Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 23 May 2012, at 01:22, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 5/22/2012 6:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:




2012/5/22 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net

 No, Bruno, it is not Neutral monism as such cannot assume any  
particular as primitive, even if it is quantity itself, for to do  
such is to violate the very notion of neutrality itself. You might  
like to spend some time reading Spinoza and Bertrand Russell's  
discussions of this. I did not invent this line of reasoning.


 Neutral monism, in philosophy, is the metaphysical view that the  
mental and the physical are two ways of organizing or describing  
the same elements, which are themselves neutral, that is, neither  
physical nor mental.


I don't see how taking N,+,* as primitive is not neutral monism. It  
is neither physical nor mental.


If mathematical objects are not within the category of Mental  
then that is news to philosophers...


If mathematical objects are within the category of Mental then that  
is news to mathematicians...


And it is disastrous for those who want study the mental by defining  
it by the mathematical, as in computer science, cognitive science,  
artificial intelligence, etc;












even more perplexing to me; how is it that the Integers are given  
such special status,


Because of digital in digital mechanism. It is not so much an  
emphasis on numbers, than on finite.


So how do you justify finiteness?  I have been accused of  
having the everything disease whose symptom is the inability to  
conceive anything but infinite, ill defined ensembles, but in my  
defense I must state that what I am conceiving is an over-abundance  
of very precisely defined ensembles. My disease is the inability to  
properly articulate a written description.





especially when we cast aside all possibility (within our  
ontology) of the reality of the physical world?


Not at all. Only primitively physical reality is put in doubt.


Not me. I already came to the conclusion that reality cannot be  
primitively physical.



You are unclear on what you posit. You always came back to the  
physical reality point, so I don't know what more to say...  
either you agree physical reality is not ontologically primitive or  
you don't, there's no in between position.


We have to start at the physical reality that we individually  
experience, it is, aside from our awareness, the most real thing  
we have to stand upon philosophically.


The most real things might be consciousness, here and now.  And this  
doesn't make consciousness primitive, but invite us to be  
methodologically skeptical on the physical, as we know since the  
dream argument.




From there we venture out in our speculations as to our ontology.  
cosmogony and epistemology. is there an alternative?


So you start from physics? This contradicts your neutral monism.












Without the physical world to act as a selection mechanism for  
what is Real,


This contradicts your neutral monism.


No, it does not. Please see my discussion of neutral monism  
above.


Yes it does, reading you, you posit a physical material reality as  
primitive, which is not neutral...


No, I posit the physical and the mental as real in the sense  
that I am experiencing them.



You can't experience the physical. The physical is inferred from  
theory, even if automated by years of evolution.



Telescoping out to the farthest point of abstraction we have ideas  
like Bruno's.  I guess that I need to draw some diagrams...


Not ideas. Universal truth following a deduction in a theoretical  
frame. It is just a theorem in applied logic: if we are digital  
machine, then physics (whatever inferable from observable)  is  
derivable from arithmetic. Adding anything to it, *cannot* be of any  
use (cf UDA step 7 and 8).


You are free to use any philosophy you want to *find* a flaw in the  
reasoning, but a philosophical conviction does not refute it by itself.


If you think there is a loophole, just show it to us.










why the bias for integers?


Because comp = machine, and machine are supposed to be of the type  
finitely describable.


This is true only after the possibility of determining  
differences is stipulated. One cannot assume a neutral monism that  
stipulates a non-neutral stance, to do so it a contradiction.


Computationalism is the theory that your consciousness can be  
emulated on a turing machine, a program is a finite object and can  
be described by an integer. I don't see a contradiction.


I am with Penrose in claiming that consciousness is not emulable  
by a finite machine.


This contradicts your statement that your theory is consistent with  
comp (as it is not, as I argue to you). You are making my point. It  
took time.













This has been a question that I have tried to get answered to no  
avail.


You don't listen. This has been repeated very often. When you say  
yes to the doctor, you accept that you 

Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Russell Standish
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 09:56:24AM -0500, Joseph Knight wrote:
 On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 7:36 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote:
 
   On 5/21/2012 6:26 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
 
   Yes, that is the usual meaning. It can also be written (DP or not COMP).
 
 
  = = or not]
 
 
 Actually a implies b is defined as not a or b.
 

Whoops! (#.#)

-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Bases and other strange things

2012-05-23 Thread Russell Standish
The definition is a somewhat wordy, but essentially technically
correct, form of the standard definition of a basis in Linear Algebra.

What is your question, exactly?

Cheers

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 09:09:07AM -0400, Stephen P. King wrote:
 Hi Folks,
 
 Lizr's resent post got me thinking again about the concept of a
 basis and reading the wiki article brought up a question.
 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basis_%28linear_algebra%29
 
 In linear algebra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_algebra, a
 *basis* is a set of linearly independent
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_independence vectors
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space that, in a linear
 combination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_combination, can
 represent every vector in a given vector space
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space or free module
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_module, or, more simply put,
 which define a coordinate system /_*(as long as the basis is given
 a definite order*_/).
 
 The reference to that phrase that I have highlighted was
 unavailable, so I ask the resident scholars here for any comment on
 it.
 
 -- 
 Onward!
 
 Stephen
 
 Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
 ~ Francis Bacon
 
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University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Bases and other strange things

2012-05-23 Thread Stephen P. King

On 5/23/2012 1:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote:

The definition is a somewhat wordy, but essentially technically
correct, form of the standard definition of a basis in Linear Algebra.

What is your question, exactly?

Hi Russell,

Could you elaborate on the dependence of the basis being given in a 
definite order?




Cheers

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 09:09:07AM -0400, Stephen P. King wrote:

Hi Folks,

 Lizr's resent post got me thinking again about the concept of a
basis and reading the wiki article brought up a question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basis_%28linear_algebra%29

In linear algebrahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_algebra, a
*basis* is a set of linearly independent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_independence  vectors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space  that, in a linear
combinationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_combination, can
represent every vector in a given vector space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space  or free module
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_module, or, more simply put,
which define a coordinate system /_*(as long as the basis is given
a definite order*_/).

 The reference to that phrase that I have highlighted was
unavailable, so I ask the resident scholars here for any comment on
it.





--
Onward!

Stephen

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
~ Francis Bacon


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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 23 May 2012, at 07:21, Russell Standish wrote:


On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 09:56:24AM -0500, Joseph Knight wrote:
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 7:36 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net 
wrote:



On 5/21/2012 6:26 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

Yes, that is the usual meaning. It can also be written (DP or not  
COMP).



   = = or not]



Actually a implies b is defined as not a or b.



Whoops! (#.#)


To be sure I usually use - for the material implication, that is a  
- b is indeed not a or b (or not(a and not b)).


The IF ... THEN used in math is generally of that type.

I use a = b for from a I can derive b, in the theory I am currently  
considering.


For any theory having the modus ponens rule, we have that a - b  
entails (yet at another meta-level) a = b. This should be trivial.
For many quite standard logics, the reciprocal is correct too, that  
is:  a =  b entails a - b. This is usually rather hard to prove  
(Herbrand or deduction theorem). It is typically false in modal logic  
or in many weak logics. For example the normal modal logics (those  
having Kripke semantics, like G, S4, ...) are all close for the rule a  
= Ba, but virtually none can prove the formula a - Ba. This is a  
source of many errors.


Simple Exercises (for those remembering Kripke semantics):
1) find a Kripke model falsifying a - Ba.
2) explain to yourself why a = Ba is always the case in all Kripke  
models.


I recall that a Kripke model is a set (of worlds) with a binary  
relation (accessibility relation). The key is that Ba is true in a  
world Alpha is a is true in all worlds Beta such that (Alpha, Beta) is  
in the accessibility relation.


A beginners course in logic consists in six month of explanation of  
the difference between a - b and a = b, and then six month of  
proving them equivalent (in classical logic).


a = b is often written:

a
_

b

Like in the modus ponens rule

a   a - b


b


Bruno








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Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 23 May 2012, at 02:54, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/22/2012 4:22 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 5/22/2012 6:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:




2012/5/22 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net

 No, Bruno, it is not Neutral monism as such cannot assume any  
particular as primitive, even if it is quantity itself, for to do  
such is to violate the very notion of neutrality itself. You might  
like to spend some time reading Spinoza and Bertrand Russell's  
discussions of this. I did not invent this line of reasoning.


 Neutral monism, in philosophy, is the metaphysical view that the  
mental and the physical are two ways of organizing or describing  
the same elements, which are themselves neutral, that is,  
neither physical nor mental.


I don't see how taking N,+,* as primitive is not neutral monism.  
It is neither physical nor mental.


If mathematical objects are not within the category of Mental  
then that is news to philosophers...









even more perplexing to me; how is it that the Integers are  
given such special status,


Because of digital in digital mechanism. It is not so much an  
emphasis on numbers, than on finite.


So how do you justify finiteness?  I have been accused of  
having the everything disease whose symptom is the inability to  
conceive anything but infinite, ill defined ensembles, but in my  
defense I must state that what I am conceiving is an over- 
abundance of very precisely defined ensembles. My disease is the  
inability to properly articulate a written description.





especially when we cast aside all possibility (within our  
ontology) of the reality of the physical world?


Not at all. Only primitively physical reality is put in doubt.


Not me. I already came to the conclusion that reality cannot  
be primitively physical.



You are unclear on what you posit. You always came back to the  
physical reality point, so I don't know what more to say...  
either you agree physical reality is not ontologically primitive  
or you don't, there's no in between position.


We have to start at the physical reality that we individually  
experience, it is, aside from our awareness, the most real thing  
we have to stand upon philosophically. From there we venture out in  
our speculations as to our ontology. cosmogony and epistemology. is  
there an alternative?









Without the physical world to act as a selection mechanism for  
what is Real,


This contradicts your neutral monism.


No, it does not. Please see my discussion of neutral monism  
above.


Yes it does, reading you, you posit a physical material reality as  
primitive, which is not neutral...


No, I posit the physical and the mental as real in the sense  
that I am experiencing them.



The physical world is a model.  It's a very good model and I like  
it, but like any model you can't *know* whether it's really real or  
not.  Bruno's model explains some things the physical model doesn't,  
but so far it doesn't seem to have the predictive power that the  
physical model does.


Hmm... I agree with all your points in this post, except this one. The  
comp model (theory) has much more predictive power than physics,  
given that it predicts the whole of physics, and the whole of what  
that physics predicts (and this without mentioning that it predicts  
the whole qualia part too, unlike the physics model). But it does it  
in a very more difficult way, without copying on nature.


Of course it might be false. It might be that comp leads to a  
different mass for the electron or to the non existence of electrons.  
But comp, together with some definition of knowledge, predicts physics  
quantitatively and qualitatively.


Of course to use comp to predict an eclipse is not yet in its range,  
if it can ever be. To use comp for this, would be like using string  
theory to prepare a cup of tea. But the goal is not to do physics,  
just to formulate the mind-body problem, and figure out the less wrong  
bigger picture.


Bruno






Telescoping out to the farthest point of abstraction we have ideas  
like Bruno's.  I guess that I need to draw some diagrams...









why the bias for integers?


Because comp = machine, and machine are supposed to be of the  
type finitely describable.


This is true only after the possibility of determining  
differences is stipulated. One cannot assume a neutral monism that  
stipulates a non-neutral stance, to do so it a contradiction.


Computationalism is the theory that your consciousness can be  
emulated on a turing machine, a program is a finite object and can  
be described by an integer. I don't see a contradiction.


I am with Penrose in claiming that consciousness is not  
emulable by a finite machine.


It's instantiated by brains which are empirically finite.  Penrose's  
argument from Godelian incompleteness is fallacious.












This has been a question that I have tried to get answered to no  
avail.


You don't 

Re: Bases and other strange things

2012-05-23 Thread meekerdb

On 5/23/2012 4:53 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 5/23/2012 1:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote:

The definition is a somewhat wordy, but essentially technically
correct, form of the standard definition of a basis in Linear Algebra.

What is your question, exactly?

Hi Russell,

Could you elaborate on the dependence of the basis being given in a 
definite order?


I don't think the order of the basis elements has any significance except notationally 
when a general element is expressed as an n-tuple in terms of the basis.


Brent

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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread meekerdb

On 5/23/2012 8:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Hmm... I agree with all your points in this post, except this one. The comp model 
(theory) has much more predictive power than physics, given that it predicts the whole 
of physics,


It's easy to predict the whole of physics; just predict that everything happens.  But 
that's not predictive power.


Brent

and the whole of what that physics predicts (and this without mentioning that it 
predicts the whole qualia part too, unlike the physics model). But it does it in a 
very more difficult way, without copying on nature.


Of course it might be false. It might be that comp leads to a different mass for the 
electron or to the non existence of electrons. But comp, together with some definition 
of knowledge, predicts physics quantitatively and qualitatively.


Of course to use comp to predict an eclipse is not yet in its range, if it can ever be. 
To use comp for this, would be like using string theory to prepare a cup of tea. But the 
goal is not to do physics, just to formulate the mind-body problem, and figure out the 
less wrong bigger picture.


Bruno


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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi

On 23.05.2012 10:47 Bruno Marchal said the following:


On 23 May 2012, at 01:22, Stephen P. King wrote:


...


If mathematical objects are not within the category of Mental
then that is news to philosophers...


If mathematical objects are within the category of Mental then that
is news to mathematicians...



Let us take terms like information, computation, etc. Are they mental or 
mathematical?


It might be good simultaneously to extend this question by including 
general terms that people use to describe the word. Are mathematical 
objects then are different from them?


Evgenii

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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Stephen P. King

On 5/23/2012 4:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 May 2012, at 01:22, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 5/22/2012 6:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/5/22 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net 
mailto:stephe...@charter.net



 No, Bruno, it is not Neutral monism as such cannot assume any
particular as primitive, even if it is quantity itself, for to
do such is to violate the very notion of neutrality itself. You
might like to spend some time reading Spinoza
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/ and Bertrand
Russell's discussions of this. I did not invent this line of
reasoning.


*Neutral monism*, in philosophy 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy, is the metaphysical 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics view that the mental and 
the physical are two ways of organizing or describing the same 
elements, which are themselves neutral, that is, neither physical 
nor mental.


I don't see how taking N,+,* as primitive is not neutral monism. It 
is neither physical nor mental.


If mathematical objects are not within the category of Mental 
then that is news to philosophers...


If mathematical objects are within the category of Mental then that 
is news to mathematicians...


And it is disastrous for those who want study the mental by defining 
it by the mathematical, as in computer science, cognitive science, 
artificial intelligence, etc;


Are we being intentionally unable to understand the obvious? Do we 
physically interact with mathematical objects? No. Thus they are not in 
the physical realm. We interact with mathematical objects with our 
minds, thus they are in the mental realm. Not complicated.















even more perplexing to me; how is it that the Integers are
given such special status,


Because of digital in digital mechanism. It is not so much an
emphasis on numbers, than on finite.


So how do you justify finiteness?  I have been accused of
having the everything disease whose symptom is the inability
to conceive anything but infinite, ill defined ensembles, but
in my defense I must state that what I am conceiving is an
over-abundance of very precisely defined ensembles. My disease
is the inability to properly articulate a written description.



especially when we cast aside all possibility (within our
ontology) of the reality of the physical world?


Not at all. Only primitively physical reality is put in doubt.


Not me. I already came to the conclusion that reality cannot
be primitively physical.


You are unclear on what you posit. You always came back to the 
physical reality point, so I don't know what more to say... either 
you agree physical reality is not ontologically primitive or you 
don't, there's no in between position.


We have to start at the physical reality that we individually 
experience, it is, aside from our awareness, the most real thing we 
have to stand upon philosophically.


The most real things might be consciousness, here and now.  And this 
doesn't make consciousness primitive, but invite us to be 
methodologically skeptical on the physical, as we know since the 
dream argument.


The only person that is making it, albeit indirectly by 
implication, is you, Bruno. You think that you are safe because you 
believe that you have isolated mathematics from the physical and from 
the contingency of having to be known by particular individuals, but you 
have not over come the basic flaw of Platonism: if you disconnect the 
Forms from consciousness you forever prevent the act of apprehension. 
You seem to think that property definiteness is an ontological a priori. 
You are not the first, E. Kant had the same delusion.






From there we venture out in our speculations as to our ontology. 
cosmogony and epistemology. is there an alternative?


So you start from physics? This contradicts your neutral monism.


So you do need a diagram to understand a simple idea.














Without the physical world to act as a selection mechanism
for what is Real,


This contradicts your neutral monism.


No, it does not. Please see my discussion of neutral monism
above.


Yes it does, reading you, you posit a physical material reality as 
primitive, which is not neutral...


No, I posit the physical and the mental as real in the sense 
that I am experiencing them.



You can't experience the physical. The physical is inferred from 
theory, even if automated by years of evolution.


We cannot experience anything directly, except for our individual 
consciousness, all else is inferred.





Telescoping out to the farthest point of abstraction we have ideas 
like Bruno's.  I guess that I need to draw some diagrams...


Not ideas. Universal truth following a deduction in a theoretical 
frame. It is just a theorem in applied logic: if we are digital 
machine, then physics (whatever inferable from observable)  is 

Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Quentin Anciaux
2012/5/23 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net

  On 5/23/2012 4:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


  On 23 May 2012, at 01:22, Stephen P. King wrote:

  On 5/22/2012 6:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



 2012/5/22 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net


   No, Bruno, it is not Neutral monism as such cannot assume any
 particular as primitive, even if it is quantity itself, for to do such is
 to violate the very notion of neutrality itself. You might like to spend
 some time reading Spinoza http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/and 
 Bertrand Russell's discussions of this. I did not invent this line of
 reasoning.


  *Neutral monism*, in philosophy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy,
 is the metaphysical http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics view that
 the mental and the physical are two ways of organizing or describing the
 same elements, which are themselves neutral, that is, neither physical
 nor mental.

 I don't see how taking N,+,* as primitive is not neutral monism. It is
 neither physical nor mental.


 If mathematical objects are not within the category of Mental then
 that is news to philosophers...


  If mathematical objects are within the category of Mental then that is
 news to mathematicians...

  And it is disastrous for those who want study the mental by defining it
 by the mathematical, as in computer science, cognitive science, artificial
 intelligence, etc;


 Are we being intentionally unable to understand the obvious? Do we
 physically interact with mathematical objects? No.


Do you physically interact with the physical ? No ! no mind, no
interaction, hence the physical is mental, QED... or what you say is just
plain wrong...

Quentin


 Thus they are not in the physical realm. We interact with mathematical
 objects with our minds, thus they are in the mental realm. Not complicated.










  even more perplexing to me; how is it that the Integers are given such
 special status,


  Because of digital in digital mechanism. It is not so much an
 emphasis on numbers, than on finite.


  So how do you justify finiteness?  I have been accused of having the
 everything disease whose symptom is the inability to conceive anything
 but infinite, ill defined ensembles, but in my defense I must state that
 what I am conceiving is an over-abundance of very precisely defined
 ensembles. My disease is the inability to properly articulate a written
 description.




 especially when we cast aside all possibility (within our ontology) of
 the reality of the physical world?


  Not at all. Only primitively physical reality is put in doubt.


  Not me. I already came to the conclusion that reality cannot be
 primitively physical.


 You are unclear on what you posit. You always came back to the physical
 reality point, so I don't know what more to say... either you agree
 physical reality is not ontologically primitive or you don't, there's no in
 between position.


 We have to start at the physical reality that we individually
 experience, it is, aside from our awareness, the most real thing we have
 to stand upon philosophically.


  The most real things might be consciousness, here and now.  And this
 doesn't make consciousness primitive, but invite us to be methodologically
 skeptical on the physical, as we know since the dream argument.


 The only person that is making it, albeit indirectly by implication,
 is you, Bruno. You think that you are safe because you believe that you
 have isolated mathematics from the physical and from the contingency of
 having to be known by particular individuals, but you have not over come
 the basic flaw of Platonism: if you disconnect the Forms from consciousness
 you forever prevent the act of apprehension. You seem to think that
 property definiteness is an ontological a priori. You are not the first, E.
 Kant had the same delusion.





  From there we venture out in our speculations as to our ontology.
 cosmogony and epistemology. is there an alternative?


  So you start from physics? This contradicts your neutral monism.


 So you do need a diagram to understand a simple idea.











  Without the physical world to act as a selection mechanism for what
 is Real,


  This contradicts your neutral monism.



  No, it does not. Please see my discussion of neutral monism above.


 Yes it does, reading you, you posit a physical material reality as
 primitive, which is not neutral...


 No, I posit the physical and the mental as real in the sense that I
 am experiencing them.



  You can't experience the physical. The physical is inferred from theory,
 even if automated by years of evolution.


 We cannot experience anything directly, except for our individual
 consciousness, all else is inferred.



  Telescoping out to the farthest point of abstraction we have ideas like
 Bruno's.  I guess that I need to draw some diagrams...


  Not ideas. Universal truth following a deduction in a theoretical frame.
 

Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Stephen P. King

On 5/23/2012 1:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 23.05.2012 10:47 Bruno Marchal said the following:


On 23 May 2012, at 01:22, Stephen P. King wrote:


...


If mathematical objects are not within the category of Mental
then that is news to philosophers...


If mathematical objects are within the category of Mental then that
is news to mathematicians...



Let us take terms like information, computation, etc. Are they mental 
or mathematical?


It might be good simultaneously to extend this question by including 
general terms that people use to describe the word. Are mathematical 
objects then are different from them?


Evgenii


Hi Evgenii,

There seems to be a divergence of definitions occurring. It might 
be better for me to withdraw from philosophical discussions for a while 
and focus just on mathematical questions, like the dependence on order 
of a basis...


--
Onward!

Stephen

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
~ Francis Bacon


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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi

On 23.05.2012 19:43 Stephen P. King said the following:

...


There seems to be a divergence of definitions occurring. It might be
 better for me to withdraw from philosophical discussions for a while
and focus just on mathematical questions, like the dependence on
order of a basis...



I believe that to this end, one just needs to number basis vectors, so 
we must order them. If I remember correctly, depending on how you order 
x, y, z you obtain either a right or left-handed coordinate system.


Evgenii

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-23 Thread John Clark
On Tue, May 22, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

  Nominated for a reason or nominated for no reason.


  Wrong. I am doing the nominating.


You are doing the nominating for a reason or you are doing the nominating
for no reason.


  I have many reasons


Then you are deterministic. Many reasons do not make something less
deterministic, it just makes it more complex; but if there were NO reasons
then things really would be different, then things would be random.

 I can create a new course of action


And you created that new course of action for a reason (or reasons) in
which case it was deterministic, OR you created that new course of action
for no reason, not even one, in which case your action was random.


  which cannot be reduced to 'for a reason or no reason'.


There is only one thing that can not be reduced to X or not X, gibberish.

 When you say I want to do some things and don't want to do other things
 how
 is that not free will?


So, you demand to know what the reason was that caused me to write what I
did. If I said I wrote that for no reason at all then I am certain you
would interpret that as a admission that I had lost the argument. But you
are a fan of the free will noise so I don't understand why me saying I
had no reason for doing something would not satisfy you.

However I personally think it's bad form to write things for no reason, and
so as it happens I did have a reason for writing what I wrote. The word
will is not logically contradictory because I want to do something for a
reason OR I want to do something for no reason. In free will I don't want
to do something for a reason AND I don't want to do something for no
reason; and that's what makes the free will noise triple distilled extra
virgin 100% pure GIBBERISH.

So the reason that caused my writing to differentiate  between will and
free will is that one is gibberish and the other is not.

 You can argue that this feeling of wanting to do things is an illusion


I honestly don't know what to make of that. In the first place illusion is
a perfectly real subjective phenomena and in the second place it's true, we
really do want to do some things and not do other things.


  but that leaves the problem of what would be the point of such a feeling
 to exist in the universe that is purely deterministic.


If the universe determines that my life has no meaning then the universe
can kiss my ass because the universe is not in the meaning conveying
business, intelligence is. A cloud of hydrogen gas a billion light years
away can not give meaning to me but I can give meaning to it, and if the
universe doesn't like that fact the universe can lump it.


  We interpret and execute the law


Here we go again. We interpret and execute the law for a reason or we
interpret and execute the law for no reason.

 There are laws we are compelled to observe and preserve


Then we are deterministic.

 but the way we choose to do that [...]


We choose the way we do that (and it does not matter what that is) for a
reason or we choose the way we do that for no reason.

  John K Clark

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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 23 May 2012, at 19:19, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


On 23.05.2012 10:47 Bruno Marchal said the following:


On 23 May 2012, at 01:22, Stephen P. King wrote:


...


If mathematical objects are not within the category of Mental
then that is news to philosophers...


If mathematical objects are within the category of Mental then that
is news to mathematicians...



Let us take terms like information, computation, etc. Are they  
mental or mathematical?


Information is vague, and can be both.

Computation is mathematical, by using the Church (Turing Kleene Post  
Markov) thesis.


But humans, and any universal machine, can mentally handle and reason  
on mathematical notions, implementing or representing them locally.


With comp, trivially, the mental is the doing of a universal numbers.




It might be good simultaneously to extend this question by including  
general terms that people use to describe the word. Are mathematical  
objects then are different from them?


I am not sure I understand what you are asking.

Bruno


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



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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi

On 23.05.2012 20:01 Bruno Marchal said the following:


On 23 May 2012, at 19:19, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:



...


Let us take terms like information, computation, etc. Are they
mental or mathematical?


Information is vague, and can be both.

Computation is mathematical, by using the Church (Turing Kleene Post
 Markov) thesis.

But humans, and any universal machine, can mentally handle and reason
on mathematical notions, implementing or representing them locally.

With comp, trivially, the mental is the doing of a universal
numbers.




It might be good simultaneously to extend this question by
including general terms that people use to describe the word. Are
mathematical objects then are different from them?


I am not sure I understand what you are asking.


I am talking about language that we use to describe the Nature. 
Information and computation were just an example. We can however find 
also energy, mass, or animal, human being.


I guess that Plato has not limited the Platonia to the mathematical 
objects rather it was about ideas. So is my question.


Let me repeat about the fight between realism vs. nominalism. Realism in 
this context is different from the modern meaning of the word.


Realism and nominalism in philosophy are related to universals. A simple 
example:


A is a person;
B is a person.

Does A is equal to B? The answer is no, A and B are after all different 
persons. Yet the question would be if something universal and related to 
a term “person” exists objectively (say as an objective attribute).


Realism says that universals do exist independent from the mind, 
nominalism that they are just notation and do not exist as such 
independently from the mind.


To me this difference realism vs. nominalism seems to be related to 
the question whether mathematical objects are mental or not.


Evgenii

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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 23 May 2012, at 19:23, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 5/23/2012 4:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 23 May 2012, at 01:22, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 5/22/2012 6:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:




2012/5/22 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net

 No, Bruno, it is not Neutral monism as such cannot assume any  
particular as primitive, even if it is quantity itself, for to do  
such is to violate the very notion of neutrality itself. You  
might like to spend some time reading Spinoza and Bertrand  
Russell's discussions of this. I did not invent this line of  
reasoning.


 Neutral monism, in philosophy, is the metaphysical view that the  
mental and the physical are two ways of organizing or describing  
the same elements, which are themselves neutral, that is,  
neither physical nor mental.


I don't see how taking N,+,* as primitive is not neutral monism.  
It is neither physical nor mental.


If mathematical objects are not within the category of  
Mental then that is news to philosophers...


If mathematical objects are within the category of Mental then  
that is news to mathematicians...


And it is disastrous for those who want study the mental by  
defining it by the mathematical, as in computer science, cognitive  
science, artificial intelligence, etc;


Are we being intentionally unable to understand the obvious? Do  
we physically interact with mathematical objects? No. Thus they are  
not in the physical realm.


I can agree, and disagree. Too much fuzzy if you don't make your  
assumption clear.




We interact with mathematical objects with our minds, thus they are  
in the mental realm. Not complicated.




But like programs and music, number can incarnate disks and physical  
memories, locally. Now you do seem dualist, of the non monist kind.


















even more perplexing to me; how is it that the Integers are  
given such special status,


Because of digital in digital mechanism. It is not so much an  
emphasis on numbers, than on finite.


So how do you justify finiteness?  I have been accused of  
having the everything disease whose symptom is the inability  
to conceive anything but infinite, ill defined ensembles, but in  
my defense I must state that what I am conceiving is an over- 
abundance of very precisely defined ensembles. My disease is the  
inability to properly articulate a written description.





especially when we cast aside all possibility (within our  
ontology) of the reality of the physical world?


Not at all. Only primitively physical reality is put in doubt.


Not me. I already came to the conclusion that reality cannot  
be primitively physical.



You are unclear on what you posit. You always came back to the  
physical reality point, so I don't know what more to say...  
either you agree physical reality is not ontologically primitive  
or you don't, there's no in between position.


We have to start at the physical reality that we individually  
experience, it is, aside from our awareness, the most real thing  
we have to stand upon philosophically.


The most real things might be consciousness, here and now.  And  
this doesn't make consciousness primitive, but invite us to be  
methodologically skeptical on the physical, as we know since the  
dream argument.


The only person that is making it, albeit indirectly by  
implication, is you, Bruno. You think that you are safe


?



because you believe that you have isolated mathematics from the  
physical and from the contingency of having to be known by  
particular individuals,


?


but you have not over come the basic flaw of Platonism: if you  
disconnect the Forms from consciousness you forever prevent the act  
of apprehension. You seem to think that property definiteness is an  
ontological a priori. You are not the first, E. Kant had the same  
delusion.


?

(I only argue, showing the consistency and inconsistency of set of  
beliefs, in the comp theory).










From there we venture out in our speculations as to our ontology.  
cosmogony and epistemology. is there an alternative?


So you start from physics? This contradicts your neutral monism.


So you do need a diagram to understand a simple idea.














Without the physical world to act as a selection mechanism  
for what is Real,


This contradicts your neutral monism.


No, it does not. Please see my discussion of neutral monism  
above.


Yes it does, reading you, you posit a physical material reality  
as primitive, which is not neutral...


No, I posit the physical and the mental as real in the sense  
that I am experiencing them.



You can't experience the physical. The physical is inferred from  
theory, even if automated by years of evolution.


We cannot experience anything directly, except for our  
individual consciousness, all else is inferred.



OK, so we agree on this. (it contradicts your sentence above). I guess  
it is your dyslexia and that you were meaning:


No, 

Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 23 May 2012, at 19:08, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/23/2012 8:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Hmm... I agree with all your points in this post, except this one.  
The comp model (theory) has much more predictive power than  
physics, given that it predicts the whole of physics,


It's easy to predict the whole of physics; just predict that  
everything happens.  But that's not predictive power.


 I will take it that you are forgetting the whole argument. When I  
say that it predicts the whole physics, I mean it literally. And not  
everything happens only something like what is described by the  
physical theories, except that physicists derive them from direct  
observation, and comp derives them by the logic of universal machine  
observable.


Physics, with comp, and arguably already with QM, is not at all  
everything happens, but more everything interfere leading to non  
trivial symmetries and symmetries breaking, etc.


Bruno



Brent

and the whole of what that physics predicts (and this without  
mentioning that it predicts the whole qualia part too, unlike the  
physics model). But it does it in a very more difficult way,  
without copying on nature.


Of course it might be false. It might be that comp leads to a  
different mass for the electron or to the non existence of  
electrons. But comp, together with some definition of knowledge,  
predicts physics quantitatively and qualitatively.


Of course to use comp to predict an eclipse is not yet in its  
range, if it can ever be. To use comp for this, would be like using  
string theory to prepare a cup of tea. But the goal is not to do  
physics, just to formulate the mind-body problem, and figure out  
the less wrong bigger picture.


Bruno


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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread meekerdb

On 5/23/2012 11:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 May 2012, at 19:08, meekerdb wrote:


On 5/23/2012 8:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Hmm... I agree with all your points in this post, except this one. The comp model 
(theory) has much more predictive power than physics, given that it predicts the whole 
of physics,


It's easy to predict the whole of physics; just predict that everything happens.  But 
that's not predictive power.


 I will take it that you are forgetting the whole argument. When I say that it predicts 
the whole physics, I mean it literally. And not everything happens only something like 
what is described by the physical theories, except that physicists derive them from 
direct observation, and comp derives them by the logic of universal machine observable.


Physics, with comp, and arguably already with QM, is not at all everything happens, 
but more everything interfere leading to non trivial symmetries and symmetries 
breaking, etc.


Bruno


I don't see that comp has predicted anything except uncertainty.  Can comp explain the 
reason QM is based on complex Hilbert space instead or real, or quaternion, or octonion?  
Can it explain where the mass gap comes from?  Can it predict the dimensionality of 
spacetime?  Can it tell whether spacetime is discrete at some level?


Brent

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RE: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi Brent:

What you appear to be asking for are predictions of the physics of a
particular universe. 

My belief is that the best we can do is to predict the components of physics
common to every evolving universe.

My efforts have focused on understanding why there is a dynamic within the
Everything [such as UDs] and what observers in a universe containing them
are observing.  

In my model I have identified a dynamic driver [incompleteness] and what
observers observe [TRANSITIONS between universe states]. 

Since I do not prohibit computations, I believe Comp [including any
prediction of QM in many universes] is allowed within my model but is not
the only descriptor of universe evolution.  Many evolving universes may
contain no such computational component.

Hal Ruhl

-Original Message-
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 3:52 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The limit of all computations

On 5/23/2012 11:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 On 23 May 2012, at 19:08, meekerdb wrote:

 On 5/23/2012 8:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 Hmm... I agree with all your points in this post, except this one. The
comp model 
 (theory) has much more predictive power than physics, given that it 
 predicts the whole of physics,

 It's easy to predict the whole of physics; just predict that 
 everything happens.  But that's not predictive power.

  I will take it that you are forgetting the whole argument. When I say 
 that it predicts the whole physics, I mean it literally. And not 
 everything happens only something like what is described by the 
 physical theories, except that physicists derive them from direct
observation, and comp derives them by the logic of universal machine
observable.

 Physics, with comp, and arguably already with QM, is not at all 
 everything happens, but more everything interfere leading to non 
 trivial symmetries and symmetries breaking, etc.

 Bruno

I don't see that comp has predicted anything except uncertainty.  Can comp
explain the reason QM is based on complex Hilbert space instead or real, or
quaternion, or octonion?  
Can it explain where the mass gap comes from?  Can it predict the
dimensionality of spacetime?  Can it tell whether spacetime is discrete at
some level?

Brent

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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread meekerdb

On 5/23/2012 1:20 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote:

Hi Brent:

What you appear to be asking for are predictions of the physics of a
particular universe.


It's the other extreme from 'predicting' everything happens. Since we only have the one 
physical universe against which to test the prediction, it's the only kind of prediction 
that means anything.


Brent

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RE: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi Brent:

 

I ask if it is reasonable to propose that a theory of everything must be
able to list ALL the aspects of the local physics for each one of a complete
catalog of universes?

 

Suppose ours is just number 9,876,869,345 in the catalog.  Would we ever
complete such a project within the observers present  lifetime of our
universe?  

 

My current belief is that Comp is a broad brush description of a subset of
universes within my own model.  If Bruno thinks his approach is more precise
than that I do not have a problem with that.

 

My model appears to answer my questions about the basis of dynamics within
the everything and a response as to what observers observe.

 

Perhaps this sort of level is all we can expect, but it is, I believe,
necessary to police the results so that most individuals can eventually
sign on some day.  For example we sure need in my opinion a substantially
increased level of comprehension of economics which is actually a result of
any local physics.  I can't accomplish this re most of Bruno's work since I
am definitely not adequate in the relevant logic disciplines.

 

Hal Ruhl

 

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 4:41 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The limit of all computations

 

On 5/23/2012 1:20 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote: 

Hi Brent:
 
What you appear to be asking for are predictions of the physics of a
particular universe.


It's the other extreme from 'predicting' everything happens. Since we only
have the one physical universe against which to test the prediction, it's
the only kind of prediction that means anything.

Brent

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Re: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread meekerdb

On 5/23/2012 4:42 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote:


Hi Brent:

I ask if it is reasonable to propose that a theory of everything must be able to list 
ALL the aspects of the local physics for each one of a complete catalog of universes?




But I wasn't asking for ALL the aspects, just a few very general ones which are questions 
in current research, meaning there's a chance we might be able to check the predictions.


Brent

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RE: The limit of all computations

2012-05-23 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi Brent:

 

I shall try to respond tomorrow. 

 

Hal Ruhl

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 8:41 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The limit of all computations

 

On 5/23/2012 4:42 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote: 

Hi Brent:

 

I ask if it is reasonable to propose that a theory of everything must be
able to list ALL the aspects of the local physics for each one of a complete
catalog of universes?


But I wasn't asking for ALL the aspects, just a few very general ones which
are questions in current research, meaning there's a chance we might be able
to check the predictions.

Brent

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-23 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 5:28 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 There is obviously at least a small probability that you will decide
 to sleep under a bush tonight.

 Only because of how we have defined probability and our assumptions
 about what it possible. There is nothing to say those definitions and
 assumptions relate to something real.

If it is absolutely certain that you won't sleep under a bush tonight
then it is impossible that you will do so and the probability is zero.
My understanding is that you don't approve of this sort of certain as
you believe it leaves no room for free will or even consciousness.

 You would have to admit that under your
 concept of free will, otherwise in a deterministic single universe you
 would be compelled to sleep in your bed, which I don't have a problem
 with but you do. In a deterministic multiverse, you will definitely
 sleep in your bed in most universes (loosely most if they are
 infinite in number) and definitely sleep under a bush in a few. You
 can't be sure in which type of universe you will end up in so the
 future is indeterminate.

 I understand the theory, and it would be interesting if we were in a
 theoretical universe, but ultimately it's absurd. It's Horton Hears A
 Who on crack. There would be a quintillion universes for every dust
 mite's turd's journey through the bed sheets. All it accomplishes is
 to find a way of arguing a way that everything in the universe is real
 except our own will is real. Somehow our ordinary experience is a
 magical exception because the idea of our decision making power makes
 us uncomfortable to explain.

So are you saying that you don't believe in the multiverse or are you
saying that the multiverse, if it were to exist, would leave no room
for free will?

  No I understand the idea completely, I just think it's an obvious plug
  for the inconsistencies of QM. Like Dark matter dark energy,
  superposition, emergence, and entanglement. It's all phlogiston,
  libido, elan vital, animal magnetism, etc. It's quite nice in theory,
  but it sodomizes one side of Occam's Razor with the other. It's
  counter intuitive because it's an absurd way of explaining the
  universe in terms of nearly infinite nearly nonsensical universes.
  Every grain of sand on every planet in the cosmos having it's own set
  of universes customized to fit every pebble collision and sea tousled
  movement? Seriously? With sense as a primitive you don't need any of
  that. The universe is one thing with different views of itself. Each
  view doesn't need to be a creator of literal separate universes.

 Whether it's true or not is a separate question but it does allow for
 your future to be truly indeterminate in a deterministic multiverse.
 The teleportation thought experiments we often talk about here model
 this in a simpler way.

 But it does it by neutralizing any significance of one outcome over
 another. Why do we care about determining anything if we have no power
 to change it?

It doesn't neutralise significance. In one universe you wake up in
your bed and you tell yourself that you made a good decision, your bed
is warm and comfortable and it would have been stupid to sleep under a
bush. In another universe you wake up under a bush and you tell
yourself that you made a good decision, even though you were cold and
uncomfortable, because you have achieved your purpose of empathising
better with homeless people. In each case you made your own decision,
freely, with good reason and according to the laws of physics. Before
you made the decision you were not completely sure which way you would
go. Right now, you can say you're pretty sure you will wake up in your
bed tomorrow and I would bet that that is what will happen, but you
could change your mind.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Einstein and Formulas.

2012-05-23 Thread socra...@bezeqint.net
Einstein and Formulas.
=.
Einstein said, that the scientist does not think with formulas.
But, dear Einstein, please see how nice to think
with the help of these formulas: you can imagine
 the whole picture of Existence’s creation.
=.
§ 1. Vacuum:  T= 0K, E= ∞ , p = 0, t =∞ .
§ 2. Particles: C/D= pi=3,14, R/N=k, E/M=c^2, h=0, c=0, i^2=-1.
§ 3. Photon: h=E/t,  h=kb, h=1, c=1.
§ 4. Electron: h*=h/2pi, c1, E=h*f , e^2=ach* .
§ 5. Gravity, Star formation:  h*f = kTlogW : He II --  He I --  H
--  . . .
§ 6. Proton: (p).
§ 7. The evolution of interaction between Photon / Electron and
Proton:
a) electromagnetic,
b) nuclear,
c) biological.
§ 8. The Physical Laws:
a) Law of Conservation and Transformation Energy/ Mass,
b) Pauli Exclusion Law,
c) Heisenberg Uncertainty Law.
§ 9. Brain:  Dualism of Consciousness.
§ 10. Test and Practice:  Parapsychology.  Meditation.
===.
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik Socratus
.

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