." b) "...no man can grasp all aspect of man" Tom says that to philosophize is one aspect of humanness that is more than a machine (i.e. simply following a set of instructions). Jef and Brent say that we are machines who (that?) philosophize. Brent says that realizing we are machines is the beginning of (or another step in) the death of human hubris (arrogance). I thought that Bruno maintains that humility is on the side of realizing that we cannot totally understand ourselves. Pascal, "Reason can begin again when we recognize what we cannot know." Could we try to make sense of this, given that we believe in sense? Tom Given that we believe in sense? Who/what gives that? Do we believe in that? Georges. Georges, you are using sense by asking those questions. List, OK, we don't have to use any of those scary words like sense and reason and faith. We're just trying to get at reality. Or are people starting to get nihilistic? Have a little faith (oops) and let's talk. I suggest we start out by concentrating on the fact that Brent and Jef don't agree with Bruno's b) above. (And also perhaps Bruno doesn't agree with himself (Bruno's a) vs. b) above)). If we truly are machines, then by definition we should be able to (in theory) figure out the "list of instructions" that we follow. But wouldn't this be grasping all aspects of ourselves? If not, then what part of ourselves is outside of the realm of being able to grasp, and if so, how can we say we are machines in a totally closed rationalistic/naturalistic world? Brent and Jef's paragraphs sound mystical to me, as mystical as any other "first truth" assumption. Tom
Artificial Philosophizing
Bruno wrote: Jeanne Houston wrote: I am a layperson who reads these discussions out of avid interest, and I hope that someone will answer a question that I would like to ask in order to enhance my own understanding. There is an emphasis on AI running through these discussions, yet you seem to delve into very philosophical questions. Are the philosophical discussions applicable to the development of AI I would say so, but probably not in a predictible way ... Today the reverse is still more true. (i.e., trying to grasp all aspects of the mind of man if you are trying to develop a true copy), ... or in some indirect way perhaps, by giving evidences that no man can grasp all aspect of man, so that if we make a copy, some bets or hopes, or faith, or things like that are in order. or are they only interesting diversions that pop-up from time to time. My thanks to anyone who wishes to respond. Jeanne Houston I do use explicitly the computationailist hypothesis (the thesis that I am a machine) which is stronger than the strong AI thesis (machine can think). Actually I am no more in need of comp (I realised that my theory works for a large variety of non-machines), but, still, with the comp hyp, the reasoning is simpler. Bruno On 2/6/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: We can't JUST DO things (like AI). Whenever we DO things, we are THINKING ABOUT them. I'd venture to say that HOW WE THINK ABOUT THINGS (e.g. philosophy, epistemology, etc.) is even MORE important that DOING THINGS (engineering, sales, etc.). That is one way of looking at the advantage that we humans have over machines. We have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them. This runs counter to the whole PHILOSOPHY (mind you) of modern science, that we are simply machines, and that there is no WHY. This modern philosophy, if taken to its extreme, is the death of the humanness. Tom Caylor Jef Allbright wrote: To realize that we are "just" machines in a physical world, and that this validates and enhances--rather than diminishes--the romance, the meaning, and the mystery of human existence, is a very empowering conceptualization. To travel into the void, leaving behind myths and tradition, and then to emerge from the void, to see that all is as it was, but standing on physical law, both known and not yet known, is to gain the freedom to grow. - Jef http://www.jefallbright.net Increasing awareness for increasing morality Brent Meeker wrote: I think you've got it the wrong way 'round. The view of modern science is that we are machines and machines can do philosophy and know they are doing it and can have reasons why. It is the death of human hubris - which may eventually succumb to the wounds it has received since Copernicus. Brent Meeker So Bruno says that: a) "I am a machine." b) "...no man can grasp all aspect of man" Tom says that to philosophize is one aspect of humanness that is more than a machine (i.e. simply following a set of instructions). Jef and Brent say that we are machines who (that?) philosophize. Brent says that realizing we are machines is the beginning of (or another step in) the death of human hubris (arrogance). I thought that Bruno maintains that humility is on the side of realizing that we cannot totally understand ourselves. Pascal, "Reason can begin again when we recognize what we cannot know." Could we try to make sense of this, given that we believe in sense? Tom
Re: belief, faith, truth
Jeanne Houston wrote: I am a layperson who reads these discussions out of avid interest, and I hope that someone will answer a question that I would like to ask in order to enhance my own understanding. There is an emphasis on AI running through these discussions, yet you seem to delve into very philosophical questions. Are the philosophical discussions applicable to the development of AI (i.e., trying to grasp all aspects of the mind of man if you are trying to develop a true copy), or are they only interesting diversions that pop-up from time to time. My thanks to anyone who wishes to respond. Jeanne Houston My answer is probably too short, but I want to take the risk of being misinterpreted in order to be plain: We can't JUST DO things (like AI). Whenever we DO things, we are THINKING ABOUT them. I'd venture to say that HOW WE THINK ABOUT THINGS (e.g. philosophy, epistemology, etc.) is even MORE important that DOING THINGS (engineering, sales, etc.). That is one way of looking at the advantage that we humans have over machines. We have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them. This runs counter to the whole PHILOSOPHY (mind you) of modern science, that we are simply machines, and that there is no WHY. This modern philosophy, if taken to its extreme, is the death of the humanness. Tom Caylor
Fwd: belief, faith, truth
Brent Meeker wrote: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:>> Bruno wrote:>> >>> I think everyone has religious faith...>> >> >> Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement, which >> goes back to why the word "theology" is taboo. As it's commonly said, >> the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and politics.>> >> But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all have >> some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions of our >> practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like holding a >> grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about our course in >> life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern (and leading up >> to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these particulars apart >> from our musings about universals, so that people typically no longer >> see any connection between them. (Talk about going in the opposite >> direction from "Everything"!) In a way it is rather convenient because >> we can live out "personal" lives the way we want to. But the reality is >> that in being set totally free from universals, we become enslaved. The >> ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally closed system is >> something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end up in a swirl of >> confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that somehow the >> "system" is set up such that things will work out OK. If we didn't, >> then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we need at least >> some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic system. This applies >> also to the "Mathematics: Is it really..." thread. So there needs to be >> a faith that something is fixed, even if we don't yet know, or perhaps >> believe that we can never truly know, what is it. This something is >> what is called truth.>> >> Tom>>So if we have fixed faith in reason we're condemned to a swirl of confusion? It >seems to me that universals are purely an invention of rationalism. What about >tempering faith in reason with a little empiricism?>>Brent Meeker > I should make clear what I was getting at with my "mental nihilism" as John Mikes called it off-list (when I ended up concluding that I should just shut up and die, just joking). I wasn't talking about fixing our faith in reason. I was talking about fixing our faith in rationalism in a closed system. Reason is (my own hack of a definition) just our ability to go from one proposition to another using logic. Rationalism in a closed system is a huge assumption about how the whole universe is set up, on the par with religion (sorry I couldn't help it). It's rationalism in a closed system that ends up in nihilism. If you believe in rationalism in a closed system, then empiricism alone doesn't solve the problem. Yes, we need to have faith in both truth and reason (our ability to seek the truth and actually get somewhere). Tom Caylor --- Begin Message --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno wrote: I think everyone has religious faith... Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement, which goes back to why the word "theology" is taboo. As it's commonly said, the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and politics. But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all have some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions of our practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like holding a grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about our course in life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern (and leading up to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these particulars apart from our musings about universals, so that people typically no longer see any connection between them. (Talk about going in the opposite direction from "Everything"!) In a way it is rather convenient because we can live out "personal" lives the way we want to. But the reality is that in being set totally free from universals, we become enslaved. The ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally closed system is something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end up in a swirl of confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that somehow the "system" is set up such that things will work out OK. If we didn't, then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we need at least some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic system. This applies also to the "Mathematics: Is it really..." thread. So there needs to be a faith that something is fixed, even if we don't yet know, or perhaps believe that we can never truly know, what is it. This something is what is called truth. Tom So if we have fixed faith in reason we're condemned to a swirl of confusion? It seems to me that universals are purely an invention of rationalism. What about tempering faith in reason with a little empiricism?
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno Marchal wrote:
>Le 30-janv.-06, à 18:49, Brent Meeker a écrit :>> Bruno
Marchal wrote:>>> Le 29-janv.-06, à 20:02, Brent Meeker a écrit
: I largely agree with Stathis. I note a subtle
difference in language between Danny and Stathis.
Danny refers to "believe in". I don't think a
scientist ever "believes in" a theory.>>> All right, you use
"believe in" (quote included!) for the "religious >>> belief of the
fundamentalist".>>> Still I hope you agree that the scientist
believes in its theory, if >>> only to be able to acknowledge his
theory is wrong when experiments >>> refute it.>>> Cf
Belief = B with (Bp -> p) NOT being a theorem! That
implies taking the theory as the foundation of all further
beliefs. In fact most scientists don't "believe" any theory, except
in the provisional sense of thinking them likely, or worth
entertaining, or suggestive.>>> OK, but this
is independent of the fact that, still, the scientist >>> can
"believe in" (in the scientist modest way of self-interrogation)
>>> in the *object* of his theory. Most naturalist "believe in" a
>>> physical universe, or a nature or whatever.>>> We
wouldn't discuss about a "theory of everything" if we were not >>>
believing in ... something. Religious faith differs from
ordinary belief and scientific hypothesizing not only by
the lack of evidence but even more in the assertion of
certainity.>>> I think everyone has religious
faith. Do you believe that on faith ;-) Certainly
everyone takes for granted >> things on very slim evidence ("I heard
it in the hall way"). But I >> don't think they have "religious
faith" which implies not just lack of >> evidence, but a determination
to believe in spite of contrary evidence >> - certainity that any
contrary evidence must be wrong just because it >> is contrary.
Bruno:>To believe in something in spite of refutation is "bad
faith".>To believe in something in spite of contrary evidences ? It
depends. I >can imagine situations where I would find that a remarkable
attitude, >and I can imagine others where I would take it again as bad
faith.
I agree. I think part of this is a matter of preference of
terms. Meeker et al want to use "religious faith" for what Bruno says is
"bad faith", and I agree that is bad faith. I'm content with leaving off
the word "religious", and just use "faith" to refer to holding to the
possibility of the truth of a certain proposition until it is
refuted.> Today, a scientist who pretends no
doing philosophy or theology, is >>> just a scientist taking for
granted Aristotle theology. No problem in >>> case he is aware of
the fact, so that, as a scientist, he can still >>> be open to the
idea that Aristotle theology can be falsified, but if >>> he is not
aware of the fact, then he will not been able to make sense >>> of
the data---a little like Roland Omnes who concludes his analysis
>>> of QM that there is a point where we need to abandon faith
in ... >>> reason. Personally, I consider that abandoning
faith in reason in >>> front of difficulties, is just worse that
abandoning faith in truth >>> (whatever it
is). That would be an unquestioning certitude that there
is a reality >> independent of all opinion?>>Well, that
is the bet, or hope, of the non solipsist scientist. Popper >said that
faith in reason is faith in your own reason but above all >faith in the
reason of the others.>And then Platonism is the faith in a reality
independent of all >opinion, indeed, like the faith in the fact that 17
is prime >independently of us.>>Bruno
And here we have a couple of things (reason and reality) whose
existence we should all have faith in. So none of us should be
scared by the word "faith" (in reason and reality). By this I mean simply
that we should not abandon our pursuit of truth. If all there is is
opinion, then we're all wasting our time.
Tom Caylor
Re: belief, faith, truth
Norman wrote: > I'm agnostic, yet it strikes me that even if there > is no God, those that decide to have faith, and > have the ability to have faith, in a benign God > have gained quite a bit. They have faith in an > afterlife, in ultimate justice, in the triumph of good > over evil, etc. Without this faith, life for many would > be intolerable. > > If there is no God, there is no afterlife and they get > a zero. If there is a God, there is an after life and > they get infinity. So how can they lose? Maybe > Pascal's Wager deserves more consideration. > > Norman Samish My opinion about Pascal's Wager is that we try to compare things that we can't quantify or measure, or at least that we don't know the relative measure of the things we are trying to compare. It involves betting on the existence of something infinite based on a totally undefined probability distribution. I think that it is indeterminate, like dividing zero by zero, or infinity by infinity. However, I think this same mistake is done in talking about multiverses, too, as I've brought up before. Tom Caylor
Re: belief, faith, truth
"...even the statement 'I am not making sense' does not make sense because I don't believe in sense. I'll shut up... and be alone... and die..." Tom
Re: belief, faith, truth
Tom wrote: what are we left with? To make my point more plain, I will give my own answer to this question. If we abandon a belief in truth, or if we totally separate truth from our lives, then what are we left with? We are left devoid of meaning in our lives. We would end up with something like, "I as a person, do not exist, for putting such a label as "person" on me would be persumptuous of having a corner on truth, and I don't believe in truth. Instead, I just aimlessly float, like an undefined point, from one observer-moment to the next, and randomly bounce off my surroundings. Since I don't have any beliefs that I hold onto for more than one observer-moment at a time (since I am not a person), then anything can change my mind. In fact, this implies (for I wouldn't dare assume it) that my mind doesn't not exist. There are only particulars. Therefore, why am I even thinking or talking? I am lost. But this doesn't matter because I don't exist as a person and so I have nothing to lose. I am not making sense." Tom
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno wrote: I think everyone has religious faith... Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement, which goes back to why the word "theology" is taboo. As it's commonly said, the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and politics. But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all have some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions of our practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like holding a grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about our course in life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern (and leading up to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these particulars apart from our musings about universals, so that people typically no longer see any connection between them. (Talk about going in the opposite direction from "Everything"!) In a way it is rather convenient because we can live out "personal" lives the way we want to. But the reality is that in being set totally free from universals, we become enslaved. The ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally closed system is something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end up in a swirl of confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that somehow the "system" is set up such that things will work out OK. If we didn't, then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we need at least some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic system. This applies also to the "Mathematics: Is it really..." thread. So there needs to be a faith that something is fixed, even if we don't yet know, or perhaps believe that we can never truly know, what is it. This something is what is called truth. Tom
UDA and unknowability of CLOS
Bruno wrote: Thanks Hal. I add that your link provide a way to recover my old conversation with Joel Dobrzelewski on the list (28 June 2001), which presents the simplest version of the Universal Dovetelair Argument (UDA), i.e. the argument showing that the computationalist hypothesis (in the bio/psycho/theo/-logical sciences) entails that physics is ultimately a branch of machine bio/psycho/theo/-logy. In particular it shows that physics can be presented as a probability or credibility measure on the relative computational histories (which are computation as seen from some first person perspective). The argument is presented in a step by step way, and begins here: http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@eskimo.com/msg01274.html You can then follow the step by clicking on the right arrow next "date", and skipping the many threads we were discussing simultaneously at that time. People interested can ask questions. Note that the lobian interview does not necessitate the understanding of the UDA, but this one provides the basic motivation for some of the Theaetetical variants of the modal logic G and G*. Bruno I've had this question brewing for some time while I've been pondering the UDA. So now I've gone through the above thread and I still didn't find the answer to it. In the UDA it is said that the Correct Level Of Substitution (I'll call is CLOS for short) is unknowable. I agree: Just intuitively, in a closed system, how could we know if something wasn't exactly right? It would result in the future being different than it would have been, but we wouldn't be aware of the difference. We would just accept that as reality. Since the CLOS is unknowable, then we should be able to talk about an unknowable, yet true, probability P(CLOS) that each substitution is done at the CLOS. By the way, we know at least P(CLOS) < 1 because the doctor is guessing, and P(CLOS) = 1 would implies that the doctor knows and can actually implement it. But in fact I'd say that we really don't have any lower bound for P(CLOS), but that fact is beside the point I want to make. OK, so now for my question. So when we talk about finding a probability measure on the 1-determinancy (I don't know if that's the exact right words), don't we have to multiply this probability measure by the unknown P(CLOS) to get the actual probability measure? But this would imply that the probability measure is impossible to find out to any degree that would be called scientific, since it is a function of P(CLOS), i.e. the step of faith in saying "Yes" to the doctor who doesn't know anything. In fact, if each moment is equivalent to a substitution (not necessarily at the CLOS!), as comp says, then there would be an exponential decay of our identity, as sort of identity entropy. Tom Caylor
Re: choice and the quantum
Lennart Nilsson wrote: What on earth does the following footnote mean? Are we back to consciousness where the "quantumbuck" stops? /LN Understanding Deutsch's Probability in a Deterministic Multiverse by Hilary Greaves Footnote 16 The following objection is sometimes raised against the decision-theoretic approach: in an Everettian context, all outcomes of a decision are realized, and therefore it simply does not make sense to make choices, or to reason about how one should act. If that is correct, then while we may agree that probability can in principle be derived from rationality, this is of no use to the Everettian, since (it is claimed) the Everettian cannot make sense of rationality itself. If this was correct, it would be a pressing 'incoherence problem' for the decision-theoretic approach. The objection, however, is simply mistaken. The mistake arises from an assumption that decisions must be modelled as Everettian branching, with each possible outcome of the decision realized on some branch. This is not true, and it is not at all what is going on in the decision scenarios Deutsch and Wallace consider. Rather, the agent is making a genuine choice between quantum games, only one of which will be realized (namely, the chosen game). To be sure, each game consists of an array of branches, all of which will, if that game is chosen, be realized. But this does not mean that all games will be realized. It is no less coherent for an Everettian to have a preference ordering over quantum games than it is for an agent in a state of classical uncertainty to have a preference ordering over classical lotteries. To me this looks like an attempt to hold onto rationality and meaning, which requires genuine choice. Modern man has been stripped of his/her rationality as a result of trying to hold onto rationalism in a closed system. But like I've said on my soapbox before, the multiverse doesn't solve this problem, it just makes it worse if anything. Actually, if we truly accept the conclusions of rationalism in a closed system, the multiverse doesn't make it worse; but it also doesn't help one iota, contrary to the hopes of its proponents. Tom Caylor
Does God play dice?
Saibal Mitra wrote: http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/12/2/1 Not that there aren't enough discussions going on already, I wanted to know what people think about Paul Davies' argument using Seth Lloyd's calculations, concluding that a quantum computer can never be built? I suppose there are people here that believe that the multiverse makes the quantum computer possible regardless of what Davies says, but if so, why? Here's a post that sums up some of it and provides some links: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CAS-Group/message/456 By the way, the belief vs. knowledge and G/G* gap and naming issue is very interesting to me, but I am still in the process of thinking about it some more... Tom Caylor
Re: Paper+Exercises+Naming Issue
Bruno Marchal wrote: ... Late James Higgo would have perhaps added that many trends in the Buddhist traditions have much in common with Platonism and Plotinism. Brent Meeker wrote: Theism is the belief that the world was created by a single omnipotent, superhuman agent who cares about human behavoir and intervenes in worldly events. Is that your theory?? Brent Meeker Atheism is not a religion, just as a vacant lot is not a type of building, and health is not a form of sickness. Atheism is not a religion. --- Jim Heldberg, San Francisco Atheist Coordinator The above quote from Heldberg would have made sense if, instead of "atheism", he used a word like "anti-religion-ism". Religion should not be equated with theism or theology. For instance Buddhism is not theistic, but it is a religion. I do agree with you, Brent, that theism, or theology, is not a good word for Bruno's beliefs. (But I don't totally agree with your definition of theism, as it is closer to monotheism, since you included the word "single".) Back on Bruno's beliefs, perhaps a word like spirituality would be a step in the right direction, away from theology. It is also a step away from the word "psychology". "Psychology" is often associated with trying to figure out what is wrong with the psyche, whereas "spirituality" opens it up to an exploration of the unknown. The word religion locks into the idea of a set of beliefs about reality, even beliefs that can't be proved, but also adds a set of beliefs that certain ways of living, traditions and/or rituals are required to live life properly. Theists and atheists alike can ascribe to a religion, as I've already noted above (e.g. Buddhism). But I would say the word religion is also too specific (in that it adds the ways-of-living) to refer to Bruno's beliefs, at least at this point, if I follow him correctly. Speaking of religion and beliefs, Bruno, I recall that Confucius said something like, "To know that we know what we know, and to know that we don't know what we don't know: that is true knowledge." If I am correct, interpreting Bp as "knowing p", could this be translated into the following two propositions? Bp -> BBp ~Bq -> B~Bq = D~q -> BD~q = Dp -> BDp (where p=~q) I would say that these propositions take faith, which is in the realm of spirituality. However, I would also say that we have to hold to these propositions to stay sane, and also to do science and explore the unknown. Tom
Re: Paper+Exercises+Naming Issue
Hi, My paper has been published and should be available on the site of Elsevier (not freely, except if your institution has a free acces on Elsevier Journals). The official reference are: Marchal B. Theoretical computer science and the natural science, Physics of Life Reviews, Vol 2/4, pp. 251-289. Congratulations, at least from this one data point of reading the above note. I will probably be busy until end of January. In the meantime I can give little exercises and then correct it. I know that a mailing list is not necessarily the best place for teaching. I do it because, at least concerning the approach I'm following, it is a path which can hardly be avoided. But I'm sure also this can be useful for a deepening of many everything-like issues, even if just to introduce the work of David Lewis (one of the main non quantum many-worlders). What I will say is of course obvious from third-person hind-sight, but it helps me to guard against delusion to point out the limitedness of email list dialogue when it comes to accomplishing anything "significant". I think that the significance is in becoming better at expressing ourselves. So, Bruno, I've been bewildered for a while at why you are going to all this trouble to help lowly list participants like me in learning the rudiments of modal logic. Yes, I know English, and I could perhaps help with basic English usage. But when it comes to insider questions like "machine psychology", aren't there English-speaking philosophers out there that already know what you're trying to get at? You seem to be implying that there are not. This is surprising. What is this "path which can hardly be avoided" you talk about? Stathis has already shown that IF (W,R) is reflexive THEN (W,R) respects Bp -> p. And Tom Caylor agrees that IF (W,R) is symmetric THEN (W,R) respects p -> BDp. Is it OK for everyone? Tom, Stathis, could you show the inverse ? That is: IF (W,R) respects Bp -> p, THEN the multiverse is reflexive. IF (W,R) respects p -> BDp, THEN the multiverse is symmetric. Could you show that all multiverse (W,R) respects B(p -> q) -> (Bp -> Bq) ? I recall that a multiverse (W,R) respects a formula A if A is true in all illuminated (W, R, V). That is, whatever the illumination you choose (= whatever the value of the sentence letters you choose in each world) A is true in all the world of the multiverse. Please feel free NOT trying to solve those problem. First the UDA, which is not technical, is enough, it seems to me, for a complete understanding that comp entails the reversal between physics and computer science/machine-psychology/theology (we can discuss naming issue later(*)). The math is needed ONLY for making *explicit* the derivation of physics from comp, showing that comp (or weaker) is a scientific hypothesis, i.e. comp is testable. (*) Well, I'm certainly interested in that naming issue, and perhaps I could ask you right now what expression do you find the less shocking: "Physics is derivable from machine psychology", or "Physics is derivable from machine theology" ? 'course, you can put "computer science" or "number theory" instead of machine psycho or theology, but then the reference to a soul or a person is eliminated, and giving the current tendency of many scientist to just eliminate the person from the possible object of rational inquiry, I prefer to avoid it. Note that in "conscience and mechanism" I have used the expression "theology", and in "computability, physics and cognition", I have been asked to use "psychology" instead. I find "theology" much more correct and honest, but then I realise (empirically) that it it could seem too much shocking for some people (especially the atheist). What do you think? I have already avoid "metaphysics" because it is confusing in the metamathematical (Godelian) context, and also I'm in a country where the word "metaphysics" already means "crackpot". Does the word "theology" means "crackpot" in some country ? I don't think so, but please tell me if you know about such practice. Bruno The word "theology" is made from the root "theo", God, and this in my country is loaded with the historical baggage of puritanical (<-hint to what my country is) "whatever went wrong when I was growing up". We use theology/religion as the scapegoat for "whatever went wrong when I was growing up". Some readers' blood pressure is already starting to rise. So we put on our "scientist" hat so we can "objectively" step aside from "whatever went wrong when I was growing up" that I don't want to deal with any more, as purely subjective, lumping it all into the "religious" pot, or at least the "ignore" pot, until it comes out on our medical bill. Yes, some of us out of necessity deal with some of it through the psychological label (or even "mystical" in a therapeutic sense), until we reach our personal saturation point, and then lump the rest of it into the "religious"/"ignore" pot. So I would
Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
The white rabbit problem is a problem only for multiverse believers. By the way, thanks for the reference to rabbits. It caused a rabbit-repellent ad to appear in the margin of the archive. It is lemon-scented (and another one is fox-scented!) and this will be more pleasant for me than the last garlic-and-rotten-egg scented one I tried in my back yard. But these aren't white rabbits. Tom
Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
Jesse wrote: Tom Caylor wrote: The reason why you don't buy lottery tickets could just as easily be explained in a single universe. I short-changed my argument. I should've said, "The reason why you don't buy lottery tickets can only be explained in a single universe." Tom Caylor If you don't accept a measure on the entire multiverse, then you're not going to have any solution to what on this list is usually called the "white rabbit problem", explaining why you don't expect to see weird events like talking white rabbits or Harry Potter style magic or 300 successive lottery wins. After all, there should be possible worlds within the multiverse where everything up to today is just the same as in a "normal" universe where the laws of nature stay stable, but after that point the probabilities of strange white-rabbit-style events radically increase. Since your experience up to the present is compatible with either type of universe, unless you are willing to say that white rabbit universes have a lower absolute measure than stable-laws-of-nature universes, you have no justification for expecting that you are unlikely to experience such events in your future. Jesse The white rabbit problem is a problem only for multiverse believers. Tom
Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
The reason why you don't buy lottery tickets could just as easily be explained in a single universe. I short-changed my argument. I should've said, "The reason why you don't buy lottery tickets can only be explained in a single universe." Tom Caylor
Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
Bruno wrote: Le 12-déc.-05, à 18:07, Tom ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) a écrit : ... In the Plenitude, everything washes out to zero. And Bruno, I would even say that all consistent histories wash out to zero. I am not sure why you say this. See below. It's interesting that symmetry (Bruno's requirement for LASE) has come up lately, because Stathis' question seems to be what we are all wondering. That's the bottom line of multiverse theories: Where does the symmetry breaking come from? Actually comp put a big assymmetry at the start (the natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...), and my question for years was how to get the symmetry which apparently lives at the bottom of physics (already classical physics, still more with QM-without collapse). See below. I maintain still that it can't come from the multiverse itself. But which "multiverse"? remember that the QM, or the existence of any physical multiverse are not among the hypothesis. Indeed the UDA forces us to justify completely the appearances of a "physical" multiverse. See below. Even considering only consistent histories, there is no asymmetry to be found. This astonishes me a little bit. The very notion of "history", it seems to me, is assymetrical. But then I am not sure if you are talking about the comp consistent extensions of some machine (the comp histories) or the quantum histories of Everett, Hartle, and Co. ? In this context I'm talking about your comp multiverse. Yes, our common sense experience sees history as one way. But this is the problem. Your requirement for LASE is that the accessibility relation is symmetrical. This implies that it has to be just as consistent to go backwards in history as forwards. From what you say above about the natural numbers, it seems that the comp assumption of natural numbers contradicts this. I maintain that it needs to come from outside the multiverse, which is something that we cannot explain. It certainly (with comp) needs to be explain from outside any notion of "physical multiverse". Then the truth-provability gap (capture by the modal logic G* \ G, that is the set difference between the provable self-referential statements and the true self-referential statements) will "explain" why we cannot explain that something. I should perhaps make some summary. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ I'd appreciate it. As part of it, I think I would need an explanation of what you mean by "physical universe". It seems to me that your belief in the process of verification, when you talk about verifying comp physics vs. quantum physics, is equivalent to a belief in a physical universe. Tom Caylor
Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
Stathis wrote: Tom Caylor writes: In response to Stathis' thought experiment, to speak of an experiment being "set up" in a certain way is to base probabilities on an "irrelevant" subset of the whole, at least if the multiverse hypothesis is true. In the Plenitude, there are an additional 10^100 copies still existing, when you say that 10^100 copies are being shut-down. Talking about these additional 10^100 copies is just as consistent as talking about the original 10^100 copies (even more consistent if you consider Bruno's statement about cul-de-sacs. In the Plenitude, everything washes out to zero. And Bruno, I would even say that all consistent histories wash out to zero. Doesn't this ignore the concept of measure in the multiverse? If I buy a lottery ticket there are an infinite number of versions of me who win and an infinite number of versions who lose, but in some sense there have to be "more" losers than winners, which is why I don't buy lottery tickets. Stathis Papaioannou It seems to me that as soon as we talk about measure, it is equivalent to talking about one (physical!) universe. This is similar to your George Levy's taking the ratio of the lengths of two line segments. You don't need a multiverse to do that. I think that talking of measure in the multiverse is taking a common sense thing in a single universe and (erroneously) trying to make it make sense in the multiverse. I don't think it works. So yes I'm ignoring something that doesn't work, in my view. I brought up the problem of the additional 10^100 copies, but your bringing up the word "measure" doesn't solve it. The reason why you don't buy lottery tickets could just as easily be explained in a single universe. Tom Caylor
Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow
Bruno wrote: Le 11-déc.-05, à 11:58, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : You find yourself alone in a room with a light that alternates red/green with a period of one minute. A letter in the room informs you that every other minute, 10^100 copies of you are created and run in parallel for one minute, then shut down. The transition between the two states (low measure/ high measure) corresponds with the change in the colour of the light, and you task is to guess which colour corresponds to which state. The problem is, whether the light is red or green, you could argue that you are vastly more likely to be sampled from the 10^100 group. You might decide to say that *both* red and green correspond to the larger group, because if you say this 10^100 copies in the multiverse will be correct and only one copy will be wrong. But clearly, this tyranny of the majority strategy brings you no closer to the truth. If you tossed a coin, at least you would have a 1/2 chance of being right. Yes but this is due to the "shut down". (if I got correctly your experiment).The probabilities can be taken only on the stories without dead-ends, and I guess you consider the shut down as sort of "absolute annihilation". I know this is hard to believe, but apparently we are "conscious" only because we belong to a continuum of infinite never ending stories ... I don't believe this, but then that's what the lobian machine's "guardian angel" G* says about that: true and strictly unbelievable. Do you accept that your argument won't go through if the shut down are deleted? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ In response to Stathis' thought experiment, to speak of an experiment being "set up" in a certain way is to base probabilities on an "irrelevant" subset of the whole, at least if the multiverse hypothesis is true. In the Plenitude, there are an additional 10^100 copies still existing, when you say that 10^100 copies are being shut-down. Talking about these additional 10^100 copies is just as consistent as talking about the original 10^100 copies (even more consistent if you consider Bruno's statement about cul-de-sacs. In the Plenitude, everything washes out to zero. And Bruno, I would even say that all consistent histories wash out to zero. Bruno, I've been following your posts about Kripke semantics and have done the exercises, including the one about showing that you need a symmetrical accessibility relation to have LASE. However, my initial reaction still is that choosing a particular modal logic is scary to me, sending up red flags about hidden assumptions that are being made in the process. But I will continue to follow you as you present your case. Earlier Stathis wrote: Bruno: OK but with comp I have argued that OMs are not primitive but are "generated", in platonia, by the Universal Dovetailer. A 3- OM is just an UD-accessible state, and the 1-OMs inherit relative probabilities from the computer science theoretical structuring of the 3-OMs. Are OMs directly generated by the UD, or does the UD generate the physical (apparently) universe, which leads to the evolution of conscious beings, who then give rise to OMs? Stathis Papaioannou It's interesting that symmetry (Bruno's requirement for LASE) has come up lately, because Stathis' question seems to be what we are all wondering. That's the bottom line of multiverse theories: Where does the symmetry breaking come from? I maintain still that it can't come from the multiverse itself. Even considering only consistent histories, there is no asymmetry to be found. I maintain that it needs to come from outside the multiverse, which is something that we cannot explain. Tom Caylor
Fwd: Let There Be Something
In the previous post I should have said, "Russell, you've even said in your Why Occam's Razor paper that the Plenitude is ontologically _equivalent_ to Nothing." Tom --- Begin Message --- To me it's very simple, and I've already laid it out in just a few words below, and in more words in different ways in my previous posts on this thread. Russell, you've even said in your Why Occam's Razor paper that the Plenitude is ontologically to Nothing. To it follows that the following two mappings are the same: Plenitude --> Something Nothing --> Something It's basically a singularity either way. That's why I invoked the word "faith" below. Tom Russell Standish wrote: > I don't agree that your original query was left unanswered - it was> answered by several people, in possibly contradictory ways (that> remains to be seen - I tend to see the commonality). Perhaps you > mean the answers were unsatisfactory for you, in which case I'd> be interested in hearing from you why they are unsatisfactory.On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 11:41:10AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:> Perhaps there needs to be a new thread for the new topic (Game of Life, > etc.).> > It seems my original inquiry has been left unanswered, but this is my > point. My challenge was that multiverse theory is just pulling things > out of thin air just as much as any other metaphysical theory. At each > point in the history of science, science needs an external foundation > to stand on, and by definition this is extra-science. Cluttering up the > picture with "Everything" doesn't solve the problem at all. The > multiverse is a tautology. Attributing meaning to it is a statement of > faith.> > Tom-- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, whichis of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not avirus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify thisemail came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, youmay safely ignore this attachment. --- End Message ---
Re: Let There Be Something
To me it's very simple, and I've already laid it out in just a few words below, and in more words in different ways in my previous posts on this thread. Russell, you've even said in your Why Occam's Razor paper that the Plenitude is ontologically to Nothing. To it follows that the following two mappings are the same: Plenitude --> Something Nothing --> Something It's basically a singularity either way. That's why I invoked the word "faith" below. Tom Russell Standish wrote: > I don't agree that your original query was left unanswered - it was> answered by several people, in possibly contradictory ways (that> remains to be seen - I tend to see the commonality). Perhaps you > mean the answers were unsatisfactory for you, in which case I'd> be interested in hearing from you why they are unsatisfactory.On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 11:41:10AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:> Perhaps there needs to be a new thread for the new topic (Game of Life, > etc.).> > It seems my original inquiry has been left unanswered, but this is my > point. My challenge was that multiverse theory is just pulling things > out of thin air just as much as any other metaphysical theory. At each > point in the history of science, science needs an external foundation > to stand on, and by definition this is extra-science. Cluttering up the > picture with "Everything" doesn't solve the problem at all. The > multiverse is a tautology. Attributing meaning to it is a statement of > faith.> > Tom-- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, whichis of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not avirus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify thisemail came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, youmay safely ignore this attachment.
Re: Let There Be Something
Perhaps there needs to be a new thread for the new topic (Game of Life, etc.). It seems my original inquiry has been left unanswered, but this is my point. My challenge was that multiverse theory is just pulling things out of thin air just as much as any other metaphysical theory. At each point in the history of science, science needs an external foundation to stand on, and by definition this is extra-science. Cluttering up the picture with "Everything" doesn't solve the problem at all. The multiverse is a tautology. Attributing meaning to it is a statement of faith. Tom
Re: Let There Be Something
There was more to my post, which I've included below, which was meant to answer questions from multiple contributors here. Thanks, Hal Ruhl, for responding. Somethings coming from All AND Nothing seems just as mysterious as coming from one of them. And if the somethings which are generated are all possible somethings, then we are back at the same problem as something in particular coming from All. Thanks to Hal Finney, at least for launching into my worm-in-apple analogy and we got some amusement out of it, but analogies are flawed, and I think that we got off on a rabbit trail a little. The purpose of the worm-in-apple analogy was not to belittle current theories of physics as an end in itself. It was to show that, for all we know, the universe could be so complex and contingent that it is far greater than any intelligent being would need, and hence far greater than any Intelligent-Being-opic Principle would dictate. But what about the other points and challenges in my post, below? Tom -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 08:53:30 EST Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Hal Finney wrote: Are you saying that you don't agree that the anthropic principle applied to an ensemble of instances has greater explanatory power than when applied to a single instance? Russell wrote: Perhaps I'm missing your argument here, but I gather you are claiming that the assumption of a plenitude is on an equal ontological footing as the assumption of a single reality, as both are ab initio moves, not derived from any other principle. Whilst I agree that nothing mandates one case or the other, I would disagree with the assertion of equal ontological footing, in that the zero information principle in particular, or Bruno's UDA, or Hal Ruhl's consistency argument lend strong support to a plenitude assumption over a single reality. It seems to me that the only really good reason in favour of a single reality is to preserve some notion of faith in God, as omniscient deities do not seem compatible with plenitudes. And that, I'm afraid is somewhere science cannot go. Hal Ruhl wrote: So as in the case of my Nothing and my All it seems the apex of causation may be neither infinite regression "or" termination but rather both [an "and"]. I'm saying that the "All" is on equal ontological footing with the "Nothing". Pulling something out of Nothing is just as believable as pulling something out of All. I think Quentin touches on the total mystery of both: as I said before I don't think/feel that single universe is on the same level as multiverse... Just by using "absurd" feeling I was talking about. If there is a single reality, you have to anwser why this one ? why like this ? what is the ultimate reason for the reality to be limited to this subset ? If you take the multiverse(everything) theory this is easily explained. On the other hand, multiverse theory by now could not answer why you're experiencing this precise reality among all possible that are in the multiverse. The question "Why this particular something?" is just as mysterious in the context of All as in the context of Nothing. The problem is that we really don't realize how totally All All is. We are used to being able to compute probabilities in the context of an "all" that is quantifiable. So then it is tempting to extend that notion to the All and say like Quentin's first half, "If you take the multiverse(everything) theory this is easily explained." But when we realize the total indeterminacy and contingency of this universe, extending down to even our first person point of view, and apparently to the quantum level, then Quentin's second question is just as unanswerable in the context of All as in the context of Nothing. When we realize how All All is, and how complex and contingent this something is, we start eating our own tail like in Hal Ruhl's argument. Throughout the history of science, the perpetual message from the universe is that the sky is wider than the brain. I'm convinced that if we all, including Bruno and his Lobian machine, somehow took a tour of the whole universe (whatever that is), including all of it's intricacies from the smallest to the largest, and the mathematical rules behind it, we would find it so complex and contingent that we would be converted over to the idea that the universe is far greater than anything the ANTHROpic Principle dictates. [We should include the Lobianopic Principle, too!] Even if you do not hold my above conviction, how can you escape the possibility that it is true? To look at this from a different perspective, suppose there was a worm that lived in an apple, and the worm was super-intelligent to the point of being able to grasp all of our mathematical concepts that Tegmark claims are sufficient to describe all of reality. Then the worm asks, "Why is it that I'm in
Re: Let There Be Something
Thanks, Quentin. I didn't mean to underestimate the intelligence of the worm. By the way, I recently read an article about astonometers finding aromatic hydrocarbons in outer space. This totally baffles them, since they don't know how things like this could've gotten there or survived. This lends more weight to the possibility that maybe there are apples with worms cruising around in outer space, too! http://www.astrochem.org/PANHS.html -Original Message- From: Quentin Anciaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 21:23:47 +0100 Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Hi, I don't think the super-intelligent worm is a good analogy... first because you made to much assumption of his way of thinking, second I don't see the relevance of a super-intelligent worm in an apple compared to the myth of the man in the cavern who just see shadow... The point I think you really want to made is you don't think human consciousness is able to grab the reality as whole... which I think is true, except being the Kwisatz Haderach which see all past/present and future path of the universe ;) I could'nt imagine what would it be for a human to knows the why and being able to prove it... Quentin Le Mercredi 02 Novembre 2005 21:06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : I should make another point, that it seems very likely that the worm has no way of developing the in-apple technology to find out about quantum mechanics or DNA. This emphasizes the fact that we, with our quantum theories, M-theories, and loop gravity etc. could be just as far away from explaining the universe as the worm is. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 14:58:30 -0500 Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Hal, I disagree. How can the worm apply a probability distribution over things that he knows nothing of, such as trees, people, and evolution? Using the Wormopic Principle, when the worm proclaims that, "The universe is just complex enough to produce and sustain such a worm as I, and the inside of an apple," how can he be meaning anything (in his own mind, mind you, since explanatory power refers to being able to explain the universe to him) that even remotely resembles our universe? (As an aside, as much as we know about our universe, we totally cannot rule out the possibility that a worm that understands "sufficient mathematics" actually exists in our universe!) Instead, even if he developed the in-apple technology to explore quantum mechanics and DNA, he might come up with a quantum theory similar to ours (but who knows the probability of that?!!), but he would likely come up with a very weird theory of how his DNA was formed, having nothing to do with how it actually was formed (according to our theories). You make a good point about the complexity of living things. If you ask biologists and other non-physics scientists about the Theories of Everything, a lot of them would say that we're a long way from it. Roger Trigg, University of Warwick, in his book, Rationality and Science: Can Science Explain Everything?, makes this point. Also, for instance, the premier biologist Carl Woese, in his recent article, A New Biology For A New Century, calls for biologists to get out of their myopic pursuit of genetically breaking things down into the smallest biological quantum, and to step back and look at the big picture, saying that there are whole levels of complexity that we will totally miss if we don't, resulting in being totally disabled in being able to explain everything in biology (to our satisfaction). Tom -Original Message- From: Hal Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:13:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Tom Caylor writes: > To look at this from a different perspective, suppose there was a worm that > lived in an apple, and the worm was super-intelligent to the point of being > able to grasp all of our mathematical concepts that Tegmark claims are > sufficient to describe all of reality. Then the worm asks, "Why is it that I'm in > this apple?" Actually the apple is the whole of observed reality for the > worm, so it is equivalent to our observed universe. However the observABLE > universe for the worm is the same as our observable universe. Then the worm comes > up with a multiverse theory along with a Wormopic Principle, saying that the > whole observable universe is just complex enough to sustain the inside of an > apple. Surely this must be true, since the worm can grasp all of > mathematics? The worm would come up with a multiverse theory that says that everything exists, including universes like ours with people, apple trees, apples and worms, and also including other universes which consist of just a single apple, possibly with a worm in it, and every other possi
Re: Let There Be Something
I should make another point, that it seems very likely that the worm has no way of developing the in-apple technology to find out about quantum mechanics or DNA. This emphasizes the fact that we, with our quantum theories, M-theories, and loop gravity etc. could be just as far away from explaining the universe as the worm is. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 14:58:30 -0500 Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Hal, I disagree. How can the worm apply a probability distribution over things that he knows nothing of, such as trees, people, and evolution? Using the Wormopic Principle, when the worm proclaims that, "The universe is just complex enough to produce and sustain such a worm as I, and the inside of an apple," how can he be meaning anything (in his own mind, mind you, since explanatory power refers to being able to explain the universe to him) that even remotely resembles our universe? (As an aside, as much as we know about our universe, we totally cannot rule out the possibility that a worm that understands "sufficient mathematics" actually exists in our universe!) Instead, even if he developed the in-apple technology to explore quantum mechanics and DNA, he might come up with a quantum theory similar to ours (but who knows the probability of that?!!), but he would likely come up with a very weird theory of how his DNA was formed, having nothing to do with how it actually was formed (according to our theories). You make a good point about the complexity of living things. If you ask biologists and other non-physics scientists about the Theories of Everything, a lot of them would say that we're a long way from it. Roger Trigg, University of Warwick, in his book, Rationality and Science: Can Science Explain Everything?, makes this point. Also, for instance, the premier biologist Carl Woese, in his recent article, A New Biology For A New Century, calls for biologists to get out of their myopic pursuit of genetically breaking things down into the smallest biological quantum, and to step back and look at the big picture, saying that there are whole levels of complexity that we will totally miss if we don't, resulting in being totally disabled in being able to explain everything in biology (to our satisfaction). Tom -Original Message- From: Hal Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:13:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Tom Caylor writes: To look at this from a different perspective, suppose there was a worm that lived in an apple, and the worm was super-intelligent to the point of being able to grasp all of our mathematical concepts that Tegmark claims are sufficient to describe all of reality. Then the worm asks, "Why is it that I'm in this apple?" Actually the apple is the whole of observed reality for the worm, so it is equivalent to our observed universe. However the observABLE universe for the worm is the same as our observable universe. Then the worm comes up with a multiverse theory along with a Wormopic Principle, saying that the whole observable universe is just complex enough to sustain the inside of an apple. Surely this must be true, since the worm can grasp all of mathematics? The worm would come up with a multiverse theory that says that everything exists, including universes like ours with people, apple trees, apples and worms, and also including other universes which consist of just a single apple, possibly with a worm in it, and every other possibility besides. Among these possible universes there are a certain fraction which contain worms-in-apples consistent with the experiences, observations and memories that the worm has experienced in his own apple. He knows that he is one of those worms. He applies some kind of measure, such as the Universal Distribution, over all of these worms-in-apples and is able to come up with a probability distribution for which one he is. This results in first-person indeterminacy and uncertainty. It may well be that the simplest and most likely case is not a universe containing a single apple, but a universe like ours. The reason is that apples and worms are actually very complex objects at the cellular level, even more complex at the atomic level, and enormously complex at the sub-atomic Planck scale. The physics going on in the apple is every bit as complex as the physics of our own universe. Our universe has the advantage in that its initial condition was very simple - some say it was completely smooth and uniform in the initial instances of the Big Bang. Then we went along in a very natural and simple way and developed planets, where life evolved into apples and worms. The apple-only universe must create all this by fiat. It must be hard-wired into the initial conditions: eve
Re: Let There Be Something
Hal, I disagree. How can the worm apply a probability distribution over things that he knows nothing of, such as trees, people, and evolution? Using the Wormopic Principle, when the worm proclaims that, "The universe is just complex enough to produce and sustain such a worm as I, and the inside of an apple," how can he be meaning anything (in his own mind, mind you, since explanatory power refers to being able to explain the universe to him) that even remotely resembles our universe? (As an aside, as much as we know about our universe, we totally cannot rule out the possibility that a worm that understands "sufficient mathematics" actually exists in our universe!) Instead, even if he developed the in-apple technology to explore quantum mechanics and DNA, he might come up with a quantum theory similar to ours (but who knows the probability of that?!!), but he would likely come up with a very weird theory of how his DNA was formed, having nothing to do with how it actually was formed (according to our theories). You make a good point about the complexity of living things. If you ask biologists and other non-physics scientists about the Theories of Everything, a lot of them would say that we're a long way from it. Roger Trigg, University of Warwick, in his book, Rationality and Science: Can Science Explain Everything?, makes this point. Also, for instance, the premier biologist Carl Woese, in his recent article, A New Biology For A New Century, calls for biologists to get out of their myopic pursuit of genetically breaking things down into the smallest biological quantum, and to step back and look at the big picture, saying that there are whole levels of complexity that we will totally miss if we don't, resulting in being totally disabled in being able to explain everything in biology (to our satisfaction). Tom -Original Message- From: Hal Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:13:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Tom Caylor writes: To look at this from a different perspective, suppose there was a worm that lived in an apple, and the worm was super-intelligent to the point of being able to grasp all of our mathematical concepts that Tegmark claims are sufficient to describe all of reality. Then the worm asks, "Why is it that I'm in this apple?" Actually the apple is the whole of observed reality for the worm, so it is equivalent to our observed universe. However the observABLE universe for the worm is the same as our observable universe. Then the worm comes up with a multiverse theory along with a Wormopic Principle, saying that the whole observable universe is just complex enough to sustain the inside of an apple. Surely this must be true, since the worm can grasp all of mathematics? The worm would come up with a multiverse theory that says that everything exists, including universes like ours with people, apple trees, apples and worms, and also including other universes which consist of just a single apple, possibly with a worm in it, and every other possibility besides. Among these possible universes there are a certain fraction which contain worms-in-apples consistent with the experiences, observations and memories that the worm has experienced in his own apple. He knows that he is one of those worms. He applies some kind of measure, such as the Universal Distribution, over all of these worms-in-apples and is able to come up with a probability distribution for which one he is. This results in first-person indeterminacy and uncertainty. It may well be that the simplest and most likely case is not a universe containing a single apple, but a universe like ours. The reason is that apples and worms are actually very complex objects at the cellular level, even more complex at the atomic level, and enormously complex at the sub-atomic Planck scale. The physics going on in the apple is every bit as complex as the physics of our own universe. Our universe has the advantage in that its initial condition was very simple - some say it was completely smooth and uniform in the initial instances of the Big Bang. Then we went along in a very natural and simple way and developed planets, where life evolved into apples and worms. The apple-only universe must create all this by fiat. It must be hard-wired into the initial conditions: everything about the apple, about the worm, and about the physics. It's very plausibly would take a more complex program to run a universe consisting of just an apple and a worm, than our whole universe where apples and worms evolve out of much simpler initial conditions. Hence the worm might well conclude that he is likely to be in a giant universe with billions of other apples and worms, as well as many other forms of life. Even though he has not yet observed any of these things, not yet having come to the surface of the apple,
Re: Let There Be Something
Hal Finney wrote: > Are you saying that you don't agree that the anthropic principle > applied to an ensemble of instances has greater explanatory > power than when applied to a single instance? Russell wrote: > Perhaps I'm missing your argument here, but I gather you are > claiming that the assumption of a plenitude is on an > equal ontological footing as the assumption of a single reality, > as both are ab initio moves, not derived from any other principle. > > Whilst I agree that nothing mandates one case or the other, > I would disagree with the assertion of equal ontological footing, > in that the zero information principle in particular, or Bruno's > UDA, or Hal Ruhl's consistency argument lend strong support > to a plenitude assumption over a single reality. > > It seems to me that the only really good reason in favour of a > single reality is to preserve some notion of faith in God, > as omniscient deities do not seem compatible with plenitudes. > And that, I'm afraid is somewhere science cannot go. Hal Ruhl wrote: > So as in the case of my Nothing and my All it seems > the apex of causation may be neither infinite regression > "or" termination but rather both [an "and"]. I'm saying that the "All" is on equal ontological footing with the "Nothing". Pulling something out of Nothing is just as believable as pulling something out of All. I think Quentin touches on the total mystery of both: > as I said before I don't think/feel that single universe is on > the same level as multiverse... Just by using "absurd" feeling > I was talking about. If there is a single reality, you have to > anwser why this one ? why like this ? what is the ultimate > reason for the reality to be limited to this subset ? If you > take the multiverse(everything) theory this is easily explained. > On the other hand, multiverse theory by now could not answer > why you're experiencing this precise reality among all > possible that are in the multiverse. The question "Why this particular something?" is just as mysterious in the context of All as in the context of Nothing. The problem is that we really don't realize how totally All All is. We are used to being able to compute probabilities in the context of an "all" that is quantifiable. So then it is tempting to extend that notion to the All and say like Quentin's first half, "If you take the multiverse(everything) theory this is easily explained." But when we realize the total indeterminacy and contingency of this universe, extending down to even our first person point of view, and apparently to the quantum level, then Quentin's second question is just as unanswerable in the context of All as in the context of Nothing. When we realize how All All is, and how complex and contingent this something is, we start eating our own tail like in Hal Ruhl's argument. Throughout the history of science, the perpetual message from the universe is that the sky is wider than the brain. I'm convinced that if we all, including Bruno and his Lobian machine, somehow took a tour of the whole universe (whatever that is), including all of it's intricacies from the smallest to the largest, and the mathematical rules behind it, we would find it so complex and contingent that we would be converted over to the idea that the universe is far greater than anything the ANTHROpic principle dictates. Even if you do not hold my above conviction, how can you escape the possibility that it is true? To look at this from a different perspective, suppose there was a worm that lived in an apple, and the worm was super-intelligent to the point of being able to grasp all of our mathematical concepts that Tegmark claims are sufficient to describe all of reality. Then the worm asks, "Why is it that I'm in this apple?" Actually the apple is the whole of observed reality for the worm, so it is equivalent to our observed universe. However the observABLE universe for the worm is the same as our observable universe. Then the worm comes up with a multiverse theory along with a Wormopic Principle, saying that the whole observable universe is just complex enough to sustain the inside of an apple. Surely this must be true, since the worm can grasp all of mathematics? "Explanatory power" is in the eye of the beholder, and this is infinitely true when applied to Everything. Tom
Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide)
I should have said "a countable set of countable histories". Tom -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 15:05:39 -0500 Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide) Bruno, So why is it that from the 3rd person point of view everyone dies? Also along the lines of the "Let There Be Something" thread, isn't it also true that a finite set of finite histories, or even a countable set of infinite histories, is of measure zero in the continuum? If this is the type of selection that is being made from The Multiverse (whose measure >= measure(continuum)) to the "initial" multiverse(s) of your and others' theories, then by the same argument that you use to show that the probability of dying is zero, doesn't this imply that the probability of having such an "initial" multiverse is zero? I may be in over my head, but if my "Let There Be Something" inquiry is correct, then we're all in over our head. Tom -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Everything-List List Sent: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 13:27:27 +0100 Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide) Le 28-oct.-05, à 17:54, GottferDamnt a écrit (for-list): Hi, I would like talk about this quote from an old topic: This is a rather shocking conclusion. We are conscious here and now because our (computational state) belongs to aleph_1 (or 2^aleph_0 for those who doesn't want to rely on Cantor's continuum hypothesis) infinite computational histories ! Remember Brice deWitt shock when he realised that at each instant he is multiplied by 10^100. Now it seems that we are multiplied by the continuum (!) (Moreover this is coherent with the Z modal logics). So it seems you are completely right Bob (at least formally), and Russell Standish is also right when he said :"Therefore QTI and the existence of cul-de-sac branches are a mutual contradiction". The pruning of "dead-end" corresponds to the adding of consistency (the modal diamond <>) in the modal definition of observation. Bruno What about these cul-de-sac branches? Is It definitely that "dead-end" branches can exist with the quantum theory of immortality (for example, a state of consciousness which can't be follow)? And how comp' Bruno theory manage these cul-de-sac branches? I believe that the quantum theory does not allow cul-de-sac branches. I also believe that the Godel-Lob theory of self-reference not only allow cul-de-sac branches, but it imposes them everywhere: from all alive states you can reach a dead end. The Universal Dovetailer Argument shows that the physics (which has no dead ends) should be given by the self-reference logics (with reachable dead end everywhere). I have been stuck in that contradiction a very long time ... ... until I realized the absolute necessity of distinguishing the first and third person point of views. That necessity is implied itself by the incompleteness phenomena, but that is technical (ask me on the everything-list if interested). The intuitive point here is that you cannot have a first person point of view on your own death: 1-death is not an event, and should be kept out of the domain of verification of probabilistic statements. Another intuition: the finite histories are of measure null among the collection of all histories (the continuum). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide)
Bruno, So why is it that from the 3rd person point of view everyone dies? Also along the lines of the "Let There Be Something" thread, isn't it also true that a finite set of finite histories, or even a countable set of infinite histories, is of measure zero in the continuum? If this is the type of selection that is being made from The Multiverse (whose measure >= measure(continuum)) to the "initial" multiverse(s) of your and others' theories, then by the same argument that you use to show that the probability of dying is zero, doesn't this imply that the probability of having such an "initial" multiverse is zero? I may be in over my head, but if my "Let There Be Something" inquiry is correct, then we're all in over our head. Tom -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Everything-List List Sent: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 13:27:27 +0100 Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality (was Re: Quantum Suicide) Le 28-oct.-05, à 17:54, GottferDamnt a écrit (for-list): Hi, I would like talk about this quote from an old topic: This is a rather shocking conclusion. We are conscious here and now because our (computational state) belongs to aleph_1 (or 2^aleph_0 for those who doesn't want to rely on Cantor's continuum hypothesis) infinite computational histories ! Remember Brice deWitt shock when he realised that at each instant he is multiplied by 10^100. Now it seems that we are multiplied by the continuum (!) (Moreover this is coherent with the Z modal logics). So it seems you are completely right Bob (at least formally), and Russell Standish is also right when he said :"Therefore QTI and the existence of cul-de-sac branches are a mutual contradiction". The pruning of "dead-end" corresponds to the adding of consistency (the modal diamond <>) in the modal definition of observation. Bruno What about these cul-de-sac branches? Is It definitely that "dead-end" branches can exist with the quantum theory of immortality (for example, a state of consciousness which can't be follow)? And how comp' Bruno theory manage these cul-de-sac branches? I believe that the quantum theory does not allow cul-de-sac branches. I also believe that the Godel-Lob theory of self-reference not only allow cul-de-sac branches, but it imposes them everywhere: from all alive states you can reach a dead end. The Universal Dovetailer Argument shows that the physics (which has no dead ends) should be given by the self-reference logics (with reachable dead end everywhere). I have been stuck in that contradiction a very long time ... ... until I realized the absolute necessity of distinguishing the first and third person point of views. That necessity is implied itself by the incompleteness phenomena, but that is technical (ask me on the everything-list if interested). The intuitive point here is that you cannot have a first person point of view on your own death: 1-death is not an event, and should be kept out of the domain of verification of probabilistic statements. Another intuition: the finite histories are of measure null among the collection of all histories (the continuum). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
My phrase "something from nothing" was not meant to restrict my inquiry to origins, in the sense of time or causality, but can be viewed in terms of information in general. It seems that the discussion has not contradicted my initial idea that, when it comes to explaining why things are the way they are, the multiverse is on the same level playing field as one universe. Hal Finney simply states that this is not true without supporting it: [The multiverse + AP is] a very different kind of argument than you get with a single universe model. Anthropic reasoning is only explanatory if you assume the actual existence of an ensemble of universes, as multiverse models do. The multiverse therefore elevates anthropic reasoning from something of a tautology, a form of circular reasoning, up to an actual explanatory principle that has real value in helping us understand why the world is as we see it. I believe that my statement before: ...simply bringing in the hypothetical set of all unobservable things doesn't explain rationally in any way (deeper than our direct experience) the existence of observable things. applies to the multiverse as well, since the multiverse = observable things + unobservable things and equivalently the multiverse = this universe + unobservable things I believe my reasoning applies to all selection principles, not just the AP. Also, Bruno wrote: I think we should not confuse the problem of the selection of a (apparant) universe/history from the assumption of a multiverse (like the quantum hypothesis) with the question of explaining the appearances of a multiverse itself. Godelian self-reference can explain both from numbers and their nameable and unameable relations A physical theory is a set of rules which remains invariant for the transformations allowed in a multiverse. And comp or its generalization makes our apparent multiverse the result of the interference of the possible (with respect the the comp hyp chosen) multiverses. I see the problem of explaining what the multiverse is in the first place (Bruno's second problem) as covered by my inquiry. Selecting a smaller "initial" multiverse from the set of all possible multiverses (or that could be The Multiverse) is equally an unsupportable selection process, outside of the realm of rationality. So Bruno claims to be able to explain it. So far I haven't been satisfied with his UDA. It seems that his assumptions restrict the multiverse in an equally unsupported way. It must be a "necessary" premise, equal in validity to the premise of just one universe, or "what we see is what we get". Tom
Re: Let There Be Something
From: Quentin Anciaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Hi, > > > > yes it sounds like blind faith, but I can't see either any rationnality > > in the > > faith that not everything exists... If not everything exists then the > > reality > > is more absurd... How a justification for only a small part of > > possibilities > > (and only this one) could be found ? > > > > Quentin Le Vendredi 28 Octobre 2005 21:24, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > If we are leaving all rationality aside, then how can be talk about > relative absurdity and justification? > > Tom Caylor From: Quentin Anciaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Why do you think (my interpretation of my understanding of what you're saying) that rationality is not just a type of belief ? I see rationality as the belief that what we are experiencing could be understand/known by us, that somehow here and now could be explained in acceptable term. In any cases, I just see absurdity for what is reality (don't know if it has to be rational), but in the "not everything" case, I see it as much more absurd. In the everything case, I'm because I must be by definition... And you are too for the same reason. In the other case you just get absurd justification for absurdity ;D Quentin Yes, rationality is a type of belief, but not all belief falls into the realm of rationality, just as not all real numbers fall into the set of rational numbers. You said that you don't see any rationality in either the "everything" case or the "not everything" case. That is, both require blind faith. This is what I (and I think we) are calling absurd. That's OK. It's part of everyday living. I'm not arguing that belief in the existence of observations is not rational. I'm just arguing that simply bringing in the hypothetical set of all unobservable things doesn't explain rationally in any way (deeper than our direct experience) the existence of observable things.
Fwd: Let There Be Something
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess I'll "break the symmetry" of relative silence on this list lately. I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. And I see the belief that our universe appeared out of nothing as just that, a belief. In fact, I believe that. But I don't see how it makes one iota more rational, "scientific" sense to try to explain it with a Plenitude and the Anthropic Principle. It's like a probability argument that poses the existence of as much unobservable stuff out there as we need, along with the well-behaved unobservable probability distribution we need, in order to give us a fuzzy feeling in terms of probability as we know it in our comfortable immediate surroundings. Sounds like blind faith to me. Brent wrote: Why would you suppose there was once "nothing" from which "something" came? Could you explain when and where there was nothing? That there is something is certainly not a matter of faith, it's straightforward observation. That there could have been nothing sounds like completely unsupported speculation to me. Brent Meeker "What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing!" --- Norm Levitt, after Quine I'm not trying to rationally justify the belief of something coming out of nothing. I'm saying that a selection principle "causing" something to come out of the "zero-information" multiverse is equivalent to that belief, or at least equally unjustifiable. Tom Caylor
Re: Let There Be Something
If we are leaving all rationality aside, then how can be talk about relative absurdity and justification? Tom Caylor -Original Message- From: Quentin Anciaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:59:10 +0200 Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Hi, yes it sounds like blind faith, but I can't see either any rationnality in the faith that not everything exists... If not everything exists then the reality is more absurd... How a justification for only a small part of possibilities (and only this one) could be found ? Quentin Le Vendredi 28 Octobre 2005 18:33, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : I guess I'll "break the symmetry" of relative silence on this list lately. I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. And I see the belief that our universe appeared out of nothing as just that, a belief. In fact, I believe that. But I don't see how it makes one iota more rational, "scientific" sense to try to explain it with a Plenitude and the Anthropic Principle. It's like a probability argument that poses the existence of as much unobservable stuff out there as we need, along with the well-behaved unobservable probability distribution we need, in order to give us a fuzzy feeling in terms of probability as we know it in our comfortable immediate surroundings. Sounds like blind faith to me.
Let There Be Something
I guess I'll "break the symmetry" of relative silence on this list lately. I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. And I see the belief that our universe appeared out of nothing as just that, a belief. In fact, I believe that. But I don't see how it makes one iota more rational, "scientific" sense to try to explain it with a Plenitude and the Anthropic Principle. It's like a probability argument that poses the existence of as much unobservable stuff out there as we need, along with the well-behaved unobservable probability distribution we need, in order to give us a fuzzy feeling in terms of probability as we know it in our comfortable immediate surroundings. Sounds like blind faith to me.
Re: Neutrino shield idea
I am entertained by the discussion with John Ross, and can think of more entertaining questions for him (such as how about travelling by firing a neutrino gun at objects that you want to travel to? sorry I couldn't help it), but I believe it is off topic. Tom Caylor -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:55:43 -0400 Subject: RE: Neutrino shield idea John Ross wrote: Another solution is for you to ignore my comments, or maybe me yours. This isn't just about me personally not being interested in your posts, it's about the discussion of your "alternative physics" ideas being *off-topic* on this list, just as much so if you came here and started a discussion about politics or your favorite TV shows. But if the rest of the list members disagree with me I'll go with whatever the consensus is...how about a poll, who here thinks that the discussion of John Ross' theory is off-topic here, and who thinks it's on-topic? (regardless of whether or not you personally find John Ross' ideas to be of interest) Jesse
Re: Neutrino shield idea
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7050/full/436467a.html -Original Message- From: John Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: 'Saibal Mitra' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:34:26 -0700 Subject: RE: Neutrino shield idea Name one. -Original Message- From: Saibal Mitra [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 3:27 PM To: John Ross; everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Neutrino shield idea There are a lot of experiments that have detected neutrinos and verified their properties (which are completely different from photons).
Re: ROSS MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE - The Simplest Yet Theory of Everything
John Ross wrote: Neutrinos and Gravity [0010] Neutrinos are very high-energy photons. Each neutrino comprises a high-energy, high frequency entron. Neutrinos, like other photons, travel in substantially straight lines at the speed of light with its entron circling within the photon in circles having a diameter of .lambda./2 where .lambda. is the neutrino's wavelength. Most neutrinos illuminating the earth pass right through it. Neutrinos can pass right through the nuclei of atoms and even protons. Gravity results from the Coulomb force fields emanating from neutrinos as the neutrinos pass at the speed of light through matter. These Coulomb force fields travel rearward and sideways along the trail of neutrinos. The sideways components cancel, but the rearward components add pushing the matter through which they are passing back toward the source of the neutrinos. Thus, neutrinos from the sun passing through the earth (about 100,000,000 per square centimeter per second) provide the "gravity" holding the earth in its orbit around the sun. Neutrinos from the black hole in the center of the Milky Way hold all the stars of the Milky Way (including our sun) and us in our positions in our galaxy. Neutrinos captured in the earth and later released provide the earth its gravity. Does this imply that an "anti-gravity" vehicle could be built if we could somehow build a neutrino shield and put it under the vehicle? Tom
Descriptive Set Theory
I've been looking a little into what there is on-line about descriptive set theory, a relatively new field. It seems that with the questions about cardinality and descriptions on this list, that descriptive set theory (Polish spaces being an important element) would be useful, if not essential. A search of this list doesn't turn up any references to it. Does anyone have enough knowledge of it to give a brief note on how it ties in with this list's discussion? Tom Caylor
Re: Summary of seed ideas for my developing TOE - 'The Sentient Centered Theo...
> THE BRAIN is wider than the sky,> For, put them side by side,> The one the other will include > With ease, and you beside.>>-Emily DickinsonIn all of the history of humans' exploration of the universe, theperpetual message that keeps coming back to us from the universe isthat the brain is not as wide as the sky. I think that trying to make an "end run" around "everything" and starting with the doctrine that itis, is not a new thing (even to the ancient Greeks), but it contradictsthe evidence.Tom > *Given* that we want a metaphysical 'Theory Of Everything' (the name of this mailing list after all!) we must *assume* as a starting point that mind can comprehend reality. Our assumption could be wrong. That's why it's called a *theory* of everything ;) Why couldn't the theory be that the mind can comprehend reality, but not all of reality. Wouldn't that be a theory of everything? What if that's the actual truth? We would be doing ourselves a disservice by theorizing otherwise.And I'm saying (see above) that the evidence is against the assumption that the mind can comprehend everything. The message we get from the universe is that its paradigm is always beyond our minds.
Re: Summary of seed ideas for my developing TOE - 'The Sentient Centered Theo...
> THE BRAIN is wider than the sky,> For, put them side by side,> The one the other will include > With ease, and you beside.>>-Emily DickinsonIn all of the history of humans' exploration of the universe, theperpetual message that keeps coming back to us from the universe isthat the brain is not as wide as the sky. I think that trying to make an "end run" around "everything" and starting with the doctrine that itis, is not a new thing (even to the ancient Greeks), but it contradictsthe evidence.Tom > *Given* that we want a metaphysical 'Theory Of Everything' (the name of this mailing list after all!) we must *assume* as a starting point that mind can comprehend reality. Our assumption could be wrong. That's why it's called a *theory* of everything ;) Why couldn't the theory be that the mind can comprehend reality, but not all of reality. Wouldn't that be a theory of everything? What if that's the actual truth? We would be doing ourselves a disservice by theorizing otherwise.
Re: Summary of seed ideas for my developing TOE - 'The Sentient Centered Theory Of Metaphysics' (SCTOM)
By 'perceivable' I don't necessarily mean 'perceived by humans', what I mean is 'perceivable *in principle* ( i.e. by some mind, somewhere in the universe). I admit my misunderstanding, and that you are talking about the unperceivable rather than the unperceived, so the argument about eliminating the motivation to discover does not apply, although it does apply to those that reject the existence of an objective reality. Reality can only ever be understood from the perspective of a mind. Are you willing to admit that you have to be agnostic (by definition!) about the fact that there could be reality that can't be understood by a mind? What I'm asking is: Why do you limit metaphysics, at the outset, to being "for the purposes of understanding general intelligence?" On the other hand, how do we know what "general" intelligence is if all we have is our human understanding? Thus my example of conscious stars which are enlightened about the universe in ways that don't even fit into our mind's capability of understanding what enlightened can mean. Therefore only things capable of (in principle) making a difference to perceived reality need to be taken into account when devising ultimate theories of metaphysics. Is not there a difference between things that "(in principle)" can never make a difference to perceived reality (i.e. unperceivable by some logical contradiction to perceivability, but yet existing somehow), and things that never will make a difference to perceived reality because of the limitations of minds (in general)? I admit that we can't include the former, but what about the latter? I don't think the 'perceivable in principle' requirement contradicts mathematical Platonism. What makes you think that mathematical objects aren't perceivable? True, most *humans* can't perceive mathematical things, but that's probably just a limitation of the human mind. I think that a mind sufficiently talented at math *could* in principle directly perceive mathematical objects. Kurt Godel claimed that it was possible to directly perceive mathematical objects. He even thought the mind was capable of directly perceiving infinite sets. What if the proof of Goldbach's Conjecture was such that it could not be perceived by a mind? Doesn't our incomplete picture of the mind allow for such a possibility? THE BRAIN is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will include With ease, and you beside. -Emily Dickinson In all of the history of humans' exploration of the universe, the perpetual message that keeps coming back to us from the universe is that the brain is not as wide as the sky. I think that trying to make an "end run" around "everything" and starting with the doctrine that it is, is not a new thing (even to the ancient Greeks), but it contradicts the evidence. Tom
Re: Summary of seed ideas for my developing TOE - 'The Sentient Centered Theory Of Metaphysics' (SCTOM)
Whether it's ignoring the unperceived or unperceivable, what I'm asking is: Why do you limit metaphysics, at the outset, to being "for the purposes of understanding general intelligence?" On the other hand, how do we know what "general" intelligence is if all we have is our human understanding? Tom
Re: Summary of seed ideas for my developing TOE - 'The Sentient Centered Theory Of Metaphysics' (SCTOM)
OK, you said All comments welcome. You asked for it. First, there's a lot to read here, so I assumed you were presenting the basic gist of your ideas in the first few paragraphs, and so I have a few comments about those paragraphs. I commend you for trying to explain values as part of the framework. I've whinced before when I've read some thought experiments on this list that depended on accepting the existence of such ideas as good and bad. I believe in the existence of good and bad, but one needs to support his/her belief in good and bad and not take them as a given. It seems that your limitation of reality to meaningful existence is actually rejecting Mathematical Platonism. Why is consciousness required to make a mathematical truth real? I thought that you are trying to deal with all of existence, not just meaningful existence, since your theory tries to explain "how the most fundamental properties of existence facts fit together into a unified metaphysical framework." And yet here you limit existence to what we can perceive. The core assumption is that existence without perception is meaningless. Reality requires not only raw data but something to *interpret* that data, to supply meaning to it. This can only be done by consciousness of *some* kind. If something was hypothesized to exist that could in no way directly or indirectly affect the conscious perceptions of *any* possible observer, then in what sense could it be said to exist at all? Even if it could be successfully argued that it did have some kind of abstract philosophical existence, it could never have any possible value to sentient minds. For the purposes of understanding general intelligence, it suffices to define that which exists as that which could directly or indirectly ( i.e. in principle) affect the perceptions of *some* possible conscious observer. So you've eliminated the whole realm of "unperceived reality" in the superset of existence. You've eliminated the motivation to bring unperceived reality into the realm of perceived reality, since the former does not exist. Reading these metaphysical theories doesn't really impress me when I realize that these theories really don't have anything new in them that the ancient Greeks (for instance) didn't have. Of course the big gap in all of these theories, which I believe will never be filled, is the integration of consciousness (in general) into physics. Even if we integrate human consciousness into it (which I don't think is going to happen), that doesn't cover the whole gammit of what consciousness is in the whole universe. Who knows, there's so much we don't know about stars (and they are so big) that perhaps some stars have consciousness of some kind that is outside of the definition of how we would define it, but may be even more "enlightened" about the universe, and yet we may never know. Tom
Re: subjective reality
Well, Godfrey, I just want to voice my reaction that I am disap"point"ed that in the end you really have no new point. It seems that you are more like the Mad Hatter or Cheshire Cat. Tom [BM] So, this means you could just be *in advance* of my thesis! That would still be very interesting of course, so, please make your point. Ah yes you want to make it only if it demolishes the whole of a thesis that you admitted not having read (I don't understand at all why you don't want to give a (perhaps interesting) argument unless it refutes a thesis that you admitted not having read). [GK] Bruno, you are just too kind! I would describe it the other way round: I am "way behind your thesis" since you already argued my point out affirmatively! I guess that is the problem with us "White Rabbits" always arriving late... Please make your point, we can still discussed its impact after, isn't it? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ [GK] Well, I am kind of discouraged now. It would no longer be my point since you already proved it and made it yours. Let me think about it. Best regards, Godfrey
Re: subjective reality
John: Perhaps I'm intruding since you didn't address this to me, regarding your rhetorical question: since we have only our subjective access to "out there" does it make any difference if it is "REALLY?" like we interpret it, or in an untraceable manner: different? Didn't you practically give the answer in your recent "memory-prediction" post? You wrote: I hate to include my solution, but I think I ought to: since the (undefined) mind is a-temporal and a-spatial, we can go back to the event to be remembered and take a second look. And a 3rd one. What we see NOW is not entirely identical to what we saw with the past mindset earlier, so our recollection is not machine-like. In other words, if we take only one instance of subjective access to "reality" and note that there is a difference between what we observe and the "true" reality, even though we don't know what the difference is, how do we know we won't be able to ascertain some (if not all) of that difference by (possibly later in time, but not necessarily) looking at is from a different perspective, ad infinitum? A belief in an "objective" reality gives us motivation to keep going back and looking at things from a different perspective. Otherwise we would end up in one of the other camps I've mentioned before: insanity or despair. (By the way, Russell, I think that using the anthropic principle is a cop out at this point.) Tom Caylor
Re: subjective reality
It seems to me (oh no, subjectivity!) that believing in an objective reality is doing the same epistemic move as Bruno's belief in arithmetic realism and Godel's Platonism. Isn't belief in "objective reality" really by definition simply saying that there's something CAUSING ALL of our subjective observations? If there is no objective reality, then it begs the question, "Where do all our subjective observations come FROM?" Surely not from other subjective observations, by definition. If you don't believe in objective reality, then your alternatives are: 1) try to explain repeatability of observations in some weird indirect way and go crazy, or 2) just throw up your hands and be agnostic and give up any motivation for science other than pragmatism, which results in a pretty dismal outcome, the same outcome as the 20th century philosophers: despair. Tom Caylor -Original Message- From: John M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 08:38:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: subjective reality Dear Bruno, I hope not to affront Lee when I imply that "both of us" may well accept the 1st person "impression of reality" as interpreted by the 1st person mind, only the "objective" encompassing reality - which is not accesible in its uninterpreted format - is the problem. Interpreted used as subjectivised. There is a fine line separating solipsism from craziness and to 'verify' the existence of an uninterpreted reality would go beyond our lifetimes - unless we resort to beliefs of convenience. John M --- Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Le 08-août-05, à 17:49, Lee Corbin a écrit : > (True, we can also extend sympathy by believing it to be utterly > true that he is experiencing pain, but I think that John and I > (and many) are simply not comfortable with introducing a "reality", > namely, "subjective reality" to cover this simple situation.) This amounts to dismissing the first person. I am sure you did have known to be living some "subjective reality". What exactly makes you not comfortable with the "other mind" reality? Is it the fact that it is not verifiable? In that case again, incompleteness theorem can be used as a cure, because it makes utterly clear that for the sound machine there are many truth which are guess-able but unprovable. Is it the fact that once you accept the reality of the first person experiences, then we are led to that first person indeterminacy from which the physical laws emerges, assuming comp (which you accept)? You are neither a zombie, nor a solipsist, so what is the origin of you dismissing the reality of first person experiences. I am very curious, because, as you say, you are not the only one. Is it because you do feel some inconsistency with your physicalist assumptions, once we take seriously the "assumption" that others can feel genuine pleasures and pains. Anyway. We are not supposed to search comfort, but to reason from facts and assumptions, isn't it? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Reality vs. Perception of Reality
[Col replies---] Tom, in your very eloquent fashion you have touched upon the essence of my approach to the issue of a theory of everything. I need to make sure that everyone knows that the "very eloquent" words are not mine, but those of H.W.B. Joseph in the reference at the end of the quote. Tom
Re: Reality vs. Perception of Reality
Tom wrote: >> May I offer the following quote as a potential catalyst for Bruno and >> Colin:>> >> If thought is laryngeal motion, how should any one think more truly >> than the wind blows? All movements of bodies are equally necessary, but >> they cannot be discriminated as true and false. It seems as nonsensical >> to call a movement true as a flavour purple or a sound avaricious. But >> what is obvious when thought is said to be a certain bodily movement >> seems equally to follow from its being the effect of one. Thought >> called knowledge and thought called error are both necessary results of >> states of brain. These states are necessary results of other bodily >> states. All the bodily states are equally real, and so are the >> different thoughts; but by what right can I hold that my thought is >> knowledge of what is real in bodies? For to hold so is but another >> thought, an effect of real bodily movements like the rest. . . These >> arguments, however, of mine, if the principles of scientific >> [naturalism]... are to stand unchallenged, are themselves no more than >> happenings in a mind, results of bodily movements; that you or I think >> them sound, or think them unsound, is but another such happening; that >> we think them no more than another such happening is itself but yet >> another such. And it may be said of any ground on which we may attempt >> to stand as true, Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum ["It flows >> and will flow swirling on forever" (Horace, Epistles, I, 2, 43)]. (H. >> W. B. Joseph, Some Problems in Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1931), >> pp. 14-15)>> >> Regards,>> Tom Caylor>>So what? Of course without any context, simply looking at physical>processes doesn't allow one distiguish "true opinion" for "false opinion". >True and false are the linguistic analogues of effective and ineffective>action. Wiiliam S. Cooper as written a nice little book on this called>"The Evolution of Reason - Logic as a Branch of Biology".> >Brent MeekerI don't think Colin and Bruno were talking merely about opinion and effectiveness, but I'll let them speak for themselves. Tom
Re: Reality vs. Perception of Reality
May I offer the following quote as a potential catalyst for Bruno and Colin: If thought is laryngeal motion, how should any one think more truly than the wind blows? All movements of bodies are equally necessary, but they cannot be discriminated as true and false. It seems as nonsensical to call a movement true as a flavour purple or a sound avaricious. But what is obvious when thought is said to be a certain bodily movement seems equally to follow from its being the effect of one. Thought called knowledge and thought called error are both necessary results of states of brain. These states are necessary results of other bodily states. All the bodily states are equally real, and so are the different thoughts; but by what right can I hold that my thought is knowledge of what is real in bodies? For to hold so is but another thought, an effect of real bodily movements like the rest. . . These arguments, however, of mine, if the principles of scientific [naturalism]... are to stand unchallenged, are themselves no more than happenings in a mind, results of bodily movements; that you or I think them sound, or think them unsound, is but another such happening; that we think them no more than another such happening is itself but yet another such. And it may be said of any ground on which we may attempt to stand as true, Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum ["It flows and will flow swirling on forever" (Horace, Epistles, I, 2, 43)]. (H. W. B. Joseph, Some Problems in Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1931), pp. 14-15) Regards, Tom Caylor
Re: The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a "dimension"
[SPK] Oh no, I am not a time denier. I am arguing that Change, no, Becoming, is a Fundamental aspect of Existence and not Static "Being". ...Try this idea: We do NOT exist in a single space-time manifold. That structure is a collective illusion - but still a "reality"- that results from the coincidental synchrony of our individual observables. We -in ourselves, are not "classical" entities, we are quantum. It is our observations that are classical. This is the lesson that Everett discovered within QM and people have for the most part not yet understood. Tom: This makes it sound like there's no such thing as (ontological) > existence. I, for one, believe in "Being" as fundamental in some sense, > and yet not necessarily in the sense of a physicalist space-time manifold. > Also, we can look at being as (roughly) the integral of change, and change > as the derivative of being, without having to first call either of them > more fundamental, and without calling time fundamental. Just different > ways of looking at things from different perspectives to get slices of a > picture of reality. Dear Tom, I do not understand how you arrived at that conclusion! I am arguing that Existence - the Dasein of Kant - is independent of space-time; space-time is secondary. Tom: OK. I was looking at your statement about change being fundamental, and not being. I would like to better undertand your idea "being as (roughly) the integral of change, and change as the derivative of being". I don't have a mental picture of what this statement means. Kindest regards, Stephen Tom: By alluding to a mathematical analogy, I was just showing that change and being are two equally legitimate perspectives of reality. The state of something is an accumulation of all of the changes that it has gone through (given an initial condition), and change is just the difference between states. Tom
Re: UDA, Am I missing something?
Tom: I guess I'll have to ponder this more. In general I am uncomfortable with having terms like "physics" and >> "psychology/consciousness" defined (redefined?) later on in an argument rather than at the beginning. Bruno: That is a little bit curious because in SANE I *exceptionally* do give the "new" definitions at the beginning. And this asks me a specially hard effort. My initial goal was just to help people to understand by themselves that the "mind-body problem" is NOT YET solved. I did say "universal dovetailer paradox" instead of "universal dovetailer argument". Same for the movie graph. I just ask questions in succession and if you say yes at each steps you get the conclusion. Like always in logic, making a paradox precise makes you get a theorem. Tom: See my last comment below. Tom: In such a setting, I find it very difficult (impossible?) to get a > grasp of what your hypotheses are. Bruno: It is the hypothesis that we are machines... Now I am not sure what exactly you don't grasp in the hypotheses. To make comp precise, and to avoid unecessary objections I make it clear that I bet also on the elementary arithmetical truth (1+1 = 2, no-biggest -primes, Fermat theorem, etc.), and Church thesis (which is not trivial!). Tom: My exception to your hypotheses was supposedly independent of Church's thesis or arithmetic realism, but the objection was regarding your definition of physics, which seems too narrow to me. But now I am pondering your rebuttal of this exception, and I'm realising that there is some background that I need to become more familiar with. It's just that at first reading, I got a gut feeling that you unknowingly limited physics a priori, thus leading to the conclusion that physics is limited in that way. Tom: In parallel, I guess I have another question: It seems that in the > UDA you artificially limit all of physics to be the solution to one > particular thought experiment. This seems narrow to me. Bruno: But all *theorems* are particular thought experiments. And *this* thought experiment explains how "all physics" is related to the only clear notion of "everything" I ever met, which is the collection of partial computable function, which is closed for the most transcendental operation ever discovered by mathematician: Cantor-KLeene-Godel diagonalization. Tom: Have you considered translating the UDA into mathematics? Tom
Re: The Time Deniers and the idea of time as a "dimension"
[SPK] Oh no, I am not a time denier. I am arguing that Change, no, Becoming, is a Fundamental aspect of Existence and not Static "Being". ...Try this idea: We do NOT exist in a single space-time manifold. That structure is a collective illusion - but still a "reality"- that results from the coincidental synchrony of our individual observables. We -in ourselves, are not "classical" entities, we are quantum. It is our observations that are classical. This is the lesson that Everett discovered within QM and people have for the most part not yet understood. Tom: This makes it sound like there's no such thing as (ontological) existence. I, for one, believe in "Being" as fundamental in some sense, and yet not necessarily in the sense of a physicalist space-time manifold. Also, we can look at being as (roughly) the integral of change, and change as the derivative of being, without having to first call either of them more fundamental, and without calling time fundamental. Just different ways of looking at things from different perspectives to get slices of a picture of reality. Tom
Re: UDA, Am I missing something?
Tom>> Instead of "conscious brain" I should have said "consciousness". The yes-doctor hypothesis in comp tells me that you are assuming the existence of consciousness. Bruno> Yes. Under the form of a minimal amount of what is called (in philosophy of mind/cognitive science) "grandmother or folk psychology". Now (to cut the air a little bit) "assuming" does not seem right to me. I just hope people can understand in a mundane way question like "will I survive the operation in the hospital" etc. Also I don't like expression like "a conscious brain" or a "conscious program". It is "Searles' error". Only a person can be conscious. No doubt the brain plays some role but a brain is not conscious, nor a program, nor a string. Tom: OK Tom>> Also, is not the "psychology" that you are reducing physics to "consciousness" (or an equivalent approximation)? Bruno> I don't understand the sentence. Tom: My sentence was poorly worded. I'll try again: The UDA argues that "fundamental physics is necessarily reducible to fundamental psychology." I've read a statement by you somewhere (I think on this list) that this fundamental psychology basically talking about consciousness. Here it is one such quote: "The reversal will be epistemological: the branch "physics" will be a branch of machine's psychology, and ontological: matter will emerge from consciousness, in some sense, hopefully clearer after reading the proof." http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m1726.html Actually this particular quote seems to present consciousness as the ontological counterpart to the epistemological "fundamental psychology", just as matter is considered the ontological counterpart to epistemological "fundamental physics". So "psychology" is our way of thinking about consciousness, just as "physics" is our way of thinking about matter. So the statement "...physics is...reducible to psychology" is basically saying "our way of thinking about matter is reducible to our way of thinking about consciousness", or "physics is reducible to our way of thinking about consciousness". Tom>> Is not your use of the word "discourse", even though it is a > "correct-by-definition discourse", and also your use of the words > "observable" and "verifiable", meant to portray something that can be > observed by, imagined by, and encoded into our consciousness? So is > not your assumption that we can fit this "fundamental/perfect physics" into our consciousness? Bruno>> Yes if by "our" you refer to the lobian machines. But if you mean by it "human" then it is a big anthropomorphism. Also I avoid the term "consciousness". Eventually consciousness will be linked to automatic (unconscious!) inference of self-consistency from some 1 person point of view. Tom: I guess I'll have to ponder this more. In general I am uncomfortable with having terms like "physics" and "psychology/consciousness" defined (redefined?) later on in an argument rather than at the beginning. In such a setting, I find it very difficult (impossible?) to get a grasp of what your hypotheses are. In parallel, I guess I have another question: It seems that in the UDA you artificially limit all of physics to be the solution to one particular thought experiment. This seems narrow to me. Tom
Re: UDA, Am I missing something?
>> Bruno,>> After reading your Universal Dovetailer Argument (UDA) I'd like to giveyou my reaction.> Thanks,>> It seems to me that the trick is hidden in your assumptions.> Certainly. In a mathematical theory the theorems are always "hidden" in the axioms.As such, I appreciate your willingness to have a discourse on the assumptions in the UDA.>> I think you've even stated that before (using “embedded” rather than “hidden”), referring especially to comp. But I'd say that the trick is hidden in your assumptions about the universe or “physical reality”. It is the assumption that “physical reality” is limited to what we can imagine (“communicable physical laws”, with emphasis on communicable) and sense (“incommunicable physical knowledge”) it to be, i.e. in our conscious brains.> Be careful. At that stage I don't have conscious brain. Actually I don't have brain, which are physical object and physics is not yet derived from the relation between numbers.Instead of "conscious brain" I should have said "consciousness". The yes-doctor hypothesis in comp tells me that you are assuming the existence of consciousness. Also, is not the "psychology" that you are reducing physics to "consciousness" (or an equivalent approximation)?>> This is stated in your definition of “Fundamental Physics” as being “the correct-by-definition discourse about observable and verifiable anticipation of possible relatively evolving quantities and/or qualities.”> This is a very neutral definition of a "perfect physics". At that stage the "correct physics" could still be even a Newtonian physics, like "there is universe and objects in it obey such and such laws." At that stage, that could be the correct physics. In the word "discourse" I include its intended meaning. It can still be a physicalist discourse! But then, through comp, physicalism will be jeopardized in a completely testable way.Is not your use of the word "discourse", even though it is a "correct-by-definition discourse", and also your use of the words "observable" and "verifiable", meant to portray something that can be observed by, imagined by, and encoded into our consciousness? So is not your assumption that we can fit this "fundamental/perfect physics" into our consciousness?>> So if A=“physical reality” and B=“consciousness”, then the assumption is A=B.> This is much too vague. You identify physics and discourse. But I said "correct discourse" and this includes the semantics (meaning) of the discourse.(Actually I should have said that the assumption seems to be that A is a subset of B.) Are you saying that "correct-by-definition discourse" refers to a discourse that does not necessarily fit into our consciousness? If so, then why call it "discourse"?>> It seems that the rest is extraneous because with A=B you've already practically reached your conclusion, even without comp.> You would be right if I was defining literally physics by the physical discourse, but I define it by the correct discourse. It could be "string theory" or "QM", etc. Then comp shows we have no choice, and eventually thecomp-physics is given by a precise things all lobian machine can find by introspection. To test comp we can then compare that "comp-physics" with the verified part of empirical physics. If the comp-physics predicts Bell's inequality cannot be violated then comp would be refutated, etc. This shows the rest is not extraneous.I am not assuming that our consciousness is necessarily physical, but again I still don't see why you use the term "discourse" if it does not refer to something that can be grasped by our consciousness. Why not just say "correct physics" or "the way things really are, independent of our consciousness"? But then, if you did that, wouldn't you lose any chance of coming to the conclusion of the UDA?>> Am I missing something?> You have make a confusion between "discourse" and "correct (by definition) discourse." I know it is subtle (and many thanks to point to the fact that a misunderstanding can occur already there). I would say that by progressing in the UDA could help you to see this subtle point. When I translate the UDA in the language of a Lobian machine, a similar difficulty appears making at first sight believe that physics will just be the "classical tautologies" (and that would make physics, with comp, a purely geographico-historical matter, but then incompleteness entails it is not so, we get sort of quantum tautologies.> BrunoI've read the UDA but not the second part of the SANE paper where you interview the machine. Is not the result from the UDA needed to start the second half? I am wary of being persuaded by an argument further down the line where the UDA is assumed. It would seem that I should be able to understand the assumptions/axioms of the UDA first.Tom Caylor
UDA, Am I missing something?
Bruno, After reading your Universal Dovetailer Argument (UDA) and I?d like to give you my reaction. It seems to me that the trick is hidden in your assumptions. I think you?ve even stated that before (using ?embedded? rather than ?hidden?), referring especially to comp. But I?d say that the trick is hidden in your assumptions about the universe or ?physical reality?. It is the assumption that ?physical reality? is limited to what we can imagine (?communicable physical laws?, with emphasis on communicable) and sense (?incommunicable physical knowledge?) it to be, i.e. in our conscious brains. This is stated in your definition of ?Fundamental Physics? as being ?the correct-by-definition discourse about observable and verifiable anticipation of possible relatively evolving quantities and/or qualities.? So if A=?physical reality? and B=?consciousness?, then the assumption is A=B. It seems that the rest is extraneous because with A=B you?ve already practically reached your conclusion, even without comp. Am I missing something? Tom Caylor
Re: death
-Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com; [EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:15:39 -0400Subject: Re: death Tom wrote: > Jesse, it seems to me that starting from a set of axioms, like the concept of a measure on observer-moments and "hope that somehow the appearance of a phyical universe can be recovered" is problematic in light of the upward and downward Lowenheim-Skolem theorems. Taking this into account, it seems that you can't conclude anything about the cardinality of the some aspect of the universe model's domain based on a set of axioms. I've brought up the problem of cardinalities before in the "copy method important?" thread. I think the cardinality would have to be an assumption... Bruno wrote: > Either you are saying something very interesting, in which case I would be pleased if you could elaborate a little bit (or refer to a precise link if you have already done so), or you are falling in the 1004 fallacy(*): using too precise notion in a less precise context. (I'm refraining to use the Lowenheim-Skolem theorems which are very nice and have certainly some relevance (in particular against too much big TOE a-la Tegmark), but are not so simple, and people here are not yet enough motivated in mathematical logic. If you know french, or even if you don't know french (because the figure are clear enough if you know Skolem paradox) you can take a look at my "brussel's thesis" page deux-272, deux-273, deux-275 of http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume2CC/2%20%203.pdf where I use the Skolem! ! 's theorem to illustrate the fact that a 3-person countable structure can be 1-person uncountable. ... Tom Wrote: > Bruno, I have to be honest and say that I'm just starting to get into this stuff out of a passing interesting and that I probably don't have time and priority to study the math that would be sufficient to make a significant contribution in my view. For instance, I just learned about Church's lamba calculus last night. So I probably went in over my head in citing Lowenheim-Skolem. But is not my statement correct with regard to Lowenheim-Skolem and cardinalities? If so, then perhaps the iffy part is the application to this topic (so perhaps I committed the 1004 fallacy here). Nevertheless, regarding the application, on the surface it just seems that to make any conclusions about whether there is a non-zero probability of something being true or happening, you need to know the cardinalities of the sets you are working with. I will be gone on a marriage retreat this weekend, so I'll be back on Monday. Tom Caylor < end quotes PS. I don't know French unfortunately. But my knowledge of Portuguese lets me eke out some meaning from written French, but not much.
Re: death
Tom wrote: > Jesse, it seems to me that starting from a set of axioms, like the concept of a measure on observer-moments and "hope that somehow the appearance of a phyical universe can be recovered" is problematic in light of the upward and downward Lowenheim-Skolem theorems. Taking this into account, it seems that you can't conclude anything about the cardinality of the some aspect of the universe model's domain based on a set of axioms. I've brought up the problem of cardinalities before in the "copy method important?" thread. I think the cardinality would have to be an assumption... Bruno wrote: > Either you are saying something very interesting, in which case I would be pleased if you could elaborate a little bit (or refer to a precise link if you have already done so), or you are falling in the 1004 fallacy(*): using too precise notion in a less precise context. (I'm refraining to use the Lowenheim-Skolem theorems which are very nice and have certainly some relevance (in particular against too much big TOE a-la Tegmark), but are not so simple, and people here are not yet enough motivated in mathematical logic. If you know french, or even if you don't know french (because the figure are clear enough if you know Skolem paradox) you can take a look at my "brussel's thesis" page deux-272, deux-273, deux-275 of http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume2CC/2%20%203.pdf where I use the Skolem! 's theorem to illustrate the fact that a 3-person countable structure can be 1-person uncountable. ...< end quotes Bruno, I have to be honest and say that I'm just starting to get into this stuff out of a passing interesting and that I probably don't have time and priority to study the math that would be sufficient to make a significant contribution in my view. For instance, I just learned about Church's lamba calculus last night. So I probably went in over my head in citing Lowenheim-Skolem. But is not my statement correct with regard to Lowenheim-Skolem and cardinalities? If so, then perhaps the iffy part is the application to this topic (so perhaps I committed the 1004 fallacy here). Nevertheless, regarding the application, on the surface it just seems that to make any conclusions about whether there is a non-zero probability of something being true or happening, you need to know the cardinalities of the sets you are working with. I will be gone on a marriage retreat this weekend, so I'll be back on Monday. Tom Caylor
Re: Dualism and the DA
Brent Meeker: >The fact that all these metaphysical problems and bizarre results are predictedby assuming *everything happens* implies to me that *everything happens* islikely false. I'm not sure what the best alternative is, but I like RolandOmnes view point that QM is a probabilistic theory and hence it must predictprobabilities for things that don't happen.< end quote Actually, it occurred to me lately that saying "everything happens" may be the same as the paradox of the "set of all sets". Tom Caylor
Re: death
> Bruno Marchal writes:I will keep reading your posts hoping to make sense of it. Still I was about asking you if you were assuming the "multiverse context" or if you were hoping to extract (like me) the multiverse itself from the OMs. In which case, the current answer seems still rather hard to follow. Then in another post you just say:> Jesse Mazer writes: > It's a bit hard for me to come up with a satisfactory answer to this > problem, because I don't start from the assumption of a physical > universe at all--like Bruno, I'm trying to start from a measure on > observer-moments and hope that somehow the appearance of a physical > universe can be recovered from the subjective probabilities > experienced by observers> Bruno Marchal writes:And this answers the question. I am glad of your interest in the possibility to explain the universe from OMs, but then, as I said I don't understand how an OM could change its measure. What is clear for me is that an OM (or preferably a 1-person, an OM being some piece of the 1-person) can change its *relative* measure (by decision, choice, will, etc.) of its possible next OMs.< end quotes Jesse, it seems to me that starting from a set of axioms, like the concept of a measure on observer-moments and "hope that somehow the appearance of a phyical universe can be recovered" is problematic in light of the upward and downward Lowenheim-Skolem theorems. Taking this into account, it seems that you can't conclude anything about the cardinality of the some aspect of the universe model's domain based on a set of axioms. I've brought up the problem of cardinalities before in the "copy method important?" thread. I think the cardinality would have to be an assumption... Tom Caylor
Re: copy method important?
Tom wrote: quote: > I'm disagreeing that your consciousness will "continue" as long as there is a successor OM somewhere. You have to consider the possibility that the instances where there is a successor OM somewhere makes up a subset of measure zero of the set needed for continued consciousness, whatever that is. Of course this even assumes that our consciousness can even jump across whatever boundaries there may be there, e.g. between universes. And as I said before, I don't think that our identity is dependent on consciousness anyway, so I'm basically playing the devil's advocate in general when it comes to talking about the need and means of continued consciousness. I'm thinking on a future post having to do with this, and good experiences vs. bad experiences. < end quote Correction of a sort: You have to consider the possibility that the instances where there is a successor OM somewhere makes up a subset of measure zero of the set of successor events, whatever that is. Tom Caylor
Re: copy method important?
Stathis wrote: quote:> I don't think Hal Finney was agreeing with me, I think he was pointing out how absurd my position was to lead to this conclusion! But I don't really understand your objection: are you disagreeing that your consciousness will continue as long as there is a successor OM somewhere, or are you disagreeing that there will be a successor OM somewhere if everything exists, or are you simply disagreeing that everything exists? < end quote I'm disagreeing that your consciousness will "continue" as long as there is a successor OM somewhere. You have to consider the possibility that the instances where there is a successor OM somewhere makes up a subset of measure zero of the set needed for continued consciousness, whatever that is. Of course this even assumes that our consciousness can even jump across whatever boundaries there may be there, e.g. between universes. And as I said before, I don't think that our identity is dependent on consciousness anyway, so I'm basically playing the devil's advocate in general when it comes to talking about the need and means of continued consciousness. I'm thinking on a future post having to do with this, and good experiences vs. bad experiences. Tom Caylor
Re: another puzzzle
Stathis wrote:>To summarise my position, it is this: the measure of an observer moment is relevant when a given observer is contemplating what will happen next... Now, minimising acronym use, could you explain what your understanding is of how measure changes with number of copies of an OM which are instantiated, and if it doesn't, then how does it change, and when you use it in calculating how someone's life will go from OM to OM.
Jesse wrote:> Well, see my last response to Hal Finney... The measure on the set of all unique observer-moments is really the fundamental thing, physical notions like "number of copies" are secondary. But I have speculated on the "anticipatory" idea where multiple copies affects your conditional probabilities to the extend that the copies are likely to diverge in the future; so in your example, as long as those 10^100 copies are running in isolated virtual environments and following completely deterministic rules, they won't diverge, so my speculation is that the absolute and relative measures would not be affected in any way by this... There is the question of what it is, exactly, that's supposed to be moving between OMs, and whether this introduces some sort of fundamental duality into my picture of reality...
So if the copies are completely synchronized, this puzzle is a no-brainer (easy). But what about if one of the neurons in one of the copies does a little jig of its own for second?
More in general, I'm doubting the legitimacy of the puzzle in the first place: If, in your theory, measure really corresponds to the probability of having a next observer moment, and then you bring God into the picture and have him totally mess up the probabilities by doing what he wants, how are you going to conclude anything meaningful as a continuation of your definition of measure? The flip side of the coin is that apparently the probability of having a next OM is 100% ("everything exists"). In this theory, no matter what God does with 10^100 copies, there are 10^100^n other identical next OMs out there to replace them. It seems like what I've seen so far on this list is an exercise in forgetting that "everything exists" for a moment to do a thought experiment to conclude more about "everything exists".
Tom Caylor
Re: copy method important?
Quentin wrote: > Hi,> Le Lundi 20 Juin 2005 18:21, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit :>> What feature of the universe(s) causes you to be able to say that the dead>> OM continues to be conscious rather than continues to be dead? >> An OM (Observer Moment) by definition must contains a conscious observer... If > it's not the case... I don't understand the concept at all.>>Quentin Thanks, Quentin. I should rephrase my question to Stathis: What feature of the universe(s) causes you [or anyone] to be able to say that the dead [person] continues to be conscious rather than continues to be dead? Aren't there just as many universes (or more?) or future moments in this universe, where there is no conscious [person with that identity]? It seems like it's a wash (unknown) when it comes to being able to claim the existence of immortality or not, based on that type of argument. Staphis wrote:> How is this basically different to surviving the next minute? You are *far* more likely to be dead almost everywhere in the universe than you are to be alive. The "common sense" answer to this would be that you survive the next mimute due to the continuous existence of your physical body. But once you accept that this is not necessary for survival, because as we have discussed before your physical body completely changes over time, and because if something like teleportation were possible it would mean destroying your body in one place and rebuilding it in a different place, possibly also a different time, then I think the conclusion above is inevitable. The only way you could *not* be immortal is if there is no successor OM after your earthly demise, anywhere or ever. In fact, Staphis, you and Hal concluded that everyone is immortal (in the "death" thread). I take this to mean that every person that is associated with every OM is immortal, since every OM has a successor. This implies to me that we don't need to worry about copying, or which copying method is good for creating more successor OMs, since we are guaranteed to always have a successor OM. It sounds like this discussion probably would go into dividing in infinity of one cardinality by an infinity with another cardinality. This is very problematic to say the least, since you have to get the cardinalities of both infinities right. This leads me to believe that the chances of coming up with the right answer are almost like the chances of coming up with the right answer to a problem by dividing by zero. Tom Caylor
Re: copy method important?
Stathis wrote: >Scouring the universe to find an exact copy of RM's favourite marble may seem a very inefficient method of duplication, but when it comes to conscious observers in search of a successor OM, the obvious but nonetheless amazing fact is that nobody needs to search or somehow bring the the observer and the OM together: if the successor OM exists anywhere in the plenitude, then the mere fact of its existence means that the observer's consciousness will continue. What feature of the universe(s) causes you to be able to say that the dead OM continues to be conscious rather than continues to be dead? Aren't there just as many universes (or more?) or future moments in this universe, where there is no conscious OM? It seems like it's a wash (unknown) when it comes to being able to claim the existence of immortality or not, based on that type of argument. Tom Caylor
Re: another puzzzle
... or should I say "spooky"? Tom Caylor
Re: another puzzzle
Stathis wrote: > ...Once the difficulty of creating an AI was overcome, it would be a trivial matter to copy the program to another machine (or as a separate process on the same machine) and give it the same inputs. OK this is weird. Every time I get an email from Stathis, I actually get two of them exactly alike (to the nearest bit). Will the real Stathis please send me an email? Tom Caylor
Re: another puzzzle
Stathis wrote: > You find yourself in a locked room with no windows, and no memory of how you got there > What's wrong with the reasoning here? This is also in response to your explanation to me of copying etc. in your last post to "Many pasts?..." I think there is too much we don't know about quantum behavior vs. macro-matter (e.g. human bodies) behavior to say that copying, and subsequent diverging histories, is not like dividing by zero. I think that even if it were possible to copy a body (i.e. exactly) and have more than one copy at the same time, for the purposes of your thought-experiment why wouldn't it be the equivalent of quantum entanglement where you really have the equivalent of just the original? This is where I think the reasoning in your puzzle is flawed. Having 10^100+1 identical bodies is equivalent to having one body, so it makes it a 50/50 chance. Until the information is actually revealed, it would be just like the copying didn't happen, therefore there is no way to tell which state (copied or not copied) is currently in effect. Even though this may not be an appealing option, I believe that copying, if possible, wou! ldn't change anything having to do with identity (it doesn't "add to the measure"). Like Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. In addition, even if copying a body with two subsequent diverging histories were possible, why wouldn't this become just like two different people? Who cares if there are disputes? That's nothing new. What does that have to do with consiousness? I don't believe that identity is dependent on consciousness. Tom Caylor
Re: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...
>Hal wrote: > >I actually think this is a philosphically defensible position. Why should > >one OM care about another, merely because they happen to be linked by > >a body? There's no a priori reason why an OM should sacrifice, it doesn't > >get any benefit by doing so. > >But I'll tell you why we don't work this way, and why our current OMs > >are willing to sacrifice for the future. It's because of evolution. > >Then Staphis wrote: > > This is *exactly* the way it is! Each moment is ephemeral; once the next >moment comes along, the previous one could not be any more thoroughly dead >and gone from the universe if it had sat on top of a detonating nuclear >bomb There is nothing logically inconsistent in a being who does just >live for the present moment, as Hal suggests. The problem, of course, is >that evolution has long! ago weeded out these unfortunate beings, so they no >longer live amongst us. Tom wrote: >Again, I'll just ask a simple question to try to understand this, bit by >bit. >What about the "OMs" in the past? I don't think we even have to appeal to >evolution to explain why we think planning/working for the future is worth >it. If it were not for the sacrificial planning and working of the OMs of >the past, we would not be where we are today. It's simply a matter of what >has worked in the past should work in the present and future. Or have you >abandoned so much of the scientific method, and even simply explanation and >prediction, that this is no longer logical to you? What happened to the >impression of continuous consciousness? A nuclear bomb going off every >second and continuous consciousness don't seem to go together, in my >impression. Staphis wrote: > If you wander into the middle of one of our discussions, it might seem that we've all forsaken common sense. As a general rule, bizarre-sounding physical scenarios are proposed as "thought experiments", to explain, explore or clarify a theory by applying it to a concrete example. > What the post you have quoted deals with is basically the philosophical problem of personal identity Yes, I'm aware of the recycling of our bodies. This fact reduces to the deeper fact that our identity changes over time, just like (almost) everything else. In fact, this is the very fact that I'm appealing to. The "theory", or hypothesis, in this case is that "living for the moment" makes sense. But in fact it is the very denial of continuous consciousness. This a contradiction. Of course if we say that we are allowed to divide by zero, then dividing by zero makes sense in the sense that we just said we are allowed to do it. But it doesn't really make sense.
Re: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...
Hal wrote: >I actually think this is a philosphically defensible position. Why should >one OM care about another, merely because they happen to be linked by >a body? There's no a priori reason why an OM should sacrifice, it doesn't >get any benefit by doing so. >But I'll tell you why we don't work this way, and why our current OMs >are willing to sacrifice for the future. It's because of evolution. Then Staphis wrote: > This is *exactly* the way it is! Each moment is ephemeral; once the next moment comes along, the previous one could not be any more thoroughly dead and gone from the universe if it had sat on top of a detonating nuclear bomb There is nothing logically inconsistent in a being who does just live for the present moment, as Hal suggests. The problem, of course, is that evolution has long ago weeded out these unfortunate beings, so they no longer live amongst us. Again, I'll just ask a simple question to try to understand this, bit by bit. What about the "OMs" in the past? I don't think we even have to appeal to evolution to explain why we think planning/working for the future is worth it. If it were not for the sacrificial planning and working of the OMs of the past, we would not be where we are today. It's simply a matter of what has worked in the past should work in the present and future. Or have you abandoned so much of the scientific method, and even simply explanation and prediction, that this is no longer logical to you? What happened to the impression of continuous consciousness? A nuclear bomb going off every second and continuous consciousness don't seem to go together, in my impression. Tom Caylor
