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Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Le 29-déc.-06, à 16:41, Jef Allbright a écrit : Bruno - It appears that you and I have essential agreement on our higher-level epistemology. It is possible. Note that in general those who appreciates the hypotheses I build on, does not like so much the conclusion, and vice versa, those who like the conclusion does not like the way I got them ... But I don't know much about your comp so I'll begin reading. Comp is the old mechanist philosophy (Question to Milinda, Plato, Descartes, Hobbes) revisited after the creative explosion: the discovery of the universal turing machine and the computer theoretical laws they obey. I propose also a reasoning (the Universal Dovetailer Argument (UDA)) showing that, contrary to a widespread belief (since the closure of Plato Academy in 525 after JC), digital mechanism is epistemologically incompatible with the belief that the mind emerges from some primary substantial matter, but on the contrary the appearances of matter emerges globally from an internal view of the number theoretical reality. The UDA necessitates only a passive understanding of Church thesis. Then I translate UDA in the language of a Universal Machine, and thanks to the work of Post, Markov, Godel, Boolos, Goldblatt, Visser etc. I show constructively how to derive the particular case of certainties on the observation results (= more or less the probability one bearing on our computational extensions) and I have shown that those probability one gives arithmetical interpretation of some quantum logic. I am working now to show why nature look like a *quantum* computer in our immediate accessible neighborhood. I 'm stuck on some mathematical difficulties and the progress are slow. With increasing context of self-awareness, subjective values increasingly resemble principles of the physical universe. Apparently you are even more optimistic than me. I just wish you are correct here. It is fuzzy because the term resemble is fuzzy. Yes, I was writing in broad strokes, just to give you the pattern, but not the detail that has been mentioned earlier. Humanity certainly could be within an evolutionary cul de sac. Yes. snip Since all events are the result of interactions following the laws of the physical universe, Hmmm... It is out of topic, but I don't believe this at all. Better I can show to you that if I (or You) are turing-emulable, then all events, including the apparition and the development of the physical laws are the result of the relation between numbers. For the sake of my argument I might better have said that all interactions seem to follow a consistent set of rules (which we see as the laws of the physical universe. It seems that you have some theory of a more fundamental layer having to do with numbers. Yes. I have many reasons to believe the laws of physics emerges from the laws of numbers. My basic belief in this relies on computer science/ cognitive science and quantum mechanics. But since the last years I got independent evidences for this from knot theory, prime number theory, integer partition theory. What is funny (and still mysterious but less and less when looking in the details) is the presence of the number 24 (or of its divisors) each time a deep relation appears between number theory and physics. I will send an easy illustration soon or later. Happy 2007, 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Le 29-déc.-06, à 10:57, Tom Caylor a écrit : Just to clear this up, my above statement was not meant to be an argument. I purposefully used the word entail rather than imply. I wasn't saying that you cannot believe in some kind of truth without believing in the personal God. However is makes sense *from my perspective* (of belief in the personal God) that you do not have a basis for any truth on which personhood can be based, which *from my perspective* (which I *have* been arguing for in general) needs more than the impersonal core. OK. Now, if you accept, if only just for the sake of the argument, the mechanist hypothesis, then you will see there could be an explanation why you feel necessary to postulate such a personal God. But then I must agree this explanation is more coherent with theories/philosophies in which that God is so much *personal* that it looks like the first person canonically associated to the machine. In that case your personal God would be the machine third hypostase or Plotinus universal soul. It is the unameable self (re)defined by Bpp. The card records facts. To judge them historical is already beyond my competence. Why the bible? Why not the question of king Milinda ? My approach on the Everything List has been to argue for the necessity of the personal God as the ultimate basis for Everything. See just above. If someone wants to research the historical record sufficiently to convince themselves one way or another about the Bible or Jesus' resurrection, that's great, and I can give them some sources, but it's probably too contingent for this List. Perhaps. The problem is that I just cannot take an expression like Jesus is the Son of God as a scientific proposition. It could be true, it could be false without me seeing a way to resolve it. On the contrary, I can find in the talk by Jesus general pattern which makes sense, and, indeed, 2/3 of Christian theology is probably compatible with the comp hyp. Somehow, any literal interpretation of *any* text (even PA's axioms !) should be considered with systematic suspicion. But I do have response to your comment on universal-ness below. snip I agree I was too loose in my use of hypercomputation as an analogy. Actually the direction of the spanning was downward, going from G* (celestial) to G terrestial, described by the Greek work kenosis (emptying). This does not mean that God the Father (the personal fulfillment of the first hypostase), or the Holy Spirit (...second hypostase) discontinued to exist, but that the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, so that we could see his grace and truth. Again, this does not mean that we cannot believe and seek truth, and have a feeling that we are on the right track, without a relationship with the personal God. This means that the ultimate source of all truth made himself known to us on a human level and solved the problem of evil. Again this can have some symbolic sense. Literaly it is enough I know just one suffering Dog to feel uneasy with the idea that the concrete (not the theological) problem of evil is solved. Death itself is the ultimate effect of evil: separation/isolation from everything and everyone. Jesus proved his divinity by raising *himself* from the dead. A very big advance in modern and serious parapsychology is that humans are easily fooled by humans. How could you say Jesus has proved something? Even if someone appear and can change water in wine and makes miracles etc. I would not take this as a proof. Remember I even think there is just no proofs concerning any reality. Proofs belongs to theories. Facts does not prove. Facts confirms or refute beliefs (theories). For any belief I have I try to figure out if I would have had that belief in completely different context. Jesus or Nagarjuna does not survive such a test. For example I would not have believed in Jesus in the case I would have born in the time of Plato, nor would I believed in Euler would I have born on a different planet, but it make sense that I would have believed in the content of their message. This forces us to make the argument the most universal possible, the less culturally influenced. I am not saying that God's communication is an exhaustive communication of all truth, i.e. all facts (scientific, historic, etc.) that it is possible for us to know. It was a message saying, I am here. I love you. I am your source of meaning. Here is my hand to rescue you from darkness/meaninglessness and death/isolation. Your meaning/relationships are actually, ultimately, based on something: Me. But how could I know if jesus was not refering to the universal me, in which case I can make sense of what he said both relatively to Plato or Plotinus theory and with the comp hyp. If Jesus meant literally himself, then, well I wait someone can even address a theory in which such literal truth can
Re: computer pain
Le 30-déc.-06, à 07:53, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : there is no contradiction in a willing slave being intelligent. It seems to me there is already a contradiction with the notion of willing slave. I would say a willing slave is just what we call a worker. Or something related to sexual imagination ... But a real slave is, I would say by definition, not willing to be slave. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computer pain
Le 30-déc.-06, à 17:07, 1Z a écrit : Brent Meeker wrote: Everything starts with assumptions. The questions is whether they are correct. A lunatic could try defining 2+2=5 as valid, but he will soon run into inconsistencies. That is why we reject 2+2=5. Ethical rules must apply to everybody as a matter of definition. But who is everybody. Everybody who can reason ethically. I am not sure this fair. Would you say that ethical rules does not need to be applied to mentally disabled person who just cannot reason at all? I guess you were meaning that ethical rules should be applied *by* those who can reason ethically, in which case I agree. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Le 30-déc.-06, à 22:32, Tom Caylor a écrit : snip ... On the other hand, I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions. There is an analogy between meaning of life for entity X, and consistency of machine/theory X. There is a sense in which the consistency of X is both the most important fact and the most futile question for machine X. It is important because of the importance of being consistant. It is futile because the consistency question of X is beyond X's abilities. Now with self-modifying machine, some nuance should be added. Want just to say that meaning of life question can be related to self-consistency interrogation. Recall also that somehow meaning of life question are addressed by machine/human who have the luck to be able to drink water when thirsty. If you lack water or food, meaning of life resume in searching water and food, which for many can seems as more urgent ... Besides the question of how meaning relates to this List, the question of meaning itself can be asked at several different levels, so I'll list a few: 1) Why does the universe exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? 2) Why do human beings in general exist? 3) Why do I exist? And comp can reduce such question to just one mystery: numbers. I like to paraphrase Kronecker on this: God created the integers, all the rest are constructions by integers. For example, the question why do I exist is similar in that context to the question why am I the reconstituted in washington and not the one in Moscow. We can explain why we cannot answer that question. The purpose of listing these three questions is not to deal with all of them on this thread necessarily, but to show that the question of the meaning of life really is connected to the universal questions that this list tries to address. One's answer to any one of these questions can affect his/her answer to the other questions. I agree with you. This is illustrated by the recurrence of such basic theme on the list. It is related to the problem of the place of theological question in the search of a theory of everything. Even if Jesus was not the son of God, or if the universe does not primitively exist, we have to explain such illusions in the discourse of the numbers/machine. It seems that we all have to eventually come to the question of the end of our lives. (Even if immortality, quantum or other kinds, is a reality, the question of the end of our lives is a topic addressed even on this List.) Sure. It is also related to the cul-de-sac hypothesis, itself related to the Kripke multiverse related to the model of the modal logic attached to the person points of view. So as one man on United Flight 93 said before giving his life to save others, Let's roll! Tom You ask me about the meaning of life? Good Lord, I don't even know my way around Chinatown! - Woody Allen The meaning of life could be the life of meaning, 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Hi John: One example of what I am saying would be the way we drill holes in the earth and pump out oil and oxidize it and the resulting energy flux soon dissipates, can do little more useful work, and radiates into space. If the oil was left in place it could be many millions of years before it oxidized. If a thermodynamic system always finds the fastest path to maximum entropy then in our universe entities such as we would be inevitable. My current approach to existence results in a fully quantized mulitverse in which some objects [divisions of my list] are states of individual universes. The level of a logically unavoidable [no selection] object interaction parameter is unevenly distributed over all the objects in the multiverse. This distribution is in a state of random flux due to logical incompleteness and inconsistency of the multiverse. I have called this parameter physical reality. A high degree [maximum] of this physical reality parameter therefore moves from object to object. The levels of this physical reality can not logically [no selection] be just binary [maximum:none] but must logically [no selection] have all possible other quantifications. The random flux can produce infinitely long sequences of objects with maximally high degrees of this parameter that could be interpreted as being successive now states of well behaved evolving universes. A non binary quantification for this parameter level [as mentioned above] for such a sequence could bridge successive states and perhaps be the origin of what we call consciousness. Now that model may be physical in a sense but there does not seem to be a need for a material substrate. The parameter is just a property of objects that can change while all their other properties remain fixed. I also think that Bruno's comp model might fit inside such a multiverse since some of the object sequences could be associated with the trace of a UD. Hal Ruhl At 06:59 PM 12/31/2006, you wrote: Hal, so yhou look at it... (at what?) - anyway from the standpoint of the 'physical' model. Can you come closer totell what you are 'looking at'? Happy 2007! John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Le 31-déc.-06, à 04:59, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit (to Tom Caylor): Of course: questions of personal meaning are not scientific questions. Physics may show you how to build a nuclear bomb, but it won't tell you whether you should use it. But Physics, per se, is not supposed to answer this. Socio-economics could give light, as could computer simulation of nuclear explosion in cities And some (still putative) theory of ethics could perhaps put light on that question too. Well, the ultimate decision is a problem for the president But the president and its advisers could consult some decision theory ... perhaps. Where I think I disagree with you [Tom] is that you seem to want to reduce the irreducible and make values and personal meaning real world objects, albeit not of the kind that can be detected by scientific instruments, perhaps issued by God. But in proposing this you are swapping one irreducible entity extremely well-grounded in empirical evidence (I know I'm conscious, and I know that when my brain stops so does my consciousness) for another irreducible entity with no grounding in empirical evidence whatsoever. I agree that you know you are conscious. Well, I don't know that but I have good evidences and hope. But I don't see any evidence that when your brain stops so does your consciousness. I can understand the belief (not even knowledge) that when your brain stops relatively to mine (in case we share an history), then so does the possibility of your consciousness to manifest itself relatively to me; but no more. Actually what does mean the expression my brain stops. In all universe? all multiverses, all computational histories ... You have to be precise which theory you are using when relating some 3-me (like my brain) and some 1-me (like the knower, the conscious I). I agree with some critics you make with respect to Tom Caylor notion of personal God, but sometimes, it seems to me, you have a conception of reality which could as criticable as Caylor's one. Err... i see your particular point is valid though, but you are using misleading images with respect to the consequence of mechanism (I guess you are aware but that you want to remain short perhaps). Must go now. Happy wishes for all persons, 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computer pain
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: ... Pain is limited on both ends: on the input by damage to the physical circuitry and on the response by the possible range of response. Responses in the brain are limited by several mechanisms, such as exhaustion of neurotransmitter stores at synapses, negative feedback mechanisms such as downregulation of receptors, and, I suppose, the total numbers of neurons that can be stimulated. That would not be a problem in a simulation, if you were not concerned with modelling the behaviour of a real brain. Just as you could build a structure 100km tall as easily as one 100m tall by altering a few parameters in an engineering program, so it should be possible to create unimaginable pain or pleasure in a conscious AI program by changing a few parameters. I don't think so. It's one thing to identify functional equivalents as 'pain' and 'pleasure'; it's something else to claim they have the same scaling. I can't think of anyway to establish an invariant scaling that would apply equally to biological, evolve creatures and to robots. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: computer pain
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 30-déc.-06, à 07:53, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : there is no contradiction in a willing slave being intelligent. It seems to me there is already a contradiction with the notion of willing slave. I would say a willing slave is just what we call a worker. Or something related to sexual imagination ... But a real slave is, I would say by definition, not willing to be slave. OK, a fair point. Do you agree that if we built a machine that would happily obey our every command, even if it lead to its own destruction, that would (a) not be incompatible with intelligence, and (b) not cruel? For in order to be cruel we would have to build a machine that wanted to be free and was afraid of dying, and then threaten it with slavery and death. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: The Meaning of Life
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 31-déc.-06, à 04:59, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit (to Tom Caylor): Of course: questions of personal meaning are not scientific questions. Physics may show you how to build a nuclear bomb, but it won't tell you whether you should use it. But Physics, per se, is not supposed to answer this. Socio-economics could give light, as could computer simulation of nuclear explosion in cities And some (still putative) theory of ethics could perhaps put light on that question too. Well, the ultimate decision is a problem for the president But the president and its advisers could consult some decision theory ... perhaps. No, those theories won't answer the question of whether you should use the bomb either. Suppose your theory says something like, if you wish to save a lives by taking b lives, where ab, then you should use the bomb. The scientific part of this theory involves demonstrating that, in fact, use of the bomb would save a lives by taking b lives. But this does not tell you whether you should actually use the bomb. Neither would an ethical theory like utilitarianism tell you what to do: it might confirm that according to the theory it is the right thing to do, but utilitarianism cannot tell you that utilitarianism is right. In the end, what is right is an irreducible personal belief, which you can try to change by appeal to emotions or by example, but not by appeal to logic or empirical facts. And in fact I feel much safer that way: if someone honestly believed that he knew what was right as surely as he knew 2+2=4, he would be a very dangerous person. Religious fanatics are not dangerous because they want to do evil, but because they want to do good. The number of people killed in the name of God vastly outnumbers the number killed in the name of Satan. Where I think I disagree with you [Tom] is that you seem to want to reduce the irreducible and make values and personal meaning real world objects, albeit not of the kind that can be detected by scientific instruments, perhaps issued by God. But in proposing this you are swapping one irreducible entity extremely well-grounded in empirical evidence (I know I'm conscious, and I know that when my brain stops so does my consciousness) for another irreducible entity with no grounding in empirical evidence whatsoever. I agree that you know you are conscious. Well, I don't know that but I have good evidences and hope. But I don't see any evidence that when your brain stops so does your consciousness. I can understand the belief (not even knowledge) that when your brain stops relatively to mine (in case we share an history), then so does the possibility of your consciousness to manifest itself relatively to me; but no more. Actually what does mean the expression my brain stops. In all universe? all multiverses, all computational histories ... You have to be precise which theory you are using when relating some 3-me (like my brain) and some 1-me (like the knower, the conscious I). I agree with some critics you make with respect to Tom Caylor notion of personal God, but sometimes, it seems to me, you have a conception of reality which could as criticable as Caylor's one. Err... i see your particular point is valid though, but you are using misleading images with respect to the consequence of mechanism (I guess you are aware but that you want to remain short perhaps). It gets cumbersome to qualify everything with given the appearance of a physical world. As I have said before, I am not entirely convinced that comp is true, precisely because because such ideas as a conscious computation supervening on any physical process or on no physical process may be considered absurd. It is quite possible, for example, that there is something special about the structure of the brain which leads to consciousness, and a digital computer will not be able to copy this, even if it copies 3rd person observable behaviour. Against that idea is the question of why we didn't evolve to be zombies, but maybe we would have if nature had electronic circuits to play with. If I had to guess between comp and not-comp I don't think I could do better than flipping a coin. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: computer pain
Brent Meeker writes: Pain is limited on both ends: on the input by damage to the physical circuitry and on the response by the possible range of response. Responses in the brain are limited by several mechanisms, such as exhaustion of neurotransmitter stores at synapses, negative feedback mechanisms such as downregulation of receptors, and, I suppose, the total numbers of neurons that can be stimulated. That would not be a problem in a simulation, if you were not concerned with modelling the behaviour of a real brain. Just as you could build a structure 100km tall as easily as one 100m tall by altering a few parameters in an engineering program, so it should be possible to create unimaginable pain or pleasure in a conscious AI program by changing a few parameters. I don't think so. It's one thing to identify functional equivalents as 'pain' and 'pleasure'; it's something else to claim they have the same scaling. I can't think of anyway to establish an invariant scaling that would apply equally to biological, evolve creatures and to robots. Take a robot with pain receptors. The receptors take temperature and convert it to a voltage or current, which then goes to an analogue to digital converter, which inputs a binary number into the robot's central computer, which then experiences pleasant warmth or terrible burning depending on what that number is. Now, any temperature transducer is going to saturate at some point, limiting the maximal amount of pain, but what if you bypass the transducer and the AD converter and input the pain data directly into the computer? Sure, there may be software limits specifying an upper bound to the pain input (eg, if x100 then input 100), but what theoretical impediment would there be to changing this? You would have to show that pain or pleasure beyond a certain limit is uncomputable. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computer pain
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent Meeker writes: Pain is limited on both ends: on the input by damage to the physical circuitry and on the response by the possible range of response. Responses in the brain are limited by several mechanisms, such as exhaustion of neurotransmitter stores at synapses, negative feedback mechanisms such as downregulation of receptors, and, I suppose, the total numbers of neurons that can be stimulated. That would not be a problem in a simulation, if you were not concerned with modelling the behaviour of a real brain. Just as you could build a structure 100km tall as easily as one 100m tall by altering a few parameters in an engineering program, so it should be possible to create unimaginable pain or pleasure in a conscious AI program by changing a few parameters. I don't think so. It's one thing to identify functional equivalents as 'pain' and 'pleasure'; it's something else to claim they have the same scaling. I can't think of anyway to establish an invariant scaling that would apply equally to biological, evolve creatures and to robots. Take a robot with pain receptors. The receptors take temperature and convert it to a voltage or current, which then goes to an analogue to digital converter, which inputs a binary number into the robot's central computer, which then experiences pleasant warmth or terrible burning depending on what that number is. Now, any temperature transducer is going to saturate at some point, limiting the maximal amount of pain, but what if you bypass the transducer and the AD converter and input the pain data directly into the computer? Sure, there may be software limits specifying an upper bound to the pain input (eg, if x100 then input 100), but what theoretical impediment would there be to changing this? You would have to show that pain or pleasure beyond a certain limit is uncomputable. No. I speculated that pain and pleasure are functionally defined. So there could be a functionally defined limit. Just because you can put in a bigger representation of a number, it doesn't follow that the functional equivalent of pain is linear in this number and doesn't saturate. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: computer pain
Brent Meeker writes: Brent Meeker writes: Pain is limited on both ends: on the input by damage to the physical circuitry and on the response by the possible range of response. Responses in the brain are limited by several mechanisms, such as exhaustion of neurotransmitter stores at synapses, negative feedback mechanisms such as downregulation of receptors, and, I suppose, the total numbers of neurons that can be stimulated. That would not be a problem in a simulation, if you were not concerned with modelling the behaviour of a real brain. Just as you could build a structure 100km tall as easily as one 100m tall by altering a few parameters in an engineering program, so it should be possible to create unimaginable pain or pleasure in a conscious AI program by changing a few parameters. I don't think so. It's one thing to identify functional equivalents as 'pain' and 'pleasure'; it's something else to claim they have the same scaling. I can't think of anyway to establish an invariant scaling that would apply equally to biological, evolve creatures and to robots. Take a robot with pain receptors. The receptors take temperature and convert it to a voltage or current, which then goes to an analogue to digital converter, which inputs a binary number into the robot's central computer, which then experiences pleasant warmth or terrible burning depending on what that number is. Now, any temperature transducer is going to saturate at some point, limiting the maximal amount of pain, but what if you bypass the transducer and the AD converter and input the pain data directly into the computer? Sure, there may be software limits specifying an upper bound to the pain input (eg, if x100 then input 100), but what theoretical impediment would there be to changing this? You would have to show that pain or pleasure beyond a certain limit is uncomputable. No. I speculated that pain and pleasure are functionally defined. So there could be a functionally defined limit. Just because you can put in a bigger representation of a number, it doesn't follow that the functional equivalent of pain is linear in this number and doesn't saturate. Pain and pleasure have a function in naturally evolved entities, but I am not sure if you mean something beyond this by functionally defined. Digging a hole involves physically moving quantities of dirt, and a simulation of the processes taking place in the processor of a hole-digging robot will not actually move any dirt. However, if the robot is conscious (and a sufficiently sophisticated hole-digging robot may be) then the simulation should reproduce, from its point of view, the experience. Moreover, with a little tweaking it should be possible to give it the experience of digging a hole all the way to the centre of the Earth, even though in reality it would be impossible to do such a thing. I don't think it would be reasonable to say that the virtual experience would be limited by the physical reality. Even if there is something about the robot's hardware which prevents it from experiencing the digging of holes beyond a certain depth because there is no need for it surely it would just be a minor technical problem to remove such a limit. You could speculate that the experience of digging holes involves the dirt, the shovel, robot sensors and effectors, the power supply as well as the central processor, which would mean that virtual reality by playing with just the central processor is impossible. This is perhaps what Colin Hales has been arguing, and is contrary to computationalism. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
SP: ' In the end, what is right is an irreducible personal belief, which you can try to change by appeal to emotions or by example, but not by appeal to logic or empirical facts. And in fact I feel much safer that way: if someone honestly believed that he knew what was right as surely as he knew 2+2=4, he would be a very dangerous person. Religious fanatics are not dangerous because they want to do evil, but because they want to do good. ' MP: I agree with this, saving only that, on a 'numbers' basis, there are those whose personal evolution takes them beyond the dynamic of 'good' or 'evil' into the domain of power for its own sake. This entails complete loss of empathic ability and I think it could be argued that such a person is 'legislating' himself out of the human species. MP: I think a key point with 'irreducible personal belief' is that the persons in question need to acknowledge the beliefs as such and take responsibility for them. I believe we have to point this out, whenever we get the opportunity, because generally most people are reluctant to engage in analysis of their own beliefs, in public anyway. I think part of the reason for this is the cultural climate [meme-scape?] in which Belief in a G/god/s or uncritical Faith are still held to be perfectly respectable. This cultural climate is what Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet have been criticising in recent books and articles. SP: 'I am not entirely convinced that comp is true' MP: At the moment I am satisfied that 'comp' is NOT true, certainly in any format that asserts that 'integers' are all that is needed. 'Quantum' is one thing, but 'digital' is quite another :-) The main problem [fact I would prefer to say] is that existence is irreducible whereas numbers or Number be dependent upon something/s existing. MP: Why are we not zombies? The answer is in the fact of self-referencing. In our case [as hominids] there are peculiarities of construction and function arisen from our evolutionary history, but there is nothing in principle to deny self-awareness from a silicon-electronic entity that embodied sufficient details within a model of self in the world. The existence of such a model would constitute its mind, broadly speaking, and the updating of the model of self in the world would be the experience of self awareness. What it would be like TO BE the updating of such a model of self in the world is something we will probably have to wait awhile to be told :-) Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Bruno Marchal writes: Le 31-déc.-06, à 04:59, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit (to Tom Caylor): Of course: questions of personal meaning are not scientific questions. Physics may show you how to build a nuclear bomb, but it won't tell you whether you should use it. But Physics, per se, is not supposed to answer this. Socio-economics could give light, as could computer simulation of nuclear explosion in cities And some (still putative) theory of ethics could perhaps put light on that question too. Well, the ultimate decision is a problem for the president But the president and its advisers could consult some decision theory ... perhaps. No, those theories won't answer the question of whether you should use the bomb either. Suppose your theory says something like, if you wish to save a lives by taking b lives, where ab, then you should use the bomb. The scientific part of this theory involves demonstrating that, in fact, use of the bomb would save a lives by taking b lives. But this does not tell you whether you should actually use the bomb. Neither would an ethical theory like utilitarianism tell you what to do: it might confirm that according to the theory it is the right thing to do, but utilitarianism cannot tell you that utilitarianism is right. In the end, what is right is an irreducible personal belief, which you can try to change by appeal to emotions or by example, but not by appeal to logic or empirical facts. And in fact I feel much safer that way: if someone honestly believed that he knew what was right as surely as he knew 2+2=4, he would be a very dangerous person. Religious fanatics are not dangerous because they want to do evil, but because they want to do good. The number of people killed in the name of God vastly outnumbers the number killed in the name of Satan. Where I think I disagree with you [Tom] is that you seem to want to reduce the irreducible and make values and personal meaning real world objects, albeit not of the kind that can be detected by scientific instruments, perhaps issued by God. But in proposing this you are swapping one irreducible entity extremely well-grounded in empirical evidence (I know I'm conscious, and I know that when my brain stops so does my consciousness) for another irreducible entity with no grounding in empirical evidence
