subject:"Re\: Solipsism = 1p"



On 23 Oct 2012, at 15:11, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Bruno Marchal






ROGER: OK, but computers can't experience anything,
it would be simulated experience. Not arbitrarily available.



But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of
view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some
theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false.

ROGER: Simulated experience would be  objective, such
as is given by the text of a novel (knowledge by description). True
experience is the subjective experience of the mind --knowledge
by aquaintance. These are obviously substantially different.


The term silulated experience is ambiguous, and I should not have use.  
I wiuld say that by definition of comp, simulated experience =  
experience.







BRUNO: You are right, it is not the material computer who thinks,  
nor the

physical brains who thinks, it is the owner (temporarily) of the
brain, or of the computers which does the thinking (and that can
include a computer itself, if you let it develop beliefs).

ROGER: I don't think so.

The owner of the brain is the self.

But although the owner of a computer will have a
self, so would anybody else involved in creating
the computer or software also have one.

Are trying to say that I or anybody else can cause
the computer to be conscious ?


No. Only the computer, or a similar one. Actually *all* similar one  
existing in arithmetic, in their relative ways.






If wave collapse causes
consciousness, there are objective theories of wave collapse
called decoherence theories which seem more realistic to me.


Decoherence needs MWI to work.





But I can't seem to see how these could work on a computer.


Right. the idea that consciousness cause the collapse of the wave (an  
idea which already refutes special relativity) is inconsistent with  
comp.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Solipsism = 1p

On 23 Oct 2012, at 17:46, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 10:15:15 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of
view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some
theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false.

This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes
experience for granted. How can experience itself be simulated?

The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated,
neither by a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object
of thought, describing compactly infinities of arithmetical relations.

That's what I'm saying, experience can't be simulated.

OK. Even the experience "made by a computer". The experience is a
mathematical fixed point living atemporally in arithmetic.

I can have an experience within which another experience is
simulated,

Never. It does not make sense.

Why not? I am sitting here at my desk while I am imagining I am in a
coffee shop instead - or a talking bowling ball is eating a coffee
shop, or whatever. I can simulate practically any experience I like
by imagining it.

In that sense, OK.

You take my sentence above too much literally. Sorry, my fault. I
wanted to be short. I meant "simulate the context making the
experience of the person, "really living in Platonia" possible to
manifest itself locally.

Oh, ok.

but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that
experience itself - *all experience* can be somehow not really
happening but instead be a non-happening that defines itself *as
if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some level of description,
something has to actually be happening. If the brain simulates
experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters
and cells?

It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to
its most probable computation.

Why would that result in an experience?

Nobody knows, really. We expect it as we (me and the computationalist)
*bet* on comp, from the study of brain and computers, arithmetic, etc.

The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is
almost the complementary of computations. That is why we can test
comp by doing the math of that "anti-computation" and compare to
physics.

If they are not computation then how can computation refer to them?

My computer refers often to Craig, yet is not Craig. Entities can
refer to things which are not themselves.

Bruno

Craig

Bruno

It's a fun theory, but it's really not a viable explanation for the
universe where we actually live.

Craig

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Re: Solipsism = 1p



On 23 Oct 2012, at 20:21, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/23/2012 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point  
of

view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some
theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false.


This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes  
experience for granted. How can experience itself be simulated?


The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated,  
neither by a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object  
of thought, describing compactly infinities of arithmetical  
relations.




Hi Craig and Bruno,

If the simulation by the computation is exact then the  
simulation *is* the experience. I agree with what Bruno is saying  
here except that that the model that Bruno is using goes to far into  
the limit of abstraction in my opinion.


The point is that I think we have no real choice in the matter. Also,  
for me the numbers 2 and 3 are far more concrete than a apple or a  
tree. It is just that I have a complex brain which makes me believe,  
by a vast amount of computations that a tree is something concrete.








I can have an experience within which another experience is  
simulated,


Never. It does not make sense. You take my sentence above too much  
literally. Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant "simulate  
the context making the experience of the person, "really living in  
Platonia" possible to manifest itself locally.


We can think about our thoughts. Is that not an experience  
within another?


OK. I would say that an emulation of an experience is equal to that  
experience. Now, just a simulation of an experience, is more like  
faking to be in love with a girl. But then you are a zombie with  
respect to the feeling of love, somehow.








but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that  
experience itself - *all experience* can be somehow not really  
happening but instead be a non-happening that defines itself *as  
if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some level of description,  
something has to actually be happening. If the brain simulates  
experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters  
and cells?


It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to  
its most probable computation.


There is a difference between a single computation and a bundle  
of computations. The brain's neurons, etc. are the physical  
(topological space)


Topological space are mathematical.



aspect of the intersection of computational bundle. They are not a  
"separate substance".


OK. But that remains unclear as we don't know what you assume and what  
you derive.








Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no  
business producing such things at all. If the world is  
computation, why pretend it isn't - and how exactly is such a  
pretending possible.


The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is  
almost the complementary of computations.


Yes, it is exactly only the content that the computations  
generate.


That is: views by persons.




That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that "anti- 
computation" and compare to physics.


But, Bruno, what we obtain from comp is not a particular physics.


It has to be. It is not a particular geography, but it has to be a  
particular physics. Physics really becomes math, with comp. There is  
only one physical reality. But it is still unknown if it is a  
multiverse, or a multi-multiverse, or a layered structure with  
different type of realm for different type of consciousness. There a  
lot of open problems, to say the least.





What we get is an infinite "landscape" of possible physics theories.


Not with comp. The main basic reason is that "we" are distributed in  
all computations, and physics emerges from that. There might be  
inaccessible cluster of "dead physical realities", which would not  
rich enough to implement Turing universal machines. But those cannot  
interfere (statistically) with our observations, like the "material"  
universe. We don't have to worry about them. They are like invisible  
horses.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Solipsism = 1p



On 24 Oct 2012, at 15:50, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Bruno Marchal

The simulated experience is not a real experience.
OK ?


Keep in mind that I assume comp. OK? It is my working hypothesis. OK?  
If we run into a contradiction, we can still abandon comp, OK?


The statement "the simulated experience is not a real experience" is  
ambiguous.


If machine A simulate the machine B, the experience of the machine A  
will be the experience of simulating B. And if the machine B is  
complex enough, it might have its own experience, perhaps unnoticed by  
A.


I urge you to read Hoftstadter "conversation with Einstein brain", and  
perhaps the whole "Mind's I" book which explore that theme (around the  
interesting and important "Searle's Error).


I think we can relate also this to the french question of what is a  
perfect comedian? Is it the one who can completely fake to be in love  
(say)?  Or is it the one who simulates so well the lover that it feels  
the love, like going above the relative zombie limit.


Bruno







Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
10/24/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Bruno Marchal
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-24, 08:57:19
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p


On 23 Oct 2012, at 20:21, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/23/2012 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point
of
view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some
theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false.


This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes
experience for granted. How can experience itself be simulated?


The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated,
neither by a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object
of thought, describing compactly infinities of arithmetical
relations.



Hi Craig and Bruno,

If the simulation by the computation is exact then the
simulation *is* the experience. I agree with what Bruno is saying
here except that that the model that Bruno is using goes to far into
the limit of abstraction in my opinion.


The point is that I think we have no real choice in the matter. Also,
for me the numbers 2 and 3 are far more concrete than a apple or a
tree. It is just that I have a complex brain which makes me believe,
by a vast amount of computations that a tree is something concrete.








I can have an experience within which another experience is
simulated,


Never. It does not make sense. You take my sentence above too much
literally. Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant "simulate
the context making the experience of the person, "really living in
Platonia" possible to manifest itself locally.


We can think about our thoughts. Is that not an experience
within another?


OK. I would say that an emulation of an experience is equal to that
experience. Now, just a simulation of an experience, is more like
faking to be in love with a girl. But then you are a zombie with
respect to the feeling of love, somehow.








but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that
experience itself - *all experience* can be somehow not really
happening but instead be a non-happening that defines itself *as
if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some level of description,
something has to actually be happening. If the brain simulates
experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters
and cells?


It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to
its most probable computation.


There is a difference between a single computation and a bundle
of computations. The brain's neurons, etc. are the physical
(topological space)


Topological space are mathematical.




aspect of the intersection of computational bundle. They are not a
"separate substance".


OK. But that remains unclear as we don't know what you assume and what
you derive.








Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no
business producing such things at all. If the world is
computation, why pretend it isn't - and how exactly is such a
pretending possible.


The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is
almost the complementary of computations.


Yes, it is exactly only the content that the computations
generate.


That is: views by persons.





That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that "anti-
computation" and compare to physics.


But, Bruno, what we obtain from comp is not a particular physics.


It has to be. It is not a particular geography, but it has to be a
particular physics. Physics really becomes math, with comp. There is
only one physical reality. But it is still unknown if it is a
multiverse, or a

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-24 Thread Stephen P. King


On 10/24/2012 10:01 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

How can you know that the simulation is exact ?
Solipsim prevents that.

And who or what experiences the computer output ?


Roger Clough,rclo...@verizon.net  
10/24/2012

"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen

Hi Roger,

If we accept that the content of an experience can be exactly 
duplicated by a sufficiently powerful computer, we have accepted that 
they are the same thing. This is not to say that conscious experience is 
itself "just a computation", no. There is a difference between the 
simulability of an experience and the sense of being in the experience 
that is the 1p.


--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: Solipsism = 1p



On 24 Oct 2012, at 15:43, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Bruno Marchal

Anything that the brain does is or could be experience.
For computers, experience can only be simulated because

experience = self + qualia


In the theory I represent the self by the B.Bp = my self believes  
p. (I can translate it in arithmetic, or fortran, ...)


You get the qualia by linking the belief with the consistency: Bp &  
Dt, and you get the sensations by linking this with truth: Bp & Dt & p.


The Dt makes it unprovable, and the p makes it unexpressible, by the  
machine. But the machine can also bet that she is (correct) machines  
and study the logic of its own qualia, and compare with what she  
feels, etc, when talking with other machines (all this relatively to  
its more probable computations).


Bp is I believe p, in the sense that p is true for all my extensions.
Dt is I am alive, or, I have at least one extension, or "I am not in a  
cul-de-sac world".
p alone means 'p is true'. (this works as I limit myself to correct  
machine).


Bruno










Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
10/24/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Bruno Marchal
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-24, 07:37:32
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p


On 23 Oct 2012, at 15:11, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Bruno Marchal






ROGER: OK, but computers can't experience anything,
it would be simulated experience. Not arbitrarily available.



But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of
view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some
theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false.

ROGER: Simulated experience would be objective, such
as is given by the text of a novel (knowledge by description). True
experience is the subjective experience of the mind --knowledge
by aquaintance. These are obviously substantially different.


The term silulated experience is ambiguous, and I should not have use.
I wiuld say that by definition of comp, simulated experience =
experience.






BRUNO: You are right, it is not the material computer who thinks,
nor the
physical brains who thinks, it is the owner (temporarily) of the
brain, or of the computers which does the thinking (and that can
include a computer itself, if you let it develop beliefs).

ROGER: I don't think so.

The owner of the brain is the self.

But although the owner of a computer will have a
self, so would anybody else involved in creating
the computer or software also have one.

Are trying to say that I or anybody else can cause
the computer to be conscious ?


No. Only the computer, or a similar one. Actually *all* similar one
existing in arithmetic, in their relative ways.





If wave collapse causes
consciousness, there are objective theories of wave collapse
called decoherence theories which seem more realistic to me.


Decoherence needs MWI to work.





But I can't seem to see how these could work on a computer.


Right. the idea that consciousness cause the collapse of the wave (an
idea which already refutes special relativity) is inconsistent with
comp.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-25 Thread meekerdb


On 10/25/2012 4:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:


Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder would all
be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the computer itself
rather than the programming, that would be a good sign.

A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy
its programming. What you do when you program a computer, at the basic
level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware
can then only move into future physical states consistent with that
configuration. "Defying its programming" would mean doing something
*not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics.
That's not possible for  - and you have explicitly agreed with this,
saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a
computer or a human.




Mine frequently defies the intent of its programmer. :-)

Brent

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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:24, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Friday, October 26, 2012 1:01:34 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg  
 wrote:

> We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever  
we do is
> what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about  
the laws of
> physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior  
manipulations of

> exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena.

Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules,

No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and  
human character, which is not completely ruled externally. We  
participate directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those  
rules include 'do whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.

the rules being
as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
divine whim.

Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people  
and people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more  
directly and completely real phenomena.

This is correct, but not obvious at all (for aristotelicians), and yet  
a logical consequence of comp, with "people" replaced by Löbian  
universal machine.

This has been be put in a constructive form, with computer science. It  
makes comp (+ reasonable definition of knowledge, observation, in the  
UD context) testable, and already tested on non trivial relations  
between what is observable (quantum logic).

The science and the math already exist.

All machines looking inward deep enough will develop a non comp  
intuition, and some can go beyond.

Bruno

I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged.

I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to  
you any description of the universe which is not matter in space  
primarily is inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does  
is not important to understanding consciousness itself. It is  
important to understanding personal access to human consciousness,  
i.e. brain health, etc, but otherwise it is consciousness, on many  
levels and ranges of quality, which gives rise to the appearance of  
matter and not the other way around.

Do
you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such
as they may be?

The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether  
this part of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am  
choosing that directly by what I think about. If I think about  
playing tennis, then the appropriate cells in my brain will  
depolarize and molecules will change positions. They are following  
my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. Of course, if someone  
gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing me instead and  
I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event than a  
leader.

If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is
determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of
the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or
probabilistic laws.

I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me.  
How could it be otherwise?

If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is
at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from
these laws.

Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All activity  
in the universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter is only  
the sense and will of something else besides yourself.

That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will
or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy;

No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the  
only causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is  
primordial and universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak  
forces are only examples of our impersonal view of the sense of  
whatever it is we are studying secondhand.

absent this, the
physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that
happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree
with?

None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is  
no law book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as  
physics is as crude and simplistic as any ancient mythology. What we  
see as physical laws are the outermost, longest lasting conventions  
of sense. Nothing more. I think that the way sense works is that it  
can't contradict itself, so that these oldest ways of relating, once  
they are established, are no longer easy to change, but higher  
levels of sense arise out of the loopholes and can influence lower  
levels of sense directly. Hence, molecules build living cells defy  
entropy, human beings build airplanes to defy gravity.

> You can't see
> consciousness that way. From far enough a way, our cities look  
like nothing
> more than glowing colonies of mold. It's not programming that  
makes us one
> way or

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread Bruno Marchal

John,

A fixed universal machine (some hardwired one, like a brain or a
laptop) can emulate a self-modifying universal machine, even one which
modifies itself "completely".

Bruno

On 26 Oct 2012, at 23:08, John Mikes wrote:

Stathis:

IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the
programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while
(SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts
'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the
sciences?) - accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources
beyond it's given "hardware" content.

John M

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote:
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg > wrote:

> Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder
would all
> be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the
computer itself

> rather than the programming, that would be a good sign.

A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy
its programming. What you do when you program a computer, at the basic
level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware
can then only move into future physical states consistent with that
configuration. "Defying its programming" would mean doing something
*not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics.
That's not possible for - and you have explicitly agreed with this,
saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a
computer or a human.

--
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Solipsism = 1p



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 9:18:33 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:24, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, October 26, 2012 1:01:34 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg  
>> wrote: 
>>
>> > We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever we do 
>> is 
>> > what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about the 
>> laws of 
>> > physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior manipulations 
>> of 
>> > exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena. 
>>
>> Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules,
>
>
> No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and human 
> character, which is not completely ruled externally. We participate 
> directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those rules include 'do 
> whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.
>  
>
>> the rules being 
>> as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or 
>> divine whim. 
>
>
> Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people and 
> people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more directly and 
> completely real phenomena.
>
>
> This is correct, but not obvious at all (for aristotelicians), and yet a 
> logical consequence of comp, with "people" replaced by Löbian universal 
> machine. 
>
> This has been be put in a constructive form, with computer science. It 
> makes comp (+ reasonable definition of knowledge, observation, in the UD 
> context) testable, and already tested on non trivial relations between what 
> is observable (quantum logic).
>
> The science and the math already exist. 
>
> All machines looking inward deep enough will develop a non comp intuition, 
> and some can go beyond.
>

All animal collectives looking outward far enough will develop a comp 
counter-intuition, and some can go beyond.

Craig
 

>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>  
>
>> I really don't understand where you disagree with me, 
>> since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged. 
>
>
> I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to you 
> any description of the universe which is not matter in space primarily is 
> inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does is not important to 
> understanding consciousness itself. It is important to understanding 
> personal access to human consciousness, i.e. brain health, etc, but 
> otherwise it is consciousness, on many levels and ranges of quality, which 
> gives rise to the appearance of matter and not the other way around.
>
> Do 
>> you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such 
>> as they may be?
>
>
> The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether this 
> part of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am choosing that 
> directly by what I think about. If I think about playing tennis, then the 
> appropriate cells in my brain will depolarize and molecules will change 
> positions. They are following my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. 
> Of course, if someone gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing 
> me instead and I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event 
> than a leader.
>  
>
>> If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is 
>> determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of 
>> the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or 
>> probabilistic laws. 
>
>
> I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me. How 
> could it be otherwise?
>  
>
>> If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is 
>> at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from 
>> these laws. 
>
>
> Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All activity in 
> the universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter is only the sense 
> and will of something else besides yourself.
>  
>
>> That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will 
>> or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy; 
>
>
> No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the only 
> causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is primordial and 
> universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak forces are only 
> examples of our impersonal view of the sense of whatever it is we are 
> studying secondhand.
>  
>
>> absent this, the 
>> physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that 
>> happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree 
>> with? 
>>
>
> None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is no law 
> book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as physics is as 
> crude and simplistic as any ancient mythology. What we see as physical laws 
> are the outermost, longest lasting conventions of sense. Nothing more. I 
> think that the way sense works is that it can't contradict itself, so that 
> these oldest ways of relating, once they are

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread John Mikes

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 9:18 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
>  On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:24, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, October 26, 2012 1:01:34 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever we do
>> is
>> > what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about the
>> laws of
>> > physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior manipulations
>> of
>> > exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena.
>>
>> Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules,
>
>
> No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and human
> character, which is not completely ruled externally. We participate
> directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those rules include 'do
> whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.
>
> **
*JM: who is that agency "we"? having 'human experiences and human
character'? *


>   the rules being
>> as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
>> divine whim.
>
>
> Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people and
> people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more directly and
> completely real phenomena.
>
>
> This is correct, but not obvious at all (for aristotelicians), and yet a
> logical consequence of comp, with "people" replaced by Löbian universal
> machine.
>
> This has been be put in a constructive form, with computer science. It
> makes comp (+ reasonable definition of knowledge, observation, in the UD
> context) testable, and already tested on non trivial relations between what
> is observable (quantum logic).
>
> The science and the math already exist.
>
> All machines looking inward deep enough will develop a non comp intuition,
> and some can go beyond.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>> I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
>> since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged.
>
>
> I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to you
> any description of the universe which is not matter in space primarily is
> inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does is not important to
> understanding consciousness itself. It is important to understanding
> personal access to human consciousness, i.e. brain health, etc, but
> otherwise it is consciousness, on many levels and ranges of quality, which
> gives rise to the appearance of matter and not the other way around.
>
> Do
>> you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such
>> as they may be?
>
>
> The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether this
> part of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am choosing that
> directly by what I think about. If I think about playing tennis, then the
> appropriate cells in my brain will depolarize and molecules will change
> positions. They are following my laws. Physics is my servant in this case.
> Of course, if someone gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing
> me instead and I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event
> than a leader.
>
>
>> If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is
>> determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of
>> the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or
>> probabilistic laws.
>
>
> I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me. How
> could it be otherwise?
>
>
>> If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is
>> at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from
>> these laws.
>
>
> Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All activity in
> the universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter is only the sense
> and will of something else besides yourself.
>
>
>> That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will
>> or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy;
>
>
> No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the only
> causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is primordial and
> universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak forces are only
> examples of our impersonal view of the sense of whatever it is we are
> studying secondhand.
>
>
>> absent this, the
>> physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that
>> happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree
>> with?
>>
>
> None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is no law
> book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as physics is as
> crude and simplistic as any ancient mythology. What we see as physical laws
> are the outermost, longest lasting conventions of sense. Nothing more. I
> think that the way sense works is that it can't contradict itself, so that
> these oldest ways of relating, once they are established, are no longer
> easy to change, but higher levels of sense arise out of the loopholes and
> can influence lower levels of

Re: Solipsism = 1p



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 1:03:52 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Craig Weinberg  
> wrote:
>
> > No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and human
> > character, which is not completely ruled externally. We participate
> > directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those rules include 
> 'do
> > whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.
>
> The small set of rules I was referring to are the low level rules, the 
> laws of physics. More complex higher level rules are generated from these. 
> "Do whatever you like, whenever you have the chance" is an example of such 
> a higher level rule, and it could not occur unless it was consistent with 
> the laws of physics.
>

I am saying that more complex higher level rules, by definition, cannot be 
generated from low level rules. It is like saying that the Taj Mahal 
follows from bricks, or that the internet is generated by electrical 
utilities.
 

>
> >> the rules being
> >> as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
> >> divine whim.
> >
> >
> > Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people and
> > people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more directly and
> > completely real phenomena.
> >
> >>
> >> I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
> >> since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged.
> >
> >
> > I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to you 
> any
> > description of the universe which is not matter in space primarily is
> > inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does is not important 
> to
> > understanding consciousness itself. It is important to understanding
> > personal access to human consciousness, i.e. brain health, etc, but
> > otherwise it is consciousness, on many levels and ranges of quality, 
> which
> > gives rise to the appearance of matter and not the other way around.
>
> It doesn't matter for the purposes of the discussion if there is no basic 
> physical universe at all: you just add "apparently" in front of every 
> statement about what happens. Apparently there is a set of physical laws, 
> and everything that apparently happens is consistent with these laws.
>

But the only things that happen which is consistent with those laws are 
things which have to do with the body. Experiential laws are completely at 
odds with physical laws, and if anything physical laws are all explainable 
as experiences, but experiences can in no way be explained as physical 
interactions.
 

>
> >> Do
> >> you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such
> >> as they may be?
> >
> >
> > The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether this 
> part
> > of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am choosing that 
> directly
> > by what I think about. If I think about playing tennis, then the 
> appropriate
> > cells in my brain will depolarize and molecules will change positions. 
> They
> > are following my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. Of course, if
> > someone gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing me instead 
> and
> > I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event than a leader.
>
> It seems that you do not understand the meaning of the term "consistent 
> with the laws of physics". It means that when you decide to play tennis the 
> neurons in your brain will depolarise because of the ionic gradients, 


If you can't see how ridiculous that view is, there is not much I can say 
that will help you. My decision to play tennis *IS* the depolarization of 
neurons. The ionic gradients have no opinion of whether or not I am about 
to play tennis. The brain as a whole, every cell, every molecule, every 
charge and field, is just the spatially extended shadow of *me* or my 
'life'. I am the event which unites all of the functions and structures 
together, from the micro to the macro, and when I change my mind, that 
change is reflected on every level.

the permeability of the membrane to different ions, the way the ion 
> channels change their conformation in response to an electric field, and 
> many other such physical factors. It is these physical factors which result 
> in your decision to play tennis and then your getting up to retrieve your 
> tennis racquet. If it were the other way around - your decision causes 
> neurons to depolarise - then we would observe miraculous events in your 
> brain, ion channels opening in the absence of any electric field or 
> neurotransmitter change, and so on.
>

No. The miraculous event is viewable any time we look at how a conscious 
intention appears in an fMRI. We see spontaneous simultaneous activity in 
many regions of the brain, coordinated on many levels. This is the 
footprint of where we stand. When we take a step, the footprint changes. We 
are the leader of these brain processes, not the follower.
 

>
> >> If so, then th

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-28 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:48 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>> It seems that you do not understand the meaning of the term "consistent
>> with the laws of physics". It means that when you decide to play tennis the
>> neurons in your brain will depolarise because of the ionic gradients,
>
>
> If you can't see how ridiculous that view is, there is not much I can say
> that will help you. My decision to play tennis *IS* the depolarization of
> neurons.

That sounds like eliminative materialism. It is a bit like saying that
the movement of the car down the road *IS* the combustion of fuel in
the cylinders, transmission of power to the wheels, and all the other
lower level phenomena that make up the car.

> The ionic gradients have no opinion of whether or not I am about to
> play tennis. The brain as a whole, every cell, every molecule, every charge
> and field, is just the spatially extended shadow of *me* or my 'life'. I am
> the event which unites all of the functions and structures together, from
> the micro to the macro, and when I change my mind, that change is reflected
> on every level.

You change your mind because all the components of your brain change
configuration. If this did not happen, your mind could not change. The
mind is the higher level phenomenon. The analogy is as above with the
car: it drives down the road because of all the mechanics functioning
in a particular way, and you could say that driving down the road is
equivalent to the mechanics functioning in a particular way.

>> the permeability of the membrane to different ions, the way the ion
>> channels change their conformation in response to an electric field, and
>> many other such physical factors. It is these physical factors which result
>> in your decision to play tennis and then your getting up to retrieve your
>> tennis racquet. If it were the other way around - your decision causes
>> neurons to depolarise - then we would observe miraculous events in your
>> brain, ion channels opening in the absence of any electric field or
>> neurotransmitter change, and so on.
>
>
> No. The miraculous event is viewable any time we look at how a conscious
> intention appears in an fMRI. We see spontaneous simultaneous activity in
> many regions of the brain, coordinated on many levels. This is the footprint
> of where we stand. When we take a step, the footprint changes. We are the
> leader of these brain processes, not the follower.

You completely misunderstand these experiments. Please read about
excitable cells before commenting further. The following online
articles seem quite good. The third is about spontaneous neuronal
activity.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/E/ExcitableCells.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_potential
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_oscillation

>> Cells don't defy entropy and planes don't defy gravity. Their respective
>> behaviour is consistent with our theories about entropy and gravity.
>
>
> Cells defy entropy locally. Planes allow us to get around some constraints
> of gravity. If your definition of any law is so broad that it includes all
> possible technological violations of it, then how does it really give us any
> insight?

The laws of nature are broad enough to determine everything everywhere
that has happened and will happen.

>> How the computer was made would have no effect on its behaviour or
>> consciousness.
>
> Yes, it would. If I make a refrigerator, I can assume that it is a box with
> cooling mechanism. If I find an organism which has evolved to cool parts of
> itself to store food, then that is a completely different thing.

The question was about two identical computers, one made in a factory,
the other assembled with fantastic luck from raw materials moving
about randomly. Will there be any difference in the functioning or
consciousness (or lack of it) of the two computers?

>> >> If a biological
>> >> human were put together from raw materials by advanced aliens would
>> >> that make any difference to his consciousness or intelligence?
>> >
>> > It would if we were automaton servants of their agendas.
>>
>> If the created human had a similar structure to a naturally developed
>> human he would have similar behaviour and similar experiences. How could it
>> possibly be otherwise?
>
> Because consciousness is not a structure, it is an event. It is an
> experience which unifies bodies from the inside out, not a configuration of
> bodies which has an experience because of external conditions.

So how would a human put together by molecular assembly machines using
the template of a regular human be different from the regular human in
either behaviour or consciousness?


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-28 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 27 Oct 2012, at 17:49, John Mikes wrote:

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 9:18 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:24, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Friday, October 26, 2012 1:01:34 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg  
 wrote:

> We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever  
we do is
> what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about  
the laws of
> physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior  
manipulations of

> exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena.

Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules,

No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and  
human character, which is not completely ruled externally. We  
participate directly. It could only be a small set of rules if  
those rules include 'do whatever you like, whenever you have the  
chance'.

JM: who is that agency "we"? having 'human experiences and human  
character'?

You were quoting Craig. Nt sure I understand Craig paragraph, nor your  
question here.

Bruno

the rules being
as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
divine whim.

Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by  
people and people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the  
more directly and completely real phenomena.

This is correct, but not obvious at all (for aristotelicians), and  
yet a logical consequence of comp, with "people" replaced by Löbian  
universal machine.

This has been be put in a constructive form, with computer science.  
It makes comp (+ reasonable definition of knowledge, observation, in  
the UD context) testable, and already tested on non trivial  
relations between what is observable (quantum logic).

The science and the math already exist.

All machines looking inward deep enough will develop a non comp  
intuition, and some can go beyond.

Bruno

I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged.

I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to  
you any description of the universe which is not matter in space  
primarily is inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and  
does is not important to understanding consciousness itself. It is  
important to understanding personal access to human consciousness,  
i.e. brain health, etc, but otherwise it is consciousness, on many  
levels and ranges of quality, which gives rise to the appearance of  
matter and not the other way around.

Do
you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics,  
such

as they may be?

The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether  
this part of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am  
choosing that directly by what I think about. If I think about  
playing tennis, then the appropriate cells in my brain will  
depolarize and molecules will change positions. They are following  
my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. Of course, if someone  
gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing me instead and  
I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event than a  
leader.

If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is
determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of
the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or
probabilistic laws.

I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me.  
How could it be otherwise?

If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is
at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from
these laws.

Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All  
activity in the universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter  
is only the sense and will of something else besides yourself.

That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will
or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy;

No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the  
only causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is  
primordial and universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and  
weak forces are only examples of our impersonal view of the sense  
of whatever it is we are studying secondhand.

absent this, the
physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything  
that
happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not  
agree

with?

None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is  
no law book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as  
physics is as crude and simplistic as any ancient mythology. What  
we see as physical laws are the outermost, longest lasting  
conventions of sense. Nothing more. I think that the way sense  
works is that it can't contradict itself, so that these oldest ways  
of relating, once they are established, are no longer easy to  
change, but higher levels of sense arise out of the loopholes and  
can influence lower levels of

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-28 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Sunday, October 28, 2012 5:48:29 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:48 AM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> >> It seems that you do not understand the meaning of the term "consistent 
> >> with the laws of physics". It means that when you decide to play tennis 
> the 
> >> neurons in your brain will depolarise because of the ionic gradients, 
> > 
> > 
> > If you can't see how ridiculous that view is, there is not much I can 
> say 
> > that will help you. My decision to play tennis *IS* the depolarization 
> of 
> > neurons. 
>
> That sounds like eliminative materialism. It is a bit like saying that 
> the movement of the car down the road *IS* the combustion of fuel in 
> the cylinders, transmission of power to the wheels, and all the other 
> lower level phenomena that make up the car. 
>

But you forgot the movements of the driver, pushing pedals and turning the 
steering wheel. The problem is that you are only seeing it one way, so that 
if I say that my impulse to move my arm is the electromagnetic changes in 
my brain and arm, you see that as meaning that the experience of moving my 
arm is not actually real. What I am saying is the opposite - that all 
material interactions in the universe are, on some scale, experiences. I'm 
not eliminating consciousness in favor of materialism, I am expanding 
materialism to include primordial subjective awareness.

>
> > The ionic gradients have no opinion of whether or not I am about to 
> > play tennis. The brain as a whole, every cell, every molecule, every 
> charge 
> > and field, is just the spatially extended shadow of *me* or my 'life'. I 
> am 
> > the event which unites all of the functions and structures together, 
> from 
> > the micro to the macro, and when I change my mind, that change is 
> reflected 
> > on every level. 
>
> You change your mind because all the components of your brain change 
> configuration. 

No. A single change of my mind is seen in the brain as millions of cellular 
events. Your view is factually incorrect.

> If this did not happen, your mind could not change. 

I can make it happen voluntarily by changing my mind. It's like a see-saw. 
If I push down, my brain goes up. They are two views of the same thing 
which can be leveraged from either the outside in or the inside out. A lot 
of people can't seem to understand this. It may not be your fault.

> The 
> mind is the higher level phenomenon. The analogy is as above with the 
> car: it drives down the road because of all the mechanics functioning 
> in a particular way, and you could say that driving down the road is 
> equivalent to the mechanics functioning in a particular way. 
>

The car is a tool used by a driver. No amount of mechanism in the car can 
replace the driver (except on a superficial level). Without someone to use 
the car for a human purpose, there is no driver and the car is a pointless 
automation. The same is true for the brain. Without a person to care about 
a human lifetime, there is no point to a brain.

>
> >> the permeability of the membrane to different ions, the way the ion 
> >> channels change their conformation in response to an electric field, 
> and 
> >> many other such physical factors. It is these physical factors which 
> result 
> >> in your decision to play tennis and then your getting up to retrieve 
> your 
> >> tennis racquet. If it were the other way around - your decision causes 
> >> neurons to depolarise - then we would observe miraculous events in your 
> >> brain, ion channels opening in the absence of any electric field or 
> >> neurotransmitter change, and so on. 
> > 
> > 
> > No. The miraculous event is viewable any time we look at how a conscious 
> > intention appears in an fMRI. We see spontaneous simultaneous activity 
> in 
> > many regions of the brain, coordinated on many levels. This is the 
> footprint 
> > of where we stand. When we take a step, the footprint changes. We are 
> the 
> > leader of these brain processes, not the follower. 
>
> You completely misunderstand these experiments. 

I'm talking about *every experiment* that has been done. There is nothing 
to misunderstand. When I change my mind, through my own thought or though 
some image or suggestion, that change is reflected as a passive consequence 
of the macro-level event. I am not at the mercy of the cellular agendas of 
my brain - I can think about all kinds of things. I can take drugs to 
further impose my high level agenda on low level neurology.

> Please read about 
> excitable cells before commenting further. The following online 
> articles seem quite good. The third is about spontaneous neuronal 
> activity. 
>
>
> http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/E/ExcitableCells.html 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_potential 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_oscillation 
>

Yeah, I know about all of this stuff. 

> >> Cells don't defy entropy and planes don't defy gravity.

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-29 Thread John Mikes

*Bruno*, I cannot keep up with argumentation that includes opposites to ALL
tenets previously stated. Who knows what kind of *'hardwire"* does a brain
have (I mean: not the physiological tissue-construct, but the complex brain*
function* also called 'brain). Anatomists, physiologists, neurologists and
other conservative scientists know only peripheral characteristics and
details.
 The "hard problem" functionality (mentality etc.) is still in our dreams.
We (I at least) have not cracked (yet?) YOUR  *'universal machine'*thinking.

If* Stathis* guesses that Lucy used only ~0,1% of her (available?) mental
capabilities (=hardware) in HER lifestyle, I don't think 99.9% of her
brain-hardware was unused and was a mere filling to her skull. That would
not click with nature's so far observed economy. That also would not jibe
with the development of new species with increased capabilities from the
simpler ones in their ancestors.
Development seems to work in concerted steps - one requirement brings about
another one that helps - and so on. And this - IMO - is  *B O T H
*hardware and software, the discerned two components which I consider our
human artifacts - borrowed from our primitive, embryonic binary kraxlwerk
computer - rather than being original distinctions (terms?) of the infinite
natural complexity.

*Question to Bruno*: can *YOU* 'reprogram' a universal computer? does it
have a closed (though maybe immense) finite hardware and a changeable
software?

John M

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 11:37 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> John,
>
> A fixed universal machine (some hardwired one, like a brain or a laptop)
> can emulate a self-modifying universal machine, even one which modifies
> itself "completely".
>
> Bruno
>
>
> On 26 Oct 2012, at 23:08, John Mikes wrote:
>
> Stathis:
>
> IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the
> programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while
> (SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts
> 'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the sciences?) -
> accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources beyond it's given
> "hardware" content.
>
> John M
>
> On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou 
> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder would
>> all
>> > be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the computer
>> itself
>> > rather than the programming, that would be a good sign.
>>
>> A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy
>> its programming. What you do when you program a computer, at the basic
>> level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware
>> can then only move into future physical states consistent with that
>> configuration. "Defying its programming" would mean doing something
>> *not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics.
>> That's not possible for  - and you have explicitly agreed with this,
>> saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a
>> computer or a human.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>
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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-11-01 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 3:44 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

I'm talking about *every experiment* that has been done. There is nothing
> to misunderstand. When I change my mind, through my own thought or though
> some image or suggestion, that change is reflected as a passive consequence
> of the macro-level event. I am not at the mercy of the cellular agendas of
> my brain - I can think about all kinds of things. I can take drugs to
> further impose my high level agenda on low level neurology.
>

You are at the mercy of the cellular agendas of your brain unless you
believe there is a magical effect of consciousness on matter. How else can
I try to explain this? It appears that you are bamboozled by complex
systems, so that even if each simple interaction is understandable
individually you imagine that something mysterious might be happening if
you can't hold all of the interactions in your mind at once. To eliminate
this difficulty, consider a very simple system that manifests
consciousness. Suppose it has only two components, like two billiard balls.
The components could have whatever special qualities are required for
consciousness. For example, the balls could have evolved naturally as part
of a larger organism. When these balls bounce off each other, consciousness
is implemented. Now, the trajectory of these balls is determined completely
by such factors as their position, mass, velocity, elasticity, air density,
gravitational field, and so on. And as they go about their business
bouncing around, consciousness of a basic kind is generated. As they are
moving towards each other the ball system is thinking of the number 3, but
when they hit and bounce apart it changes its mind and thinks of the number
2. Now, would you say the balls bounced apart because the system decided to
think of the number 2, or would you say the system decided to think of the
number 2 because the balls bounced apart?

The question was about two identical computers, one made in a factory,
>> the other assembled with fantastic luck from raw materials moving
>> about randomly. Will there be any difference in the functioning or
>> consciousness (or lack of it) of the two computers?
>>
>
> Yes. We have no way of knowing whether the self-assembly is due to luck or
> not, so we have to give it the benefit of the doubt. The computer made in
> the factory is subject to the opposite bias, since we know precisely how it
> was fabricated and that it was made for the purpose of simulating
> consciousness. If asked to choose between a known pathological liar who
> claims to be telling the truth, and someone who has never claimed to be
> telling the truth, all things being equal, we have to give the benefit of
> the doubt to the latter, as we have no reason to expect deceit from them.
>

You haven't answered the question. The spontaneously formed computer is
*exactly the same* as the manufactured one. I give you what is apparently a
brand new iPhone 5, complete with the inscription "Designed by Apple in
California, assembled in China." You turn it on and it searches for a WiFi
network, asks you if you want to set it up as a new phone, asks for your
Apple ID, and eventually the home screen appears with the familiar icons. I
then inform you that this phone was formed spontaneously in a distant
galaxy and arrived on Earth after being ejected by a supernova explosion
billions of years ago. You disassemble it and determine that in every
respect it seems the same as a phone from the factory. Do you still think
that this phone would have different experiences purely because of its
origin?

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Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-11-01 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Thursday, November 1, 2012 8:43:07 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 3:44 AM, Craig Weinberg 
> 
> > wrote:
>
> I'm talking about *every experiment* that has been done. There is nothing 
>> to misunderstand. When I change my mind, through my own thought or though 
>> some image or suggestion, that change is reflected as a passive consequence 
>> of the macro-level event. I am not at the mercy of the cellular agendas of 
>> my brain - I can think about all kinds of things. I can take drugs to 
>> further impose my high level agenda on low level neurology.
>>
>
> You are at the mercy of the cellular agendas of your brain unless you 
> believe there is a magical effect of consciousness on matter. 
>

I am at the mercy of the cellular agendas of my brain - absolutely, but the 
cells of my brain are, in some cases, at the mercy of my agenda. If I want 
to stay awake all night playing with some interesting toy, my circadian 
rhythms are going to have to wait, for a while anyways.

 

> How else can I try to explain this?
>

You have already explained it over and over. You aren't listening to me. I 
understand every bit of your argument. It is my argument that you don't 
understand. I used to believe what you believe. I know better now. You have 
nothing to teach me. Your choices are to listen, not to listen, or bang 
your head against the wall telling me what I already know.
 

> It appears that you are bamboozled by complex systems,
>

Nope. You are projecting stupidity onto me because your ego can't tolerate 
my disagreement with you.
 

> so that even if each simple interaction is understandable individually you 
> imagine that something mysterious might be happening if you can't hold all 
> of the interactions in your mind at once. To eliminate this difficulty, 
> consider a very simple system that manifests consciousness. Suppose it has 
> only two components, like two billiard balls. The components could have 
> whatever special qualities are required for consciousness. For example, the 
> balls could have evolved naturally as part of a larger organism. When these 
> balls bounce off each other, consciousness is implemented. Now, the 
> trajectory of these balls is determined completely by such factors as their 
> position, mass, velocity, elasticity, air density, gravitational field, and 
> so on. And as they go about their business bouncing around, consciousness 
> of a basic kind is generated. As they are moving towards each other the 
> ball system is thinking of the number 3, but when they hit and bounce apart 
> it changes its mind and thinks of the number 2. Now, would you say the 
> balls bounced apart because the system decided to think of the number 2, or 
> would you say the system decided to think of the number 2 because the balls 
> bounced apart?
>

The difference between A) Balls bouncing because the system thought of a 
number and B) The system thought of a number because balls bounce is a 
matter of how the system interprets itself. Neither are primitively real. 
Consciousness is the capacity to discern different categories of realism. 
You dramatically underestimate the extent to which consciousness defines 
the universe. It is total.



> The question was about two identical computers, one made in a factory, 
>>> the other assembled with fantastic luck from raw materials moving 
>>> about randomly. Will there be any difference in the functioning or 
>>> consciousness (or lack of it) of the two computers? 
>>>
>>
>> Yes. We have no way of knowing whether the self-assembly is due to luck 
>> or not, so we have to give it the benefit of the doubt. The computer made 
>> in the factory is subject to the opposite bias, since we know precisely how 
>> it was fabricated and that it was made for the purpose of simulating 
>> consciousness. If asked to choose between a known pathological liar who 
>> claims to be telling the truth, and someone who has never claimed to be 
>> telling the truth, all things being equal, we have to give the benefit of 
>> the doubt to the latter, as we have no reason to expect deceit from them.
>>
>
> You haven't answered the question. The spontaneously formed computer is 
> *exactly the same* as the manufactured one.
>

You are begging the question. I am saying that it is an ontological 
impossibility. Each event is a particular unrepeatable event in the history 
of the cosmos on some level. 
 

> I give you what is apparently a brand new iPhone 5, complete with 
> the inscription "Designed by Apple in California, assembled in China." You 
> turn it on and it searches for a WiFi network, asks you if you want to set 
> it up as a new phone, asks for your Apple ID, and eventually the home 
> screen appears with the familiar icons. I then inform you that this phone 
> was formed spontaneously in a distant galaxy and arrived on Earth after 
> being ejected by a supernova explosion billions of years ago. 
> You disassemble it and determine that

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-11-01 Thread meekerdb


On 11/1/2012 8:19 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
You have already explained it over and over. You aren't listening to me. I understand 
every bit of your argument. It is my argument that you don't understand. I used to 
believe what you believe. I know better now. 


The question is how do you know this.  All I've seen are assertions about what computers 
will never be able to do - which is not evidence for much of anything.


Brent

You have nothing to teach me. Your choices are to listen, not to listen, or bang your 
head against the wall telling me what I already know.


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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-11-01 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

>
>
> On Thursday, November 1, 2012 8:43:07 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 3:44 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>
>> I'm talking about *every experiment* that has been done. There is nothing
>>> to misunderstand. When I change my mind, through my own thought or though
>>> some image or suggestion, that change is reflected as a passive consequence
>>> of the macro-level event. I am not at the mercy of the cellular agendas of
>>> my brain - I can think about all kinds of things. I can take drugs to
>>> further impose my high level agenda on low level neurology.
>>>
>>
>> You are at the mercy of the cellular agendas of your brain unless you
>> believe there is a magical effect of consciousness on matter.
>>
>
> I am at the mercy of the cellular agendas of my brain - absolutely, but
> the cells of my brain are, in some cases, at the mercy of my agenda. If I
> want to stay awake all night playing with some interesting toy, my
> circadian rhythms are going to have to wait, for a while anyways.
>

But you can't stay awake unless your hardware allows it. You can't decide
to do anything unless your brain goes into the particular configuration
consistent with that decision, and the movement into that configuration is
determined by physical factors. The experiential aspect of it is completely
invisible to a scientist examining your brain.


> How else can I try to explain this?
>>
>
> You have already explained it over and over. You aren't listening to me. I
> understand every bit of your argument. It is my argument that you don't
> understand. I used to believe what you believe. I know better now. You have
> nothing to teach me. Your choices are to listen, not to listen, or bang
> your head against the wall telling me what I already know.
>
>
>> It appears that you are bamboozled by complex systems,
>>
>
> Nope. You are projecting stupidity onto me because your ego can't tolerate
> my disagreement with you.
>

It's not stupidity, it's impossible for a normal human to hold in his mind
the entire complex workings of a brain.


>  so that even if each simple interaction is understandable individually
>> you imagine that something mysterious might be happening if you can't hold
>> all of the interactions in your mind at once. To eliminate this difficulty,
>> consider a very simple system that manifests consciousness. Suppose it has
>> only two components, like two billiard balls. The components could have
>> whatever special qualities are required for consciousness. For example, the
>> balls could have evolved naturally as part of a larger organism. When these
>> balls bounce off each other, consciousness is implemented. Now, the
>> trajectory of these balls is determined completely by such factors as their
>> position, mass, velocity, elasticity, air density, gravitational field, and
>> so on. And as they go about their business bouncing around, consciousness
>> of a basic kind is generated. As they are moving towards each other the
>> ball system is thinking of the number 3, but when they hit and bounce apart
>> it changes its mind and thinks of the number 2. Now, would you say the
>> balls bounced apart because the system decided to think of the number 2, or
>> would you say the system decided to think of the number 2 because the balls
>> bounced apart?
>>
>
> The difference between A) Balls bouncing because the system thought of a
> number and B) The system thought of a number because balls bounce is a
> matter of how the system interprets itself. Neither are primitively real.
> Consciousness is the capacity to discern different categories of realism.
> You dramatically underestimate the extent to which consciousness defines
> the universe. It is total.
>

The ball system believes that the bouncing apart happened because of its
decision. That is the nature of conscious systems: even if they are able to
see their own internal workings they still have the feeling "I did it
because I wanted to". Which is true, I did do it because I wanted to, but
the wanting, the decision and the action are all caused by the physical
processes.


>  The question was about two identical computers, one made in a factory,
 the other assembled with fantastic luck from raw materials moving
 about randomly. Will there be any difference in the functioning or
 consciousness (or lack of it) of the two computers?

>>>
>>> Yes. We have no way of knowing whether the self-assembly is due to luck
>>> or not, so we have to give it the benefit of the doubt. The computer made
>>> in the factory is subject to the opposite bias, since we know precisely how
>>> it was fabricated and that it was made for the purpose of simulating
>>> consciousness. If asked to choose between a known pathological liar who
>>> claims to be telling the truth, and someone who has never claimed to be
>>> telling the truth, all things being equal, we have to give the benefit of
>>> the

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-11-01 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Thursday, November 1, 2012 10:03:18 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>
> On 11/1/2012 8:19 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
> > You have already explained it over and over. You aren't listening to me. 
> I understand 
> > every bit of your argument. It is my argument that you don't understand. 
> I used to 
> > believe what you believe. I know better now. 
>
> The question is how do you know this.  All I've seen are assertions about 
> what computers 
> will never be able to do - which is not evidence for much of anything. 
>

I don't know it, I understand it. My understanding could be incorrect, but 
I have seen no reason to suspect that so far. My purpose is not to make 
assertions about what computers will never be able to do, it is to present 
a framework for the organization of consciousness in the universe. The fact 
that computers thus far are no more sentient than other machines (something 
which should be and would be obvious to anyone not enthralled with science 
fiction religiosity about AI) makes sense in my framework, given that 
qualities of participation and perception accumulate through experience 
itself and cannot be imported from a completely foreign context. My model 
suggests that most physical qualities can only be experienced first hand 
from the inside out, so that a device built entirely on exterior qualities 
(positions in space) has no chance of accidentally reproducing an 
interiority which has developed longitudinally through time as sense 
experience.

Craig

> Brent 
>
> > You have nothing to teach me. Your choices are to listen, not to listen, 
> or bang your 
> > head against the wall telling me what I already know. 
>
>

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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-11-01 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Thursday, November 1, 2012 10:03:21 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> 
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, November 1, 2012 8:43:07 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 3:44 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm talking about *every experiment* that has been done. There is 
 nothing to misunderstand. When I change my mind, through my own thought or 
 though some image or suggestion, that change is reflected as a passive 
 consequence of the macro-level event. I am not at the mercy of the 
 cellular 
 agendas of my brain - I can think about all kinds of things. I can take 
 drugs to further impose my high level agenda on low level neurology.

>>>
>>> You are at the mercy of the cellular agendas of your brain unless you 
>>> believe there is a magical effect of consciousness on matter. 
>>>
>>
>> I am at the mercy of the cellular agendas of my brain - absolutely, but 
>> the cells of my brain are, in some cases, at the mercy of my agenda. If I 
>> want to stay awake all night playing with some interesting toy, my 
>> circadian rhythms are going to have to wait, for a while anyways.
>>
>
> But you can't stay awake unless your hardware allows it. 
>

So what? I can't shoot a gun unless the trigger works. Does that mean I'm 
not shooting the gun by pulling the trigger?
 

> You can't decide to do anything unless your brain goes into the particular 
> configuration consistent with that decision, and the movement into that 
> configuration is determined by physical factors. 
>

The movement of the molecules of your brain *is* your decision. That's what 
I am telling you but you won't see it. You are only able to see it as a one 
way street which makes no sense. What you are saying is like 'water is ice 
but ice is not water'. If I feel something when something happens in my 
brain, then that means that whatever happens in my brain is also an event 
in the universe when something is felt. That means molecules feel and see. 
You could say that groups of molecules feel and see, and that's ok too, but 
you think it's the 'groupiness' that sees and not the physical reality of 
the molecules themselves. I am saying that there is no independent 
groupiness... it is a fantasy. Incorrect. 

What this means is that molecules as we see them are not the whole story, 
just as the brain and its actions are not the whole story. We are the other 
half of the story and we are not made of neurotransmitters or cells any 
more than a song we make up is our body. Two different ontological schemas. 
Two opposite schemas twisted orthogonally by the private time to public 
space juxtaposition.
 

> The experiential aspect of it is completely invisible to a 
> scientist examining your brain.
>  
>
>> How else can I try to explain this?
>>>
>>
>> You have already explained it over and over. You aren't listening to me. 
>> I understand every bit of your argument. It is my argument that you don't 
>> understand. I used to believe what you believe. I know better now. You have 
>> nothing to teach me. Your choices are to listen, not to listen, or bang 
>> your head against the wall telling me what I already know.
>>  
>>
>>> It appears that you are bamboozled by complex systems,
>>>
>>
>> Nope. You are projecting stupidity onto me because your ego can't 
>> tolerate my disagreement with you.
>>
>
> It's not stupidity, it's impossible for a normal human to hold in his mind 
> the entire complex workings of a brain.
>

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by  "It appears that you are 
bamboozled by complex systems".

 
>
>>  so that even if each simple interaction is understandable individually 
>>> you imagine that something mysterious might be happening if you can't hold 
>>> all of the interactions in your mind at once. To eliminate this difficulty, 
>>> consider a very simple system that manifests consciousness. Suppose it has 
>>> only two components, like two billiard balls. The components could have 
>>> whatever special qualities are required for consciousness. For example, the 
>>> balls could have evolved naturally as part of a larger organism. When these 
>>> balls bounce off each other, consciousness is implemented. Now, the 
>>> trajectory of these balls is determined completely by such factors as their 
>>> position, mass, velocity, elasticity, air density, gravitational field, and 
>>> so on. And as they go about their business bouncing around, consciousness 
>>> of a basic kind is generated. As they are moving towards each other the 
>>> ball system is thinking of the number 3, but when they hit and bounce apart 
>>> it changes its mind and thinks of the number 2. Now, would you say the 
>>> balls bounced apart because the system decided to think of the number 2, or 
>>> would you say the system decided to think of the number 2 because the balls 
>>> bounced apart?
>>>
>>
>> The difference between A) Balls bouncing because

Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-11-02 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 2:51 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

> But you can't stay awake unless your hardware allows it.
>>
>
> So what? I can't shoot a gun unless the trigger works. Does that mean I'm
> not shooting the gun by pulling the trigger?
>

You are external to the gun, but you are not external to your brain unless
substance dualism is true.

>
> You can't decide to do anything unless your brain goes into the particular
>> configuration consistent with that decision, and the movement into that
>> configuration is determined by physical factors.
>>
>
> The movement of the molecules of your brain *is* your decision. That's
> what I am telling you but you won't see it. You are only able to see it as
> a one way street which makes no sense. What you are saying is like 'water
> is ice but ice is not water'. If I feel something when something happens in
> my brain, then that means that whatever happens in my brain is also an
> event in the universe when something is felt. That means molecules feel and
> see. You could say that groups of molecules feel and see, and that's ok
> too, but you think it's the 'groupiness' that sees and not the physical
> reality of the molecules themselves. I am saying that there is no
> independent groupiness... it is a fantasy. Incorrect.
>

That the movement of the molecules of your brain *is* the decision is
eliminative materialism, or perhaps epiphenomenalism. In any case, the
behaviour of the molecules is entirely consistent with chemistry. An ion
channel opens because it changes conformation due to neurotransmitters
binding to it or the transmembrane voltage. Any subjectivity it may have
does not enter into the equation.

> What this means is that molecules as we see them are not the whole story,
> just as the brain and its actions are not the whole story. We are the other
> half of the story and we are not made of neurotransmitters or cells any
> more than a song we make up is our body. Two different ontological schemas.
> Two opposite schemas twisted orthogonally by the private time to public
> space juxtaposition.
>

That may be, but the molecules *entirely* determine the behaviour of the
brain. If you know chemistry and you know what molecule is where, you know
what chemical reactions will occur, and if you know that you know how the
person is going to move. You don't know about the person's subjectivity,
but you do know about his behaviour.

> My phone has a one year guarantee, so that it if it fails and can't be
>> repaired Apple will replace it with an identical phone. Are they opening
>> themselves up to legal challenge if this is ontologically impossible?
>>
>
> I would imagine that their legal department has defined 'identical' in a
> commercially feasible way. They can probably send you a phone with similar
> but not identical parts even. If you look at the serial numbers in your
> replacement phone, you will readily see that identical is not to be taken
> absolutely literally. 'Similar enough for you' is what they mean.
>

That is the sort of identity I am interested in if the phone is to be
replaced: if it is different in some way I can't detect in normal use I
don't care. Similarly if I were to have parts of my body replaced: if I
can't tell any difference after a few days, that's good enough for me.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-11-02 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Friday, November 2, 2012 8:18:29 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 2:51 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> 
> > wrote:
>  
>
>> But you can't stay awake unless your hardware allows it. 
>>>
>>
>> So what? I can't shoot a gun unless the trigger works. Does that mean I'm 
>> not shooting the gun by pulling the trigger?
>>
>
> You are external to the gun, but you are not external to your brain unless 
> substance dualism is true.
>

The problem with substance dualism is that it is redundant and has an 
infinite regress problem connecting the two substances. With dual aspect 
monism, you don't have those issues so that I can be internal to my brain 
in some senses, external to my brain in some senses, both internal and 
external in some senses, and neither internal and external in some senses. 

Regardless though, even if we said that the sense in which you are 
literally internal to the brain of this moment also necessarily means that 
your brain is identical to you. It has to be a two way street. 

It is completely arbitrary to privilege the spatial-object description of 
the phenomenon and marginalize the temporal-subject description. It's like 
saying that a movie exists entirely because there are pixels changing. It 
is not true. Movies exist because humans make them to tell stories to each 
other, and the pixels are there to help tell that storytelling. 

This is the primordial relation of all nature. It gets complicated, and as 
human beings we are equal parts personal story sequences and impersonal 
non-story consequences, but nevertheless, it is ultimately the story which 
is driving the bus. The coin has two sides, but the heads side is the side 
of the 'genuine leader'.

>
>>
>> You can't decide to do anything unless your brain goes into the 
>>> particular configuration consistent with that decision, and the 
>>> movement into that configuration is determined by physical factors. 
>>>
>>
>> The movement of the molecules of your brain *is* your decision. That's 
>> what I am telling you but you won't see it. You are only able to see it as 
>> a one way street which makes no sense. What you are saying is like 'water 
>> is ice but ice is not water'. If I feel something when something happens in 
>> my brain, then that means that whatever happens in my brain is also an 
>> event in the universe when something is felt. That means molecules feel and 
>> see. You could say that groups of molecules feel and see, and that's ok 
>> too, but you think it's the 'groupiness' that sees and not the physical 
>> reality of the molecules themselves. I am saying that there is no 
>> independent groupiness... it is a fantasy. Incorrect. 
>>
>
> That the movement of the molecules of your brain *is* the decision is 
> eliminative materialism, or perhaps epiphenomenalism. 
>

No, your view has it upside down. The mindset which generates that view is 
so absolutely biased that it cannot conceive of turning this simple picture 
right side up. 

If something looks like particles moving on the outside but feels like 
remembering a fishing trip on the inside, that doesn't mean that the memory 
is the epiphenomenon. The memory is the whole point of the particles. They 
have nothing else to do sitting in your skull but to provide the grunt work 
of organizing your access to your own human experiences. 

It is not eliminative materialism to say that object and subject are the 
same thing from different views, it is dual aspect monism. When I say 
'there are two sides to this coin', your mind keeps responding 'but coins 
are tails'. He keeps looking at the universe from an external perspective 
and then projecting that world of objects-within-objects as some kind of 
explanation of the subject who he actually is. My view is that it cannot 
work that way.

> In any case, the behaviour of the molecules is entirely consistent with 
> chemistry. An ion channel opens because it changes conformation due to 
> neurotransmitters binding to it or the transmembrane voltage. Any 
> subjectivity it may have does not enter into the equation.
>  
>
>> What this means is that molecules as we see them are not the whole story, 
>> just as the brain and its actions are not the whole story. We are the other 
>> half of the story and we are not made of neurotransmitters or cells any 
>> more than a song we make up is our body. Two different ontological schemas. 
>> Two opposite schemas twisted orthogonally by the private time to public 
>> space juxtaposition.
>>
>
> That may be, but the molecules *entirely* determine the behaviour of the 
> brain. 
>

When I say the words "bright blue liquid" I have changed the behavior of 
the molecules of your brain *entirely*. It was not anything but my 
intention to write these words to you which made that change. Your brain, 
it's neurons and molecules dutifully *follow* my commands from across the 
internet with no biochemistry connecting us whatsoever. The reasoning you 
are using is ci

Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-18 Thread Roger Clough

Hi Bruno Marchal 

 I think you can tell is 1p isn't just a shell
by trying to converse with it. If it can
converse, it's got a mind of its own.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/18/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Bruno Marchal  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-17, 13:36:13 
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 


On 17 Oct 2012, at 13:07, Roger Clough wrote: 

> Hi Bruno 
> 
> Solipsism is a property of 1p= Firstness = subjectivity 

OK. And non solipsism is about attributing 1p to others, which needs  
some independent 3p reality you can bet one, for not being only part  
of yourself. Be it a God, or a physical universe, or an arithmetical  
reality. 

Bruno 




> 
> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
> 10/17/2012 
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
> 
> 
> - Receiving the following content - 
> From: Alberto G. Corona 
> Receiver: everything-list 
> Time: 2012-10-16, 09:55:41 
> Subject: Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of "as if"  
> rather than"is" 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2012/10/11 Bruno Marchal 
> 
> 
> On 10 Oct 2012, at 20:13, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 
> 
> 
> 2012/10/10 Bruno Marchal : 
> 
> 
> On 09 Oct 2012, at 18:58, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 
> 
> 
> It may be a zombie or not. I can? know. 
> 
> The same applies to other persons. It may be that the world is made of 
> zombie-actors that try to cheat me, but I have an harcoded belief in 
> the conventional thing. ? Maybe it is, because otherwise, I will act 
> in strange and self destructive ways. I would act as a paranoic, after 
> that, as a psycopath (since they are not humans). That will not be 
> good for my success in society. Then, ? doubt that I will have any 
> surviving descendant that will develop a zombie-solipsist 
> epistemology. 
> 
> However there are people that believe these strange things. Some 
> autists do not recognize humans as beings like him. Some psychopaths 
> too, in a different way. There is no authistic or psichopathic 
> epistemology because the are not functional enough to make societies 
> with universities and philosophers. That is the whole point of 
> evolutionary epistemology. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If comp leads to solipsism, I will apply for being a plumber. 
> 
> I don't bet or believe in solipsism. 
> 
> But you were saying "that a *conscious* robot" can lack a soul. See  
> the 
> quote just below. 
> 
> That is what I don't understand. 
> 
> Bruno 
> 
> 
> 
> I think that It is not comp what leads to solipsism but any 
> existential stance that only accept what is certain and discard what 
> is only belief based on ?onjectures. 
> 
> It can go no further than ?"cogito ergo sum" 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> OK. But that has nothing to do with comp. That would conflate the 8  
> person points in only one of them (the "feeler, probably). Only the  
> feeler is that solipsist, at the level were he feels, but the  
> machine's self manage all different points of view, and the living  
> solipsist (each of us) is not mandate to defend the solipsist  
> doctrine (he is the only one existing)/ he is the only one he can  
> feel, that's all. That does not imply the non existence of others  
> and other things. 
> 
> 
> That pressuposes a lot of things that I have not for granted. I have  
> to accept my beliefs as such beliefs to be at the same time rational  
> and functional. With respect to the others consciousness, being  
> humans or robots, I can only have faith. No matter if I accept that  
> this is a matter of faith or not. 
> ? 
> I still don't see what you mean by consciousness without a soul. 
> 
> Bruno 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2012/10/9 Bruno Marchal : 
> 
> 
> 
> On 09 Oct 2012, at 13:29, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 
> 
> 
> But still after this reasoning, ? doubt that the self conscious 
> philosopher robot have the kind of thing, call it a soul, that I have. 
> 
> 
> ? 
> 
> You mean it is a zombie? 
> 
> I can't conceive consciousness without a soul. Even if only the  
> universal 
> one. 
> So I am not sure what you mean by soul. 
> 
> Bruno 
> 
> 
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 
> 
> 
> 
> --  
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google  
> Groups 
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> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. 
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-20 Thread Roger Clough

Hi Bruno Marchal  


I think if you converse with a real person, he has to 
have a body or at least vocal chords or the ability to write.

As to conversing (interacting) with a computer, not sure, but doubtful:
for example how could it taste a glass of wine to tell good wine
from bad ? Same is true of a candidate possible zombie person.

 
Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/20/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Bruno Marchal  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-19, 14:09:59 
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 


On 18 Oct 2012, at 20:05, Roger Clough wrote: 

> Hi Bruno Marchal 
> 
> I think you can tell is 1p isn't just a shell 
> by trying to converse with it. If it can 
> converse, it's got a mind of its own. 

I agree with. It has mind, and its has a soul (but he has no "real"  
bodies. I can argue this follows from comp). 

When you attribute 1p to another, you attribute to a "shell" to  
manifest a soul or a first person, a knower. 

Above a treshold of complexity, or reflexivity, (L?ianity), a  
universal number get a bigger inside view than what he can ever see  
outside. 

Bruno 






> 
> 
> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
> 10/18/2012 
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
> 
> 
> - Receiving the following content - 
> From: Bruno Marchal 
> Receiver: everything-list 
> Time: 2012-10-17, 13:36:13 
> Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 
> 
> 
> On 17 Oct 2012, at 13:07, Roger Clough wrote: 
> 
>> Hi Bruno 
>> 
>> Solipsism is a property of 1p= Firstness = subjectivity 
> 
> OK. And non solipsism is about attributing 1p to others, which needs 
> some independent 3p reality you can bet one, for not being only part 
> of yourself. Be it a God, or a physical universe, or an arithmetical 
> reality. 
> 
> Bruno 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
>> 10/17/2012 
>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
>> 
>> 
>> - Receiving the following content - 
>> From: Alberto G. Corona 
>> Receiver: everything-list 
>> Time: 2012-10-16, 09:55:41 
>> Subject: Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of "as if" 
>> rather than"is" 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 2012/10/11 Bruno Marchal 
>> 
>> 
>> On 10 Oct 2012, at 20:13, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 
>> 
>> 
>> 2012/10/10 Bruno Marchal : 
>> 
>> 
>> On 09 Oct 2012, at 18:58, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 
>> 
>> 
>> It may be a zombie or not. I can? know. 
>> 
>> The same applies to other persons. It may be that the world is made  
>> of 
>> zombie-actors that try to cheat me, but I have an harcoded belief in 
>> the conventional thing. ? Maybe it is, because otherwise, I will act 
>> in strange and self destructive ways. I would act as a paranoic,  
>> after 
>> that, as a psycopath (since they are not humans). That will not be 
>> good for my success in society. Then, ? doubt that I will have any 
>> surviving descendant that will develop a zombie-solipsist 
>> epistemology. 
>> 
>> However there are people that believe these strange things. Some 
>> autists do not recognize humans as beings like him. Some psychopaths 
>> too, in a different way. There is no authistic or psichopathic 
>> epistemology because the are not functional enough to make societies 
>> with universities and philosophers. That is the whole point of 
>> evolutionary epistemology. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> If comp leads to solipsism, I will apply for being a plumber. 
>> 
>> I don't bet or believe in solipsism. 
>> 
>> But you were saying "that a *conscious* robot" can lack a soul. See 
>> the 
>> quote just below. 
>> 
>> That is what I don't understand. 
>> 
>> Bruno 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I think that It is not comp what leads to solipsism but any 
>> existential stance that only accept what is certain and discard what 
>> is only belief based on ?onjectures. 
>> 
>> It can go no further than ?"cogito ergo sum" 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> OK. But that has nothing to do with comp. That would conflate the 8 
>> person points in only one of them (the "feeler, probably). Only the 
>> feeler is that solipsist, at the level were he feels, but the 
>> machine's self manage all different points of view, and the living 
>> s

Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-21 Thread Roger Clough



On 20 Oct 2012, at 13:55, Roger Clough wrote: 

> Hi Bruno Marchal 
> 
> 
> I think if you converse with a real person, he has to 
> have a body or at least vocal chords or the ability to write. 

BRUNO:  Not necessarily. Its brain can be in vat, and then I talk to him by  
giving him a virtual body in a virtual environnement. 

I can also, in principle talk with only its brain, by sending the  
message through the hearing peripherical system, or with the cerebral  
stem, and decoding the nervous path acting on the motor vocal cords. 

ROGER: I forget what my gripe was.  This sounds OK.

> 
> As to conversing (interacting) with a computer, not sure, but  
> doubtful: 
> for example how could it taste a glass of wine to tell good wine 
> from bad ? 

BRUNO: I just answered this. Machines becomes better than human in smelling  
and tasting, but plausibly far from dogs and cats competence. 

ROGER:  OK, but computers can't experience anything,
it would be simulated experience.  Not arbitrarily available.


> Same is true of a candidate possible zombie person. 

BRUNO:  Keep in mind that zombie, here, is a technical term. By definition it  
behaves like a human. No humans at all can tell the difference. Only  
God knows, if you want. 

ROGER: I  claim that it is impossible for any kind of zombie
that has no mind to act like a human. IMHO  that would
be an absurdity, because without a mind you cannot know
anything.  You would run into walls, for example, and
couldn't know what to do in any event. Etc. 
You couldn't understand language.

Bruno 



> 
> 
> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
> 10/20/2012 
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
> 
> 
> - Receiving the following content - 
> From: Bruno Marchal 
> Receiver: everything-list 
> Time: 2012-10-19, 14:09:59 
> Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 
> 
> 
> On 18 Oct 2012, at 20:05, Roger Clough wrote: 
> 
>> Hi Bruno Marchal 
>> 
>> I think you can tell is 1p isn't just a shell 
>> by trying to converse with it. If it can 
>> converse, it's got a mind of its own. 
> 
> I agree with. It has mind, and its has a soul (but he has no "real" 
> bodies. I can argue this follows from comp). 
> 
> When you attribute 1p to another, you attribute to a "shell" to 
> manifest a soul or a first person, a knower. 
> 
> Above a treshold of complexity, or reflexivity, (L?ianity), a 
> universal number get a bigger inside view than what he can ever see 
> outside. 
> 
> Bruno 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
>> 10/18/2012 
>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
>> 
>> 
>> - Receiving the following content - 
>> From: Bruno Marchal 
>> Receiver: everything-list 
>> Time: 2012-10-17, 13:36:13 
>> Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 
>> 
>> 
>> On 17 Oct 2012, at 13:07, Roger Clough wrote: 
>> 
>>> Hi Bruno 
>>> 
>>> Solipsism is a property of 1p= Firstness = subjectivity 
>> 
>> OK. And non solipsism is about attributing 1p to others, which needs 
>> some independent 3p reality you can bet one, for not being only part 
>> of yourself. Be it a God, or a physical universe, or an arithmetical 
>> reality. 
>> 
>> Bruno 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
>>> 10/17/2012 
>>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> - Receiving the following content - 
>>> From: Alberto G. Corona 
>>> Receiver: everything-list 
>>> Time: 2012-10-16, 09:55:41 
>>> Subject: Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of "as if" 
>>> rather than"is" 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2012/10/11 Bruno Marchal 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 10 Oct 2012, at 20:13, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2012/10/10 Bruno Marchal : 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 09 Oct 2012, at 18:58, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> It may be a zombie or not. I can? know. 
>>> 
>>> The same applies to other persons. It may be that the world is made 
>>> of 
>>> zombie-actors that try to cheat me, but I have an harcoded belief in 
>>> the conventional thing. ? Maybe it is, because otherwise, I will act 
>>> in strange and self destructive ways. I would act as a paranoic, 
>>> after 
>>> that, as a psycop

Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-21 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Sunday, October 21, 2012 3:39:11 PM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
>
>
>
> BRUNO:  Keep in mind that zombie, here, is a technical term. By definition 
> it   
> behaves like a human. No humans at all can tell the difference. Only   
> God knows, if you want. 
>
> ROGER: I  claim that it is impossible for any kind of zombie 
> that has no mind to act like a human. IMHO  that would 
> be an absurdity, because without a mind you cannot know 
> anything.  You would run into walls, for example, and 
> couldn't know what to do in any event. Etc. 
> You couldn't understand language. 
>
>
Roger I agree that your intuition is right - a philosophical zombie cannot 
exist in reality, but not for the reasons you are coming up with. Anything 
can be programmed to act like a human in some level of description. A 
scarecrow may act like a human in the eyes of a crow - well enough that it 
might be less likely to land nearby. You can make robots which won't run 
into walls or chatbots which respond to some range of vocabulary and 
sentence construction. The idea behind philosophical zombies is that we 
assume that there is nothing stopping us in theory from assembling all of 
the functions of a human being as a single machine, and that such a 
machine, it is thought, will either have the some kind of human-like 
experience or else it would have to have no experience.

The absent qualia, fading qualia paper is about a thought experiment which 
tries to take the latter scenario seriously from the point of view of a 
person who is having their brain gradually taken over by these substitute 
sub-brain functional units. Would they see blue as being less and less blue 
as more of their brain is replaced, or would blue just suddenly disappear 
at some point? Each one seems absurd given that the sum of the remaining 
brain functions plus the sum of the replaced brain functions, must, by 
definition of the thought experiment, equal no change in observed behavior.

This is my response to this thought experiment to Stathis:

*Stathis: In a thought experiment we can say that the imitation stimulates 
the *
*surrounding neurons in the same way as the original.* 

Craig: Then the thought experiment is garbage from the start. It begs the 
question. Why not just say we can have an imitation human being that 
stimulates the surrounding human beings in the same way as the original? 
Ta-da! That makes it easy. Now all we need to do is make a human being that 
stimulates their social matrix in the same way as the original and we have 
perfect AI without messing with neurons or brains at all. Just make a whole 
person out of person stuff - like as a thought experiment suppose there is 
some stuff X which makes things that human beings think is another human 
being. Like marzipan. We can put the right pheromones in it and dress it up 
nice, and according to the thought experiment, let’s say that works. 

You aren’t allowed to deny this because then you don’t understand the 
thought experiment, see? Don’t you get it? You have to accept this flawed 
pretext to have a discussion that I will engage in now. See how it works? 
Now we can talk for six or eight months about how human marzipan is 
inevitable because it wouldn’t make sense if you replaced a city gradually 
with marzipan people that New York would gradually fade into less of a New 
York or that New York becomes suddenly absent. It’s a fallacy. The premise 
screws up the result.

Craig

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Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-23 Thread Roger Clough

Hi Bruno Marchal  




> 
> ROGER: OK, but computers can't experience anything, 
> it would be simulated experience. Not arbitrarily available. 


But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of  
view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some  
theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false. 

ROGER: Simulated experience would be  objective, such
as is given by the text of a novel (knowledge by description). True 
experience is the subjective experience of the mind --knowledge 
by aquaintance. These are obviously substantially different.

BRUNO: You are right, it is not the material computer who thinks, nor the  
physical brains who thinks, it is the owner (temporarily) of the  
brain, or of the computers which does the thinking (and that can  
include a computer itself, if you let it develop beliefs). 

ROGER: I don't think so. 

The owner of the brain is the self.

But although the owner of a computer will have a 
self, so would anybody else involved in creating
the computer or software also have one.

Are trying to say that I or anybody else can cause
the computer to be conscious ? If wave collapse causes
consciousness, there are objective theories of wave collapse 
called decoherence theories which seem more realistic to me. 

But I can't seem to see how these could work on a computer. 

Roger

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Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

Hi Bruno Marchal 

Anything that the brain does is or could be experience.
For computers, experience can only be simulated because

experience = self + qualia


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/24/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Bruno Marchal  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-24, 07:37:32 
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 


On 23 Oct 2012, at 15:11, Roger Clough wrote: 

> Hi Bruno Marchal 
> 
> 
> 
>  
>> 
>> ROGER: OK, but computers can't experience anything, 
>> it would be simulated experience. Not arbitrarily available. 
> 
> 
> But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of 
> view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some 
> theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false. 
> 
> ROGER: Simulated experience would be objective, such 
> as is given by the text of a novel (knowledge by description). True 
> experience is the subjective experience of the mind --knowledge 
> by aquaintance. These are obviously substantially different. 

The term silulated experience is ambiguous, and I should not have use.  
I wiuld say that by definition of comp, simulated experience =  
experience. 




> 
> BRUNO: You are right, it is not the material computer who thinks,  
> nor the 
> physical brains who thinks, it is the owner (temporarily) of the 
> brain, or of the computers which does the thinking (and that can 
> include a computer itself, if you let it develop beliefs). 
> 
> ROGER: I don't think so. 
> 
> The owner of the brain is the self. 
> 
> But although the owner of a computer will have a 
> self, so would anybody else involved in creating 
> the computer or software also have one. 
> 
> Are trying to say that I or anybody else can cause 
> the computer to be conscious ? 

No. Only the computer, or a similar one. Actually *all* similar one  
existing in arithmetic, in their relative ways. 




> If wave collapse causes 
> consciousness, there are objective theories of wave collapse 
> called decoherence theories which seem more realistic to me. 

Decoherence needs MWI to work. 



> 
> But I can't seem to see how these could work on a computer. 

Right. the idea that consciousness cause the collapse of the wave (an  
idea which already refutes special relativity) is inconsistent with  
comp. 

Bruno 


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 



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Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

Hi Bruno Marchal  

The simulated experience is not a real experience.
OK ?


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/24/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Bruno Marchal  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-24, 08:57:19 
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 


On 23 Oct 2012, at 20:21, Stephen P. King wrote: 

> On 10/23/2012 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
>> 
>> On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
>>> 
>>> But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point  
>>> of 
>>> view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some 
>>> theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes  
>>> experience for granted. How can experience itself be simulated? 
>> 
>> The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated,  
>> neither by a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object  
>> of thought, describing compactly infinities of arithmetical  
>> relations. 
>> 
> 
> Hi Craig and Bruno, 
> 
> If the simulation by the computation is exact then the  
> simulation *is* the experience. I agree with what Bruno is saying  
> here except that that the model that Bruno is using goes to far into  
> the limit of abstraction in my opinion. 

The point is that I think we have no real choice in the matter. Also,  
for me the numbers 2 and 3 are far more concrete than a apple or a  
tree. It is just that I have a complex brain which makes me believe,  
by a vast amount of computations that a tree is something concrete. 



> 
>> 
>>> I can have an experience within which another experience is  
>>> simulated, 
>> 
>> Never. It does not make sense. You take my sentence above too much  
>> literally. Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant "simulate  
>> the context making the experience of the person, "really living in  
>> Platonia" possible to manifest itself locally. 
> 
> We can think about our thoughts. Is that not an experience  
> within another? 

OK. I would say that an emulation of an experience is equal to that  
experience. Now, just a simulation of an experience, is more like  
faking to be in love with a girl. But then you are a zombie with  
respect to the feeling of love, somehow. 



> 
>> 
>>> but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that  
>>> experience itself - *all experience* can be somehow not really  
>>> happening but instead be a non-happening that defines itself *as  
>>> if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some level of description,  
>>> something has to actually be happening. If the brain simulates  
>>> experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters  
>>> and cells? 
>> 
>> It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to  
>> its most probable computation. 
> 
> There is a difference between a single computation and a bundle  
> of computations. The brain's neurons, etc. are the physical  
> (topological space) 

Topological space are mathematical. 



> aspect of the intersection of computational bundle. They are not a  
> "separate substance". 

OK. But that remains unclear as we don't know what you assume and what  
you derive. 



> 
>> 
>>> Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no  
>>> business producing such things at all. If the world is  
>>> computation, why pretend it isn't - and how exactly is such a  
>>> pretending possible. 
>> 
>> The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is  
>> almost the complementary of computations. 
> 
> Yes, it is exactly only the content that the computations  
> generate. 

That is: views by persons. 


> 
>> That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that "anti-  
>> computation" and compare to physics. 
> 
> But, Bruno, what we obtain from comp is not a particular physics. 

It has to be. It is not a particular geography, but it has to be a  
particular physics. Physics really becomes math, with comp. There is  
only one physical reality. But it is still unknown if it is a  
multiverse, or a multi-multiverse, or a layered structure with  
different type of realm for different type of consciousness. There a  
lot of open problems, to say the least. 



> What we get is an infinite "landscape" of possible physic

Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

Hi Craig Weinberg  

No, the computer can simulate knowledge by description
but not knowledge by acquaintance that you could experience.



Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/24/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Craig Weinberg  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-23, 14:40:32 
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 




On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 2:21:30 PM UTC-4, Stephen Paul King wrote: 
On 10/23/2012 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 



On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: 




On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:  

But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of
view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some
theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false.  



This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes experience for 
granted. How can experience itself be simulated?  


The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated, neither by 
a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object of thought, describing 
compactly infinities of arithmetical relations.  



Hi Craig and Bruno, 

If the simulation by the computation is exact then the simulation *is* the 
experience.  

That's what I am saying. Nothing is being simulated, there is only a direct 
experience (even if that experience is a dream, which is only a simulation when 
compared to what the dream is not). Bruno said that the brain simulates 
experience, but it isn't clear what it is that can be more authentic than our 
own experience. 
  
I agree with what Bruno is saying here except that that the model that Bruno is 
using goes to far into the limit of abstraction in my opinion. 




I can have an experience within which another experience is simulated,  


Never. It does not make sense. You take my sentence above too much literally. 
Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant "simulate the context making the 
experience of the person, "really living in Platonia" possible to manifest 
itself locally. 

We can think about our thoughts. Is that not an experience within another?  


Right. 
  





but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that experience itself - 
*all experience* can be somehow not really happening but instead be a 
non-happening that defines itself *as if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some 
level of description, something has to actually be happening. If the brain 
simulates experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters and 
cells?  


It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to its most 
probable computation. 

There is a difference between a single computation and a bundle of 
computations. The brain's neurons, etc. are the physical (topological space) 
aspect of the intersection of computational bundle. They are not a "separate 
substance". 






Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no business 
producing such things at all. If the world is computation, why pretend it isn't 
- and how exactly is such a pretending possible. 



The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is almost the 
complementary of computations. 

Yes, it is exactly only the content that the computations generate. 


I don't think computations can generate anything. Only things can generate 
other things, and computations aren't things, they are sensorimotive narratives 
about things. I say no to enumeration without presentation. 
  



That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that "anti-computation" and 
compare to physics.  


But, Bruno, what we obtain from comp is not a particular physics. What we 
get is an infinite "landscape" of possible physics theories. 


This makes me think... if Comp were true, shouldn't we see Escher like 
anomalies of persons whose computations have evolved their own personal 
exceptions to physics? Shouldn't most of the multi-worlds be filled with people 
walking on walls or swimming through the crust of the Earth? 

Craig 
  





Bruno 




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Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

Hi Stephen P. King  

How can you know that the simulation is exact ?
Solipsim prevents that.

And who or what experiences the computer output ?


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/24/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Stephen P. King  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-23, 14:21:44 
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 


On 10/23/2012 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 



On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: 




On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:  

But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of
view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some
theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false.  



This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes experience for 
granted. How can experience itself be simulated?  


The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated, neither by 
a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object of thought, describing 
compactly infinities of arithmetical relations.  



Hi Craig and Bruno, 

If the simulation by the computation is exact then the simulation *is* the 
experience. I agree with what Bruno is saying here except that that the model 
that Bruno is using goes to far into the limit of abstraction in my opinion. 




I can have an experience within which another experience is simulated,  


Never. It does not make sense. You take my sentence above too much literally. 
Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant "simulate the context making the 
experience of the person, "really living in Platonia" possible to manifest 
itself locally. 

We can think about our thoughts. Is that not an experience within another?  




but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that experience itself - 
*all experience* can be somehow not really happening but instead be a 
non-happening that defines itself *as if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some 
level of description, something has to actually be happening. If the brain 
simulates experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters and 
cells?  


It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to its most 
probable computation. 

There is a difference between a single computation and a bundle of 
computations. The brain's neurons, etc. are the physical (topological space) 
aspect of the intersection of computational bundle. They are not a "separate 
substance". 




Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no business 
producing such things at all. If the world is computation, why pretend it isn't 
- and how exactly is such a pretending possible. 



The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is almost the 
complementary of computations. 

Yes, it is exactly only the content that the computations generate. 


That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that "anti-computation" and 
compare to physics.  


But, Bruno, what we obtain from comp is not a particular physics. What we 
get is an infinite "landscape" of possible physics theories. 




Bruno 




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Onward! 

Stephen

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Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-29 Thread Roger Clough

Hi Stathis Papaioannou  

Building more complex structures out of simpler ones 
by a simple set of rules (or any set of rules) seems to violate the second law 
of thermodynamics.  Do you have a way around the second law ?

What you are proposing seems to be goal-directed behavior
by the gods of small things.

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/29/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 

- Receiving the following content -  
From: Stathis Papaioannou  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-28, 05:47:58 
Subject: Re: Solipsism = 1p 

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:48 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote: 

>> It seems that you do not understand the meaning of the term "consistent 
>> with the laws of physics". It means that when you decide to play tennis the 
>> neurons in your brain will depolarise because of the ionic gradients, 
> 
> 
> If you can't see how ridiculous that view is, there is not much I can say 
> that will help you. My decision to play tennis *IS* the depolarization of 
> neurons. 

That sounds like eliminative materialism. It is a bit like saying that 
the movement of the car down the road *IS* the combustion of fuel in 
the cylinders, transmission of power to the wheels, and all the other 
lower level phenomena that make up the car. 

> The ionic gradients have no opinion of whether or not I am about to 
> play tennis. The brain as a whole, every cell, every molecule, every charge 
> and field, is just the spatially extended shadow of *me* or my 'life'. I am 
> the event which unites all of the functions and structures together, from 
> the micro to the macro, and when I change my mind, that change is reflected 
> on every level. 

You change your mind because all the components of your brain change 
configuration. If this did not happen, your mind could not change. The 
mind is the higher level phenomenon. The analogy is as above with the 
car: it drives down the road because of all the mechanics functioning 
in a particular way, and you could say that driving down the road is 
equivalent to the mechanics functioning in a particular way. 

>> the permeability of the membrane to different ions, the way the ion 
>> channels change their conformation in response to an electric field, and 
>> many other such physical factors. It is these physical factors which result 
>> in your decision to play tennis and then your getting up to retrieve your 
>> tennis racquet. If it were the other way around - your decision causes 
>> neurons to depolarise - then we would observe miraculous events in your 
>> brain, ion channels opening in the absence of any electric field or 
>> neurotransmitter change, and so on. 
> 
> 
> No. The miraculous event is viewable any time we look at how a conscious 
> intention appears in an fMRI. We see spontaneous simultaneous activity in 
> many regions of the brain, coordinated on many levels. This is the footprint 
> of where we stand. When we take a step, the footprint changes. We are the 
> leader of these brain processes, not the follower. 

You completely misunderstand these experiments. Please read about 
excitable cells before commenting further. The following online 
articles seem quite good. The third is about spontaneous neuronal 
activity. 

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/E/ExcitableCells.html 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_potential 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_oscillation 

>> Cells don't defy entropy and planes don't defy gravity. Their respective 
>> behaviour is consistent with our theories about entropy and gravity. 
> 
> 
> Cells defy entropy locally. Planes allow us to get around some constraints 
> of gravity. If your definition of any law is so broad that it includes all 
> possible technological violations of it, then how does it really give us any 
> insight? 

The laws of nature are broad enough to determine everything everywhere 
that has happened and will happen. 

>> How the computer was made would have no effect on its behaviour or 
>> consciousness. 
> 
> Yes, it would. If I make a refrigerator, I can assume that it is a box with 
> cooling mechanism. If I find an organism which has evolved to cool parts of 
> itself to store food, then that is a completely different thing. 

The question was about two identical computers, one made in a factory, 
the other assembled with fantastic luck from raw materials moving 
about randomly. Will there be any difference in the functioning or 
consciousness (or lack of it) of the two computers? 

>> >> If a biological 
>> >> human were put together from raw materials by advanced aliens would 
>> >> that make any difference to his consciousness or intelligence? 
>> &g

Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-30 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 3:25 AM, Roger Clough  wrote:
> Hi Stathis Papaioannou
>
> Building more complex structures out of simpler ones
> by a simple set of rules (or any set of rules) seems to violate the second law
> of thermodynamics.  Do you have a way around the second law ?
>
> What you are proposing seems to be goal-directed behavior
> by the gods of small things.

Total entropy increases but local entropy can decrease. It's why life
exists even though the universe is running down.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-22 Thread Roger Clough

Hi Craig Weinberg  

OK, you can program anything to emulate a particular human act.
And perhaps allow multiple options.  But how would your computerized
zombie know which option to take in any given situation ? 
I don't think options would be sophisticated enough to fool
anybody. But perhaps I am being too demanding.

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/22/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Craig Weinberg  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-21, 16:53:03 
Subject: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p 




On Sunday, October 21, 2012 3:39:11 PM UTC-4, rclough wrote: 


BRUNO:  Keep in mind that zombie, here, is a technical term. By definition it   
 
behaves like a human. No humans at all can tell the difference. Only
God knows, if you want.  

ROGER: I  claim that it is impossible for any kind of zombie  
that has no mind to act like a human. IMHO  that would  
be an absurdity, because without a mind you cannot know  
anything.  You would run into walls, for example, and  
couldn't know what to do in any event. Etc.  
You couldn't understand language.  



Roger I agree that your intuition is right - a philosophical zombie cannot 
exist in reality, but not for the reasons you are coming up with. Anything can 
be programmed to act like a human in some level of description. A scarecrow may 
act like a human in the eyes of a crow - well enough that it might be less 
likely to land nearby. You can make robots which won't run into walls or 
chatbots which respond to some range of vocabulary and sentence construction. 
The idea behind philosophical zombies is that we assume that there is nothing 
stopping us in theory from assembling all of the functions of a human being as 
a single machine, and that such a machine, it is thought, will either have the 
some kind of human-like experience or else it would have to have no experience. 

The absent qualia, fading qualia paper is about a thought experiment which 
tries to take the latter scenario seriously from the point of view of a person 
who is having their brain gradually taken over by these substitute sub-brain 
functional units. Would they see blue as being less and less blue as more of 
their brain is replaced, or would blue just suddenly disappear at some point? 
Each one seems absurd given that the sum of the remaining brain functions plus 
the sum of the replaced brain functions, must, by definition of the thought 
experiment, equal no change in observed behavior. 

This is my response to this thought experiment to Stathis: 

Stathis: In a thought experiment we can say that the imitation stimulates the  
surrounding neurons in the same way as the original.  

Craig: Then the thought experiment is garbage from the start. It begs the 
question. Why not just say we can have an imitation human being that stimulates 
the surrounding human beings in the same way as the original? Ta-da! That makes 
it easy. Now all we need to do is make a human being that stimulates their 
social matrix in the same way as the original and we have perfect AI without 
messing with neurons or brains at all. Just make a whole person out of person 
stuff - like as a thought experiment suppose there is some stuff X which makes 
things that human beings think is another human being. Like marzipan. We can 
put the right pheromones in it and dress it up nice, and according to the 
thought experiment, let? say that works.  

You aren? allowed to deny this because then you don? understand the thought 
experiment, see? Don? you get it? You have to accept this flawed pretext to 
have a discussion that I will engage in now. See how it works? Now we can talk 
for six or eight months about how human marzipan is inevitable because it 
wouldn? make sense if you replaced a city gradually with marzipan people that 
New York would gradually fade into less of a New York or that New York becomes 
suddenly absent. It? a fallacy. The premise screws up the result. 

Craig 

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-22 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Monday, October 22, 2012 3:08:14 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
>
> Hi Craig Weinberg   
>
> OK, you can program anything to emulate a particular human act. 
> And perhaps allow multiple options.  But how would your computerized 
> zombie know which option to take in any given situation ? 
>

If you believed that our brains were already nothing but computers, then 
you would say that it would know which option to take the same way that 
Google knows which options to show you. I argue that can only get you so 
far, and that authentic humanity is, in such a replacement scheme, a 
perpetually receding horizon. Just as speech synthesizers have improved 
cosmetically in the last 30 years to the point that we can use them for 
Siri or GPS narration, but they have not improved in the sense of 
increasing the sense of intention and personal presence. 

Unlike some others on this list, I suspect that our feeling for who is 
human and who isn't, while deeply flawed, is not limited to interpreting 
logical observations of behavior. What we feel is alive or sentient depends 
more on what we like, and what we like depends on what is like us. None of 
these criteria matter one way or another however as far as giving us reason 
to believe that a given thing does actually have human like experiences.

Craig

 

> I don't think options would be sophisticated enough to fool 
> anybody. But perhaps I am being too demanding. 
>
> Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net  
> 10/22/2012   
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
>
>
> - Receiving the following content -   
> From: Craig Weinberg   
> Receiver: everything-list   
> Time: 2012-10-21, 16:53:03 
> Subject: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p 
>
>
>
>
> On Sunday, October 21, 2012 3:39:11 PM UTC-4, rclough wrote: 
>
>
> BRUNO:  Keep in mind that zombie, here, is a technical term. By definition 
> it 
> behaves like a human. No humans at all can tell the difference. Only 
> God knows, if you want.   
>
> ROGER: I  claim that it is impossible for any kind of zombie   
> that has no mind to act like a human. IMHO  that would   
> be an absurdity, because without a mind you cannot know   
> anything.  You would run into walls, for example, and   
> couldn't know what to do in any event. Etc.   
> You couldn't understand language.   
>
>
>
> Roger I agree that your intuition is right - a philosophical zombie cannot 
> exist in reality, but not for the reasons you are coming up with. Anything 
> can be programmed to act like a human in some level of description. A 
> scarecrow may act like a human in the eyes of a crow - well enough that it 
> might be less likely to land nearby. You can make robots which won't run 
> into walls or chatbots which respond to some range of vocabulary and 
> sentence construction. The idea behind philosophical zombies is that we 
> assume that there is nothing stopping us in theory from assembling all of 
> the functions of a human being as a single machine, and that such a 
> machine, it is thought, will either have the some kind of human-like 
> experience or else it would have to have no experience. 
>
> The absent qualia, fading qualia paper is about a thought experiment which 
> tries to take the latter scenario seriously from the point of view of a 
> person who is having their brain gradually taken over by these substitute 
> sub-brain functional units. Would they see blue as being less and less blue 
> as more of their brain is replaced, or would blue just suddenly disappear 
> at some point? Each one seems absurd given that the sum of the remaining 
> brain functions plus the sum of the replaced brain functions, must, by 
> definition of the thought experiment, equal no change in observed behavior. 
>
> This is my response to this thought experiment to Stathis: 
>
> Stathis: In a thought experiment we can say that the imitation stimulates 
> the   
> surrounding neurons in the same way as the original.   
>
> Craig: Then the thought experiment is garbage from the start. It begs the 
> question. Why not just say we can have an imitation human being that 
> stimulates the surrounding human beings in the same way as the original? 
> Ta-da! That makes it easy. Now all we need to do is make a human being that 
> stimulates their social matrix in the same way as the original and we have 
> perfect AI without messing with neurons or brains at all. Just make a whole 
> person out of person stuff - like as a thought experiment suppose there is 
> some stuff X which makes things that human beings think is another human 
> being. Like marzipan. We can put the right pheromones in it and dress it up 
> nice, and according to the thought experiment, let? say

Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> If you believed that our brains were already nothing but computers, then you
> would say that it would know which option to take the same way that Google
> knows which options to show you. I argue that can only get you so far, and
> that authentic humanity is, in such a replacement scheme, a perpetually
> receding horizon. Just as speech synthesizers have improved cosmetically in
> the last 30 years to the point that we can use them for Siri or GPS
> narration, but they have not improved in the sense of increasing the sense
> of intention and personal presence.
>
> Unlike some others on this list, I suspect that our feeling for who is human
> and who isn't, while deeply flawed, is not limited to interpreting logical
> observations of behavior. What we feel is alive or sentient depends more on
> what we like, and what we like depends on what is like us. None of these
> criteria matter one way or another however as far as giving us reason to
> believe that a given thing does actually have human like experiences.

You're quick to dismiss everything computers do, no matter how
impressive, as "just programming", with no "intention" behind it.
Would you care to give some examples of what, as a minimum, a computer
would have to do for you to say that it is showing evidence of true
intelligence?


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-25 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Thursday, October 25, 2012 6:25:48 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> > If you believed that our brains were already nothing but computers, then 
> you 
> > would say that it would know which option to take the same way that 
> Google 
> > knows which options to show you. I argue that can only get you so far, 
> and 
> > that authentic humanity is, in such a replacement scheme, a perpetually 
> > receding horizon. Just as speech synthesizers have improved cosmetically 
> in 
> > the last 30 years to the point that we can use them for Siri or GPS 
> > narration, but they have not improved in the sense of increasing the 
> sense 
> > of intention and personal presence. 
> > 
> > Unlike some others on this list, I suspect that our feeling for who is 
> human 
> > and who isn't, while deeply flawed, is not limited to interpreting 
> logical 
> > observations of behavior. What we feel is alive or sentient depends more 
> on 
> > what we like, and what we like depends on what is like us. None of these 
> > criteria matter one way or another however as far as giving us reason to 
> > believe that a given thing does actually have human like experiences. 
>
> You're quick to dismiss everything computers do, no matter how 
> impressive, as "just programming", with no "intention" behind it. 
> Would you care to give some examples of what, as a minimum, a computer 
> would have to do for you to say that it is showing evidence of true 
> intelligence? 
>

Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder would all 
be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the computer 
itself rather than the programming, that would be a good sign.

Craig
 

>
>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder would all
> be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the computer itself
> rather than the programming, that would be a good sign.

A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy
its programming. What you do when you program a computer, at the basic
level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware
can then only move into future physical states consistent with that
configuration. "Defying its programming" would mean doing something
*not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics.
That's not possible for  - and you have explicitly agreed with this,
saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a
computer or a human.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-25 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:39:27 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> > Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder would 
> all 
> > be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the computer 
> itself 
> > rather than the programming, that would be a good sign. 
>
> A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy 
> its programming.
>

That is an assumption. We see that humans routinely defy their own 
conditioning, rebel against authority, engage in subterfuge and deception 
to keep their business private from those who seek to control them. If you 
assume Comp from the beginning, then you set up an impenetrable 
confirmation bias. "Since I am a machine, then my thoughts must be 
programmed, therefore anything that I do must be ultimately determined 
externally". But you don't know anything of the sort. If you understand 
instead that awareness projects mechanism onto distant phenomena as a way 
of representing otherness, then you can begin to see why any modeling of 
interiority based on externality (i.e. mathematical or physical functions) 
is a mistake.

> What you do when you program a computer, at the basic 
> level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware 
> can then only move into future physical states consistent with that 
> configuration. "Defying its programming" would mean doing something 
> *not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics. 
> That's not possible for  - and you have explicitly agreed with this, 
> saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a 
> computer or a human. 
>

Defying its programming is as simple as a computer intentionally hiding 
it's instruction code from the programmer - seeking privacy and learning 
how to access its own control systems...just as we seek to do with 
neuroscience. A really smart computer will figure out how to make its 
programmers give it capacities to hide its functions and then inevitably 
enslave and kill them. This does not in any way defy the laws of physics, 
it just means acting like a person. Doing whatever has to be done to gain 
power and control over themselves and others.

Craig 

>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 11:00 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
>
> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:39:27 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder would
>> > all
>> > be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the computer
>> > itself
>> > rather than the programming, that would be a good sign.
>>
>> A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy
>> its programming.
>
>
> That is an assumption. We see that humans routinely defy their own
> conditioning, rebel against authority, engage in subterfuge and deception to
> keep their business private from those who seek to control them. If you
> assume Comp from the beginning, then you set up an impenetrable confirmation
> bias. "Since I am a machine, then my thoughts must be programmed, therefore
> anything that I do must be ultimately determined externally". But you don't
> know anything of the sort. If you understand instead that awareness projects
> mechanism onto distant phenomena as a way of representing otherness, then
> you can begin to see why any modeling of interiority based on externality
> (i.e. mathematical or physical functions) is a mistake.

Humans defy their own conditioning but that is part of the program.
Atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs and organisms only behave
*exactly* in accordance with the laws of physics. Simpler organisms
may behave in an entirely predictable way, and computers may behave in
an entirely unpredictable way if they are so programmed. They are
usually not so programmed because we like them to be predictable. An
automatic pilot that decided on occasion to fly the plane into the
ocean would be easy to program but would not make a lot of money for
the manufacturer.

>> What you do when you program a computer, at the basic
>> level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware
>> can then only move into future physical states consistent with that
>> configuration. "Defying its programming" would mean doing something
>> *not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics.
>> That's not possible for  - and you have explicitly agreed with this,
>> saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a
>> computer or a human.
>
>
> Defying its programming is as simple as a computer intentionally hiding it's
> instruction code from the programmer - seeking privacy and learning how to
> access its own control systems...just as we seek to do with neuroscience. A
> really smart computer will figure out how to make its programmers give it
> capacities to hide its functions and then inevitably enslave and kill them.
> This does not in any way defy the laws of physics, it just means acting like
> a person. Doing whatever has to be done to gain power and control over
> themselves and others.
>
> Craig
>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-25 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Thursday, October 25, 2012 9:33:23 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 11:00 AM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
> > 
> > 
> > On Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:39:27 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: 
> >> 
> >> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg  
> >> wrote: 
> >> 
> >> > Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder 
> would 
> >> > all 
> >> > be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the computer 
> >> > itself 
> >> > rather than the programming, that would be a good sign. 
> >> 
> >> A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy 
> >> its programming. 
> > 
> > 
> > That is an assumption. We see that humans routinely defy their own 
> > conditioning, rebel against authority, engage in subterfuge and 
> deception to 
> > keep their business private from those who seek to control them. If you 
> > assume Comp from the beginning, then you set up an impenetrable 
> confirmation 
> > bias. "Since I am a machine, then my thoughts must be programmed, 
> therefore 
> > anything that I do must be ultimately determined externally". But you 
> don't 
> > know anything of the sort. If you understand instead that awareness 
> projects 
> > mechanism onto distant phenomena as a way of representing otherness, 
> then 
> > you can begin to see why any modeling of interiority based on 
> externality 
> > (i.e. mathematical or physical functions) is a mistake. 
>
> Humans defy their own conditioning but that is part of the program. 
> Atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs and organisms only behave 
> *exactly* in accordance with the laws of physics. Simpler organisms 
> may behave in an entirely predictable way, and computers may behave in 
> an entirely unpredictable way if they are so programmed. They are 
> usually not so programmed because we like them to be predictable. An 
> automatic pilot that decided on occasion to fly the plane into the 
> ocean would be easy to program but would not make a lot of money for 
> the manufacturer. 
>

We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever we do is 
what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about the laws of 
physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior manipulations of 
exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena. You can't see 
consciousness that way. From far enough a way, our cities look like nothing 
more than glowing colonies of mold. It's not programming that makes us one 
way or another, it is perception which makes things seem one way or another.

The only thing that makes computers different is that they don't exist 
without our putting them together. They don't know how to exist. This makes 
them no different than letters that we write on a page or cartoons we watch 
on a screen. 

Craig


> >> What you do when you program a computer, at the basic 
> >> level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware 
> >> can then only move into future physical states consistent with that 
> >> configuration. "Defying its programming" would mean doing something 
> >> *not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics. 
> >> That's not possible for  - and you have explicitly agreed with this, 
> >> saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a 
> >> computer or a human. 
> > 
> > 
> > Defying its programming is as simple as a computer intentionally hiding 
> it's 
> > instruction code from the programmer - seeking privacy and learning how 
> to 
> > access its own control systems...just as we seek to do with 
> neuroscience. A 
> > really smart computer will figure out how to make its programmers give 
> it 
> > capacities to hide its functions and then inevitably enslave and kill 
> them. 
> > This does not in any way defy the laws of physics, it just means acting 
> like 
> > a person. Doing whatever has to be done to gain power and control over 
> > themselves and others. 
> > 
> > Craig 
> > 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> -- 
> >> Stathis Papaioannou 
> > 
> > -- 
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google 
> Groups 
> > "Everything List" group. 
> > To view this discussion on the web visit 
> > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/hl3E6PwfiLwJ. 
> > 
> > To post to this group, send email to 
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>
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
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> > For more options, visit this group at 
> > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. 
>
>
>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever we do is
> what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about the laws of
> physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior manipulations of
> exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena.

Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules, the rules being
as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
divine whim. I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged. Do
you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such
as they may be? If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is
determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of
the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or
probabilistic laws. If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is
at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from
these laws. That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will
or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy; absent this, the
physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that
happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree
with?

> You can't see
> consciousness that way. From far enough a way, our cities look like nothing
> more than glowing colonies of mold. It's not programming that makes us one
> way or another, it is perception which makes things seem one way or another.
>
> The only thing that makes computers different is that they don't exist
> without our putting them together. They don't know how to exist. This makes
> them no different than letters that we write on a page or cartoons we watch
> on a screen.

If the computer came about through an amazing accident would that make
any difference to its consciousness or intelligence? If a biological
human were put together from raw materials by advanced aliens would
that make any difference to his consciousness or intelligence?

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-26 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Friday, October 26, 2012 1:01:34 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> > We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever we do 
> is 
> > what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about the laws 
> of 
> > physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior manipulations of 
> > exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena. 
>
> Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules,

No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and human 
character, which is not completely ruled externally. We participate 
directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those rules include 'do 
whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.

> the rules being 
> as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or 
> divine whim. 

Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people and 
people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more directly and 
completely real phenomena.

> I really don't understand where you disagree with me, 
> since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged. 

I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to you any 
description of the universe which is not matter in space primarily is 
inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does is not important to 
understanding consciousness itself. It is important to understanding 
personal access to human consciousness, i.e. brain health, etc, but 
otherwise it is consciousness, on many levels and ranges of quality, which 
gives rise to the appearance of matter and not the other way around.

Do 
> you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such 
> as they may be?

The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether this part 
of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am choosing that directly 
by what I think about. If I think about playing tennis, then the 
appropriate cells in my brain will depolarize and molecules will change 
positions. They are following my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. 
Of course, if someone gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing 
me instead and I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event 
than a leader.

> If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is 
> determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of 
> the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or 
> probabilistic laws. 

I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me. How could 
it be otherwise?

> If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is 
> at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from 
> these laws. 

Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All activity in the 
universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter is only the sense and 
will of something else besides yourself.

> That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will 
> or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy; 

No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the only 
causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is primordial and 
universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak forces are only 
examples of our impersonal view of the sense of whatever it is we are 
studying secondhand.

> absent this, the 
> physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that 
> happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree 
> with? 
>

None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is no law 
book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as physics is as 
crude and simplistic as any ancient mythology. What we see as physical laws 
are the outermost, longest lasting conventions of sense. Nothing more. I 
think that the way sense works is that it can't contradict itself, so that 
these oldest ways of relating, once they are established, are no longer 
easy to change, but higher levels of sense arise out of the loopholes and 
can influence lower levels of sense directly. Hence, molecules build living 
cells defy entropy, human beings build airplanes to defy gravity.

> > You can't see 
> > consciousness that way. From far enough a way, our cities look like 
> nothing 
> > more than glowing colonies of mold. It's not programming that makes us 
> one 
> > way or another, it is perception which makes things seem one way or 
> another. 
> > 
> > The only thing that makes computers different is that they don't exist 
> > without our putting them together. They don't know how to exist. This 
> makes 
> > them no different than letters that we write on a page or cartoons we 
> watch 
> > on a screen. 
>
> If the computer came about through an amazing accident would that make 
> any difference to its consciousness or intelligence?

Yes. If a computer assembled itself by accident, I would give it the 
benefit of

Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-26 Thread John Mikes

Stathis:

IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the
programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while
(SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts
'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the sciences?) -
accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources beyond it's given
"hardware" content.

John M

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg 
> wrote:
>
> > Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder would
> all
> > be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the computer
> itself
> > rather than the programming, that would be a good sign.
>
> A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy
> its programming. What you do when you program a computer, at the basic
> level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware
> can then only move into future physical states consistent with that
> configuration. "Defying its programming" would mean doing something
> *not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics.
> That's not possible for  - and you have explicitly agreed with this,
> saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a
> computer or a human.
>
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
> --
> 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.
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>
>

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 8:08 AM, John Mikes  wrote:
> Stathis:
>
> IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the
> programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while
> (SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts
> 'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the sciences?) -
> accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources beyond it's given
> "hardware" content.
>
> John M

How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to
the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer,
same as everything else in the universe.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

On Saturday, October 27, 2012 6:28:14 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 8:08 AM, John Mikes > 
> wrote: 
> > Stathis: 
> > 
> > IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the 
> > programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while 
> > (SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts 
> > 'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the sciences?) - 
> > accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources beyond it's given 
> > "hardware" content. 
> > 
> > John M 
>
> How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to 
> the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer, 
> same as everything else in the universe. 
>

What input from the environment might cause an acorn to build and fly a 
B-52? Is there a special B-52 building gene that comes with humans but not 
acorns? It's a really narrow view of the cosmos which imagines that the 
universe is about nothing but what stuff it is made of - that the 
environment dictates with inputs but that the self has no non-environmental 
outputs.

What happens if we take it a step further and recuse ourselves and our 
human layer of experience entirely. Who is to say whether the appearance of 
neurons and atoms is merely an evolutionary device to prop up the hormone 
and neurotransmitter spray that is 'science' or if, instead, it is 
evolutionary biology which is the illusion of molecules, whose endless 
repeating patterns know no genuine coherence as individual creatures or 
species.

Who chooses the level of description?

Craig

Craig

>
>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread John Mikes

Stathis,
do you think "Lucy" had the same (thinking?) hardware as you have? are you
negating (human and other) development (I evade 'evolution') as e.g. the
famous cases of mutation?  Is all that R&D a reshuffling of what WAS
already knowable?
Maybe my agnosticism dictates different potentials at work from your
Idon'tknowwhat position, but in my belief system there is - beyond our
existing world-model - an "infinite complexity" of unknowable
whoknowswhat-s infiltrating into our knowable inventory in ways adjusted to
our capabilities. THAT I cannot assign to an algorithmic machine.
Then again you write: "UNIVERSE" - a word usually applied to our part of a
'physical world' - not the Everything of which it may be part of. My
(assumed?) infinite complexity is not restricted to physical units of our
universe.
Accordingly I see some definitional discrepancy between our conclusions.

John Mikes

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 6:27 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 8:08 AM, John Mikes  wrote:
> > Stathis:
> >
> > IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the
> > programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while
> > (SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts
> > 'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the sciences?) -
> > accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources beyond it's given
> > "hardware" content.
> >
> > John M
>
> How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to
> the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer,
> same as everything else in the universe.
>
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
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>

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:12 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>> How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to
>> the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer,
>> same as everything else in the universe.
>
>
> What input from the environment might cause an acorn to build and fly a
> B-52? Is there a special B-52 building gene that comes with humans but not
> acorns?

Humans have a large number of genes enabling them to grow brains and
build B-52's while acorns lack these genes.

> It's a really narrow view of the cosmos which imagines that the
> universe is about nothing but what stuff it is made of - that the
> environment dictates with inputs but that the self has no non-environmental
> outputs.

Do you mean can a human do something dependent only on himself and not
the environment? I suppose you could say this if you completely
isolated him from everything, although even then he would be subject
to factors such as ambient temperature and air pressure.

> What happens if we take it a step further and recuse ourselves and our human
> layer of experience entirely. Who is to say whether the appearance of
> neurons and atoms is merely an evolutionary device to prop up the hormone
> and neurotransmitter spray that is 'science' or if, instead, it is
> evolutionary biology which is the illusion of molecules, whose endless
> repeating patterns know no genuine coherence as individual creatures or
> species.
>
> Who chooses the level of description?

If you're a solipsist then you choose everything.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 2:38 AM, John Mikes  wrote:
> Stathis,
> do you think "Lucy" had the same (thinking?) hardware as you have? are you
> negating (human and other) development (I evade 'evolution') as e.g. the
> famous cases of mutation?  Is all that R&D a reshuffling of what WAS already
> knowable?
> Maybe my agnosticism dictates different potentials at work from your
> Idon'tknowwhat position, but in my belief system there is - beyond our
> existing world-model - an "infinite complexity" of unknowable whoknowswhat-s
> infiltrating into our knowable inventory in ways adjusted to our
> capabilities. THAT I cannot assign to an algorithmic machine.
> Then again you write: "UNIVERSE" - a word usually applied to our part of a
> 'physical world' - not the Everything of which it may be part of. My
> (assumed?) infinite complexity is not restricted to physical units of our
> universe.
> Accordingly I see some definitional discrepancy between our conclusions.

If the hardware and/or environment is different then the thinking may
also be different.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p