RE: Are First Person prime?
Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I don't know if block universe theories are true or not, but the subjective passage of time is not an argument against them. If mind is computation, do you believe that a conscious computation can tell if it is being run as a sequential series of steps or in parallel, without any external information? If it is being run at all, it is dynamic, not static. Parallel processes are still processes. But the important point is that the temporal sequence does not itself make a difference to subjective experience. We don't actually know that it is possible that there might be some flicker effect. Not necessarily. I'm suggesting that the actual physical events are *exactly* the same, just their order is different. If the world were created 5 minutes ago, complete with fossils, ruins, false memories etc., you could not be aware of this on the basis of any observation - by definition, otherwise the illusion would not be perfect. This is of course no reason to believe that the world was created 5 minutes ago; but it does mean that the absence of a sensation of having just flickered into existence is no evidence *against* this theory. Would you say that it is in theory possible for the subjective passage of time to be as we know it if the blocks were not infinitesimal, but lasted for a second, so that the whole ensemble of blocks lasted for a second? There is still duration within blocks Yes, and... Then what if you make the blocks shorter in duration and larger in number, progressively down to infinitely many blocks of infinitesimal duration: is there room for dynamism in an infenitesimal interval? There are such things as infintiessimal velocities... So if there is room for movement in infinitesimal intervals (or through combination of infinitesimal intervals) in a linear theory of time, why not with a block universe? Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Dual-Aspect Science
David Nyman: Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: ASIDE, for the record, dual aspect science (from the previous post). I) APPEARANCE ASPECT. Depictions (statistics) of regularity (correlations of agreed 'objects' within) in appearances II) STRUCTURE ASPECT. Depictions (Statistics) of structure of an underlying natural world based on organisations of one or more posited structural primitives. Both have equal access to qualia as evidence. Qualia are evidence for both. Whatever the structure is, scientists are made of it and it must simultaneously a) deliver qualia and all the rest of the structure in the universe(II) and b) deliver the contents of qualia (appearances) that result in our correlations of appearances that we think of as empirical laws(I). This is a complete consistent set of natural laws, none of which literally 'are' the universe but are merely 'about' it. For the record, how (if at all) does this differ from Chalmers' property dualism and his programme for 'psycho-physical laws'? And is his 'conceivability' of structure (ll) without appearance (l) relevant in your approach? This is where I part company from him. My conceivability apparatus just can't come up with this. For me a situation that doesn't know itself needs a mediator (little observer) to do the knowing, and we know where that leads... No homunculus. I'm not sure of chalmers' 'conceivability'. It's a while since I read him. But I think it might be relevant. The key to it is when you realise that the structure (II) actually delivers the appearance (I) of the rest of the structure. That is actually a defining criteria limiting possibilities for the possible structures and any structural primitive used in same. There is no dualism here. The simplest solution is a monism of a posited structural primitive, say, S(.). The universe is a structure of organised S(.). One type and one type only. The structure itself is simply and necessarily a hierarchically organised massive collection of S(.). In this hierarchy the behaviour that generates appearances and that which does not are indistinguishable. The whole question changes to one of visibility. As to physho-physical laws in consideration of hierarchical organisations of a structural primitive one or more fundamental principles are (will be) proven to be true _because_ qualia exist. Only when we let ourselves look at such monisms will we be able to see what the parameters of such fundamental laws might be. Then we may be able to devise tests that take the structure to novel behavioural places...and the usual experimental regime ... and science marches onthe sorts of experimental regimes I am thinking of are the AI and 'asking it' (in a hardware sense) what it is likeunlike with biology we can merge their brains and get them to see what each other sees. The whole evidence problem goes away. Qualia(appearances) are only intractible because we keep insisting on trying to use qualia (appearances, our scientific evidence) to explain them! Is it only me that sees that when the scientific evidence system (qualia) is applied to collect evidence in favour of a science of qualia, a science of _our evidence system_!!, that the evidence system breaks down? Can you say more about how a structure (ll) science approaches this? A structure that, from any point of view can, in principle supply a perspective view of any other part of the structure is such a thing. Cellular automata are one such structure (not a computer program, but reality as a massively parallel cellular automata of S(.) ) FYI ['unsituated' means that the scientist is, despite the observer dependence characterised by quantum mechanics, surgically excised from the universe by the demand for an objective view that does not exist. 'Situated' science puts the scientist back inside the universe with the studied items. Note that science only needs OBJECTIVITY (a behaviour) not a real 'objective view' to construct correlations of type I (above). Dual aspect science disposes of the cultish need for a delusion of a 3rd person view ] Yes, this is broadly what I was aiming at with '1st-person primacy', using words like 'embedded', 'present', etc. - but 'situated' is good, I'll adopt it. 'SITUATEDNESS' is a very good standard term to use. There are mountains of books on SITUATED AGENCY. It's quite well traveled, especially in computer science, but also in biology (try and understand an elephant outside its habitat!). What has not been done is to treat that biology called the scientist as a situated agent inside its own habitat: the universe. Mysterious observer dependence in QM is not so mysterious when you actually put the scientist inside the picture. Why not put the scientist back inside the universe instead of objectively declaring something 'mysterious'! If situatedness is an intrinsic part of the mechanism behind qualia generation...qualia
Re: Dual-Aspect Science
Colin Hales wrote: There is no dualism here. The simplest solution is a monism of a posited structural primitive, say, S(.). The universe is a structure of organised S(.). One type and one type only. The structure itself is simply and necessarily a hierarchically organised massive collection of S(.). In this hierarchy the behaviour that generates appearances and that which does not are indistinguishable. The whole question changes to one of visibility. Absolutely. Make sense? I'll keep saying this until it sinks in. Somebody other than me has to see this! Yes, it makes a lot of sense, and reminds me of long hours over the decades struggling to visualise how various 'observer perspectives' would map in detail to my 1st-person experience (a career in software engineering also presents many opportunities for meditative waiting!) 'Saving the appearances' was my point of departure, because it seemed to be mostly ignored in standard theoretical treatments, apparently in pursuit of some mirage of methodological 'rigour' - myopia, it seemed to me. Also, all those 'quantum collapse' notions involving 'the observer' seemed to be blind to the fact that this seemingly influential chap was simply a non-isolatable element of the network of interacting information under 'observation'. My question about observing from the perspective of the 'gestalt' (maybe this isn't the best word) was posed in this spirit. That is, each one of my list of 'observables' makes sense to me from this perspective, but not from that of a classical 'nameable' 1st person. QM/MW is just one way to conceptualise the structural/ behavioural aspects of this, but my starting point is: given these experiences, 'from what experiential perspective would the situation look, feel, sound, taste, smell, like this?' And the answer always seems to be 'from the point of view of the universe, delimited by these information horizons.' This for me is the fundamental 1st-person perspective. David David Nyman: Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: ASIDE, for the record, dual aspect science (from the previous post). I) APPEARANCE ASPECT. Depictions (statistics) of regularity (correlations of agreed 'objects' within) in appearances II) STRUCTURE ASPECT. Depictions (Statistics) of structure of an underlying natural world based on organisations of one or more posited structural primitives. Both have equal access to qualia as evidence. Qualia are evidence for both. Whatever the structure is, scientists are made of it and it must simultaneously a) deliver qualia and all the rest of the structure in the universe(II) and b) deliver the contents of qualia (appearances) that result in our correlations of appearances that we think of as empirical laws(I). This is a complete consistent set of natural laws, none of which literally 'are' the universe but are merely 'about' it. For the record, how (if at all) does this differ from Chalmers' property dualism and his programme for 'psycho-physical laws'? And is his 'conceivability' of structure (ll) without appearance (l) relevant in your approach? This is where I part company from him. My conceivability apparatus just can't come up with this. For me a situation that doesn't know itself needs a mediator (little observer) to do the knowing, and we know where that leads... No homunculus. I'm not sure of chalmers' 'conceivability'. It's a while since I read him. But I think it might be relevant. The key to it is when you realise that the structure (II) actually delivers the appearance (I) of the rest of the structure. That is actually a defining criteria limiting possibilities for the possible structures and any structural primitive used in same. There is no dualism here. The simplest solution is a monism of a posited structural primitive, say, S(.). The universe is a structure of organised S(.). One type and one type only. The structure itself is simply and necessarily a hierarchically organised massive collection of S(.). In this hierarchy the behaviour that generates appearances and that which does not are indistinguishable. The whole question changes to one of visibility. As to physho-physical laws in consideration of hierarchical organisations of a structural primitive one or more fundamental principles are (will be) proven to be true _because_ qualia exist. Only when we let ourselves look at such monisms will we be able to see what the parameters of such fundamental laws might be. Then we may be able to devise tests that take the structure to novel behavioural places...and the usual experimental regime ... and science marches onthe sorts of experimental regimes I am thinking of are the AI and 'asking it' (in a hardware sense) what it is likeunlike with biology we can merge their brains and get them to see what each other sees. The whole evidence problem goes away. Qualia(appearances) are only intractible
Re: Dual-Aspect Science
David Nyman: Colin Hales wrote: There is no dualism here. The simplest solution is a monism of a posited structural primitive, say, S(.). The universe is a structure of organised S(.). One type and one type only. The structure itself is simply and necessarily a hierarchically organised massive collection of S(.). In this hierarchy the behaviour that generates appearances and that which does not are indistinguishable. The whole question changes to one of visibility. Absolutely. Make sense? I'll keep saying this until it sinks in. Somebody other than me has to see this! Yes, it makes a lot of sense, and reminds me of long hours over the decades struggling to visualise how various 'observer perspectives' would map in detail to my 1st-person experience (a career in software engineering also presents many opportunities for meditative waiting!) 'Saving the appearances' was my point of departure, because it seemed to be mostly ignored in standard theoretical treatments, apparently in pursuit of some mirage of methodological 'rigour' - myopia, it seemed to me. Also, all those 'quantum collapse' notions involving 'the observer' seemed to be blind to the fact that this seemingly influential chap was simply a non-isolatable element of the network of interacting information under 'observation'. My question about observing from the perspective of the 'gestalt' (maybe this isn't the best word) was posed in this spirit. That is, each one of my list of 'observables' makes sense to me from this perspective, but not from that of a classical 'nameable' 1st person. QM/MW is just one way to conceptualise the structural/ behavioural aspects of this, but my starting point is: given these experiences, 'from what experiential perspective would the situation look, feel, sound, taste, smell, like this?' And the answer always seems to be 'from the point of view of the universe, delimited by these information horizons.' This for me is the fundamental 1st-person perspective. David How about this: When you have a hierarchical structure of a single posited primitive there is a fundamental property that is inherent in the structure as a whole. This is as follows: Perspectival Ubiquity From the perspective of any one instance of S(.) within the structure, no matter how huge and complex it is, there is a 'perspective' view of any other point in the structure. That 'view' is the view that is 'as-if' you walked all the way down to the bottom of the hierarchy to a common ancestor (parent) S(.) element and then walked all the way up the structure to the S(.) that you are viewing from wherever you were. This is a direct causal chain. Connected/organised S(.) literally are causality/causal chains. This property is inherent or intrinsic or innate to any structure of S(.), regardless of the details of S(.). I posit that this 'visibility', or at least the potential for it, is fundamental to the generation of qualia. === Additivity If one S(.) has some sort of proto-experience, then cohorts of S(.) acting coherently will combine their proto-experiences in the manner of the collective behaviour of the cohort. Having arrived at this point we have said nothing about the nature of what it is like i.e. that the visibility thus conferred has any particular quality to it..light, sound, taste and so on. You can imagine this is being cohorts of S(.) behaving in different ways for different subjective qualities. = Here we have at least the basics of the production of a quale. There are a raft of other issues before you can locate these things in brain material. But at least the hierarchical structures have these innate possibilities. = Now consider this: A) The structure expresses an atom (a subset of collaborating S(.) behaves atom-ly). The structure is not 'about' an atom. It 'is' an atom. Contrast this with: B) The structure expresses a quale. The structure behaves quale-ly. From the perspective of being the structure that does this behaviour quale-ness is experienced. In the direction of the quale is perceived a 'perspective view' of character 'qualeness'. (tough language, this!) This is 'matter' but has intentionality. It is intrinsically 'about' something elsewhere. = We easily recognise A as being matter. Q1. What would we recognise as B? A1. It is not matter in the sense we know it. I'd call it 'virtual matter'. From the point of view of being the structure behaving quale-ly, it is acting 'as-if' some other part of the structure interacted with it. More than that the interaction is transient. The structure has to repeatedly behave as if interacting with the selected other part of the structure. This suggests repetitious behaviour of matter will be associated with the arrival of virtual matter. == So you can see that with simple about the nature of hierarchical structures we have made some headway as
Re: Can we ever know truth?
Le 13-août-06, à 19:17, Rich Winkel a écrit : According to Stathis Papaioannou: The best we can do in science as in everyday life is to accept provisionally that things are as they seem. There is no shame in this, as long as you are ready to revise your theory in the light of new evidence, and it is certainly better than assuming that things are *not* as they seem, in the absence of any evidence. The process isn't quite that benign, especially when applied to one's treatment of others. There will always be unknowable truths, one should proceed with an acute sense of one's own ignorance. Yet with each advance in science people and their institutions act increasingly recklessly with regard to unanticipated consquences. How can we perceive and measure our own ignorance? One way is the following: assume that you are a digitalizable machine, and then study the intrinsical ignorance of the digitalizable machine, which can be done (through computer science). Here I tend to agree with Rich Winkel contra Stathis Papaioannou. To accept, even provisionally, that things are as they seem, is akin to trust nature about the genuiness of the work of our brain with respect to some local reality. Then indeed we can revise our theories in case they are wrong. But we can also assume some hypothesis about the observer, and realize that in some case things just cannot be as they seem. I mean we can find *reasons* why Being take a departure from Seeming, especially concerning a global view for which our brain could naturally be deficient. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: I think, was Difficulties in communication. . .
Le 13-août-06, à 23:48, George Levy a écrit : I think also implies the concept of sanity. Unless you assume the first step I think and that you are sane, you can't take any rational and conscious second step and have any rational and conscious thought process. You wouldn't be able to hold any rational discussion. Inherent in any computational process is the concept of sanity. Maybe this is what Bruno refers to as sane machine. All right. The point will be that all machine strongly-believing or communicating or proving their own sanity will appear to be (from purely number-theoretical reasons) insane and even inconsistent. Note that machines communicating that they are *insane* (instead of sane) *are* insane, but remains consistent. This should please crazy John Mikes :) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Dual-Aspect Science (a spawn of the roadmap)
Le 14-août-06, à 01:04, David Nyman a écrit : There is another aspect, which I've been musing about again since my most recent exchanges with Peter. This is that if one is to take seriously (and I do) 'structural' or 'block' views such as MWI, it seems to me that whatever is behaving 'perceivingly', '1st-personally', or 'subjectly' (gawd!) is the gestalt, not any particular abstraction therefrom. It seems to me that this is necessary to yield: 1) The unnameability of the 1st-person (i.e. 'this observer situation') 2) The consequential validity (?) of any probability calculus of observer situations 3) The dynamic quality of time as experienced (i.e. contrast between 'figure' and 'ground') 4) Meta-experiential layering - e.g. 'coherent histories' of observer situations Any views on this? 1), 2), 3), 4) are theorem in the comp theory. Note that the zero-person point of view will appear also to be unnameable. Names emerges through the third person pint of view. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Rép : I think, was Difficulties in communication. . .
George Levy wrote (to Brent Meeker): Brent: As I understand him, Bruno agrees with Russell that I is a construct or inference. George: I think you are right. Bruno is not as extreme as I am but I am not sure exactly where he stands. He may be non-committed or he may not know how to reconcile my viewpoint with his math. It would be nice if we could reconcile the two viewpoints!!! My problem is that it seems to me that I can reconcile your viewpoint (and David Nyman's one, and even Colin Hales I would say) but only with a big price, which is that eventually there are only numbers. Then everything you say fits nicely the discourse of the 1-person attached canonically to the (lobian) machine/number: she herself believe that everything stems from her 1-point of view, until she is open to bet on the independent existence of some others, and then to the independence of numbers. That's why there can be 1st-person indeterminancy. No. This is not why. In fact, first person indeterminacy probably reinforces my point. First person indeterminacy comes about because there are several links from one observer moment (could be called I state) to the next logical (or historically consistent) logical moment. As you can see everything hinges on the I states. You can view I states either as nodes or as branches depending how you define the network. Of course those logical links are emergent as figment of imagination of the I in an anthropy kind of way. All right. Except that anthropos means human, and the I I am using is Turing-Lob tropic or number-tropic instead. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Le 14-août-06, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : But how must the perfect number exist or not exist? You say you only mean it must be true that there is a number equal to the sum of its divsors independent of you. Do you mean independent only in the sense that others will know 6 is perfect after you're gone, or do you mean 6 is perfect independent of all humans, all intelligent beings, the whole world? In the second sense. The perfectness of 6 is what would make any sufficiently clever entity from any possible (consistent) worlds, existing or not, to know that. In that sense it has to be a primitive truth. You can see this through a sequence of stronger and stronger modesty principles: 1) Bruno is not so important that 6 would loose its perfection after Bruno is gone; 2) The Belgian are not so important that 6 would loose its perfectness after the Belgian are gone; 3) The European are not so important that 6 would loose ... 4) The Humans are not so ... 5) The Mammals are not so ... 6) The creature of Earth are not so ... 7) the creature of the Solar system are not so ... 8) the creature of the Milky way are not so ... 9) the creature of the local universe are not so ... 10) the creature of the multiverse are not so ... 11) the creature of the multi multi verse are not so 11) the possible creatures are not so ... Yes, I think (and assume in the Arithmetical realist part of comp) that the fact that 6 is equal to its proper divisors sum, is a truth beyond time, space, whatever ... I have the feeling I would lie to myself to think the contrary. I am frankly more sure about that than about the presence of coffee in my cup right now. I cannot imagine that the numbers themselves could go away. They are not eternal, because they are not even in the category of things capable of lasting or not with respect to any form of observable or not reality. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Le 14-août-06, à 17:44, David Nyman wrote : Bruno Marchal wrote: It just means that I (Bruno) believes that Bruno (I) is not so important in the sense that if I die, a perfect number will still either exist or not exist. I do interpret Penrose's mathematical platonism in that way, and I agree with him (on that), like I think david Deutsch and other physicists (but not all!). This should suits centrality of first person notion, but with comp, as I try to explain, even that first person will emerge from more primitive non personal notion (like numbers ...), and this independently of the fact you like to recall and with which I agree which is that I have only access to a personal view on numbers. I feel I must press you on this. Please, don't hesitate. I think using 'exists' in this sense is playing with words. I'm asking that whatever you posit as fundamental (even when it's in the spirit of seeing where it leads - which of course I respect and support) you are prepared to defend as 'real' in as strong a sense as 'indexical 1st person' (i.e. our sole experiential/ existential point of departure). This IMO is crucial. Without this sense, I genuinely can't see what 'a perfect number will either exist or not exist' can possibly *mean* - i.e. do any conceptual or other kind of work. What is 'meaning' but a metaphorisation, analogising, or mapping of some observation in terms of another? e.g. '5' is the 'cardinality' of the fingers of my hand. And the 'arena' in which this 'meaning' is instantiated is always the 'indexical 1st person'. So, I can give 'meaning' to an 'indexical 1st-person Bruno' instantiating the *idea* of 'a perfect number', because its 'indexical existence' is part of this 'Bruno'. I think the only way you can do that is with David instead of Bruno. It seems to me that when you accept an 'indexical 1st person Bruno you are accepting something far more complex than the notion of six being a perfect number. But the only way I could assign an analogous existence to 'a perfect number' by itself, in the absence of this instantiation, is to assign 'indexical existence' to the number realm itself. This realm is then your posited 'medium of instantiation' (or 'fundamental reality') But isn't this '1st-person primacy'? Or maybe it's just 'indexical primacy'. Either way it's OK by me, but why not you? Because I need, if only to communicate, a simple ontological reality, and numbers (natural numbers) can be proved to be essential in the sense that it is impossible to get them without postulating them. Remember that I do postulate the comp hyp. I am willing to assign consciousness to some computation (and then I show the inverse map cannot be one-one: to any consciousness I am forced to assign an infinity of computations). Although I agree that the first person notions are central, they are not primary. 1-notions emerge from the relations between numbers (where numbers are always conceived together with their additive and multiplicative structures). The computations are relatively embedded in that arithmetical reality. Of course, we have access to numbers only via our first person view. But this fact does not logically entails that numbers themselves are a necessarily personal or an indexical construction per se. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Can we ever know truth?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To Stathis, Brent, and List: - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] (not really!) To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 3:22 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? Stathis Papaioannou wrote: John M writes: When did you last learn that the tenets of ongoing physics are only provisionally accepted as 'real'? (I just wanted to tease members of this list. Of course on THIS list 'thinking' people gathered and such thoughts are not unusual. We are the exception.) An example is the Big Bang. Many scientists almost put it into their evening prayer. Doubting is heresy. This is why I scrutinize what we 'believe in' and try alternate narratives: do they hold water? Are the new (alternate) ideas palatable to what (we think) we experience? I'm sure all the Big Bang theorists would say that they would change their views if new evidence came to light. Of course, there are thousands of ideas out there and most of them are pretty crazy, pushed by people who don't understand even the basics of what they are criticizing, so it is understandable that these ideas would sometimes be dismissed out of hand by people working in the field. It is also understandable that scientists are only human and get quite attached to the theories on which they base their careers, so they may not change as quickly as they ought to in the light of new evidence. Stathis Papaioannou In fact there are serious theories of the universe in which there is no originating big bang. For example Paul Steinhardt has published papers on a model in which the universe we see is one of two 3-branes in a 10-dimensional space. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0403020 The origin of particles and energy and their flying apart as we see them is due to collision of our 3-brane with the other 3-brane. He shows that this can be a cyclic process in which the universe empties out due to expansion and then another collision can occur. While a few individual scientists may consider the big bang origin of the universe dogma, every scientist working in a field like cosmogony wants to make his name by showing that current theories are wrong. Brent Meeker Of course the Big Bang caught the attention. What I asked about considering our 'visualization' of a reality-percept as provisional - to work with, until a better one shows up : When did you last learn that the tenets of ongoing physics are only provisionally accepted as 'real'? and mentioned the BB as a (side?) example. BTW - speaking about 'the' Big Bang: Hubble (1922) detected a redshift in the spectra of distant (and greater in even more distant) heavenly bodies and was ingenious enough to connotate this with the Doppler effect, concluding, that this shift into lower frequencies of distant bodies MAY HAVE BEEN the result of a receding movement of the light-source, similar to the 'lowering voice' in a Doppler - type auditive phenomenon. Consequently: the universe MAY expand, producing those (alleged) receding movements from us. This is the 'provisionally(!)' accepted reality-percept as of the early 1920s: The idea was logical. - IF - this is a fact, we may apply a retrograde line backwards and arrive to the zero-point, when the universe was started - gradually collapsing into an extensionless point - from which it erose in a big bang. Any alternative theory also has to make a projecto from current circumstances. Then came the first (and biggest) mistake: scientists took our present physical science circumstances and applied them (equationally) to all those changing systems of concentration with incomparably higher density of everything (energy? temperature? gravity? if someone ha an idea what these are). They assigned the fractions of the hypothetical 1st sec (^-40 etc.) to storytelling of features just freezing out. It still did not make sense with our equations derived in the present 'cool' and dilated physical system, so an inflation was invented to correct 'some' of the compressed state which made the equations fully paradoxical. IF the Hubble proposal is right (and I give credit to assume it) the calculations and their conclusions must be false - e.g. the age of the universe. A linear retro-math for a chaotic development cannot match, unknown intermittent events You will find that unknown events are neglected in all theories. What else can you do with an unknown event ? are all neglected, the relationships of THIS system are applied for a totally different one. No experimental proof, not even asymptotically: those many orders of magn. make speculation into science fiction. (This is why I composed my narrative). That would apply to any to any other coscmological theory. After that - sorry, Brent - not those, who wanted to deny the theory, rather
Re: Are First Person prime?
David Nyman wrote: 1Z wrote: On 8/13/06, 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: but as I say, I can't help 'taking personally' the existent thing from which I and all persons are emanating. I think, imaginatvely, that if one pictures a 'block universe', Platonia, MW, or any non-process conception of reality, this is more intuitive, I don't see why it should be. It does not conform to our experience. because everything is 'just there' - superposed, as it were. So, sure there's a 'layer' at which the individual 1st-person 'emerges', but it's taking everything else 'working together' to manifest it. So in this sense, for me, it's all 'personal'. But maybe not for you. This business of what 'conforms to our experience' I think is fairly deep. I used to be adamant that, whether or not 'timeless' theories could be shown to be true or false on any other grounds, that they simply didn't 'conform to our experience'. I was, however, also suspicious of my own doubts: after all, we can't feel the earth moving, and everyone knows you need to keep pushing things or otherwise they grind to a halt. So I tried to go on an imaginative journey that might take me into this apparently static realm but nevertheless preserve something like 'what we experience'. In my mind's eye I placed myself in the various 'points of view' that 'timelessly' exist within these structures. What would I see? Well, whatever was manifested to me in virtue of 'my' local capabilities and the perceptual information available to this 'me'. Would these experiences be discrete, or would they be overlaid or 'smeared' with information from other perspectives? Well, it seemed to me that what is characteristic about our experience, what makes it seem 'sequential', is precisely what we *can no longer* or *can't yet* see, the information we *don't* have access to. In dynamic theories of time , that is explained by the fact that memory traces are laid down causally, and the future doesn't causally influence the present, so there are no traces of the future. A static universe could be structured the same way, although it would be coincidental. An Everythingist universe can't be. Every possible time capsule must be instantiated. There must be versions of you who ar the same in every erespect except that hey remember their subjective future. And so despite the 'superposed' existence of these other states, delimitations of access to information would act to make each capsule discrete. What does access to information mean ? In a dynamic universe, it means causality. In a Barbour-style universe it means some nows coincidentally contain patterns representing other nows just as , in a world consisting of every possible picture, there will be pictures containing pictures-within-a-picture. All the capsules capable of it are 'conscious', but the localisation of information prevents there being a 'totalising' point of view. what does the localisation of informatio mean ? What do 1's and -0's mean if they were not caused by anything ? The next puzzle for me was why any of this would 'feel' dynamic. This IMO is a subset of the qualia issue - i.e. why does anything feel anyhow? Now, given that the arena under consideration consists in a both a 'substrate' and the structures within it, it has both distributed and all-at-once aspects. Could it not be the the dynamic temporal 'feel' is the tension between these two? All dynamism derives from contrast, That doesn't mean all contrast leads to dynamism ! You can get stasis out of dynamism by slowing things dwon to a halt; it is still a paradox to get dynamism out of stasis. and this seems to offer it. Putting these elements together (over a period of time involving many 'thought voyages') has re-aligned my intuition to make the scenario seem more plausible, at least experientially. Finally we come to the question of all these 'mes'. They all exist, and they're all conscious (the ones that are, that is). What's different about the other parts of the structure? Why aren't *they* conscious? They're just organised differently, just like the parts *within* persons that aren't conscious (ever), or the part that just went to sleep, or died. So the whole structure, reflexively, *to itself*, is manifesting consciously, unconsciously, and no doubt every nuance in between and beyond. That's my capital-P Personal. I strongly suspect that you find this way of thinking uncongenial, which is absolutely fine by me. But I've tried to describe it as clearly as I can, and perhaps we can do no better than leave it at that. So the argument is: 1) David is a person. 2) Because David is a person, some parts of David are conscious, and others unconscious. 3) Some parts of the universe are conscious, and others unconcisous. 4) Therefore the universe is a person, too. That isn't at all clear to me - mainly because you are nto makign the all-improtant
ROADMAP (SHORT)
Hi, 1) The computationalist hypothesis (comp), This is the hypothesis that I am a digital machine in the quasi-operational sense that I can survive through an artificial digital body/brain. I make it precise by adding Church thesis and some amount of Arithmetical Realism (without which those terms are ambiguous). To be sure this is what Peter D. Jones called standard computationallism. Let us call momentarily Pythagorean comp the thesis that there is only numbers and that all the rest emerge through numbers dream (including possible sharable dreams); where dreams will be, thanks to comp, captured by infinite collection of computations as seen from some first person perspective. Then ... 2) The Universal Dovetailer argumentation (UDA) ... then the Universal Dovetailer Argumentation (UDA) is literally a proof that Standard computationalism implies Pythagorean computationalism. From a strictly logical point of view this is not a proof that matter does not exist. Only that primitive matter is devoid of any explanatory purposes, both for the physical (quanta) and psychological (qualia) appearances (once comp is assumed of course). The UDA needs only a passive understanding of Church Thesis (to make sense of the *universal* dovetailing). 3) The lobian interview and the rise of the arithmetical plotinian hypostases, or n-person perspectives. The difference between the UDA and the lobian interview is that in the UDA, *you* are interviewed. *you* are asked to implicate yourself a little bit; but in the lobian interview, instead of interviewing humans, I directly interview a self-referentially correct and sufficiently rich universal machine (which I call lobian for short). Computer science + mathematical logic makes such an enterprise possible. We can indeed study what a correct (by definition) machine is able to prove and guess about itself, in some third person way, and that's how the other notion of person will appear (cannot not appear). Let us abbreviate the machine asserts 2+3=5 by B(2+3=5). B is for Godel's Beweisbar notion of formally provable. If p denotes any proposition which we can translate in the machine's language, we write Bp for the machine asserts p. For a classical mathematician, or an arithmetical platonist, there is no problem with *deciding* to limit the interview to correct machine (independently that we will see that no correct machine can know it is a correct machine). To say that the machine is correct amounts to say that whatever the machine asserts, it is true. So Bp - p, when instantiated, is always true. But now, by the incompleteness phenomena, although Bp - p is always true, it happens that no correct machine can prove for any p that Bp - p. For some p, Bp - p is true, but not provable by the machine. The simplest case is when p is some constant falsity, noted f, like 0 = 1 for example, or like p ~p. In that case Bp - p is Bf - f, and this is equivalent (cf propositional truth table) to ~Bf, which is a self-consistency assertion not provable by the correct machine (by Godel's second incompleteness theorem). Due to this, Bp does not capture a notion of knoowledge, for which Bp-p should be not only true but known. B does capture a notion of self-reference, but it is really a third person form of self-reference. It is the same as the one given by your contemplation of your own body or any correct third person description of yourself, like the encoding proposed by the doctor, in case he is lucky. This means that Bp p, although equivalent with Bp, cannot be proved equivalent by the machine. This means that the logic of Bp p will be a different logic than the one of Bp p. Now Theaetetus has proposed to define knowledge by such a true justified opinion, and I propose to define the logic of machine (perfect) knowledge by Bp p. This remains even more true for other epistemological nuances arising from incompleteness, like the future probabilty or credibility (not provability!) notions, which I will capture by Bp Dp and Bp Dp p, where Dp abbreviates, as usual (cf my older post) ~B~p (the non provability of the negation of p). Now, note this: I said Bp p is equivalent to Bp, but the machine cannot prove that equivalence. So the proposition (Bp p) - Bp is an example of true (on the machine) but unprovable (by the machine) proposition. So, concerning the correct machine we talk about, we must distinguish the provable propositions and the true but unprovable propositions. Thanks to Solovay, the logic of the provable proposition is captured by a modal logic often named G, and the logic of the true proposition is captured by a vaster logic named G*. The corona G* minus G gives a logic of the true but non provable statements. I think I have enough to give you a sketch of the hypostases. I will use Plotinian greek neoplatonist vocabulary, because it fits completely. I will associate to any machine, a
Re: Can we ever know truth?
Peter, let me 'condensate YOUR interspaced remarks and add my quip to them one by one. My long blurb was enough once on the listG. John Mikes - Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 9:12 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? (ref.:) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To Stathis, Brent, and List: (ref#2): - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] (not really!) To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 3:22 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? ... Any alternative theory also has to make a projecto from current circumstances. [JM]: 1.Exactly what I was missing: why pick ONE and dogmatize it? 2.Who said we are ready to formulate a theory for the 'origins'? ... You will find that unknown events are neglected in all theories. What else can you do with an unknown event ? [JM]: Consider it (or at least that there may be such) and realize the insufficiency of data for writing a bible. The wisdom you quote (accepted) does not make a 'theory' right. That's why I call 'my idea' a narrative, not even a hypothesis. I was not there. ... That would apply to any to any other coscmological theory. [JM]: So we should consider and use some humility. I pointed out ONE (TWO?)definite mistakes among many (see: Eric Lerner's book: The BB never happened - of course it was argued against by cosmophysicists - on 'their' bases and against Lerner's own hype which he voluteered to construct. A mistake. ). ... The Bb theorists were the lepers at one stage. They became establishment by being able ot prove their case. [JM]: The establishment bowed to the number of papers all slanted to 'prove' some details. They WERE indeed the establishment. See my remark on 'proof' at 'evidence' below. ... Is there evidence for any of those mechanisms ? [JM]: Not more than just considering the redshift an optical Doppler effect, which is a good idea. Those(?) mechanisms are also (based on? are?) valid theses in conventional physics - my opinion is anecdotal. LATER ON many 'measurements' were cited as supportive (in)/directly. Popper comes to mind and Goedel with 'evidencing' from the inside of a mindset. Which was considered and rejected. [JM]: You refer to good old Fred Hoyle' harmonica. Do you refer to all 'others' as well in the etc.? ... John Mikes The mindset - as I see it - in the BB-cosmology is 2500 year old. Not Plato, but the Greek mythology, when P. Athenai sprang out from Zeuss' head in full armor. There is a 'seed' accountable for zillion degrees K, zillion gauss gravity, zillion erg compressed work and pertinent energy and (almost) zero space. Yet this - call it - system 'obeys' the complex rules in our conventional physical system equations of VERY narrow limitations in charaacteristics at its very birth. In full armor and fervor. They even calculated out in our time-units what happened at the 10^42 or^32 sec after the (timeless???) zero point of banging. Which was the act of a Quantum Tooth Fairy. Problems? never mind, we have a good term: inflation and it will take care of the irregular behavior of that 'seed'. And never mind how it happened, just use a linear history with linear time-scale to arrive at 'now'. Interesting. Religions are as well interesting. John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Can we ever know truth?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Peter, let me 'condensate YOUR interspaced remarks and add my quip to them one by one. My long blurb was enough once on the listG. John Mikes - Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 9:12 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? (ref.:) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To Stathis, Brent, and List: (ref#2): - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] (not really!) To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 3:22 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? ... Any alternative theory also has to make a projecto from current circumstances. [JM]: 1.Exactly what I was missing: why pick ONE and dogmatize it? 2.Who said we are ready to formulate a theory for the 'origins'? Who said we aren't ? We have theories good enough to make predictions like the 4K background radiation. You will find that unknown events are neglected in all theories. What else can you do with an unknown event ? [JM]: Consider it (or at least that there may be such) and realize the insufficiency of data for writing a bible. The wisdom you quote (accepted) does not make a 'theory' right. That's why I call 'my idea' a narrative, not even a hypothesis. I was not there. That is an argument against science in general,. Yet sciene works well in many areas. That would apply to any to any other coscmological theory. [JM]: So we should consider and use some humility. I pointed out ONE (TWO?)definite mistakes among many (see: Eric Lerner's book: The BB never happened - of course it was argued against by cosmophysicists - on 'their' bases and against Lerner's own hype which he voluteered to construct. A mistake. ). ... The Bb theorists were the lepers at one stage. They became establishment by being able ot prove their case. [JM]: The establishment bowed to the number of papers all slanted to 'prove' some details. This is just rhetoric. You desciber paper as slanted because you don't like them. Would you describe Hoyle's alternative as slanted ? They WERE indeed the establishment. See my remark on 'proof' at 'evidence' below. ... Is there evidence for any of those mechanisms ? [JM]: Not more than just considering the redshift an optical Doppler effect, which is a good idea. Those(?) mechanisms are also (based on? are?) valid theses in conventional physics - my opinion is anecdotal. I don't see what you mean ? Are you saying redshift isn't Doppler, or that it is ? LATER ON many 'measurements' were cited as supportive (in)/directly. Of what ? Popper comes to mind and Goedel with 'evidencing' from the inside of a mindset. Huh ? Which was considered and rejected. [JM]: You refer to good old Fred Hoyle' harmonica. Do you refer to all 'others' as well in the etc.? ... I thought it was possible to fathom the mystery of comsogenesis -- that is what you say above. Are you saying that, or are you promoting an alternative. John Mikes The mindset - as I see it - in the BB-cosmology is 2500 year old. Not Plato, but the Greek mythology, when P. Athenai sprang out from Zeuss' head in full armor. It isn't. The BB is a testable, quantitative theory. There is a 'seed' accountable for zillion degrees K, zillion gauss gravity, zillion erg compressed work and pertinent energy and (almost) zero space. Yet this - call it - system 'obeys' the complex rules in our conventional physical system equations of VERY narrow limitations in charaacteristics at its very birth. In full armor and fervor. They even calculated out in our time-units what happened at the 10^42 or^32 sec after the (timeless???) zero point of banging. The point of a theory is to be able to deal with hypothetical and counterfactual situations. Which was the act of a Quantum Tooth Fairy. Problems? never mind, we have a good term: inflation and it will take care of the irregular behavior of that 'seed'. And never mind how it happened, just use a linear history with linear time-scale to arrive at 'now'. Interesting. Religions are as well interesting. Rhetoric, again. John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Bruno Marchal wrote: So, I can give 'meaning' to an 'indexical 1st-person Bruno' instantiating the *idea* of 'a perfect number', because its 'indexical existence' is part of this 'Bruno'. I think the only way you can do that is with David instead of Bruno. It seems to me that when you accept an 'indexical 1st person Bruno you are accepting something far more complex than the notion of six being a perfect number. Of course, you're right. So, to correct myself: I can give 'meaning' to an 'indexical 1st-person David' instantiating the *idea* of 'a perfect number', because its 'indexical existence' is part of this 'David'. Because I need, if only to communicate, a simple ontological reality, and numbers (natural numbers) can be proved to be essential in the sense that it is impossible to get them without postulating them. Not hesitating, then, to press you again: But don't we just 'derive' natural numbers by establishing a semantic equivalence between '6' and the collection of faces on a cube? And their additive and multiplicative structures likewise by analogy and generalisation? Must it not be the case that all we can know of the number realm is in practice wholly instantiated in indexical 1st-persons as information, and that ideas about its further extent, while possibly justified as theory, are not, empirically, instantiated *anywhere* to our knowledge? As far as I can see, the only alternative to this is the belief that we have 'direct contact' with this realm, as Penrose claims, which is surely equivalent to claiming knowledge of God by 'direct revelation'. In this case we're merely substituting 'numbers made us', for 'God made us'. While any such belief may be *true*, it isn't logical or necessary truth. So what precisely is 'essential' about the number realm, in the sense of making it the basis of 'indexical David' - whom I claim and assert to be necessarily real? Of course, we have access to numbers only via our first person view. But this fact does not logically entails that numbers themselves are a necessarily personal or an indexical construction per se. Despite your claim that they are the basis both of the personal and indexical? I ask you again, for them to play such a profound role, what status, beyond that of an idealised notion, are you giving them? Having remonstrated with you thus, might I suggest that I could understand your meaning better thus: Let's proceed *as if* the number realm were the sole 'primitive', and everything else we observe could be derived from it. If we succeed in this venture, we will have gained much in the way of insight. No doubt, there will still remain further questions as to the nature and true origins of the 'reality' so conjured into existence, possibly unanswerable. But since the question - why am I in this situation at all in which I am able to be surprised that I am in this situation at all? - regresses inevitably to a point beyond reason, perhaps it doesn't put us in a worse position in this regard than any other assumption. Does this work for you? David Le 14-août-06, à 17:44, David Nyman wrote : Bruno Marchal wrote: It just means that I (Bruno) believes that Bruno (I) is not so important in the sense that if I die, a perfect number will still either exist or not exist. I do interpret Penrose's mathematical platonism in that way, and I agree with him (on that), like I think david Deutsch and other physicists (but not all!). This should suits centrality of first person notion, but with comp, as I try to explain, even that first person will emerge from more primitive non personal notion (like numbers ...), and this independently of the fact you like to recall and with which I agree which is that I have only access to a personal view on numbers. I feel I must press you on this. Please, don't hesitate. I think using 'exists' in this sense is playing with words. I'm asking that whatever you posit as fundamental (even when it's in the spirit of seeing where it leads - which of course I respect and support) you are prepared to defend as 'real' in as strong a sense as 'indexical 1st person' (i.e. our sole experiential/ existential point of departure). This IMO is crucial. Without this sense, I genuinely can't see what 'a perfect number will either exist or not exist' can possibly *mean* - i.e. do any conceptual or other kind of work. What is 'meaning' but a metaphorisation, analogising, or mapping of some observation in terms of another? e.g. '5' is the 'cardinality' of the fingers of my hand. And the 'arena' in which this 'meaning' is instantiated is always the 'indexical 1st person'. So, I can give 'meaning' to an 'indexical 1st-person Bruno' instantiating the *idea* of 'a perfect number', because its 'indexical existence' is part of this 'Bruno'. I think the only way you can do that is with David instead of Bruno. It seems to me that when you accept an
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Hello to the List :-) The deductions made via UDA are impressing, but I would like to seriously question the Platonic Assumptions underlying all this reasoning. Arguments like the perfectness of 6 seem sensible at first sight, but only because we look at this with human eyes. 1) Mathematical thought only exists in human (or alien intelligent) brains. It thus has neural correlates. 2) These neural correlates are strongly coupled to our sensory experiences, how we experience the world in an embodied way. 3) No brains, no neural correlates, no mathematics. It doesn't make sense to argue about the perfectness of 6 when there is nobody around to argue, when nobody thinks about sixness. These concepts are ways of organizing the world around us, not platonic entities existing - indeed - where? 4) Why do we acknowledge some math as correct, other as not? It is only our grounding in reality, in our sensory experience, which let's us say: this mathematics describe reality sensibly. When we place one rock on another, then have two rocks, it is indeed not astounding that 1 + 1 = 2 in our symbol space. But, again, this is not a description of even an effect of math on reality, rather it is us getting back that what we have inferred beforehand. 5) Indeed, in advanced mathematics, one is often astounded that some math seems to perfectly fit reality, without us having thought of this application before. But in truth, this results from a selection effect of perception. The major body of mathematics is highly aesthetic but has no relevance to physical structures in the real world. Only the mathematics which fits (and getting this fit sometimes is not astounding, see point 4, because we laid it into the system by our experience of the sensory world) inspires some people to wonder why this works. Example: in many equations, we throw away negative solutions because they don't make sense. This illustrates that math doesn't fit by itself, we make it fit. 6) When we have accepted that mathematics does not exist in a platonic realm, but arises from our embodied experience of the world, we should humbly return to hypothesis, theory, validation, falsification, and a constant construction of a world around us which makes sense to _our specific human brains_, no more, no less. --- I think Quantum Weirdness, Gödels Incompleteness Theorem etc. are only consequences of our embodied mathematics, which has evolved on our macroscopical scale, and this granularity and method of reasoning is not adequate for dimensions which transend our immediate sensory experience. As such, I also find MWI and other extravagancies and erroneous way of approaching our current body of knowledge. This path leads astray. Science is successful because we stay connected with reality (our sensory, and enhanced - with machines - sensory experiences). We cannot hope for more, at least at our level of understanding. Interesting Literature: - Where Mathematics Comes from: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being; George Lakoff and Rafael Nunez, 2001 - Metaphors We Live; George Lakoff, Mark Johnson 2003 - Chasing Reality. Strife Over Realism; Mario Bunge, 2006 (I can recommend nearly everything by Bunge, who excels at clear reasoning, and is committed to an unspeculative view on nature) Best Regards, Günther Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 14-août-06, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : But how must the perfect number exist or not exist? You say you only mean it must be true that there is a number equal to the sum of its divsors independent of you. Do you mean independent only in the sense that others will know 6 is perfect after you're gone, or do you mean 6 is perfect independent of all humans, all intelligent beings, the whole world? In the second sense. The perfectness of 6 is what would make any sufficiently clever entity from any possible (consistent) worlds, existing or not, to know that. In that sense it has to be a primitive truth. You can see this through a sequence of stronger and stronger modesty principles: 1) Bruno is not so important that 6 would loose its perfection after Bruno is gone; 2) The Belgian are not so important that 6 would loose its perfectness after the Belgian are gone; 3) The European are not so important that 6 would loose ... 4) The Humans are not so ... 5) The Mammals are not so ... 6) The creature of Earth are not so ... 7) the creature of the Solar system are not so ... 8) the creature of the Milky way are not so ... 9) the creature of the local universe are not so ... 10) the creature of the multiverse are not so ... 11) the creature of the multi multi verse are not so 11) the possible creatures are not so ... Yes, I think (and assume in the Arithmetical realist part of comp) that the fact that 6 is equal to its proper divisors sum, is a truth beyond time, space, whatever ... I have the
Re: Dual-Aspect Science (a spawn of the roadmap)
Bruno Marchal wrote: 1), 2), 3), 4) are theorem in the comp theory. Note that the zero-person point of view will appear also to be unnameable. Names emerges through the third person pint of view. I'm beginning to see that, unnameability apart, it's the 'indexicality' of the zero-person point of view that you are reluctant to concede. I press you elsewhere on the 'reality' of the number realm. My essential point is that I assert the necessary reality of 'indexical David', but since I am a merely a 'lens' of the totality - the zero-person point of view, the 'gestalt' - then my claim is subsumed in the logically prior claim on indexical existence of that point of view - i.e. its necessary reality. Hence in logic, if necessary reality is to be postulated as deriving from something more 'fundamental', then this must a fortori have a logically prior claim on such necessity. If we claim this reality to be the number realm, are we not merely conceding it such necessity through logical force majeure? Yours in ontic realism David Le 14-août-06, à 01:04, David Nyman a écrit : There is another aspect, which I've been musing about again since my most recent exchanges with Peter. This is that if one is to take seriously (and I do) 'structural' or 'block' views such as MWI, it seems to me that whatever is behaving 'perceivingly', '1st-personally', or 'subjectly' (gawd!) is the gestalt, not any particular abstraction therefrom. It seems to me that this is necessary to yield: 1) The unnameability of the 1st-person (i.e. 'this observer situation') 2) The consequential validity (?) of any probability calculus of observer situations 3) The dynamic quality of time as experienced (i.e. contrast between 'figure' and 'ground') 4) Meta-experiential layering - e.g. 'coherent histories' of observer situations Any views on this? 1), 2), 3), 4) are theorem in the comp theory. Note that the zero-person point of view will appear also to be unnameable. Names emerges through the third person pint of view. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Can we ever know truth?
Thanks, Peter John --- 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Peter, let me 'condensate YOUR interspaced remarks and add my quip to them one by one. My long blurb was enough once on the listG. John Mikes - Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 9:12 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? (ref.:) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To Stathis, Brent, and List: (ref#2): - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] (not really!) To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 3:22 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? ... Any alternative theory also has to make a projecto from current circumstances. [JM]: 1.Exactly what I was missing: why pick ONE and dogmatize it? 2.Who said we are ready to formulate a theory for the 'origins'? Who said we aren't ? We have theories good enough to make predictions like the 4K background radiation. You will find that unknown events are neglected in all theories. What else can you do with an unknown event ? [JM]: Consider it (or at least that there may be such) and realize the insufficiency of data for writing a bible. The wisdom you quote (accepted) does not make a 'theory' right. That's why I call 'my idea' a narrative, not even a hypothesis. I was not there. That is an argument against science in general,. Yet sciene works well in many areas. That would apply to any to any other coscmological theory. [JM]: So we should consider and use some humility. I pointed out ONE (TWO?)definite mistakes among many (see: Eric Lerner's book: The BB never happened - of course it was argued against by cosmophysicists - on 'their' bases and against Lerner's own hype which he voluteered to construct. A mistake. ). ... The Bb theorists were the lepers at one stage. They became establishment by being able ot prove their case. [JM]: The establishment bowed to the number of papers all slanted to 'prove' some details. This is just rhetoric. You desciber paper as slanted because you don't like them. Would you describe Hoyle's alternative as slanted ? They WERE indeed the establishment. See my remark on 'proof' at 'evidence' below. ... Is there evidence for any of those mechanisms ? [JM]: Not more than just considering the redshift an optical Doppler effect, which is a good idea. Those(?) mechanisms are also (based on? are?) valid theses in conventional physics - my opinion is anecdotal. I don't see what you mean ? Are you saying redshift isn't Doppler, or that it is ? LATER ON many 'measurements' were cited as supportive (in)/directly. Of what ? Popper comes to mind and Goedel with 'evidencing' from the inside of a mindset. Huh ? Which was considered and rejected. [JM]: You refer to good old Fred Hoyle' harmonica. Do you refer to all 'others' as well in the etc.? ... I thought it was possible to fathom the mystery of comsogenesis -- that is what you say above. Are you saying that, or are you promoting an alternative. John Mikes The mindset - as I see it - in the BB-cosmology is 2500 year old. Not Plato, but the Greek mythology, when P. Athenai sprang out from Zeuss' head in full armor. It isn't. The BB is a testable, quantitative theory. There is a 'seed' accountable for zillion degrees K, zillion gauss gravity, zillion erg compressed work and pertinent energy and (almost) zero space. Yet this - call it - system 'obeys' the complex rules in our conventional physical system equations of VERY narrow limitations in charaacteristics at its very birth. In full armor and fervor. They even calculated out in our time-units what happened at the 10^42 or^32 sec after the (timeless???) zero point of banging. The point of a theory is to be able to deal with hypothetical and counterfactual situations. Which was the act of a Quantum Tooth Fairy. Problems? never mind, we have a good term: inflation and it will take care of the irregular behavior of that 'seed'. And never mind how it happened, just use a linear history with linear time-scale to arrive at 'now'. Interesting. Religions are as well interesting. Rhetoric, again. John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Dual-Aspect Science
Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: Perspectival Ubiquity From the perspective of any one instance of S(.) within the structure, no matter how huge and complex it is, there is a 'perspective' view of any other point in the structure. That 'view' is the view that is 'as-if' you walked all the way down to the bottom of the hierarchy to a common ancestor (parent) S(.) element and then walked all the way up the structure to the S(.) that you are viewing from wherever you were. This is a direct causal chain. Connected/organised S(.) literally are causality/causal chains. This property is inherent or intrinsic or innate to any structure of S(.), regardless of the details of S(.). I posit that this 'visibility', or at least the potential for it, is fundamental to the generation of qualia. Yes, good language. 'This visibility, or at least the potential for it', is the heart of my intuitions about the primacy of the 1st-person - i.e. 'I' am an indexical lens on a manifestly/ ubiqitously/ unmediatedly/ relflexively/ revealingly behaving 1st-person gestalt (badly needs abbreviating, but all the adverbs are required). If one S(.) has some sort of proto-experience, then cohorts of S(.) acting coherently will combine their proto-experiences in the manner of the collective behaviour of the cohort. Having arrived at this point we have said nothing about the nature of what it is like i.e. that the visibility thus conferred has any particular quality to it..light, sound, taste and so on. You can imagine this is being cohorts of S(.) behaving in different ways for different subjective qualities. Yes, this is in essence what I've been trying to express in my dialogue with Peter, where I've used 'structure' as the static equivalent of 'behaviour'. He doesn't believe that qualia have this aspect of structure or behaviour, and I'm not sure how debatable this is indexically, but IMO it's strongly suggested by experiential correlation with physical processes. The fundamental 'what-it's-likeness' of cohorts (or modalities) of qualia is incommunicable, though not incommensurable, because they are the instantiation of information, not information itself, which is abstracted from their structural/ behavioural relations. This primary representation appears analogically (i.e. what it's *like*) with digital-ness a second-order derivation (using analogic qualia as bits). B) The structure expresses a quale. The structure behaves quale-ly. From the perspective of being the structure that does this behaviour quale-ness is experienced. In the direction of the quale is perceived a 'perspective view' of character 'qualeness'. (tough language, this!) This is 'matter' but has intentionality. It is intrinsically 'about' something elsewhere. Yes, this reiterates the point about analogy or metaphor. Language is rooted in metaphor, and the 'what-is-it-like?' regression has to originate somewhere. This point of origin is the 'like this!' character of 'qualeness'. David David Nyman: Colin Hales wrote: There is no dualism here. The simplest solution is a monism of a posited structural primitive, say, S(.). The universe is a structure of organised S(.). One type and one type only. The structure itself is simply and necessarily a hierarchically organised massive collection of S(.). In this hierarchy the behaviour that generates appearances and that which does not are indistinguishable. The whole question changes to one of visibility. Absolutely. Make sense? I'll keep saying this until it sinks in. Somebody other than me has to see this! Yes, it makes a lot of sense, and reminds me of long hours over the decades struggling to visualise how various 'observer perspectives' would map in detail to my 1st-person experience (a career in software engineering also presents many opportunities for meditative waiting!) 'Saving the appearances' was my point of departure, because it seemed to be mostly ignored in standard theoretical treatments, apparently in pursuit of some mirage of methodological 'rigour' - myopia, it seemed to me. Also, all those 'quantum collapse' notions involving 'the observer' seemed to be blind to the fact that this seemingly influential chap was simply a non-isolatable element of the network of interacting information under 'observation'. My question about observing from the perspective of the 'gestalt' (maybe this isn't the best word) was posed in this spirit. That is, each one of my list of 'observables' makes sense to me from this perspective, but not from that of a classical 'nameable' 1st person. QM/MW is just one way to conceptualise the structural/ behavioural aspects of this, but my starting point is: given these experiences, 'from what experiential perspective would the situation look, feel, sound, taste, smell, like this?' And the answer always seems to be 'from the point of view of the universe, delimited by these information horizons.' This
Re: I think, was Difficulties in communication. . .
George: I enjoyed your wits, in Hungarian we call that to chase one's brain. I am also happy that you use sane instead of normal because the norm is insane. Please do not cut this line (style) of yours! John Mikes --- George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 13-août-06, à 23:48, George Levy a écrit : I think also implies the concept of sanity. Unless you assume the first step I think and that you are sane, you can't take any rational and conscious second step and have any rational and conscious thought process. You wouldn't be able to hold any rational discussion. Inherent in any computational process is the concept of sanity. Maybe this is what Bruno refers to as sane machine. All right. The point will be that all machine strongly-believing or communicating or proving their own sanity will appear to be (from purely number-theoretical reasons) insane and even inconsistent. Note that machines communicating that they are *insane* (instead of sane) *are* insane, but remains consistent. This should please crazy John Mikes :) This only proves that a sane machine cannot be sure that it thinks correctly. So the sane machine would say: I think but, since I may be insane, I am not sure if I am. Only the insane machine would positively assert I think therefore I am! So we know now where Descartes belongs: in an insane asylum, so do most philosophers, religious leaders and politicians. Some mathematicians may be exempt, but only if they don't claim that Godel is right! Don't quote me! George --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
correction 8-15-06
With apologies: In my long post I referred to happenings after the BB as ...in the 10^42 or ^32 sec of the first sec... Of course I meant 10^-42 and 10^-32 first sec-fractions. John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Bruno: What is - 6 - ? Perfect number, you say. If I do NOT count - or quantize, does it have ANY meaning at all? I don't see sense in saying it is more than 5 and less than 7 if I do not know the meaning of 5 and 7 as well. And of 6 of course. Without quantification, what does 6 mean? Why is it perfect? In what? Try to cut out 'counting' and 'quantities' - let us regard the symbol '6'. What does it symbolize? I can understand it in 2+4=6 on an abacus, but there it is 'counting' bullets. What is it in the preceding line? In old Rome 8-3=6 was the right result (as in their back-counting calendar as 8,7,6 - they included the starting (day) into the subtraction), now 8-2 make 6 - 6 what? John M To date: Ante diem XVII-um calendas Septembris as Aug. 15 (not XVI as 32-16) - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 8:02 AM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... Le 14-août-06, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : But how must the perfect number exist or not exist? You say you only mean it must be true that there is a number equal to the sum of its divsors independent of you. Do you mean independent only in the sense that others will know 6 is perfect after you're gone, or do you mean 6 is perfect independent of all humans, all intelligent beings, the whole world? In the second sense. The perfectness of 6 is what would make any sufficiently clever entity from any possible (consistent) worlds, existing or not, to know that. In that sense it has to be a primitive truth. You can see this through a sequence of stronger and stronger modesty principles: 1) Bruno is not so important that 6 would loose its perfection after Bruno is gone; 2) The Belgian are not so important that 6 would loose its perfectness after the Belgian are gone; 3) The European are not so important that 6 would loose ... 4) The Humans are not so ... 5) The Mammals are not so ... 6) The creature of Earth are not so ... 7) the creature of the Solar system are not so ... 8) the creature of the Milky way are not so ... 9) the creature of the local universe are not so ... 10) the creature of the multiverse are not so ... 11) the creature of the multi multi verse are not so 11) the possible creatures are not so ... Yes, I think (and assume in the Arithmetical realist part of comp) that the fact that 6 is equal to its proper divisors sum, is a truth beyond time, space, whatever ... I have the feeling I would lie to myself to think the contrary. I am frankly more sure about that than about the presence of coffee in my cup right now. I cannot imagine that the numbers themselves could go away. They are not eternal, because they are not even in the category of things capable of lasting or not with respect to any form of observable or not reality. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.10/419 - Release Date: 08/15/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Dual-Aspect Science
David Nyman: Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: Perspectival Ubiquity From the perspective of any one instance of S(.) within the structure, no matter how huge and complex it is, there is a 'perspective' view of any other point in the structure. That 'view' is the view that is 'as-if' you walked all the way down to the bottom of the hierarchy to a common ancestor (parent) S(.) element and then walked all the way up the structure to the S(.) that you are viewing from wherever you were. This is a direct causal chain. Connected/organised S(.) literally are causality/causal chains. This property is inherent or intrinsic or innate to any structure of S(.), regardless of the details of S(.). I posit that this 'visibility', or at least the potential for it, is fundamental to the generation of qualia. Yes, good language. 'This visibility, or at least the potential for it', is the heart of my intuitions about the primacy of the 1st-person - i.e. 'I' am an indexical lens on a manifestly/ ubiqitously/ unmediatedly/ relflexively/ revealingly behaving 1st-person gestalt (badly needs abbreviating, but all the adverbs are required). OK. Let's go with this explanation for the 'potential' for a view as instrinsic to the structure. Remember: in this model of reality one organisation of S(.) is space, another and atom, another a scientist inclusive of yet another called qualia. All the same. If one S(.) has some sort of proto-experience, then cohorts of S(.) acting coherently will combine their proto-experiences in the manner of the collective behaviour of the cohort. Having arrived at this point we have said nothing about the nature of what it is like i.e. that the visibility thus conferred has any particular quality to it..light, sound, taste and so on. You can imagine this is being cohorts of S(.) behaving in different ways for different subjective qualities. Yes, this is in essence what I've been trying to express in my dialogue with Peter, where I've used 'structure' as the static equivalent of 'behaviour'. He doesn't believe that qualia have this aspect of structure or behaviour, and I'm not sure how debatable this is indexically, but IMO it's strongly suggested by experiential correlation with physical processes. I think Peter's blockage may be the usual...difficulty imagining how space and matter can be differently organised collections of the same primitive. When any 'matter' behaves at the top of the hierarchy it drages the entire hierarchy with it. At some deep layer space and the matter become an expression of a common parent. Imagine making a universe out of lots of identical elastic bands. You'd have to make structure for a) space and then structures called b) matter that can move around in it. The only way you could do this is by inventing some sort of common parent structure that enables a) to move around inside b) naturally. What would elastic band qualia look like? Imagine how you would contrive an elastic band qualia in an elastic band scientist. The fundamental 'what-it's-likeness' of cohorts (or modalities) of qualia is incommunicable, though not incommensurable, because they are the instantiation of information, not information itself, which is abstracted from their structural/ behavioural relations. This primary representation appears analogically (i.e. what it's *like*) with digital-ness a second-order derivation (using analogic qualia as bits). My simplified language for this would be that qualia are simply a measurement spoken into your head by the structure. All qualia are 'about' the rest of the structure. The measurement does not have to be accurate. It merely has to be repeatable. Lets say we see an omnidirectional field of redness when in the presence of an elephant. This is our perception of elephantness. Have we correctly depicted an elephant in any way? Nope. It's 100% innacurate in that regard. Are we able to know conclusively we are in the presence of an elephant? Absolutely. What is important is that in the above weird universe of perception we would not call the experience redness. We'd call it 'elephantness'. This experience is our entire and only reality. The production of 'elephantness' qualia is the only reality owned by the perceiver. The issue of the intrinsic privacy of that measurement is irrelevant to this. The issue of intentionality - the 'aboutness' of the experience - as to whether it applies to 'self' or 'not-self', is merely one of organisation. I could look at my hand and get a 'redness' field. It's up to me to somehow discriminate my hand from an elephant. More/different qualia are needed...and so on. B) The structure expresses a quale. The structure behaves quale-ly. From the perspective of being the structure that does this behaviour quale-ness is experienced. In the direction of the quale is perceived a 'perspective view' of character 'qualeness'. (tough language, this!) This is 'matter' but has intentionality. It is
Re: Are First Person prime?
1Z wrote: What does access to information mean ? In a dynamic universe, it means causality. In a Barbour-style universe it means some nows coincidentally contain patterns representing other nows just as , in a world consisting of every possible picture, there will be pictures containing pictures-within-a-picture. This is a big topic difficult to do justice to. I'm sure we've both had the experience of re-perusing various treatments of the alternatives without necessarily being completely persuaded either way, but I for one have accomodated my intuitions to this fairly successfully. There's a brief discussion of this in 'not the roadmap' with Bruno and Colin which addresses these issues from the perspective of the 'gestalt'. The points discussed all seem paradoxical from the pov of a classical 'nameable 1st person', and this is IMO a powerful strike against this position. BTW, I have a question for you re 'intrinsically dynamic' views of reality. It has always seemed to me that this view commits one to a sort of continual annihilation of each state by the succeeding one. So both 'past states' and 'future states' are 'radically absent'. My question is: what is left to be 'present'? Recent developments in string theory (M-theory) picture time in terms of a 'cinematographic' view of Planck-time segments. If these are all that exist at any given 'point in time', then haven't we as-near-as-dammit banished the universe from substantial existence? After all, 'structure' when decomposed is in fact extraordinarily dense action - energy IOW. In the 'salami-slicer' model, aren't we left the grin without the cat? It seems to me also that our subjective experience of 'the specious present' entails the compresent existence of Vast numbers of such temporal atoms - say one to one 1/2 seconds-worth. Again, if we try to imagine our experience in the face of the razor of dynamic time, does it seem anything like this? Have you an alternative presentation of a dynamic model that resolves these issues? That doesn't mean all contrast leads to dynamism ! You can get stasis out of dynamism by slowing things dwon to a halt; it is still a paradox to get dynamism out of stasis. Substrate/ differentiation is also a global/ local distinction. Locality is manufactured out of information and its manner of propagation. The global/ local contrast is inherently dynamic. Don't expect dynamism to reduce to primitive 'dynamic atoms'. It emerges from the tension between two contrastable states. So the argument is: 1) David is a person. 2) Because David is a person, some parts of David are conscious, and others unconscious. 3) Some parts of the universe are conscious, and others unconcisous. 4) Therefore the universe is a person, too. 4) should read: therefore the universe manifests personhood in macro as David does in micro. 'Indexical David' is a lens through which the conscious/ unconscious personhood of the universe concentrates a particular perspective. 1) Persons aren't irreducible Persons are defined and delimited by the intersection of structure and substrate. Or in dynamic language, persons are substrate behaving personally. Neither element is dispensible. It depends what you mean by reducible. A substrate that adopts personal indexicality in this way, that claims 'I am indexical David', is something I 'take personally'. 2) Qualia aren't structural. Qualia are the instantiated experience of persons defined indexically. They are the appearance of the substrate behaving personally. They are the analogic instantiation of information. Information is derived from their mutual relations, and these relations are structural/ behavioural. They are the carriers of the metaphoric 'aboutness' of substrate-as-meaning. The meaning they express is 'like this!' From these origins all 'what it's like' is synthesised through structure/ behaviour/ process. 3) There needs to be some sort of Hard Problem attached to peronhhod to justify the manoeuvre of making the 1st-pesoanl primary. If a person is just a particualr structure, or a 1st person statement is just a statement made by a person, that is not the case. The HP is not hard if qualia are understood to be the substrate's unmediated, reflexive, self-referential, self-revelation of its internal structure/ behaviour. Each of the advectives I have used is non-dual in its intent. Even if the limitations of language create the artefact of an apparent dualism in the notion of 'self-reference', this is a linguistic mirage. We're talking equivalence, not 'property'. BTW I don't mean by this that we will ever 'understand' why qualia have any 'absolute' as opposed to relative appearance. This is in principle unanswerable. 4) Strenuous avoidance of dualism. Not all dualisms have the problems of Cartesian dualism. There are dualisms within physicalism. As soon as we allow 'dual ontology' we let in the notion of mediation between two realities, and an unstoppable
Re: Dual-Aspect Science
LZ:
Colin Hales wrote:
The underlying structure unifies the whole
system. Of course you'll get some impact via the causality of the
structurevia the deep structure right down into the very fabric of
space.
In a very real way the existence of 'mysterious observer dependence' is
actually proof that the hierarchically organised S(.) structure idea
must be
somewhere near the answer.
Not really. You can have a two-way causal interdependene between two
systems without them both having th esame structure.
I think you are assuming a separateness of structure that does not exist.
There is one and one only structure. We are all part of it. There is no
concept of 'separate' to be had. Absolutely everything is included in the
structure. No exceptions. Space, atoms, scientists, qualia. All
interactions at all 'scales' (scale itself) are all interactions between
different parts of the one structure. To interact at all is to interact
with another part of the structure. The idea of there being anything else
('not' the structure) is meaningless. If there is any 'thing' in the
structure then the balance of the structure expressed a perfect un-thing.
There is nothing else. That is the coincept I am exploring.
Note that we don't actually have to know what S(.) is to make a whole pile
of observations of properties of organisations of it that apply regardless
of the particular S(.). It may be we never actually get to sort out the
specifics of S(.)! (I have an idea, but it doesn't matter from the
point
of
view of understanding qualia as another property of the structure like
atoms).
In Bruno's terms the structure of S(.) is what he calls 'objective
reality'.
I would say that in science the first person view has primacy.
Epistemic or Ontic ?
These are just words invented by members of the structure. But I'll try.
The structure delivers qualia in the first person. Those qualia are quite
valid 'things' (virtual matter)..organisation/behaviour of structure.
Their presentation bestows intrinsic knowledge as a measurement to the
embedded structure member called the scientist. This is knowledge as
intrinsic intentionality. Within the experiences is regularity which can
then be characterised as knowledge attributed to some identified behaviour
in the structure. This attribution is only an attribution as to behaviour
of the structure, not the structure. These attributions can be used by a
another scientist in their 'first person' world.
All of this is derived from a first person presentation of a measurement.
Ergo science is entirely first operson based. Epistemic and Ontic
characters are smatter throughout this description. I could label them all
but you already know and the process adds nothing to the message or to
sorting out how it all works.
I'd say that
we formulate abstractions that correlate with agreed appearances within
the
first person view. However, the correspo0ndence between the underlying
structure and the formulate abstractions is only that - a correlation.
Our
models are not the structure.
*Could* they be the structure ? if it necessarily
the case that the structure cannot be modelled, then
it is perhaps no strcuture at all.
Which is the simpler and more reasonable basis upon which to explore the
universe:
1) The universe is literally constructed by some sort of
'empirical_law_in_ a_certain_context embodiment machine' by means unknown
that has appearances that cannot be predicted by empirical laws.
(logically equivalent to the laws of nature are invoked by the purple
baloon people of the horsehead nebula)
or
2) The universe is a structure of which we are a part and which also has
the property of delivering appearances of itself to us within which is
regularity that can be captured mathematically.
Yesall these things rely on perceptual mechanisms which will
never...repeat...never...be found in quantum mechanicsnor any other
depiction of appearances.
Why not ?
out of time!!!
colin
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Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 14-août-06, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : But how must the perfect number exist or not exist? You say you only mean it must be true that there is a number equal to the sum of its divsors independent of you. Do you mean independent only in the sense that others will know 6 is perfect after you're gone, or do you mean 6 is perfect independent of all humans, all intelligent beings, the whole world? In the second sense. The perfectness of 6 is what would make any sufficiently clever entity from any possible (consistent) worlds, existing or not, to know that. In that sense it has to be a primitive truth. You can see this through a sequence of stronger and stronger modesty principles: 1) Bruno is not so important that 6 would loose its perfection after Bruno is gone; 2) The Belgian are not so important that 6 would loose its perfectness after the Belgian are gone; 3) The European are not so important that 6 would loose ... 4) The Humans are not so ... 5) The Mammals are not so ... 6) The creature of Earth are not so ... 7) the creature of the Solar system are not so ... 8) the creature of the Milky way are not so ... 9) the creature of the local universe are not so ... 10) the creature of the multiverse are not so ... 11) the creature of the multi multi verse are not so 11) the possible creatures are not so ... Yes, I think (and assume in the Arithmetical realist part of comp) that the fact that 6 is equal to its proper divisors sum, is a truth beyond time, space, whatever ... I have the feeling I would lie to myself to think the contrary. I am frankly more sure about that than about the presence of coffee in my cup right now. I cannot imagine that the numbers themselves could go away. They are not eternal, because they are not even in the category of things capable of lasting or not with respect to any form of observable or not reality. There I think I disagree. If there were no intelligent creatures like ourselves, the infinite set of integers would not exist (I don't think they exist like my coffee does anyway). There would be xx but no number 2 that was generated by a sucessor operation under Peano's axioms. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (SHORT)
Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi Bruno Good to see this. First off some grandmotherly-ish questions: 1) The computationalist hypothesis (comp), This is the hypothesis that I am a digital machine in the quasi-operational sense that I can survive through an artificial digital body/brain. I make it precise by adding Church thesis and some amount of Arithmetical Realism (without which those terms are ambiguous). To be sure this is what Peter D. Jones called standard computationallism. I need to ask you to make this more precise for me. When I say I *am* a digital machine, what is my instantiation? IOW, am 'I' just the *idea* of a dmc for the purposes of a gedanken experiment, or am I to conceive of myself as equivalent to a collection of bits under certain operations, instantiated - well, how? You may be going to tell me that this is irrelevant, or as you say a little further on: From a strictly logical point of view this is not a proof that matter does not exist. Only that primitive matter is devoid of any explanatory purposes, both for the physical (quanta) and psychological (qualia) appearances (once comp is assumed of course). Ignoring for the moment the risk of circularity in the foregoing logic, I'm not insisting on 'matter' here. Rather, in the same spirit as my 'pressing' you on the number realm, if I claim 'I am indexical dmc-David', I thereby assert my *necessary* indexical existence. If my instantiation is a collection of bits, then equivalently I am asserting the necessary indexical existence of this collection of bits. Is this supposed to reside in the 'directly revealed' Pythagorean realm with number etc and consequently is it a matter of faith? I just want to know if it is a case of 'yes monseigneur' before we get to 'yes doctor'. B does capture a notion of self-reference, but it is really a third person form of self-reference. It is the same as the one given by your contemplation of your own body or any correct third person description of yourself, like the encoding proposed by the doctor, in case he is lucky. Now we come to the 'encoding proposed by the doctor'. I hope he's lucky, BTW, it's a good characteristic in a doctor (this is grandma remember). Do we have a theory of the correct encoding of a third person description, or is this an idealisation? Penrose would claim, of course, that it is impossible for any such decription to be instantiated in a digital computer, and his argument derives largely from the putative direct contact of the brain with the Platonic/ Pythagorean realm of number, which instantiates his 'non-computable' procedures. But is your claim that a correct digital 3rd-person description can indeed be achieved if the level of digital 'substitution' instantiates non-computability, as Penrose claims for the brain/ Pythagorean dyad? And if so what is that substitution level, and what is that instantiation (in the sense previously requested)? What a curious and ignorant grandmother! Basically a theology for a machine M is just the whole truth about machine M. This is not normative, nobody pretend knowing such truth. Plotinus' ONE, or GOD, or GOOD or its big unnameable ... is (arithmetical, analytical) truth. A theorem by Tarski can justified what this notion is already not nameable by any correct (arithmetical or analytical) machine. Now such truth does not depend on the machine, still less from machine representation, and thus is a zero-person notion. From this I will qualify as divine anything related to truth, and as terrestrial, anything related to provable by the machine. So here we arrive at the theology, and I think I finally see what you intend by a zero-person notion - i.e. one that does not depend on instantiation in persons, but I'm not yet convinced of the 'reality' of this. I hope to be able to stop pressing you on this 'indexical instantiation' mystery, so if the above are simply the articles of faith for this 'as if' belief system, then I'll stop questioning them for the duration of the experiment. Meanwhile you could try to guess where qualia and quanta appear. (I will see too if this table survives the electronic voyage ...) Hmm... Well, I guess I would expect qualia to be 'sensible', and quanta to be 'intelligible', but then I wouldn't know that quanta were intelligible until they were sensible as qualia. So if you mean 'appear' as in 'appears from the pov of indexical dmc-David', I guess it would have to be 'sensible matter' for both. But grandma grows weary.. G Hi, 1) The computationalist hypothesis (comp), This is the hypothesis that I am a digital machine in the quasi-operational sense that I can survive through an artificial digital body/brain. I make it precise by adding Church thesis and some amount of Arithmetical Realism (without which those terms are ambiguous). To be sure this is what Peter D. Jones called standard computationallism. Let us call momentarily Pythagorean comp the thesis that
RE: Dual-Aspect Science
LZ:
Colin Hales wrote:
The underlying structure unifies the
whole system. Of course you'll
get some impact via the causality of the
structurevia the deep structure right down into
the very fabric of space.
In a very real way the existence of
'mysterious observer dependence'
is
actually proof that the hierarchically organised S(.)
structure idea must be
somewhere near the answer.
Not really. You can have a two-way causal
interdependene between two
systems without them both having th esame structure.
I think you are assuming a separateness of structure
that does not exist.
There is one and one only structure. We are all part
of it. There is no concept of 'separate' to be had. Absolutely everything is
included in the structure. No exceptions. Space, atoms, scientists, qualia. All
interactions at all 'scales' (scale itself) are all interactions between
different parts of the one structure. To interact at all is to interact with
another part of the structure. The idea of there being anything else ('not' the
structure) is meaningless. If there is any 'thing' in the structure then the
balance of the structure expressed a perfect un-thing.
There is nothing else. That is the coincept I am
exploring.
Note that we don't actually have to know what
S(.) is to make a whole
pile of observations of properties of
organisations of it that apply
regardless of the particular S(.). It may be
we never actually get to
sort out the
specifics of S(.)! (I have an idea, but it doesn't
matter from the point
of
view of understanding qualia as another
property of the structure
like
atoms).
In Bruno's terms the structure of S(.) is
what he calls 'objective
reality'.
I would say that in science the first person
view has primacy.
Epistemic or Ontic ?
These are just words invented by members of the
structure. But I'll try.
The structure delivers qualia in the first person.
Those qualia are quite valid 'things' (virtual matter)..organisation/behaviour
of structure.
Their presentation bestows intrinsic knowledge as a
measurement to the embedded structure member called the scientist. This is
knowledge as intrinsic intentionality. Within the experiences is regularity
which can then be characterised as knowledge attributed to some identified
behaviour in the structure. This attribution is only an attribution as to
behaviour of the structure, not the structure. These attributions can be used
by a another scientist in their 'first person' world.
All of this is derived from a first person
presentation of a measurement.
Ergo science is entirely first operson based.
Epistemic and Ontic characters are smatter throughout this description. I could
label them all but you already know and the process adds nothing to the message
or to sorting out how it all works.
I'd say that
we formulate abstractions that correlate with
agreed appearances
within
the
first person view. However, the
correspo0ndence between the
underlying
structure and the formulate abstractions is only that
- a correlation.
Our
models are not the structure.
*Could* they be the structure ? if it necessarily
the case that the
structure cannot be modelled, then it
is perhaps no strcuture at
all.
Which is the simpler and more reasonable basis upon
which to explore the
universe:
1) The universe is literally constructed by some sort
of 'empirical_law_in_ a_certain_context embodiment machine' by means unknown
that has appearances (qualia as 1st person perception) that cannot
be predicted by empirical laws driving the machine, yet are clearly implemented
by the machine. (logically equivalent to the laws of nature are invoked
by the purple balloon people of the horsehead nebula).
or
2) The universe is a structure of which we are a part
and which also has the property of delivering appearances of itself to us
within which is regularity that can be captured mathematically as empirical
laws. By considering universes of structure capable of delivering appearances
we can then insist that the structures appearances thus delivered shall also deliver
appearances that would lead us to formulate regularity as empirical laws when
made of it... this 2-sided equation with qualia the linking/unifying/central/prime
feature is dual aspect science.
Parsimony is in 2), not 1).
Yesall these things rely on perceptual
mechanisms which will
never...repeat...never...be found in quantum
mechanicsnor any other depiction of appearances.
Why not ?
Continuing right along: sorry
QM is an appearance. Trying to explain appearance with
appearance is like trying to telephone somebody a telephone (or maybe fax a
real fax machine down the line). It doesnt make sense. If you want to
figure out how the phone works then you have to start thinking about the things
that comprise something that behaves phone_system-ly to phone users. The
universe is not made of quantum
RE: Can we ever know truth?
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 13-août-06, à 19:17, Rich Winkel a écrit : According to Stathis Papaioannou: The best we can do in science as in everyday life is to accept provisionally that things are as they seem. There is no shame in this, as long as you are ready to revise your theory in the light of new evidence, and it is certainly better than assuming that things are *not* as they seem, in the absence of any evidence. The process isn't quite that benign, especially when applied to one's treatment of others. There will always be unknowable truths, one should proceed with an acute sense of one's own ignorance. Yet with each advance in science people and their institutions act increasingly recklessly with regard to unanticipated consquences. How can we perceive and measure our own ignorance? One way is the following: assume that you are a digitalizable machine, and then study the intrinsical ignorance of the digitalizable machine, which can be done (through computer science). Here I tend to agree with Rich Winkel contra Stathis Papaioannou. To accept, even provisionally, that things are as they seem, is akin to trust nature about the genuiness of the work of our brain with respect to some local reality. Then indeed we can revise our theories in case they are wrong. But we can also assume some hypothesis about the observer, and realize that in some case things just cannot be as they seem. I mean we can find *reasons* why Being take a departure from Seeming, especially concerning a global view for which our brain could naturally be deficient. If we realise that things cannot be as they seem then this is new evidence and things now seem different to what they originally did! I did not intend that things are as they seem be understood in a narrow sense, such as what our senses can immediately apprehend. Complex scientific evidence, philosophical considerations, historical experience: all of it has to be added to the mix and whatever comes out is what we should accept as the provisional best theory. We know that it may not be the truth - indeed, that we might never actually know the truth - but it is the best we can do. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Are First Person prime?
1Z wrote: What does access to information mean ? In a dynamic universe, it means causality. In a Barbour-style universe it means some nows coincidentally contain patterns representing other nows just as , in a world consisting of every possible picture, there will be pictures containing pictures-within-a-picture. This is a big topic difficult to do justice to. Essentially IMO it means indexical 1st-person limitations on knowledge arising both from behavioural capability and information instantiated as a virtual world-model. Those are the limits of what we can know within a discrete indexical location, or time capsule. I'm sure we've both had the experience of re-perusing various treatments of the alternatives without necessarily being completely persuaded either way, but I for one have accomodated my intuitions to this fairly successfully. There's a brief discussion of this in 'not the roadmap' with Bruno and Colin which addresses these issues from the perspective of the 'gestalt'. The points discussed all seem paradoxical from the pov of a classical 'nameable 1st person' in a dynamic 'tensed' situation, and this is IMO a powerful strike against this position. BTW, I have a question for you re 'intrinsically dynamic' views of reality. It has always seemed to me that this view commits one to a sort of continual annihilation of each state by the succeeding one. So both 'past states' and 'future states' are 'radically absent'. My question is: what is left to be 'present'? Recent developments in string theory (M-theory) picture time in terms of a 'cinematographic' view of Planck-time segments. If these are all that exist at any given 'point in time', then haven't we as-near-as-dammit banished the universe from substantial existence? After all, 'structure' when decomposed is in fact extraordinarily dense action - energy IOW. In the 'salami-slicer' model, aren't we left with the grin but without the cat? It seems to me also that our subjective experience of 'the specious present' entails the compresent existence of Vast numbers of such temporal quanta - say one to one 1/2 seconds-worth. Again, if we try to imagine our experience in the face of the razor of dynamic time, does it seem anything like this? Have you an alternative presentation of a dynamic model that resolves these issues? That doesn't mean all contrast leads to dynamism ! You can get stasis out of dynamism by slowing things dwon to a halt; it is still a paradox to get dynamism out of stasis. Substrate/ differentiation is also a global/ local distinction. Locality is manufactured out of information and its manner of propagation. The global/ local contrast is inherently dynamic. Don't expect dynamism to reduce to primitive 'dynamic atoms'. It emerges from the tension between two contrastable states. So the argument is: 1) David is a person. 2) Because David is a person, some parts of David are conscious, and others unconscious. 3) Some parts of the universe are conscious, and others unconcisous. 4) Therefore the universe is a person, too. 4) should read: therefore the universe manifests personhood in macro as David does in micro. 'Indexical David' is a lens through which the conscious/ unconscious personhood of the universe concentrates a particular perspective. 1) Persons aren't irreducible Persons are defined and delimited by the intersection of structure and substrate. Or in dynamic language, persons are substrate behaving personally. Neither element is dispensible. It depends what you mean by reducible. A substrate that adopts personal indexicality in this way, that claims 'I am indexical David', is something I 'take personally'. 2) Qualia aren't structural. Qualia are the instantiated experience of persons defined indexically. They are the appearance of the substrate behaving personally. They are the analogic instantiation of information. Information is derived from their mutual relations, and these relations are structural/ behavioural. They are the carriers of the metaphoric 'aboutness' of substrate-as-meaning. The meaning they express is 'like this!' From these origins all 'what it's like' is synthesised through structure/ behaviour/ process. 3) There needs to be some sort of Hard Problem attached to peronhhod to justify the manoeuvre of making the 1st-pesoanl primary. If a person is just a particualr structure, or a 1st person statement is just a statement made by a person, that is not the case. The HP is not hard or a problem if qualia are understood to be the substrate's unmediated, reflexive, self-referential, self-revelation of its internal structure/ behaviour. Each of these adjectives is non-dual in its intent. Even if the limitations of language create the artefact of an apparent dualism in the notion of 'self-reference', this is a linguistic mirage. We're talking equivalence, not 'property'. BTW I don't mean by this that we will ever 'understand' why qualia have any 'absolute' as opposed
RE: Can we ever know truth?
-Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brent Meeker Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 12:36 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? Stathis Papaioannou wrote: ... If we realise that things cannot be as they seem then this is new evidence and things now seem different to what they originally did! I did not intend that things are as they seem be understood in a narrow sense, such as what our senses can immediately apprehend. Complex scientific evidence, philosophical considerations, historical experience: all of it has to be added to the mix and whatever comes out is what we should accept as the provisional best theory. We know that it may not be the truth - indeed, that we might never actually know the truth - but it is the best we can do. Stathis Papaioannou Brent Meeker OK, I agree. Things as they seem in the broader scientific sense is what I mean by a model of reality. I sometimes think that's why there has been such a long and continuing argument about the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Although we can do the math and check the experiment - things just can't seem that way. Brent Meeker In brain material and brain material alone you get anomaly: things are NOT what they seem. 'Seem' is a construct of qualia. In a science of qualia, what are they 'seeming' to be? Not qualia. That is circular. Parsimony demands we assume 'something' and then investigate it. Having done that we need to hold that very same 'something' responsible for all the other 'seeming' delivered by qualia. Seeming sounds great until you try and conduct a scientific study of the 'seeming' system. Colin Hales --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
