Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 22 Jan 2009, at 13:21, Kim Jones wrote: Bruno, I found this an incredibly moving reply. I also see clearly your points. I am glad to have given you an opportunity to state so clearly some profoundly important ideas. Thank you, and let's continue the voyage. OK, thanks. ASAP (I am a bit busy). I am glad that Penrose was wrong. I guess you mean you are glad that the Godelian argument against mechanism is wrong. Keep in mind science try to avoid wishful thinking, and be open to the idea that UDA could still lead to a refutation of comp. But then, without somebody as perceptive as Penrose being wrong about things as important as this, your own light of understanding could perhaps not shine so brightly. I appreciate very much Penrose. At least he belongs to the very few aware of the scientitic mind-body problem, and he is very courageous to tackle it. It helped also to make people realise how much logicians are living in a Ivory Tower, not knowing their (even old) work are not yet assimilated by the scientific community. My understanding shining brightly? (Don't abuse of illegal drugs too!). If we were in Japan, I would now bow very low to you. Take care of your back. Have a wonderful day, sensei! You too, other sensei. Have you find the time to take a look on UN-16 UN-24 in http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume1CC/4z1_1sansp.pdf After all, you know some french, isn't it? Take it easy, I will explain all this to you, beginning from zero. Put the document above in a easily accessible place (virtual or real) so that I can point on the little drawings there. Have a good week-end, 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno, thanks for 4z1, I find it an exciting (although not in all details for me followable text) in beautiful French (your language!) which I have to pronounce (silently) to understand (mostly) and did not study all along so far. Also the supporting lit is remarkable - it was decades ago when I wrote a publication with such 'umfangreich' lit-background. I store both the pdf (drawings) and a compacted text-only version - easier to read. I still feel that the position(s) in it (mostly lit.) represent some oriented (partial) views vs. my prefered totality-view (which however is more than what I can presently express in a fully 'scientific' requirement. I only 'think' and 'feel' in it). As we talked about it (pro and con) on this list many times, a 'quantized' view is an extract of the total that contains the non-quantizable aspects as well. I assign the 'number-base' to the former and the 'hazy' remark that many integers express them all does not convince me to the opposite. Of course I could not read (and study) ALL your posts... I don't want to argue against your position, I live the scientific freedom to differ. We all start from belief and assumption - our personal mindset (Colin's mini-solipsism, the 1st person 'perceived reality' of each of us). Have a good weekend John M On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Jan 2009, at 13:21, Kim Jones wrote: Bruno, Have a wonderful day, sensei! You too, other sensei. Have you find the time to take a look on UN-16 UN-24 in http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume1CC/4z1_1sansp.pdf After all, you know some french, isn't it? Take it easy, I will explain all this to you, beginning from zero. Put the document above in a easily accessible place (virtual or real) so that I can point on the little drawings there. Have a good week-end, 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 24/01/2009, at 4:02 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Have you find the time to take a look on UN-16 UN-24 in http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume1CC/4z1_1sansp.pdf After all, you know some french, isn't it? Take it easy, I will explain all this to you, beginning from zero. Put the document above in a easily accessible place (virtual or real) so that I can point on the little drawings there. Je suis en traîne de lire et de digester entièrement cette thèse. Comme Johnny Mikes, j'apprécie beaucoup l'occasion de te lire en langue native! Peut-être demain je te poserai quelques questions sur la construction de l'ordinateur En attendant, je te conseille d'eviter le plus possible les cinglés à couteau qui menaçent amitiés, K --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 21 Jan 2009, at 05:46, Kim Jones wrote: OK. But keep in mind that consciousness is unique in the sense of knowing that it cannot know its Turing emulability level (yet can bet). Footnote - (parenthetical digression): I know the above thought is native to your schema, and up to here Penrose appears to agree with you. Penrose has been wrong on this issue in its first book (The Emperor New clothes), and corrected it formally in the second book The Shadows of the Mind. But, he is still incorrect on his general conclusion drawn from Gödel. But, this very singular quality of consciousness (to not know its emulability level but to be able to bet on it - via the Bayesian probabilities detector that is the mind) is precisely the reason Penrose and Hammeroff have decided that the mind is NOT computation; because of the uncomputability of this issue. The fact that we cannot known which machine we are does not prevent us to be a machine, on the contrary. Note that Penrose and Hammeroff have split their mind on this issue. Indeed Penrose argues that we are not machine at all, where Hammeroff can conceive that we are quantum machine (and in that case comp is satisfied). In general the non computability argument is wrong because computationalism explains why many things ABOUT machines are not computable. The universal machine lives on the frontier between the computable and the non computable. Note that Penrose, Maudlin and me, do agree that mind and matter cannot be both computable. But for different reasons, and Penrose's one are not correct. Why should the mind be limited to the computable? This sentence is ambiguous. In a sense, the comp hyp. makes the mind computable (Turing-emulable), yet it does not necessarily limit the mind to the computable (angels can think!), nor does it prevents many manifestation of the mind to be completely not computable. We will have the opportunity to dig a bit more on this. By angel I mean a self-referential entity not emulable by a machine (this exists mathematically). Clearly it is not. Could an AI conceive of Platonia? ? Could *you* conceive of Platonia? If yes, then at least one AI can conceive of Platonia: you (assuming comp of course). Now that would perhaps be to go one better than any Blade Runner- style Turing Test! This address the question: could a machine convinces another that it conceives of Platonia. This asks for an infinite Turing test indeed. Well ... even a *big* infinity ... (depending on the precise sense you can give to conceive). For Penrose, Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem is enough to lock the door against the thought that the mind is limited to the algorithms of the computable. It is worse than that. Penrose believes that the mind needs an actual non computable components. His argument is just wrong. Many logicians have pinpoint on the mistakes made by Penrose. They are analog of the errors made by Lucas an half century before. Judson Webb wrote a formidable book on that issue (ref in the biblio of my Lille thesis). The mind, apparently, can understand things outside the realm of the computable. I guess it all depends on what you mean by understand. I would cite musical understanding as an example of something that cannot be computed. There is information that appears in the (listening) mind that cannot be deduced from the notes, the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms etc. All of the mechanics of music are of course computable, but my subjective interaction with a particular musical discourse is (probably) not. Universal machines can grasp that there are many things that they cannot grasp. Penrose, like Lucas and the few people who still believe that Gödel incompleteness theorem does limit the power of machine, always forget that some machines can understand and prove that theorem, even about themselves. Godel's (incompleteness theorem) really shows how far a machine, betting on its own consistency, can study its own limitations. Soon or later, any correct universal machine discover that its physical world is a product of that productive ignorance, and this without going into solipsism. Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New Scientist Very interesting! Thanks. If consciousness is gravity (the wave selector), as Penrose find plausible, the blurriness of the hologram could necessarily (asuming comp) prevent the observation of the gravitational waves, making them definitely undetectable. Just thinking aloud. Isn't this like the Turing lock-out with respect to truth and provability? This is what I was alluding too, from Penrose's curious intuition that consciousness has something to do with gravity. We know the gravitational waves are there, but we can never directly detect them. Perhaps our knowing such a thing is non-
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 21 Jan 2009, at 22:15, Kim Jones wrote: On 22/01/2009, at 3:50 AM, Günther Greindl wrote: Kim, the uncomputability of this issue. Why should the mind be limited to the computable? Clearly it is not. So you deny Step 1 again? You say no to the doctor? In fact I have 'multiple personality disorder' - from Thursday to Monday I say 'Yes' to the doctor, on Tuesday and Wednesday I am no longer the same personality because my medications have run out ;-) Well, it's Thursday here now and I have a fresh supply of anxiety- suppression pills, Beware the legal drugs. They are in general more dangerous and addictive than some illegal one, I think. And more expensive too. so I'm off to see the Doctor again!! He's talking about this scary Step 7 and I am starting to get sweaty palms, so in a fit of madness I reached into the bookshelf and drew out a Penrose volume which seemed to suggest I might do better to have a cup of tea and a little sleep... Road to Reality? It is my favorite book by Penrose, but frankly it is more math demanding than the step seven. A little sleep is always good. Could an AI conceive of Platonia? Why not? Well, this particular AI which calls itself Kim can conceive of it, so I guess all other AIs couldunless there is a special class of AI that can only conceive of computables? Once you conceive the computable, you conceive the uncomputable. Some intuitionist could argue differently, but they are talking on something else. Once you develop enough intuition of the finite, you grasp the infinite. Perhaps I should put Road to Reality back on the bookshelf for now! Bring on the advanced Theology Kim, do you understand how a computer work? Do you have a complete understanding of that? I mean, could you build a computer by yourself in case you are lost and isolated in a jungle with a lot plants, but without animals, nor electricity? I am not asking you to build an efficient computer I will bring you to that understanding. Unfortunately I am used to explain that kind of things by doing a lot of drawings, which I cannot do in mail. So I suggest you put Penrose's Road to reality in the shelves indeed, and that you print instead the following 31 pages pdf: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume1CC/4z1_1sansp.pdf It is the first chapter of my belgium thesis. It is written in french, but we will need only the drawings from page UN-16 to un-24. (You can try to print only those pages). I will soon create a new thread for that purpose. You don't need math to understand how a computer works. On the contrary, that understanding will lead you to the math in some natural way. All right? This is needed to understand the advanced theology of the machine :) 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno, I found this an incredibly moving reply. I also see clearly your points. I am glad to have given you an opportunity to state so clearly some profoundly important ideas. Thank you, and let's continue the voyage. I am glad that Penrose was wrong. But then, without somebody as perceptive as Penrose being wrong about things as important as this, your own light of understanding could perhaps not shine so brightly. If we were in Japan, I would now bow very low to you. Have a wonderful day, sensei! cheers, K On 22/01/2009, at 9:08 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Jan 2009, at 05:46, Kim Jones wrote: OK. But keep in mind that consciousness is unique in the sense of knowing that it cannot know its Turing emulability level (yet can bet). Footnote - (parenthetical digression): I know the above thought is native to your schema, and up to here Penrose appears to agree with you. Penrose has been wrong on this issue in its first book (The Emperor New clothes), and corrected it formally in the second book The Shadows of the Mind. But, he is still incorrect on his general conclusion drawn from Gödel. But, this very singular quality of consciousness (to not know its emulability level but to be able to bet on it - via the Bayesian probabilities detector that is the mind) is precisely the reason Penrose and Hammeroff have decided that the mind is NOT computation; because of the uncomputability of this issue. The fact that we cannot known which machine we are does not prevent us to be a machine, on the contrary. Note that Penrose and Hammeroff have split their mind on this issue. Indeed Penrose argues that we are not machine at all, where Hammeroff can conceive that we are quantum machine (and in that case comp is satisfied). In general the non computability argument is wrong because computationalism explains why many things ABOUT machines are not computable. The universal machine lives on the frontier between the computable and the non computable. Note that Penrose, Maudlin and me, do agree that mind and matter cannot be both computable. But for different reasons, and Penrose's one are not correct. Why should the mind be limited to the computable? This sentence is ambiguous. In a sense, the comp hyp. makes the mind computable (Turing-emulable), yet it does not necessarily limit the mind to the computable (angels can think!), nor does it prevents many manifestation of the mind to be completely not computable. We will have the opportunity to dig a bit more on this. By angel I mean a self-referential entity not emulable by a machine (this exists mathematically). Clearly it is not. Could an AI conceive of Platonia? ? Could *you* conceive of Platonia? If yes, then at least one AI can conceive of Platonia: you (assuming comp of course). Now that would perhaps be to go one better than any Blade Runner- style Turing Test! This address the question: could a machine convinces another that it conceives of Platonia. This asks for an infinite Turing test indeed. Well ... even a *big* infinity ... (depending on the precise sense you can give to conceive). For Penrose, Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem is enough to lock the door against the thought that the mind is limited to the algorithms of the computable. It is worse than that. Penrose believes that the mind needs an actual non computable components. His argument is just wrong. Many logicians have pinpoint on the mistakes made by Penrose. They are analog of the errors made by Lucas an half century before. Judson Webb wrote a formidable book on that issue (ref in the biblio of my Lille thesis). The mind, apparently, can understand things outside the realm of the computable. I guess it all depends on what you mean by understand. I would cite musical understanding as an example of something that cannot be computed. There is information that appears in the (listening) mind that cannot be deduced from the notes, the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms etc. All of the mechanics of music are of course computable, but my subjective interaction with a particular musical discourse is (probably) not. Universal machines can grasp that there are many things that they cannot grasp. Penrose, like Lucas and the few people who still believe that Gödel incompleteness theorem does limit the power of machine, always forget that some machines can understand and prove that theorem, even about themselves. Godel's (incompleteness theorem) really shows how far a machine, betting on its own consistency, can study its own limitations. Soon or later, any correct universal machine discover that its physical world is a product of that productive ignorance, and this without going into solipsism. Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Kim, the uncomputability of this issue. Why should the mind be limited to the computable? Clearly it is not. So you deny Step 1 again? You say no to the doctor? Could an AI conceive of Platonia? Why not? Cheers, Günther --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 22/01/2009, at 3:50 AM, Günther Greindl wrote: Kim, the uncomputability of this issue. Why should the mind be limited to the computable? Clearly it is not. So you deny Step 1 again? You say no to the doctor? In fact I have 'multiple personality disorder' - from Thursday to Monday I say 'Yes' to the doctor, on Tuesday and Wednesday I am no longer the same personality because my medications have run out ;-) Well, it's Thursday here now and I have a fresh supply of anxiety- suppression pills, so I'm off to see the Doctor again!! He's talking about this scary Step 7 and I am starting to get sweaty palms, so in a fit of madness I reached into the bookshelf and drew out a Penrose volume which seemed to suggest I might do better to have a cup of tea and a little sleep... Could an AI conceive of Platonia? Why not? Well, this particular AI which calls itself Kim can conceive of it, so I guess all other AIs couldunless there is a special class of AI that can only conceive of computables? Perhaps I should put Road to Reality back on the bookshelf for now! Bring on the advanced Theology loving it K Cheers, Günther --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 19 Jan 2009, at 13:56, Kim Jones wrote: But Brent was momentarily speaking of materialism - materialism doesn't acknowledge any form of comp immateriality except according to the (probably) false mind/body dualism, where the mind is allowed to be an ethereal emanation of the brain. But that's not even immateriality in your specific sense - that's popular superstition. You've cured me of that. Mind is computation; matter is computation - Actually this is an open problem. The point is that if mind is computation then matter is not necessarily computation, and a priori it is not computation. (Step 7 !) With comp we can take a very little ontology: just 0, 1, 2, 3, ... with their usual additive and multiplicative relations. This, then give rise automatically to a literally un-computably big first person an other-person epistemology. consciousness is not unique in the sense of some special pleading that allows it to avoid Turing emulability. OK. But keep in mind that consciousness is unique in the sense of knowing that it cannot know its Turing emulability level (yet can bet). That natural supernatural is really super in the sense that, as a machine or number, we cannot prove or known all the relations from which physics and nature emerge or supervene on. Once comp is assumed this follows, yes. OK, but that is why, when we assume comp, physics can no more be fundamental but cannot be entirely computable. Kim, (and others) are you OK with the first person indeterminacy issue? I am happy to move on from this now. I cannot see how there can be a way of distinguishing any of my copies. Are you ok that, from a first person point of view, throwing a coin and self-duplication are identical or isomorphic experience? The two appear fundamentally the same process apart from the numbers of atoms involved And, do you agree that introducing delays does not change the expectations (the probabilities, or the credibilities) used for the first person indeterminacy? Discussion over the last few days points has circled around this; personally, I now accept that I only exist when my conscious mind is up and running. During delays in teleportation my conscious mind cannot run on any hardware so I have no way of experiencing the delay. In fact the delay makes no difference to the outcome from my perspective. In step 6 every consistent extension is now virtual but this makes no difference to my belief that I am the same person I was before teleportation since I anticipate a consistent extension and that is what I experience. All that the experiment has to do is match my expectations with a consistently logical and convincing reality and I am prepared every time to say This is real and this is happening to me despite delays, annihilated originals, virtual renderings etc. As long as I am convinced by the environment I find myself in, I am prepared to bet that it is causally connected to the one (I experienced) before it - which I guess it would be even if it were an unconvincing low-res simulation. Whaouh good work! Take all you time, but if you can ask some question, it will help me to prepare the answer. If UDA1..6 is well understood, meaning that there is no more question, I will try to imagine a way to explain step 7, and this without getting in the mathematical details (if that is possible). This is the hard part! Still, I feel that I can intuit it. This is where you show how physics arises from number. Also how the Multiverse and MWI find their place in comp. Yes, exactly. comp has its own multiverse so you can compare with the multiverse inferred from observation. I know that sometimes, things can seems so incomprehensible that people cannot even ask any question. Not incomprehensible - just counter-intuitive. It's a mind-boggling exercise and up to here I do not feel you are losing any explanatory power by cutting back on the maths. I am not sure I completely understand what you mean by cutting back on the maths. But I am sure you understand that if, at the end of the argument reality is arithmetical, it will be hard to keep the math under the rug. Theoretical computer science is a branch of math. Forgetting Babbage for one second, the discovery of the universal machine is a discovery made by mathematicians (Post, Turing, Church, ...). The path here is easy, but long. I have to introduce you to the universal machine, and this can seem as very abstract without some acquaintance with *many* universal machines (note the s). In that case, tell me know that it is too much incomprehensible, and it will be my duty to make things even more clearer until the ah ah (meaning I understand or I have find an error. Best, Bruno - I did get a brief case of the Ah Ah (meaning I
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 21/01/2009, at 6:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 19 Jan 2009, at 13:56, Kim Jones wrote: But Brent was momentarily speaking of materialism - materialism doesn't acknowledge any form of comp immateriality except according to the (probably) false mind/body dualism, where the mind is allowed to be an ethereal emanation of the brain. But that's not even immateriality in your specific sense - that's popular superstition. You've cured me of that. Mind is computation; matter is computation - Actually this is an open problem. The point is that if mind is computation then matter is not necessarily computation, and a priori it is not computation. (Step 7 !) With comp we can take a very little ontology: just 0, 1, 2, 3, ... with their usual additive and multiplicative relations. This, then give rise automatically to a literally un-computably big first person an other-person epistemology. consciousness is not unique in the sense of some special pleading that allows it to avoid Turing emulability. OK. But keep in mind that consciousness is unique in the sense of knowing that it cannot know its Turing emulability level (yet can bet). Footnote - (parenthetical digression): I know the above thought is native to your schema, and up to here Penrose appears to agree with you. But, this very singular quality of consciousness (to not know its emulability level but to be able to bet on it - via the Bayesian probabilities detector that is the mind) is precisely the reason Penrose and Hammeroff have decided that the mind is NOT computation; because of the uncomputability of this issue. Why should the mind be limited to the computable? Clearly it is not. Could an AI conceive of Platonia? Now that would perhaps be to go one better than any Blade Runner-style Turing Test! For Penrose, Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem is enough to lock the door against the thought that the mind is limited to the algorithms of the computable. The mind, apparently, can understand things outside the realm of the computable. I guess it all depends on what you mean by understand. I would cite musical understanding as an example of something that cannot be computed. There is information that appears in the (listening) mind that cannot be deduced from the notes, the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms etc. All of the mechanics of music are of course computable, but my subjective interaction with a particular musical discourse is (probably) not. I doubt that I am telling you anything you didn't already know... (snip) Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New Scientist Very interesting! Thanks. If consciousness is gravity (the wave selector), as Penrose find plausible, the blurriness of the hologram could necessarily (asuming comp) prevent the observation of the gravitational waves, making them definitely undetectable. Just thinking aloud. Isn't this like the Turing lock-out with respect to truth and provability? We know the gravitational waves are there, but we can never directly detect them. Perhaps our knowing such a thing is non- computable? regards, Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 19/01/2009, at 9:58 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 18-janv.-09, à 11:32, Kim Jones a écrit : On 18/01/2009, at 4:38 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: I have no doubt that digital mechanism and materialism are incompatible, though. Is that because, under materialism, consciousness depends on causal links? Brent supernatural causal links All right, if you define supernatural causal links by the natural relation existing among natural numbers (or other finite things). Assuming comp, of course. But Brent was momentarily speaking of materialism - materialism doesn't acknowledge any form of comp immateriality except according to the (probably) false mind/body dualism, where the mind is allowed to be an ethereal emanation of the brain. But that's not even immateriality in your specific sense - that's popular superstition. You've cured me of that. Mind is computation; matter is computation - consciousness is not unique in the sense of some special pleading that allows it to avoid Turing emulability. That natural supernatural is really super in the sense that, as a machine or number, we cannot prove or known all the relations from which physics and nature emerge or supervene on. Once comp is assumed this follows, yes. Kim, (and others) are you OK with the first person indeterminacy issue? I am happy to move on from this now. I cannot see how there can be a way of distinguishing any of my copies. Are you ok that, from a first person point of view, throwing a coin and self-duplication are identical or isomorphic experience? The two appear fundamentally the same process apart from the numbers of atoms involved And, do you agree that introducing delays does not change the expectations (the probabilities, or the credibilities) used for the first person indeterminacy? Discussion over the last few days points has circled around this; personally, I now accept that I only exist when my conscious mind is up and running. During delays in teleportation my conscious mind cannot run on any hardware so I have no way of experiencing the delay. In fact the delay makes no difference to the outcome from my perspective. In step 6 every consistent extension is now virtual but this makes no difference to my belief that I am the same person I was before teleportation since I anticipate a consistent extension and that is what I experience. All that the experiment has to do is match my expectations with a consistently logical and convincing reality and I am prepared every time to say This is real and this is happening to me despite delays, annihilated originals, virtual renderings etc. As long as I am convinced by the environment I find myself in, I am prepared to bet that it is causally connected to the one (I experienced) before it - which I guess it would be even if it were an unconvincing low-res simulation. Take all you time, but if you can ask some question, it will help me to prepare the answer. If UDA1..6 is well understood, meaning that there is no more question, I will try to imagine a way to explain step 7, and this without getting in the mathematical details (if that is possible). This is the hard part! Still, I feel that I can intuit it. This is where you show how physics arises from number. Also how the Multiverse and MWI find their place in comp. I know that sometimes, things can seems so incomprehensible that people cannot even ask any question. Not incomprehensible - just counter-intuitive. It's a mind-boggling exercise and up to here I do not feel you are losing any explanatory power by cutting back on the maths. In that case, tell me know that it is too much incomprehensible, and it will be my duty to make things even more clearer until the ah ah (meaning I understand or I have find an error. Best, Bruno - I did get a brief case of the Ah Ah (meaning I understand) when I read this article recently: Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New Scientist Surely the discovery of the graininess of spacetime adds weight to the physics/psychology reversal of comp? regards, Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/18 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com Bruno Marchal wrote: On 15 Jan 2009, at 22:50, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:40, Brent Meeker wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: snip in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run This is true, but the word run is ambiguous. It could be a mathematical run. But isn't that the crux of the question? Mathematics is a set of logical relations - which have no temporal component. So a mathematical run can only be analogous to a physical run. So what is it in a mathematical run that makes it a run instead of just a timeless Platonic object? The notion of step, and successor of a step. For a mathematical run you have a notion of first step, second step, etc. It is digital some we can use the natural numbers and the successor relation for the first order time of the UD run. But if we look at the program for a UD the successor relation is not implemented. When it is run on a computer, the physics of the computer provides the succession. That is based on your theory according to which there is a physical reality. I have no problem with that, but the UDA has shown that you have to say no to the doctor, Why? The doctor proposes a physical implementation. Yes and I thought I did show you that which physical implementation is used doesn't matter ? or would you say you would accept a digital copy of yourself on ARM but not on Core 2 DUO ? or to point on the point that you don't understand in the UDA. You told us you have a problem with the UDA 6, I have provided an explanation, but then I am not sure if this satisfies you or not. Rfefrerring to the environment does not change the reasoning, unless you put non-turing emulable feature in your brain/ environment (but then you say no to the doctor). In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. From the ultimate third point of view, there are no gap, or there are gaps everywhere, that could depend on the topology or topologies you will extract from the numbers. In order to teleport me, my state must be determined. That means the values of physical variables at disparate spacetime points (in my head or my galaxy or...), but relativity makes it impossible to determine the state over an extended region until some later time on the order of d/c where d is the size of the region. So in reproducing me in the teleporter this increment of time will not be reproduced - I will experience a gap in consciousness, or a failure to remember a certain interval just before the teleportation. It's comparable to the time it would take a computer to store an image of it's state. Are you stopping at UDA step 1? No. There's a difference between your idea of running a world and making a copy of me within this world. I think the latter will necessarily incur a gap in my consciousness because of the need to gather the information about my state (plus some environment), but not the former. Ok let's accept that for your first copy (biological brain copied into digital form) you did occur a conscionsness gap because of that... but then I have a digital copy of you, and if you still believe it is you, I can put your digital copy running on my bananas computer, agreed ? and no more gap occurs copying you because I'm external to your simulated brain/environnment running in my bananas computer. With some effort Stathis, Quentin or me, or some other will succeed in making you say directly no to the doctor. Do I have to say no just because I suppose I'd incur a gap in consciousness? :-) No, just because you don't believe that the digital version is still you. Regards, Quentin Brent In that case you just say no to UDA step 0, that is to comp. I have no problem with that. I am personally not interested in discussing if comp is true or false (except for debunking invalid reasoning which are ffrequent there). My point is just that IF comp is true, THEN physics is a branch of number theory, and I propose a constructive prove which shows how to drive physics from numbers making the comp hyp. empirically refutable, making comp a scientific theory, in the Popper sense of scientific. I have no doubt that digital mechanism and materialism are incompatible, though. Is that because, under materialism, consciousness depends on causal links? Brent Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
I should add that in the case of the digital version, as I said earlier, the causal link is in no way the physical computer, but the program and its state. 2009/1/18 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com 2009/1/18 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com Bruno Marchal wrote: On 15 Jan 2009, at 22:50, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:40, Brent Meeker wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: snip in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run This is true, but the word run is ambiguous. It could be a mathematical run. But isn't that the crux of the question? Mathematics is a set of logical relations - which have no temporal component. So a mathematical run can only be analogous to a physical run. So what is it in a mathematical run that makes it a run instead of just a timeless Platonic object? The notion of step, and successor of a step. For a mathematical run you have a notion of first step, second step, etc. It is digital some we can use the natural numbers and the successor relation for the first order time of the UD run. But if we look at the program for a UD the successor relation is not implemented. When it is run on a computer, the physics of the computer provides the succession. That is based on your theory according to which there is a physical reality. I have no problem with that, but the UDA has shown that you have to say no to the doctor, Why? The doctor proposes a physical implementation. Yes and I thought I did show you that which physical implementation is used doesn't matter ? or would you say you would accept a digital copy of yourself on ARM but not on Core 2 DUO ? or to point on the point that you don't understand in the UDA. You told us you have a problem with the UDA 6, I have provided an explanation, but then I am not sure if this satisfies you or not. Rfefrerring to the environment does not change the reasoning, unless you put non-turing emulable feature in your brain/ environment (but then you say no to the doctor). In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. From the ultimate third point of view, there are no gap, or there are gaps everywhere, that could depend on the topology or topologies you will extract from the numbers. In order to teleport me, my state must be determined. That means the values of physical variables at disparate spacetime points (in my head or my galaxy or...), but relativity makes it impossible to determine the state over an extended region until some later time on the order of d/c where d is the size of the region. So in reproducing me in the teleporter this increment of time will not be reproduced - I will experience a gap in consciousness, or a failure to remember a certain interval just before the teleportation. It's comparable to the time it would take a computer to store an image of it's state. Are you stopping at UDA step 1? No. There's a difference between your idea of running a world and making a copy of me within this world. I think the latter will necessarily incur a gap in my consciousness because of the need to gather the information about my state (plus some environment), but not the former. Ok let's accept that for your first copy (biological brain copied into digital form) you did occur a conscionsness gap because of that... but then I have a digital copy of you, and if you still believe it is you, I can put your digital copy running on my bananas computer, agreed ? and no more gap occurs copying you because I'm external to your simulated brain/environnment running in my bananas computer. With some effort Stathis, Quentin or me, or some other will succeed in making you say directly no to the doctor. Do I have to say no just because I suppose I'd incur a gap in consciousness? :-) No, just because you don't believe that the digital version is still you. Regards, Quentin Brent In that case you just say no to UDA step 0, that is to comp. I have no problem with that. I am personally not interested in discussing if comp is true or false (except for debunking invalid reasoning which are ffrequent there). My point is just that IF comp is true, THEN physics is a branch of number theory, and I propose a constructive prove which shows how to drive physics from numbers making the comp hyp. empirically refutable, making comp a scientific theory, in the Popper sense of scientific. I have no doubt that digital mechanism and materialism are incompatible, though. Is that because, under materialism,
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 18/01/2009, at 4:38 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: I have no doubt that digital mechanism and materialism are incompatible, though. Is that because, under materialism, consciousness depends on causal links? Brent supernatural causal links enter the hand wavers Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 18 Jan 2009, at 06:38, Brent Meeker wrote: Are you stopping at UDA step 1? No. There's a difference between your idea of running a world and making a copy of me within this world. I think the latter will necessarily incur a gap in my consciousness because of the need to gather the information about my state (plus some environment), but not the former. I could agree, but then are you OK with UDA 7, where this difference is not relevant. With some effort Stathis, Quentin or me, or some other will succeed in making you say directly no to the doctor. Do I have to say no just because I suppose I'd incur a gap in consciousness? :-) To be honest, I have still not understand where that gap of consciousness comes from, nor am I sure the notion of gap of consciousness makes sense. I think those could be amnesia or distraction. I don't think we can loose consciousness, we can only forget, this asks for work. I have no doubt that digital mechanism and materialism are incompatible, though. Is that because, under materialism, consciousness depends on causal links? No, it is because of UDA. And yes consciousness depends on causal links. As being first person, consciousness depends on infinitely many causal links, due to the fact that comp truncates the histories at some level, below that level material or observable reality sums on all alternate computations. Of course I identify here causal link and computation. The advantage is that causality and its many higher level versions are explained through number and classical logic, in that case. The modalities emerge through the correct self-reflexion. We get for free mind, and matter (and other hypostases). Also, materialist have hard time to define the notion of causality, like matter or energy, it is hard to interpret the physical facts and the theories we make from observation already. The UDA approach consists in taking seriously a theological hypothesis: the yes doctor *qua computatio*, and to follow the consequences. If you say yes to the doctor, you can understand that your next instant of consciousness is determined by all computations going through your actual state (described at the lowest level). Here: 2^aleph_0 histories, a priori. No universal machine, like us (this by assumption), can distinguish real reality, from virtual (emulated) reality, from arithmetical reality, from analytical reality, from set theoretical reality, etc. (and this by theorem). The base ontology is not important to be named. When Turing emulable and universal, it generates all (internal and relatively external) notions of causalities, even ladders of higher and higher order notion of causality. And to explain the observable universe by its mere existence is a bit creationist for me. I like comp showing us that the inquiry game just begin: the laws of physics have a reason, a beginning of explanation. Numbers reflect Numbers. 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 15 Jan 2009, at 22:50, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:40, Brent Meeker wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: snip in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run This is true, but the word run is ambiguous. It could be a mathematical run. But isn't that the crux of the question? Mathematics is a set of logical relations - which have no temporal component. So a mathematical run can only be analogous to a physical run. So what is it in a mathematical run that makes it a run instead of just a timeless Platonic object? The notion of step, and successor of a step. For a mathematical run you have a notion of first step, second step, etc. It is digital some we can use the natural numbers and the successor relation for the first order time of the UD run. But if we look at the program for a UD the successor relation is not implemented. When it is run on a computer, the physics of the computer provides the succession. That is based on your theory according to which there is a physical reality. I have no problem with that, but the UDA has shown that you have to say no to the doctor, Why? The doctor proposes a physical implementation. or to point on the point that you don't understand in the UDA. You told us you have a problem with the UDA 6, I have provided an explanation, but then I am not sure if this satisfies you or not. Rfefrerring to the environment does not change the reasoning, unless you put non-turing emulable feature in your brain/ environment (but then you say no to the doctor). In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. From the ultimate third point of view, there are no gap, or there are gaps everywhere, that could depend on the topology or topologies you will extract from the numbers. In order to teleport me, my state must be determined. That means the values of physical variables at disparate spacetime points (in my head or my galaxy or...), but relativity makes it impossible to determine the state over an extended region until some later time on the order of d/c where d is the size of the region. So in reproducing me in the teleporter this increment of time will not be reproduced - I will experience a gap in consciousness, or a failure to remember a certain interval just before the teleportation. It's comparable to the time it would take a computer to store an image of it's state. Are you stopping at UDA step 1? No. There's a difference between your idea of running a world and making a copy of me within this world. I think the latter will necessarily incur a gap in my consciousness because of the need to gather the information about my state (plus some environment), but not the former. With some effort Stathis, Quentin or me, or some other will succeed in making you say directly no to the doctor. Do I have to say no just because I suppose I'd incur a gap in consciousness? :-) Brent In that case you just say no to UDA step 0, that is to comp. I have no problem with that. I am personally not interested in discussing if comp is true or false (except for debunking invalid reasoning which are ffrequent there). My point is just that IF comp is true, THEN physics is a branch of number theory, and I propose a constructive prove which shows how to drive physics from numbers making the comp hyp. empirically refutable, making comp a scientific theory, in the Popper sense of scientific. I have no doubt that digital mechanism and materialism are incompatible, though. Is that because, under materialism, consciousness depends on causal links? Brent 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Le 15-janv.-09, à 20:55, Brent Meeker a écrit : Stathis is not wrong but seems unclear on what a computation mathematically is perhaps. Many miss Church thesis. The fact that there is a purely mathematical notion of computation at all. I thought the Church's thesis was that all effectively computable functions were in the lambda-calculus, but the effectively referred to intuitive ideas of what is physically realizable. In the foundation of mathematics, including theoretical computer science, the word effectivity refers to either to Turing or Church or equivalent notion of mathematical computability, or just, with Church Thesis, to computability. For intuitionist it can refer to even more abstract (unphysical) notions of constructivity Later it was shown that the recursive functions and the Turing functions also defined the same set of effectively computable functions. Yes. All formalism which has been invented to describe the computable functions by finite vmeans have led to the same class of functions. It is the empirical argument for the thesis by Church, Post, Turing. Emil Post is the first to give a name to that thesis. Turing was plainly motivated by considering physically implemented computations. Give me a reference. Turing did have a large spectrum of interest, including biology, chemistry and quantum physics. For example, the quantum Zeno effect has been discovered by Turing, but he did not publish it. But in his seminal 1936 paper on computability (which can be found in Davis 1964 book, reedited by Dover one year ago), there is no references to physics at all. On the contrary, the definition is inspired directly by what a human mathematician can compute using paper and a pencil, with refrence only to his mental state. I must go. I will probably comment your other post tomorrow, because I'm rather busy today. 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/16 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But both the electronic and the mechanical computer are implementing a process that is distributed in spacetime and has causal connections. Yes, and my claim is that the causal connections are important only because they give rise to the sequence of states. If the same state changes occurred accidentally, I don't see where there is room for the resulting consciousness to be any different. For if the consciousness were to be different it would be able to send different signals to the vocal cords or loudspeaker reporting that difference, but this is impossible if the output states are the same as they would have been had they been causally linked. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Assuming the gap did not result in accumulation of errors, a technical problem, and assuming the environment is held constant to eliminate 100Hz flicker, I don't see how teleportation every 10ms could alter consciousness. I could if you lost 10ms of consciousness everytime you were teleported. How can you be sure that your consciousness was not suspended for the past minute, assuming that care was taken to leave the environment unchanged during this period? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/16 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But both the electronic and the mechanical computer are implementing a process that is distributed in spacetime and has causal connections. Yes, and my claim is that the causal connections are important only because they give rise to the sequence of states. If the same state changes occurred accidentally, I don't see where there is room for the resulting consciousness to be any different. But I think you are assuming something about states that is false - i.e. that they are discrete non-overlapping things. According to our current understanding of physics this is not the case for brain states or computer states. Because they are distributed in space, relativity implies they are also distributed in time. Whether the causal connections can be sufficiently simulated in Bruno's UD is a separate question, but I don't think it's valid to argue that the spatiotemporal relations can be ignored in brains, which is what talk about states implies, therefore they can be ignored in representation consisting only of static states. For if the consciousness were to be different it would be able to send different signals to the vocal cords or loudspeaker reporting that difference, but this is impossible if the output states are the same as they would have been had they been causally linked. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Assuming the gap did not result in accumulation of errors, a technical problem, and assuming the environment is held constant to eliminate 100Hz flicker, I don't see how teleportation every 10ms could alter consciousness. I could if you lost 10ms of consciousness everytime you were teleported. How can you be sure that your consciousness was not suspended for the past minute, assuming that care was taken to leave the environment unchanged during this period? How do you know it's possible to suspend consciousness without noticeable change? That seems to me to be assuming what I argue against about states. It's an idealization which can certainly be approximated because the brain is fairly small and operates slowly (in relativistic terms) - but I don't think the ideal can be realized and cannot be the basis of fundamental metaphysics. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 15 Jan 2009, at 22:50, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:40, Brent Meeker wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: snip in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run This is true, but the word run is ambiguous. It could be a mathematical run. But isn't that the crux of the question? Mathematics is a set of logical relations - which have no temporal component. So a mathematical run can only be analogous to a physical run. So what is it in a mathematical run that makes it a run instead of just a timeless Platonic object? The notion of step, and successor of a step. For a mathematical run you have a notion of first step, second step, etc. It is digital some we can use the natural numbers and the successor relation for the first order time of the UD run. But if we look at the program for a UD the successor relation is not implemented. When it is run on a computer, the physics of the computer provides the succession. That is based on your theory according to which there is a physical reality. I have no problem with that, but the UDA has shown that you have to say no to the doctor, or to point on the point that you don't understand in the UDA. You told us you have a problem with the UDA 6, I have provided an explanation, but then I am not sure if this satisfies you or not. Rfefrerring to the environment does not change the reasoning, unless you put non-turing emulable feature in your brain/ environment (but then you say no to the doctor). In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. From the ultimate third point of view, there are no gap, or there are gaps everywhere, that could depend on the topology or topologies you will extract from the numbers. In order to teleport me, my state must be determined. That means the values of physical variables at disparate spacetime points (in my head or my galaxy or...), but relativity makes it impossible to determine the state over an extended region until some later time on the order of d/c where d is the size of the region. So in reproducing me in the teleporter this increment of time will not be reproduced - I will experience a gap in consciousness, or a failure to remember a certain interval just before the teleportation. It's comparable to the time it would take a computer to store an image of it's state. Are you stopping at UDA step 1? With some effort Stathis, Quentin or me, or some other will succeed in making you say directly no to the doctor. In that case you just say no to UDA step 0, that is to comp. I have no problem with that. I might say yes, accepting that there will necessarily be a small gap in my consciousness (in fact I've already said yes to much longer gaps during surgery). I am personally not interested in discussing if comp is true or false (except for debunking invalid reasoning which are ffrequent there). I think teleportation requires a gap in consciousness; the gap comes from the requirement to gather the information necessary to define a state so that it can be transmitted and reproduced. This doesn't imply that there must be a gap in a digital simulation once it is running. Brent My point is just that IF comp is true, THEN physics is a branch of number theory, and I propose a constructive prove which shows how to drive physics from numbers making the comp hyp. empirically refutable, making comp a scientific theory, in the Popper sense of scientific. I have no doubt that digital mechanism and materialism are incompatible, though. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/16 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/16 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But both the electronic and the mechanical computer are implementing a process that is distributed in spacetime and has causal connections. Yes, and my claim is that the causal connections are important only because they give rise to the sequence of states. If the same state changes occurred accidentally, I don't see where there is room for the resulting consciousness to be any different. But I think you are assuming something about states that is false - i.e. that they are discrete non-overlapping things. According to our current understanding of physics this is not the case for brain states or computer states. The state of a program is discrete, the fact that the electrical states of the physical computer that runs the program is not (or is) doesn't change that... this feature is below the program knowledge... the program is a number, the whole program+data is also a number, and a program is composed of a finite set of instruction which are executed at each step (which is of no-time duration from its pov). The physicality of the computer inner working doesn't change the program which is implemented at a higher level if not the physical machine is broken. For example, openoffice works the same on every kind of physical computers it runs on... even if on different computers the number of step a computer can handle each physical second is different, even if one computer represent a binary one by +3.5V or +0.5V or whatever or even bananas. Because they are distributed in space, relativity implies they are also distributed in time. Whether the causal connections can be sufficiently simulated in Bruno's UD is a separate question, but I don't think it's valid to argue that the spatiotemporal relations can be ignored in brains, which is what talk about states implies, therefore they can be ignored in representation consisting only of static states. If spatiotemporal relation is needed and is turing emulable, then there's no problem, in fact if whatever makes the brain and is needed to make it work is turing emulable then no problem... nobody argues here I think that the only thing you need to simulate a real actual brain is the electric firing pattern of the brain. But if all of this is turing emulable then all of this is composed of a finite or infinite number of finite step with each step comprising of a state containing a finite number of informations. Regards, Quentin For if the consciousness were to be different it would be able to send different signals to the vocal cords or loudspeaker reporting that difference, but this is impossible if the output states are the same as they would have been had they been causally linked. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Assuming the gap did not result in accumulation of errors, a technical problem, and assuming the environment is held constant to eliminate 100Hz flicker, I don't see how teleportation every 10ms could alter consciousness. I could if you lost 10ms of consciousness everytime you were teleported. How can you be sure that your consciousness was not suspended for the past minute, assuming that care was taken to leave the environment unchanged during this period? How do you know it's possible to suspend consciousness without noticeable change? If all informations needed to notice is change is not available to the consciousness then it cannot notice by definition. For example, I copy you and recreate you in a virtual reality at the same state that you were copied in the outer real, then your copy in the VR will not notice anything because nothing is different, you can notice what is available unless magics or non turing emulability of the mind in this case. If you could notice then the chosen digital level is not correct and too high. You did not simulate enough. That seems to me to be assuming what I argue against about states. It's an idealization which can certainly be approximated because the brain is fairly small and operates slowly (in relativistic terms) - but I don't think the ideal can be realized and cannot be the basis of fundamental metaphysics. Brent -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/17 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: On 16 Jan 2009, at 14:10, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/16 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But both the electronic and the mechanical computer are implementing a process that is distributed in spacetime and has causal connections. Yes, and my claim is that the causal connections are important only because they give rise to the sequence of states. I agree with you. Now, with the computational supervenience thesis: a causal connection is the same as a universal machine. From third person point of view, one causal connection (one UM) is enough (and I take the numbers+addition+multiplication) for the ease. From a first person point of view the physics emerge from all possible causal connection below my substitution level. Comp predicts that if I observe myself below the substitution level, I will find a sheaf of local connections. To clarify my position, I do agree with you that if we accept comp, ultimately we have to drop physicalism. However, most computationalists are physicalists. Also, most computationalists are disturbed by ideas such as those explored in Egan's Permutation City, which leads them to invoke rules such as no consciousness without the causal links to prevent such absurdities. But I maintain that these rules don't work. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/17 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But I think you are assuming something about states that is false - i.e. that they are discrete non-overlapping things. According to our current understanding of physics this is not the case for brain states or computer states. Because they are distributed in space, relativity implies they are also distributed in time. Whether the causal connections can be sufficiently simulated in Bruno's UD is a separate question, but I don't think it's valid to argue that the spatiotemporal relations can be ignored in brains, which is what talk about states implies, therefore they can be ignored in representation consisting only of static states. As Quentin pointed out, a computer state can be saved to disk and the program continued at a later time or on another machine. This process doesn't involve saving the actual instantaneous physical state of the machine, but the point is that what is saved is the minimal information for the program to continue. Are you suggesting that a conscious program that goes through such a stop/save/restart process would somehow be aware of this, even though the program post the interruption appears to proceed the same way as it would have without the interruption? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/15 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as abstract steps in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run and the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links. In general you cannot take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time, call that a state, and restart it without any effects. Switches are in intermediate states, EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a static thing like a step in a program. But the idea behind functionalism is that an equivalent program running on completely different hardware would give rise to the same mental states. It is hard to see how that could be possible if, for example, the EM radiation caused by electrical switching somehow coloured or altered the resulting mental states, for what should we then expect from the equivalent program running on a purely mechanical computer? In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Assuming the gap did not result in accumulation of errors, a technical problem, and assuming the environment is held constant to eliminate 100Hz flicker, I don't see how teleportation every 10ms could alter consciousness. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/15 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as abstract steps in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run and the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links. In general you cannot take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time, call that a state, and restart it without any effects. Switches are in intermediate states, EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a static thing like a step in a program. But the idea behind functionalism is that an equivalent program running on completely different hardware would give rise to the same mental states. It is hard to see how that could be possible if, for example, the EM radiation caused by electrical switching I'm not talking about the incidental EM radiation; I'm talking about the conduction of EM energy from one gate to another, from one part of the computer to another or in a brain the transfer of electrochemical potential down an axon. somehow coloured or altered the resulting mental states, for what should we then expect from the equivalent program running on a purely mechanical computer? But both the electronic and the mechanical computer are implementing a process that is distributed in spacetime and has causal connections. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Assuming the gap did not result in accumulation of errors, a technical problem, and assuming the environment is held constant to eliminate 100Hz flicker, I don't see how teleportation every 10ms could alter consciousness. I could if you lost 10ms of consciousness everytime you were teleported. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:40, Brent Meeker wrote:
Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote:
However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also
requires a
set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the
integers
are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing
machine
are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation,
are
sufficient isn't clear to me.
In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented
by
the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will
reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my
question
about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence
of
states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2
are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2
just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20
occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of
consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is
true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just
described?
I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as
abstract steps
in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer
to run
This is true, but the word run is ambiguous. It could be a
mathematical run. It is digital some we can use the natural numbers
and the successor relation for the first order time of the UD run.
Independent subcomputations manage their own time. Physical time is
something else: it emerges in the plural first person perspective.
From the point of view of the machine it makes no difference (it is
the MGA point).
and
the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links.
This of course is not proved, but admittedly required for a materialist.
(I guess you were saying: the computer is implemented by
spatiotemporal links)
In general you cannot
take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time,
call that a
state, and restart it without any effects.
Apparently, homeotherm animals can be frozen and heated back and still
keep even their short term memory, if I remember correctly (!).
Experiences with rats suggest this is the case, according to Michel
Jouvert (the discoverer of REM sleep).
But what I really want to say is this. Even if you were true, or
Jouvet false, actually even if our relevant brain state was a quantum
state, which when unknown are not duplicable, it would change nothing.
I suppose some high level in UDA(1...6) only for making the reasoning
more easy. At step seven, all what matters is that there is a level
were you are in principle digitally describable, be it the galaxy .
The reason is that if such a level exist then the UD will access that
state, infinitely often, in many subcomputations, and
subsubcomputations.
And this gives the fundamental first person (plural) indeterminacy:
the fact that each computation, from the 1-pov, more exactly from the
obligatory (by UDA('1...6)) 3-pov on the 1-pov, bifurcate or
differentiate into 2^aleph_zero histories in the universal deployment.
Switches are in intermediate states,
EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a
static thing
like a step in a program.
I think comp explains the appearance of continua, and the relative
correctness of that view. But that thing, the concrete computer, is
a local approximation of the true thing (with the comp assumption). If
its representation abilities are locally enough stable relatively to
you, it will make possible for the true thing to manifest itself
relatively to your histories. The true thing being the person, not
its relative (to you) envelop or description.
In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that
there would be
a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one
would probably
hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms.
From the ultimate third point of view, there are no gap, or there are
gaps everywhere, that could depend on the topology or topologies you
will extract from the numbers. Strictly speaking there are only the
natural numbers and their many arithmetical relations. Now some
arithmetical relation define or represent universal computation(s),
including all finite portions of the universal deployment.
From the first point of view, there is no gap. For the same reason
that the Everett observer, when measuring, with an {UP,DOWN}-measuring
apparatus a particle in the state UP+DOWN, will not feel the split or
feel self-superposed. The first person experience is determined by the
possible relations you have with your most probable universal history,
among already 2^aleph_zero very similar universal histories. Those are
just arithmetical relations (assuming ...). From the first
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:52, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi, 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as abstract steps in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run and the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links. In general you cannot take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time, call that a state, and restart it without any effects. I do not see a problem with that... a program can be freezed any time... dump the memory to a file, on restart, load the dump file to memory, put the instruction pointer at the correct place and you're done. (well in practice it is a little more difficult, but you could do it for *any* program). In the situation that Stathis describe, causality is not broken in any way. S1-S10 run in computer 1, dump, reload on computer 2 S11-S20 run in computer 2, the causal link is given by the program that compute S1-S20 irrelevant on what physical device it is running on... the causal link is the program and a program is relative to a machine (abstract one). So a computation is the set of a program and the machine that runs it. A state doesn't exists by itself (state of what ?), and this is where Stathis is wrong I think. Stathis is not wrong but seems unclear on what a computation mathematically is perhaps. Many miss Church thesis. The fact that there is a purely mathematical notion of computation at all. Best, Bruno Regards, Quentin Switches are in intermediate states, EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a static thing like a step in a program. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Brent -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:52, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi, 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as abstract steps in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run and the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links. In general you cannot take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time, call that a state, and restart it without any effects. I do not see a problem with that... a program can be freezed any time... dump the memory to a file, on restart, load the dump file to memory, put the instruction pointer at the correct place and you're done. (well in practice it is a little more difficult, but you could do it for *any* program). In the situation that Stathis describe, causality is not broken in any way. S1-S10 run in computer 1, dump, reload on computer 2 S11-S20 run in computer 2, the causal link is given by the program that compute S1-S20 irrelevant on what physical device it is running on... the causal link is the program and a program is relative to a machine (abstract one). So a computation is the set of a program and the machine that runs it. A state doesn't exists by itself (state of what ?), and this is where Stathis is wrong I think. Stathis is not wrong but seems unclear on what a computation mathematically is perhaps. Many miss Church thesis. The fact that there is a purely mathematical notion of computation at all. I thought the Church's thesis was that all effectively computable functions were in the lambda-calculus, but the effectively referred to intuitive ideas of what is physically realizable. Later it was shown that the recursive functions and the Turing functions also defined the same set of effectively computable functions. Turing was plainly motivated by considering physically implemented computations. Brent Best, Bruno Regards, Quentin Switches are in intermediate states, EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a static thing like a step in a program. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Brent -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 14 Jan 2009, at 18:40, Brent Meeker wrote:
Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote:
However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also
requires a
set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the
integers
are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing
machine
are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation,
are
sufficient isn't clear to me.
In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented
by
the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will
reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my
question
about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence
of
states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2
are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2
just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20
occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of
consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is
true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just
described?
I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as
abstract steps
in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer
to run
This is true, but the word run is ambiguous. It could be a
mathematical run.
But isn't that the crux of the question? Mathematics is a set of logical
relations - which have no temporal component. So a mathematical run can only
be analogous to a physical run. So what is it in a mathematical run that makes
it a run instead of just a timeless Platonic object?
It is digital some we can use the natural numbers
and the successor relation for the first order time of the UD run.
But if we look at the program for a UD the successor relation is not
implemented. When it is run on a computer, the physics of the computer
provides
the succession.
Independent subcomputations manage their own time. Physical time is
something else: it emerges in the plural first person perspective.
From the point of view of the machine it makes no difference (it is
the MGA point).
and
the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links.
This of course is not proved, but admittedly required for a materialist.
It is empirically verified. Of course nothing is ever proved outside a
formal
axiomatic system.
(I guess you were saying: the computer is implemented by
spatiotemporal links)
That's looking at the computer as an abstract machine which gets implemented
in physics. I was looking at the computation as an abstract process which gets
implemented by the (physical) computer.
In general you cannot
take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time,
call that a
state, and restart it without any effects.
Apparently, homeotherm animals can be frozen and heated back and still
keep even their short term memory, if I remember correctly (!).
Experiences with rats suggest this is the case, according to Michel
Jouvert (the discoverer of REM sleep).
But what I really want to say is this. Even if you were true, or
Jouvet false, actually even if our relevant brain state was a quantum
state, which when unknown are not duplicable, it would change nothing.
I suppose some high level in UDA(1...6) only for making the reasoning
more easy. At step seven, all what matters is that there is a level
were you are in principle digitally describable, be it the galaxy .
The reason is that if such a level exist then the UD will access that
state, infinitely often, in many subcomputations, and
subsubcomputations.
And this gives the fundamental first person (plural) indeterminacy:
the fact that each computation, from the 1-pov, more exactly from the
obligatory (by UDA('1...6)) 3-pov on the 1-pov, bifurcate or
differentiate into 2^aleph_zero histories in the universal deployment.
Switches are in intermediate states,
EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a
static thing
like a step in a program.
I think comp explains the appearance of continua, and the relative
correctness of that view. But that thing, the concrete computer, is
a local approximation of the true thing (with the comp assumption). If
its representation abilities are locally enough stable relatively to
you, it will make possible for the true thing to manifest itself
relatively to your histories. The true thing being the person, not
its relative (to you) envelop or description.
In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that
there would be
a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one
would probably
hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms.
From the ultimate third point of view, there are no gap, or
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/14 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com: Stathis, common sense, not always applicable to math-related topics is startled before a task on a REGULAR contraption-type Turing machine (binary, electrically driven finite hardware etc.) can emulate ALL the potentials of 11+billion neurons in unrestricted groupings and unlimited connectivities as to the complexity of all the codes/details (un!)imaginable. (Maybe if you change to Bruno's infinite Loebian vs. Turing machine...?? I doubt if you can do that, since there are different brains (eg for genetical etc. reasons) and I cannot figure so many (although limited number) variables in the 'unrestricted' (all encompassing?) Loebian machines.) It is possible to calculate how much computing power it would take to simulate a brain at a particular level. For simulations at the cellular level, there is for example this work by IBM researchers simulating a rat neocortical column: http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/03/out_of_the_blue.php?page=allp=y http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/521/djurfeldt.pdf It's still a long way from simulating an entire brain and observing ratlike behaviour, but it does show that computational neuroscience is now beyond the philosopher's thought experiment stage. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis: (from reply to Brent): I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states,... There IS discontinuity if the state transits'(?) from s1 to s2. Do you have any idea how one can observe a changed state by only continuous transitions? Where do you pick the limit to call it the 'next' state? Isn't such 'arbitrary'? (I have similar questions with astronomy - what I never studied - how do they calculate the planatary movement markers (year?) into (fractional?) seconds? but they do). Same question to Bruno's 'integers: there is no transition between 2 and 3. Even putting fractals in between only extends the question to smaller scale. Infinite small I would not consider at our present level of cognition. In your reply to me: I find the rat-related IBM publication wanting: ...Each of its microchips has been programmed to act just like a real neuron in a real brain How much we know about a 'real neuron' and its function is a matter of the present level of RD. We know more than a decade ago and less than a decade hence. And the 'rat' discloses only its movements - evaluated and understood(?) at the complexity of the human brain. Would you draw valid conclusions on - say - personality by a silent film of only the movements of a person - even at matching complexity? I may write some distracting stories to follow 'movements'. A rat doesn't communicate with researcher. Rat-shrink? I wouldn't use Terry Seynowski's critical word that the brain is too 'mystrerious': it is too *complex* and poorly followable by our present level of our 2009 cognitive inventory. We can know just 'that' much and most likely there is much 'more' to it. (my 'enrichment' remark of past and future knowledge). Markram's work is glorious. That's the way we can proceed in widening our knowledge 10,000 'neurons' is a good start. But their fundamental tenet: *Every brain is made* of the same basic parts - means a restriction to our ongoing physical/physiological observational capabilities which have shown incredible enlargement in the past (still within the 'physical world' figment). Frequencies, methods, evaluations are all limited. I keep it open that penetrating the Hard Problem we may find new phenomena unassignable to our present knowledge of the known tissue and physics. Nobody has diversified amp or MRI data to distinguish whether a blood-surge refers to a political opinion, love, boredom, financial expectation, or whatever, in a mentally-topical distinction. * Thanks for that brilliant article. It says honestly: When listening to Markram speculate, it's easy to forget that the Blue Brain simulation is still just a single circuit, confined within a silent supercomputer. The machine is not yet alive. Exactly. Neuroscience is heroic and 'explains' lots of tenets into open somehow'-s. Their assumptions are within our conventional sciences. Digitally computed. Computing analogue ideational meanings? I wish to look further - especially on this list. John On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 4:40 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/1/14 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com: Stathis, common sense, not always applicable to math-related topics is startled before a task on a REGULAR contraption-type Turing machine (binary, electrically driven finite hardware etc.) can emulate ALL the potentials of 11+billion neurons in unrestricted groupings and unlimited connectivities as to the complexity of all the codes/details (un!)imaginable. (Maybe if you change to Bruno's infinite Loebian vs. Turing machine...?? I doubt if you can do that, since there are different brains (eg for genetical etc. reasons) and I cannot figure so many (although limited number) variables in the 'unrestricted' (all encompassing?) Loebian machines.) It is possible to calculate how much computing power it would take to simulate a brain at a particular level. For simulations at the cellular level, there is for example this work by IBM researchers simulating a rat neocortical column: http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/03/out_of_the_blue.php?page=allp=y http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/521/djurfeldt.pdf It's still a long way from simulating an entire brain and observing ratlike behaviour, but it does show that computational neuroscience is now beyond the philosopher's thought experiment stage. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as abstract steps in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run and the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links. In general you cannot take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time, call that a state, and restart it without any effects. Switches are in intermediate states, EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a static thing like a step in a program. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Hi, 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as abstract steps in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run and the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links. In general you cannot take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time, call that a state, and restart it without any effects. I do not see a problem with that... a program can be freezed any time... dump the memory to a file, on restart, load the dump file to memory, put the instruction pointer at the correct place and you're done. (well in practice it is a little more difficult, but you could do it for *any* program). In the situation that Stathis describe, causality is not broken in any way. S1-S10 run in computer 1, dump, reload on computer 2 S11-S20 run in computer 2, the causal link is given by the program that compute S1-S20 irrelevant on what physical device it is running on... the causal link is the program and a program is relative to a machine (abstract one). So a computation is the set of a program and the machine that runs it. A state doesn't exists by itself (state of what ?), and this is where Stathis is wrong I think. Regards, Quentin Switches are in intermediate states, EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a static thing like a step in a program. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Brent -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi, 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as abstract steps in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run and the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links. In general you cannot take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time, call that a state, and restart it without any effects. I do not see a problem with that... a program can be freezed any time... dump the memory to a file The abstract program, consisting of a set of steps can be stopped at any time (i.e. at a step), but a computer running a program cannot just be stopped. What your are contemplating is having the operating system copy the values of various registers to a some memory file and then stop. , on restart, load the dump file to memory, put the instruction pointer at the correct place and you're done. (well in practice it is a little more difficult, but you could do it for *any* program). But have you ever cut the power to your computer while it was running? ;-) Brent In the situation that Stathis describe, causality is not broken in any way. S1-S10 run in computer 1, dump, reload on computer 2 S11-S20 run in computer 2, the causal link is given by the program that compute S1-S20 irrelevant on what physical device it is running on... the causal link is the program and a program is relative to a machine (abstract one). So a computation is the set of a program and the machine that runs it. A state doesn't exists by itself (state of what ?), and this is where Stathis is wrong I think. Regards, Quentin Switches are in intermediate states, EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a static thing like a step in a program. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Brent -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi, 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. In an actual physical computer the transition rules are represented by the causal links between the states, so that a particular input will reliably give rise to a particular output. But I return to my question about what would happen if there were a discontinuity in a sequence of states, so that s1 to s10 on m1 are causally linked, s11 to s20 on m2 are causally linked, but there is no link between m1 and m2, i.e. m2 just happens to start in s11 accidentally. Assuming that s1 to s20 occurring in a single machine results is a few moments of consciousness (which is to say, assuming that computationalism is true), what would happen if the sequence is broken in the way just described? I suspect something is lost. You are thinking of the states as abstract steps in a computer program. But a computer program requires a computer to run and the computer implements distributed spatiotemporal links. In general you cannot take even a digitial computer and freeze it in a instant of time, call that a state, and restart it without any effects. I do not see a problem with that... a program can be freezed any time... dump the memory to a file The abstract program, consisting of a set of steps can be stopped at any time (i.e. at a step), but a computer running a program cannot just be stopped. What your are contemplating is having the operating system copy the values of various registers to a some memory file and then stop. Well the operating system or the program itself or whatever... If I run a vm and dump the state of the vm and restart it, it's the same thing... who did tell to your program on what it is running anyway and of what relevance it was for it ? , on restart, load the dump file to memory, put the instruction pointer at the correct place and you're done. (well in practice it is a little more difficult, but you could do it for *any* program). But have you ever cut the power to your computer while it was running? ;-) Brent Well you are talking about physicalities here... For what it's worth I would in this case (to stay in the material realm) implement it on a cluster with failover (which is what ? dumping the state and distributing it accross the cluster) And when I close my notebook, the system goes to hibernation which is ? saving the memory state. Regards, Quentin In the situation that Stathis describe, causality is not broken in any way. S1-S10 run in computer 1, dump, reload on computer 2 S11-S20 run in computer 2, the causal link is given by the program that compute S1-S20 irrelevant on what physical device it is running on... the causal link is the program and a program is relative to a machine (abstract one). So a computation is the set of a program and the machine that runs it. A state doesn't exists by itself (state of what ?), and this is where Stathis is wrong I think. Regards, Quentin Switches are in intermediate states, EM waves are propagating, electrons are diffusing - it is not a static thing like a step in a program. In terms of Bruno's teleporter, one might say yes accepting that there would be a one-time gap in consciousness (ever had a concussion?), but one would probably hesitate if the there was to be a gap every 10ms. Brent -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: In human consciousness, as instantiated by brains, there is a process in which signal/information is not local, it is distributed in spacetime and is connected causally which means, per relativity, that you cannot make any unique spacelike snapshot and label it the state. I don't go so far as to claim that consciousness *must be* instantiated in this way, but I think there must be something that makes the states part of a process - not just snapshots. Bruno gets around the problem of defining states by assuming a digital Turing like process, but then he has to provide something besides spacetime to make the set of states a sequence; which is he does by invoking the requirement that they be a computation. I have some doubts as to whether this is enough, but at least it is something. It comes down to whether the brain is Turing emulable. If it is, then I see no problem describing it in terms of a sequence of discrete states. The question then arises whether the causal links between the states in an intact digital computer are necessary to give rise to consciousness, which is what I thought you were claiming, or whether the same states in disconnected fashion would achieve the same thing. Opponents of computationalism such as John Searle have argued that if a Turing machine can give rise to consciousness then the disconnected states would also have to give rise to consciousness, which is then taken as a reductio against computationalism. The alternative way, saving computationalism, is, I think, Bruno's: it isn't the physical states giving rise to consciousness, but the computation as Platonic object. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/13 Günther Greindl guenther.grei...@gmail.com: Stathis, thinking about this way (which I did when reading Egan's Permutation City) is indeed problematic - because then you would also have to let consciousness supervene on Lucky Alice (the one from MGA), right down to Super Lucky Alice (Alice which is made anew for every state through random events). In a materialist view, you can associate consciousness with states directly (which leads to strange consequences, see MGA for instance); or some part of the running is responsible - in which case you can't leave out the causal dynamics or maybe the material substrate - but that isn't computationalism anymore, because you must assume that the substrate is not turing-emulable (otherwise you would just have to choose a different, correct, substitution level). That is why I agree with Bruno - IF you assume COMP - and you are assuming it, I gather - then forget matter, and forget running, and forget isolated states - you will find your OMs in UD* - and as such, the states s1 through s20 etc will only contribute to the measure of histories for an OM, but will not constitute the OM _by themselves_. In one sentence: The states s1 through s20 (or any others) will contribute to the measure of a certain OM and the ingoing/outgoing histories, independent of order, if they can be attributed to a computation of an UD. Yes, I agree, and I see dust type arguments as equivalent to arguments in favour of Marchalian Idealism (to coin a phrase). It's either that or drop computationalism. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: In human consciousness, as instantiated by brains, there is a process in which signal/information is not local, it is distributed in spacetime and is connected causally which means, per relativity, that you cannot make any unique spacelike snapshot and label it the state. I don't go so far as to claim that consciousness *must be* instantiated in this way, but I think there must be something that makes the states part of a process - not just snapshots. Bruno gets around the problem of defining states by assuming a digital Turing like process, but then he has to provide something besides spacetime to make the set of states a sequence; which is he does by invoking the requirement that they be a computation. I have some doubts as to whether this is enough, but at least it is something. It comes down to whether the brain is Turing emulable. If it is, then I see no problem describing it in terms of a sequence of discrete states. The question then arises whether the causal links between the states in an intact digital computer are necessary to give rise to consciousness, which is what I thought you were claiming, or whether the same states in disconnected fashion would achieve the same thing. Opponents of computationalism such as John Searle have argued that if a Turing machine can give rise to consciousness then the disconnected states would also have to give rise to consciousness, which is then taken as a reductio against computationalism. However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. Brent The alternative way, saving computationalism, is, I think, Bruno's: it isn't the physical states giving rise to consciousness, but the computation as Platonic object. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis, common sense, not always applicable to math-related topics is startled before a task on a REGULAR contraption-type Turing machine (binary, electrically driven finite hardware etc.) can emulate ALL the potentials of 11+billion neurons in unrestricted groupings and unlimited connectivities as to the complexity of all the codes/details (un!)imaginable. (Maybe if you change to Bruno's infinite Loebian vs. Turing machine...?? I doubt if you can do that, since there are different brains (eg for genetical etc. reasons) and I cannot figure so many (although limited number) variables in the 'unrestricted' (all encompassing?) Loebian machines.) * To Brent's remark: The 'sequence vs. time' is not trivial, it has its intricacies: considering an 'open' time-scale your 'sequence' may follow up some sequencing steps in nanosecs, others in lightyears. Principally it is all 'time', yet no time-systemic temporality. * Spacetime is harder: the hard-problem (thought) part works easily in a_temporal - a_spatial conditions where sequence IS yet included, however spatial restrictions much less. E.g. plunging into the inter-universe teleporting it is hard to figure out spatial conditions 'between' universes. How far is U3 from U145? Does Multiverse have a space-system? * Ccness? what type? I find even Bruno's version restricted, although my version (response to infirmation) is applicable in computing, I just figure more planes than just Platonic (i.e. numerical? math?) objects. John On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/1/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: In human consciousness, as instantiated by brains, there is a process in which signal/information is not local, it is distributed in spacetime and is connected causally which means, per relativity, that you cannot make any unique spacelike snapshot and label it the state. I don't go so far as to claim that consciousness *must be* instantiated in this way, but I think there must be something that makes the states part of a process - not just snapshots. Bruno gets around the problem of defining states by assuming a digital Turing like process, but then he has to provide something besides spacetime to make the set of states a sequence; which is he does by invoking the requirement that they be a computation. I have some doubts as to whether this is enough, but at least it is something. It comes down to whether the brain is Turing emulable. If it is, then I see no problem describing it in terms of a sequence of discrete states. The question then arises whether the causal links between the states in an intact digital computer are necessary to give rise to consciousness, which is what I thought you were claiming, or whether the same states in disconnected fashion would achieve the same thing. Opponents of computationalism such as John Searle have argued that if a Turing machine can give rise to consciousness then the disconnected states would also have to give rise to consciousness, which is then taken as a reductio against computationalism. The alternative way, saving computationalism, is, I think, Bruno's: it isn't the physical states giving rise to consciousness, but the computation as Platonic object. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 13 Jan 2009, at 18:44, Brent Meeker wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: In human consciousness, as instantiated by brains, there is a process in which signal/information is not local, it is distributed in spacetime and is connected causally which means, per relativity, that you cannot make any unique spacelike snapshot and label it the state. I don't go so far as to claim that consciousness *must be* instantiated in this way, but I think there must be something that makes the states part of a process - not just snapshots. Bruno gets around the problem of defining states by assuming a digital Turing like process, but then he has to provide something besides spacetime to make the set of states a sequence; which is he does by invoking the requirement that they be a computation. I have some doubts as to whether this is enough, but at least it is something. It comes down to whether the brain is Turing emulable. If it is, then I see no problem describing it in terms of a sequence of discrete states. The question then arises whether the causal links between the states in an intact digital computer are necessary to give rise to consciousness, which is what I thought you were claiming, or whether the same states in disconnected fashion would achieve the same thing. Opponents of computationalism such as John Searle have argued that if a Turing machine can give rise to consciousness then the disconnected states would also have to give rise to consciousness, which is then taken as a reductio against computationalism. However a Turing machine is not just a set of states, it also requires a set of transition rules. So in the same abstract way that the integers are ordered by succession the computational states of a Turing machine are ordered. Whether just abstract rules, without implementation, are sufficient isn't clear to me. OK, but then the UDA is supposed to explain that. When we abandon the physical supervenience principle, and still keep digital mechanism, comp, we have to make clearer the comp surpevenience thesis. When you say in a previous post, to Stathis: Bruno gets around the problem of defining states by assuming a digital Turing like process, but then he has to provide something besides spacetime to make the set of states a sequence; which is he does by invoking the requirement that they be a computation. I have some doubts as to whether this is enough, I only bet that there is a universal machine with respect to which that sequence of states is a computation. UDA makes it *necessarily* enough, once you say yes to the digitalist surgeon. I think. (then from the first person point of view it will be an infinity of computations-universal machines) but at least it is something. Thanks. But what a thing! It is no my thing, it is what clearly nature has not stopped to show us with life, brains (amoebas getting cabled), and computers: apparition and re-apparition of *the* (by Church thesis) Universal Machine. You get a point on Stathis: a sequence of states, or a sequence of description of states, or a description of a sequence of states, none of those things can implement consciousness ... per se. Sequences of states ,or description of sequences of states, implement consciousness only relatively to universal machine, either in the third person way (get accessed by the UD), or from the first person points of view the most probable (or credible, or bettable) universal machine(s) relatively to its indexicaly current state. I think Stathis can conceive that a stone could implement all computations. In a sense, this is true (assuming comp), given that a stone, from *your* point of view should already be described by the collection of *all* computational history going through the state of the stone (if that exists) or the state of you + the stone. This is advanced stuff and could perhaps be resolved by hands, but it is more funny, deeper, and modest, and then this is what I have done after all, to directly interview the universal machine itself. Which leads to AUDA. Assuming comp, specifying just one universal machine will do, ontologically. And elementary arithmetic, taught in high school, and captured by Robinson Arithmetic is enough. It defines implicitly a universal deployment. If f(x) = z, f computable, then Robinson Arithmetic will prove that fact (and also that if f(x) = z f(x) = y then y = z). But it is epistemology which counts, in particular Physics is first person (plural), and to be described, we need a universal machine which is little bit more introspective. Here there is a theorem (not mine!): if you had, to Robinson Arithmetic, the infinity of induction formula (Ax means for all number x ..., ) (F(0) Ax(F(x) - F(x+1))) - AxF(x) then you get already a sort of unsurpassable, in
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Le 11-janv.-09, à 17:55, Brent Meeker a écrit : Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/11 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: I'm suggesting that running a state is incoherent. A machine running a program goes through a sequence of states. Consider 20 consecutive states, s1 to s20, which give rise to several moments of consciousness. Would you say that running the sequence s1 to s20 on a single machine m1 will give a different conscious experience to running s1 to s10 on m1 and separately s11 to s20 on m2? I'm suggesting that there has to be something that makes the states a sequence instead of just a set or an aggregate. I agree. What you need is a Universal system/machine/language/whatever. To say that something is a state in a computation, or that something is a computation, you need a universal machine capable of producing that computation. Now, assuming the yes doctor entails that the universal system does not need to be physical, and that the very term physical will have to be explained in term of purely combinatorial or arithmetical universal system. The explanatory gain is fabulous, then. Bruno Brent 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/12 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: A machine running a program goes through a sequence of states. Consider 20 consecutive states, s1 to s20, which give rise to several moments of consciousness. Would you say that running the sequence s1 to s20 on a single machine m1 will give a different conscious experience to running s1 to s10 on m1 and separately s11 to s20 on m2? I'm suggesting that there has to be something that makes the states a sequence instead of just a set or an aggregate. In that case, there would be a difference between the two cases I described above, perhaps a gap in consciousness when the sequence is separated into two parts on two machines. But this presents conceptual problems. For a start, the observer notices no gap, and his external behaviour is also unchanged. If there is nevertheless a gap, would it be of infinitesimal duration or would its duration perhaps be that of the period of consciousness s10 and s11 would have given rise to had they occurred in the usual causally connected way in the one machine? What would happen to the gap if there were communication between the two machines, say by sneakernet? And what if the information transfer between the two machines was unreliable, so that the right state was transferred only half the time? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis, thinking about this way (which I did when reading Egan's Permutation City) is indeed problematic - because then you would also have to let consciousness supervene on Lucky Alice (the one from MGA), right down to Super Lucky Alice (Alice which is made anew for every state through random events). In a materialist view, you can associate consciousness with states directly (which leads to strange consequences, see MGA for instance); or some part of the running is responsible - in which case you can't leave out the causal dynamics or maybe the material substrate - but that isn't computationalism anymore, because you must assume that the substrate is not turing-emulable (otherwise you would just have to choose a different, correct, substitution level). That is why I agree with Bruno - IF you assume COMP - and you are assuming it, I gather - then forget matter, and forget running, and forget isolated states - you will find your OMs in UD* - and as such, the states s1 through s20 etc will only contribute to the measure of histories for an OM, but will not constitute the OM _by themselves_. In one sentence: The states s1 through s20 (or any others) will contribute to the measure of a certain OM and the ingoing/outgoing histories, independent of order, if they can be attributed to a computation of an UD. Cheers, Günther Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/11 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: I'm suggesting that running a state is incoherent. A machine running a program goes through a sequence of states. Consider 20 consecutive states, s1 to s20, which give rise to several moments of consciousness. Would you say that running the sequence s1 to s20 on a single machine m1 will give a different conscious experience to running s1 to s10 on m1 and separately s11 to s20 on m2? -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna guenther.grei...@univie.ac.at Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/ Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/12 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: A machine running a program goes through a sequence of states. Consider 20 consecutive states, s1 to s20, which give rise to several moments of consciousness. Would you say that running the sequence s1 to s20 on a single machine m1 will give a different conscious experience to running s1 to s10 on m1 and separately s11 to s20 on m2? I'm suggesting that there has to be something that makes the states a sequence instead of just a set or an aggregate. In that case, there would be a difference between the two cases I described above, perhaps a gap in consciousness when the sequence is separated into two parts on two machines. But this presents conceptual problems. For a start, the observer notices no gap, You are assuming the set of states is a sufficient simulation to instantiate an observer, which is what I doubt. and his external behaviour is also unchanged. If there is nevertheless a gap, would it be of infinitesimal duration or would its duration perhaps be that of the period of consciousness s10 and s11 would have given rise to had they occurred in the usual causally connected way in the one machine? In human consciousness, as instantiated by brains, there is a process in which signal/information is not local, it is distributed in spacetime and is connected causally which means, per relativity, that you cannot make any unique spacelike snapshot and label it the state. I don't go so far as to claim that consciousness *must be* instantiated in this way, but I think there must be something that makes the states part of a process - not just snapshots. Bruno gets around the problem of defining states by assuming a digital Turing like process, but then he has to provide something besides spacetime to make the set of states a sequence; which is he does by invoking the requirement that they be a computation. I have some doubts as to whether this is enough, but at least it is something. Brent What would happen to the gap if there were communication between the two machines, say by sneakernet? And what if the information transfer between the two machines was unreliable, so that the right state was transferred only half the time? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/11 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: I'm suggesting that running a state is incoherent. A machine running a program goes through a sequence of states. Consider 20 consecutive states, s1 to s20, which give rise to several moments of consciousness. Would you say that running the sequence s1 to s20 on a single machine m1 will give a different conscious experience to running s1 to s10 on m1 and separately s11 to s20 on m2? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/11 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: I'm suggesting that running a state is incoherent. A machine running a program goes through a sequence of states. Consider 20 consecutive states, s1 to s20, which give rise to several moments of consciousness. Would you say that running the sequence s1 to s20 on a single machine m1 will give a different conscious experience to running s1 to s10 on m1 and separately s11 to s20 on m2? I'm suggesting that there has to be something that makes the states a sequence instead of just a set or an aggregate. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 10/01/2009, at 6:37 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: The question is how is the simulated observer made conscious of the passage of (simulated) time. If you just look a momentary machine states, ignoring their causal/temporal relations, how will they create the consciousness of time in the simulated observer? Brent But does it make any difference whether the observer is simulated or not? I've been assuming all along that my reality might be a simulated one from your POV. You could (without me knowing for sure but perhaps suspecting it) be projecting my entire reality for my (and almost certainly, your) benefit. Without you fiddling the knobs and faders behind the scenes I don't even exist. Time exists where the conscious mind attributes or senses meaning. Because everything can ultimately be derived from everything else, it makes sense that time is like a kind of white noise of meaning of all perceived OMs. If that isn't too Shirley McLaine regards, Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Kim Jones wrote: On 10/01/2009, at 6:37 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: The question is how is the simulated observer made conscious of the passage of (simulated) time. If you just look a momentary machine states, ignoring their causal/temporal relations, how will they create the consciousness of time in the simulated observer? Brent But does it make any difference whether the observer is simulated or not? But the question is what constitutes an adequate simulation. Can it be the existence of disjoint states or must there be a causal connection between the states or is some implicit order enough? How does the time get simulated? Brent I've been assuming all along that my reality might be a simulated one from your POV. You could (without me knowing for sure but perhaps suspecting it) be projecting my entire reality for my (and almost certainly, your) benefit. Without you fiddling the knobs and faders behind the scenes I don't even exist. Time exists where the conscious mind attributes or senses meaning. Because everything can ultimately be derived from everything else, it makes sense that time is like a kind of white noise of meaning of all perceived OMs. If that isn't too Shirley McLaine regards, Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/10 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The question is how is the simulated observer made conscious of the passage of (simulated) time. If you just look a momentary machine states, ignoring their causal/temporal relations, how will they create the consciousness of time in the simulated observer? Are you suggesting that the observer would be conscious of the passage of time through two consecutive machine states, s1 and s2, running on the one machine m1, but not if s1 is run on m1 (which is then stopped) and s2 run on a separate machine m2? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/10 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The question is how is the simulated observer made conscious of the passage of (simulated) time. If you just look a momentary machine states, ignoring their causal/temporal relations, how will they create the consciousness of time in the simulated observer? Are you suggesting that the observer would be conscious of the passage of time through two consecutive machine states, s1 and s2, running on the one machine m1, but not if s1 is run on m1 (which is then stopped) and s2 run on a separate machine m2? I'm suggesting that running a state is incoherent. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Thomas, (Apropos Günther Greindl's remark: space as the self moving in relation to everything else, time as everything outside the self moving in relation to oneself. it's funny that already in 1895, in his novel The Time Machine, H.G. Wells wrote, There is no difference between time and any of the three thanks for that notice, I wasn't aware of it! Best Wishes, Günther --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/9 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But in a block universe, where each frame contains all of the information for a particular time, the order is implicit. What makes it implicit?... increasing entropy? ...conformance to dynamical laws? These are things outside the frames. If you assume there is enough inside the frames to order them (as a continuum model does by implicit overlap) then that is a time order and it's meaningless to talk about shuffling or separating them (in what spacetime could such operations be carried out?). Consider a simulation of an observer watching a falling stone, running on a digital computer. Does the observer have any way of knowing whether the simulation is being run serially, in parallel, on how many and what kinds of physical machines, at what speed, or in what order? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/9 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But in a block universe, where each frame contains all of the information for a particular time, the order is implicit. What makes it implicit?... increasing entropy? ...conformance to dynamical laws? These are things outside the frames. If you assume there is enough inside the frames to order them (as a continuum model does by implicit overlap) then that is a time order and it's meaningless to talk about shuffling or separating them (in what spacetime could such operations be carried out?). Consider a simulation of an observer watching a falling stone, running on a digital computer. Does the observer have any way of knowing whether the simulation is being run serially, in parallel, on how many and what kinds of physical machines, at what speed, or in what order? Is the observer conscious of a passage to time? Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/10 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Consider a simulation of an observer watching a falling stone, running on a digital computer. Does the observer have any way of knowing whether the simulation is being run serially, in parallel, on how many and what kinds of physical machines, at what speed, or in what order? Is the observer conscious of a passage to time? Yes,but of course it won't be real or external time of which he will be conscious. In a block universe, there isn't necessarily any real or external time. Whether you call the internal time of the simulation or block universe real is a matter of taste. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/10 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Consider a simulation of an observer watching a falling stone, running on a digital computer. Does the observer have any way of knowing whether the simulation is being run serially, in parallel, on how many and what kinds of physical machines, at what speed, or in what order? Is the observer conscious of a passage to time? Yes,but of course it won't be real or external time of which he will be conscious. In a block universe, there isn't necessarily any real or external time. Whether you call the internal time of the simulation or block universe real is a matter of taste. The question is how is the simulated observer made conscious of the passage of (simulated) time. If you just look a momentary machine states, ignoring their causal/temporal relations, how will they create the consciousness of time in the simulated observer? Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/8 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/7 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: I would not deny causality in such a universe so long as the logical structure enforces the Life rules (meaning, the next level in the stack is *always* the next life-tick, it couldn't be something else... which is true by supposition in the block world). Perhaps that still counts as a magical requirement for you, though. So if the boards were shuffled, or separated by arbitrary distances, the causality would go and the computation (perhaps a conscious computation) would no longer be implemented? What justification is there for adding this requirement? 2 + 2 = 4 is true 4 + 2 = 2 is false Order counts. But in a block universe, where each frame contains all of the information for a particular time, the order is implicit. Arranging the frames a particular way is only important for an observer outside of the ensemble, like someone watching a film. Some argue that such a block universe would lack the special quality that gives rise to computation, consciousness and all other good things. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/8 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/7 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: I would not deny causality in such a universe so long as the logical structure enforces the Life rules (meaning, the next level in the stack is *always* the next life-tick, it couldn't be something else... which is true by supposition in the block world). Perhaps that still counts as a magical requirement for you, though. So if the boards were shuffled, or separated by arbitrary distances, the causality would go and the computation (perhaps a conscious computation) would no longer be implemented? What justification is there for adding this requirement? 2 + 2 = 4 is true 4 + 2 = 2 is false Order counts. But in a block universe, where each frame contains all of the information for a particular time, the order is implicit. What makes it implicit?... increasing entropy? ...conformance to dynamical laws? These are things outside the frames. If you assume there is enough inside the frames to order them (as a continuum model does by implicit overlap) then that is a time order and it's meaningless to talk about shuffling or separating them (in what spacetime could such operations be carried out?). Brent Arranging the frames a particular way is only important for an observer outside of the ensemble, like someone watching a film. Some argue that such a block universe would lack the special quality that gives rise to computation, consciousness and all other good things. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/7 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: I would not deny causality in such a universe so long as the logical structure enforces the Life rules (meaning, the next level in the stack is *always* the next life-tick, it couldn't be something else... which is true by supposition in the block world). Perhaps that still counts as a magical requirement for you, though. So if the boards were shuffled, or separated by arbitrary distances, the causality would go and the computation (perhaps a conscious computation) would no longer be implemented? What justification is there for adding this requirement? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/7 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: I would not deny causality in such a universe so long as the logical structure enforces the Life rules (meaning, the next level in the stack is *always* the next life-tick, it couldn't be something else... which is true by supposition in the block world). Perhaps that still counts as a magical requirement for you, though. So if the boards were shuffled, or separated by arbitrary distances, the causality would go and the computation (perhaps a conscious computation) would no longer be implemented? What justification is there for adding this requirement? 2 + 2 = 4 is true 4 + 2 = 2 is false Order counts. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 06 Jan 2009, at 20:18, Brent Meeker wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/6 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. You could model a block universe as a big stack of Life boards, where the time dimension is represented by the spatial displacement between the boards. There's no way the observers in such an arrangement can step out of one board onto another, backwards or out of sequence. Some would say that the stack of boards does not count as a computation, and others that even if it counts as a computation it doesn't count as a conscious computation; that to reach such states you need causality and for causality you need fundamentally real time, not block pseudo-time. I don't see any justification for such claims beyond a desire to preserve the magic in the world. If you don't require causality or something else that provides a continuum topology then the boards can be infinitesimally thin and without any intrinsic order. That would mean that a single board, by itself (a state in machine terminology) would have to count as a computation. That's why Bruno insists on a digital structure, but even in his model there is the UD running in the background and providing an order. OK. What remains to be (re)explained, to grasp completely the steps 7 and 8 of the UDA, is that the background for a running UD does not need more than a tiny part of arithmetic (or combinator, ...). The computation steps of the UD can be defined entirely in arithmetic, and this determines the topology and the measure on the boards in a way where it makes no sense to change anything, like you cannot change the property of the numbers at will, once you have accepted the (usual) definitions. This is not easy to explain. It is implicit in the proof that the recursive or computable functions are representable in (Robinson) Arithmetic, or that the recursively enumerable sets are representable in (Robinson) Arithmetic, or combinators(*). Actually the AUDA shows that there will be as many topologies and measures than there are types of points of view. Starting from the usual, and best known, Gödelian, notion of effective self-reference for defining the third point of view, and accepting the Theaetetus' definitions of knowledge for defining the other person's point's of view, we can extract the logics corresponding to those views, (they correspond to the arithmetical hypostases in the plotinus paper). They determine the corresponding topology and the corresponding measure. Then it should be just math. I see indeed this as mainly an attempt to formulate the mind body problem in math, as it can be done when assuming digital mechanism. AUDA protects explicitly machines against any reductionist conception of what a machine, or number (or combinator, ...) can be. This is due to the fact that correct universal machines can prove their own incompleteness and can distinguish truth from their own provability predicate. They can known they cannot define or give a name to an ultimate notion of truth, yet they can be guided by it and to it, in a non enumerable varieties of ways. Bruno (*)This is rather well done in the two following (quite good) books: George S Boolos, John P. Burgess, and Richard C. Jeffrey. Computability and Logic, fourth edition, 2002, Cambridge University Press. Richard L. Epstein and Walter A. Carnielli. Computability, Computable Functions, Logic, and the Foundations of Mathematics. 1989, Wadswoth Brooks/Cole Mathematics Series, Pacific Grove, California. Those who appreciates the combinators, (or those who dislikes the numbers), can read How to Mock a Mocking Bird by Raymond Smullyan, who gives a big part of the ideas and technics for representing the recursive functions with the combinators S and K. 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
OK, and thanks Bruno. I thought MW more or less presumed a block universe without time, but apparently this is yet uncertain. Abram, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. Probably because our sense apparatus and brain are fine-tuned (by evolution) to a limited part of reallity. We don't experience reallity directly in its wholeness. Think of a cartoon man. He lives his entire life in what to him looks like two spatial dimensions and probably still makes claims about reallity! His life begins at page 1 and ends at say page 50. At page 40 he remembers what happend at page 20, but not visa versa. The reader could tell him, because the reader can go back and forth in the book like he wants, but the cartoon man can't see, hear, or touch the reader, though he probably senses the third dimension in some strange way, similar to the strange way the reader senses the fourth dimension, time. And the same relation a little being living on a thin thread would have to the cartoon man. And the reader to a being outside the universe, if such being exists. If time is something different from space, this analogy doesn't hold totally, though :) To my knowledge, modern physics treats many things as dimensions: not just time and space, but also forces such as electromagnetism. This does not imply that such things are spatial in nature. A dimension is just a variable. Unless you think there is something particularly spatial about time? Dimension is a flexible word meaning many different things, also non- spatial, depending on the context. About the spatial nature of time the others answered much better than I can :) See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime (Apropos Günther Greindl's remark: space as the self moving in relation to everything else, time as everything outside the self moving in relation to oneself. it's funny that already in 1895, in his novel The Time Machine, H.G. Wells wrote, There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space except that our consciousness moves along it. I guess it's the same that is meant. Consciousness IS a funny thing in a block universe, I admit :-) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
PS. If the two-dimensional cartoon man has something to say about mathematics or logic, I would certainly listen, but his intuition, common sense and and experienses I would rather smile at :) Maybe somebody is smiling at me right now? or laughing? I hope not ;-) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Abram, I agree with Brent. In relativity theory space and time are intermingled in a geometrical way to give the Minkowski structure. Actually you can make it into an Euclidian space by introducing an imaginary time t' = sqr(-1)*t = it. The metrics becomes dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 + dt'^2. In quantum mechanics the possible position of an object on a line gives rise to an hermitian space: it is infinite dimensional, but there is still a geometrical structure, with notions akin to angles and distances. Of course mathematician have far more general notion of dimensional spaces, some of which have nothing to do with geometry. In physics metrics play always some role somewhere though. Bruno Le 06-janv.-09, à 02:59, Brent Meeker a écrit : Abram Demski wrote: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. To my knowledge, modern physics treats many things as dimensions: not just time and space, but also forces such as electromagnetism. This does not imply that such things are spatial in nature. A dimension is just a variable. Unless you think there is something particularly spatial about time? There is something spatial about time, duration is measured along paths in space. Coordinate time is mixed with space by Lorentz symmetries. But it's still different from space. Lee Smolin and Fotini Markopolo have argued that time must be considered fundamental (no block universe). Brent 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
2009/1/6 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. You could model a block universe as a big stack of Life boards, where the time dimension is represented by the spatial displacement between the boards. There's no way the observers in such an arrangement can step out of one board onto another, backwards or out of sequence. Some would say that the stack of boards does not count as a computation, and others that even if it counts as a computation it doesn't count as a conscious computation; that to reach such states you need causality and for causality you need fundamentally real time, not block pseudo-time. I don't see any justification for such claims beyond a desire to preserve the magic in the world. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 06 Jan 2009, at 14:07, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/6 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. You could model a block universe as a big stack of Life boards, where the time dimension is represented by the spatial displacement between the boards. There's no way the observers in such an arrangement can step out of one board onto another, backwards or out of sequence. Some would say that the stack of boards does not count as a computation, To *count* as a computation, you have to make precise the base in which you count, that is the choice of a universal machine, language or system. The initial choice does not really matter, for the theoretical purpose. and others that even if it counts as a computation it doesn't count as a conscious computation; that to reach such states you need causality and for causality you need fundamentally real time, not block pseudo-time. I don't see any justification for such claims beyond a desire to preserve the magic in the world. I'm afraid you are either pushing the thing to much, or that you could give that impression. But thanks for giving me an opportunity to clarify. We do need a universal notion of causality, if only to be able to define the displacement between the boards, and discuss science about them between us. I agree with you, to invoke physical causality is *magic*, or *dogmatic* (and useless, by UDA). But, well, at least assuming comp, we still need a notion of computationalist causality, if only to get the comp supervenience theorem, and then it is just a bit of work to get that such notion, with the Church Turing Thesis, needs only 0, succession, addition and multiplication. We could instead use any first order description of any universal programming language, or systems (Combinators, Lambda, Cellular automata, Gaussian Integers, ...). I use mainly 0, succession, addition and multiplication, because it is taught in school, but combinators can be very useful too for addressing the fundamental questions (like c++ or Java are useful for implementing concrete software and uploading them on the net). Don't forget the universal machine. it is really a bomb. A creative bomb, for a change. It obeys the approximable but non unifiable laws emerging from the mess brought by addition and multiplication in the (positive) integers. Why is the observable reality so smooth and symmetrical? Now we can ask the universal machine(s). Surprise! The machine not only can explain the trajectories of the snow balls (making comp testable eventually), but the machine can explain why it feels cold. The machine can justify also the non- eliminability of the person, somehow. To be sure, I don't interview a machine who believes *only* in 0, succession, addition and multiplication. The machine believes also in the induction axioms (I will say more on this later). This makes the Löbian nuance. That's enough for making the machine knowing its universality and capable of discussing about what could be provable or true or probable for itself and its consistent extensions. If you weaken too much the notion of causality, you take the risk of being lead to a trivial theory which would explains nothing and see computations everywhere. I am not saying that you do that, but I know that some people, near this stage, can be tempted to conclude too quickly . Some even affronts (for a lapse of time) the ultimate white rabbit 0 = 1. Arithmetics kicks back. Since Gödel we know (assuming comp and betting on self-consistency) that Arithmetic necessarily kicks back. 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Abram, With General Relativity, time is so geometrical that you can make it circular. (Cf the Gödel's solutions to Einstein's GR Equation, which gives hope to some to build a time machine, and even infinite computers!). Give me just a sufficiently massive cylinder ... Bruno On 06 Jan 2009, at 12:51, Bruno Marchal wrote: Abram, I agree with Brent. In relativity theory space and time are intermingled in a geometrical way to give the Minkowski structure. Actually you can make it into an Euclidian space by introducing an imaginary time t' = sqr(-1)*t = it. The metrics becomes dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 + dt'^2. In quantum mechanics the possible position of an object on a line gives rise to an hermitian space: it is infinite dimensional, but there is still a geometrical structure, with notions akin to angles and distances. Of course mathematician have far more general notion of dimensional spaces, some of which have nothing to do with geometry. In physics metrics play always some role somewhere though. Bruno Le 06-janv.-09, à 02:59, Brent Meeker a écrit : Abram Demski wrote: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. To my knowledge, modern physics treats many things as dimensions: not just time and space, but also forces such as electromagnetism. This does not imply that such things are spatial in nature. A dimension is just a variable. Unless you think there is something particularly spatial about time? There is something spatial about time, duration is measured along paths in space. Coordinate time is mixed with space by Lorentz symmetries. But it's still different from space. Lee Smolin and Fotini Markopolo have argued that time must be considered fundamental (no block universe). Brent http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis, I would not deny causality in such a universe so long as the logical structure enforces the Life rules (meaning, the next level in the stack is *always* the next life-tick, it couldn't be something else... which is true by supposition in the block world). Perhaps that still counts as a magical requirement for you, though. --Abram On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 8:07 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/1/6 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. You could model a block universe as a big stack of Life boards, where the time dimension is represented by the spatial displacement between the boards. There's no way the observers in such an arrangement can step out of one board onto another, backwards or out of sequence. Some would say that the stack of boards does not count as a computation, and others that even if it counts as a computation it doesn't count as a conscious computation; that to reach such states you need causality and for causality you need fundamentally real time, not block pseudo-time. I don't see any justification for such claims beyond a desire to preserve the magic in the world. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- Abram Demski Public address: abram-dem...@googlegroups.com Public archive: http://groups.google.com/group/abram-demski Private address: abramdem...@gmail.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno, This I know... yet I want to say that it doesn't necessarily make time *spatial*. But, I can't say exactly what that would mean. It seems to me that the word spatial becomes less meaningful if time is said to be spatial... --Abram On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 1:57 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Abram, With General Relativity, time is so geometrical that you can make it circular. (Cf the Gödel's solutions to Einstein's GR Equation, which gives hope to some to build a time machine, and even infinite computers!). Give me just a sufficiently massive cylinder ... Bruno On 06 Jan 2009, at 12:51, Bruno Marchal wrote: Abram, I agree with Brent. In relativity theory space and time are intermingled in a geometrical way to give the Minkowski structure. Actually you can make it into an Euclidian space by introducing an imaginary time t' = sqr(-1)*t = it. The metrics becomes dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 + dt'^2. In quantum mechanics the possible position of an object on a line gives rise to an hermitian space: it is infinite dimensional, but there is still a geometrical structure, with notions akin to angles and distances. Of course mathematician have far more general notion of dimensional spaces, some of which have nothing to do with geometry. In physics metrics play always some role somewhere though. Bruno Le 06-janv.-09, à 02:59, Brent Meeker a écrit : Abram Demski wrote: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. To my knowledge, modern physics treats many things as dimensions: not just time and space, but also forces such as electromagnetism. This does not imply that such things are spatial in nature. A dimension is just a variable. Unless you think there is something particularly spatial about time? There is something spatial about time, duration is measured along paths in space. Coordinate time is mixed with space by Lorentz symmetries. But it's still different from space. Lee Smolin and Fotini Markopolo have argued that time must be considered fundamental (no block universe). Brent http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- Abram Demski Public address: abram-dem...@googlegroups.com Public archive: http://groups.google.com/group/abram-demski Private address: abramdem...@gmail.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/1/6 Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. You could model a block universe as a big stack of Life boards, where the time dimension is represented by the spatial displacement between the boards. There's no way the observers in such an arrangement can step out of one board onto another, backwards or out of sequence. Some would say that the stack of boards does not count as a computation, and others that even if it counts as a computation it doesn't count as a conscious computation; that to reach such states you need causality and for causality you need fundamentally real time, not block pseudo-time. I don't see any justification for such claims beyond a desire to preserve the magic in the world. If you don't require causality or something else that provides a continuum topology then the boards can be infinitesimally thin and without any intrinsic order. That would mean that a single board, by itself (a state in machine terminology) would have to count as a computation. That's why Bruno insists on a digital structure, but even in his model there is the UD running in the background and providing an order. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Abram, an intuition I have come to concerning time is the following (it is only qualitative and may or may not be helpful in thinking about time): From relativity theory we know that there is no universal now, and that the invariant between two points in the physical universe is spacetime distance, where time or space are interchangeable relative to different (moving) observers. Now let us for the moment go into the position of an observer (ourselves, for instance). space: is the dimensions over which I have control as a thinking subject. I can move left, right, up, down, front, back - three dimensions. I can consciously change my relation to other objects (which continue on their trajectories through spacetime). time: is the motion of all other objects in the universe in relation to myself - even some objects of which I am made of, say, the cells in my body (which divide etc), bloodstream etc. So we see a first person/third person divide: space as the self moving in relation to everything else, time as everything outside the self moving in relation to oneself. So, in this sense, time and space are indeed very much alike - they just represent different points of view (self vs otherness) Just a few thoughts :-) Best Wishes, Günther --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Lewis Carroll Epstein says the reason we can't go faster than light is that we can't go slower than light, c is our speed along the time axis. Brent Günther Greindl wrote: Abram, an intuition I have come to concerning time is the following (it is only qualitative and may or may not be helpful in thinking about time): From relativity theory we know that there is no universal now, and that the invariant between two points in the physical universe is spacetime distance, where time or space are interchangeable relative to different (moving) observers. Now let us for the moment go into the position of an observer (ourselves, for instance). space: is the dimensions over which I have control as a thinking subject. I can move left, right, up, down, front, back - three dimensions. I can consciously change my relation to other objects (which continue on their trajectories through spacetime). time: is the motion of all other objects in the universe in relation to myself - even some objects of which I am made of, say, the cells in my body (which divide etc), bloodstream etc. So we see a first person/third person divide: space as the self moving in relation to everything else, time as everything outside the self moving in relation to oneself. So, in this sense, time and space are indeed very much alike - they just represent different points of view (self vs otherness) Just a few thoughts :-) Best Wishes, Günther --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
PS. Of course space and time exist, even if only in consciousness, but I guess you know what I mean :) On Jan 5, 1:10 am, Thomas Laursen krimma...@gmail.com wrote: I admit that consciousness is a bit special but what about time as (nothing but) a space dimension? Do you agree on this? (put aside whether time/space is only in the mind, as you think, or really exist) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. To my knowledge, modern physics treats many things as dimensions: not just time and space, but also forces such as electromagnetism. This does not imply that such things are spatial in nature. A dimension is just a variable. Unless you think there is something particularly spatial about time? --Abram On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 7:10 PM, Thomas Laursen krimma...@gmail.com wrote: I admit that consciousness is a bit special but what about time as (nothing but) a space dimension? Do you agree on this? (put aside whether time/space is only in the mind, as you think, or really exist) On Jan 3, 10:39 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I disagree, and your remark singles out the problem with the bird's eye/frog view of Tegmark. Those two views remains third person point of views. Consciousness is intrinsically a first person view. You cannot describe it in any third person point of view. This explains why the Aristotelians want so much eliminate consciousness. But you are right for memories and the the possible discourse *about* consciousness, this can be compared to marks on some block-structure. Consciousness itself will be more a distributed logical feature in the whole of the block reality. Consciousness, even consciousness of time and space, is not something you can effectively relate to time and space. Assuming comp you can relate it to fixed point of self- observation and other logical (but non geometrical) things. Then discourses made by conscious entities have themselves invariant pattern, like we cannot define it, we cannot explain it that you can (with luck) recognize in the (more geometrical) marks. Bruno Marchal On 03 Jan 2009, at 06:46, Thomas Laursen wrote: If I understand the standard MWI right (with my layman brain) Abram Demski's view of time is very much in accordance with it, except that time should be looked at simply as a fourth space dimension. A bird's eye view on the whole universe (= all it's actualized worlds) would be like a static picture where, lets say, the beginning (big bang) is at the left side (or right if you're Chinese), the present in the middle, and the future at the right. Of course this (2-dimensional) picture is extremely simplified but the idea behind is true (if I understand Everett and others, mainly Deutsch and Tegmark in their popular papers, right). Memory is then nothing but marks in the brain, and consciousness just like other moving things in nature with a (relatively) stable structure (a body, river, plant, etc), only more complex. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- Abram Demski Public address: abram-dem...@googlegroups.com Public archive: http://groups.google.com/group/abram-demski Private address: abramdem...@gmail.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
On 05 Jan 2009, at 01:10, Thomas Laursen wrote: I admit that consciousness is a bit special but what about time as (nothing but) a space dimension? Do you agree on this? The physicist in me don't know. But he likes the universal equation of the multiverse E = 0, in which physical time disappear globally. The computationalist does not even know if there is space I got just the shadow of the shadows of braids and perhaps knots. I dream about a rich quantum universal topology. (put aside whether time/space is only in the mind, as you think, or really exist) Some things which are only in the mind could really exist, once you accept that mind exists. All I say is that if MEC is true (in the coginitive science, or in theology ...) then those things (space, time, energy) emerge from what numbers can tell about numbers. I will be able to say more if I get to the AUDA (the Arithmetical version of the UDA) where things are more precise. I am not suggesting a new physics, I just make a point in theology: if we are machine, the theory of matter will be a modality on arithmetic. A numbers' view of numbers, and numbers' sequences, well everything representable in Robinson arithmetic, or by a universal (in the sense of Church Turing) immaterial (number-theoretical) machine. Bruno On Jan 3, 10:39 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I disagree, and your remark singles out the problem with the bird's eye/frog view of Tegmark. Those two views remains third person point of views. Consciousness is intrinsically a first person view. You cannot describe it in any third person point of view. This explains why the Aristotelians want so much eliminate consciousness. But you are right for memories and the the possible discourse *about* consciousness, this can be compared to marks on some block-structure. Consciousness itself will be more a distributed logical feature in the whole of the block reality. Consciousness, even consciousness of time and space, is not something you can effectively relate to time and space. Assuming comp you can relate it to fixed point of self- observation and other logical (but non geometrical) things. Then discourses made by conscious entities have themselves invariant pattern, like we cannot define it, we cannot explain it that you can (with luck) recognize in the (more geometrical) marks. Bruno Marchal On 03 Jan 2009, at 06:46, Thomas Laursen wrote: If I understand the standard MWI right (with my layman brain) Abram Demski's view of time is very much in accordance with it, except that time should be looked at simply as a fourth space dimension. A bird's eye view on the whole universe (= all it's actualized worlds) would be like a static picture where, lets say, the beginning (big bang) is at the left side (or right if you're Chinese), the present in the middle, and the future at the right. Of course this (2-dimensional) picture is extremely simplified but the idea behind is true (if I understand Everett and others, mainly Deutsch and Tegmark in their popular papers, right). Memory is then nothing but marks in the brain, and consciousness just like other moving things in nature with a (relatively) stable structure (a body, river, plant, etc), only more complex. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Abram Demski wrote: Thomas, If time is merely an additional space dimension, why do we experience moving in it always and only in one direction? Why do we remember the past and not the future? Could a being move in some spatial dimension in the same way we move through time, and in doing so treat time more like we treat space? Et cetera. To my knowledge, modern physics treats many things as dimensions: not just time and space, but also forces such as electromagnetism. This does not imply that such things are spatial in nature. A dimension is just a variable. Unless you think there is something particularly spatial about time? There is something spatial about time, duration is measured along paths in space. Coordinate time is mixed with space by Lorentz symmetries. But it's still different from space. Lee Smolin and Fotini Markopolo have argued that time must be considered fundamental (no block universe). Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
I admit that consciousness is a bit special but what about time as (nothing but) a space dimension? Do you agree on this? (put aside whether time/space is only in the mind, as you think, or really exist) On Jan 3, 10:39 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I disagree, and your remark singles out the problem with the bird's eye/frog view of Tegmark. Those two views remains third person point of views. Consciousness is intrinsically a first person view. You cannot describe it in any third person point of view. This explains why the Aristotelians want so much eliminate consciousness. But you are right for memories and the the possible discourse *about* consciousness, this can be compared to marks on some block-structure. Consciousness itself will be more a distributed logical feature in the whole of the block reality. Consciousness, even consciousness of time and space, is not something you can effectively relate to time and space. Assuming comp you can relate it to fixed point of self- observation and other logical (but non geometrical) things. Then discourses made by conscious entities have themselves invariant pattern, like we cannot define it, we cannot explain it that you can (with luck) recognize in the (more geometrical) marks. Bruno Marchal On 03 Jan 2009, at 06:46, Thomas Laursen wrote: If I understand the standard MWI right (with my layman brain) Abram Demski's view of time is very much in accordance with it, except that time should be looked at simply as a fourth space dimension. A bird's eye view on the whole universe (= all it's actualized worlds) would be like a static picture where, lets say, the beginning (big bang) is at the left side (or right if you're Chinese), the present in the middle, and the future at the right. Of course this (2-dimensional) picture is extremely simplified but the idea behind is true (if I understand Everett and others, mainly Deutsch and Tegmark in their popular papers, right). Memory is then nothing but marks in the brain, and consciousness just like other moving things in nature with a (relatively) stable structure (a body, river, plant, etc), only more complex. 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
I disagree, and your remark singles out the problem with the bird's eye/frog view of Tegmark. Those two views remains third person point of views. Consciousness is intrinsically a first person view. You cannot describe it in any third person point of view. This explains why the Aristotelians want so much eliminate consciousness. But you are right for memories and the the possible discourse *about* consciousness, this can be compared to marks on some block-structure. Consciousness itself will be more a distributed logical feature in the whole of the block reality. Consciousness, even consciousness of time and space, is not something you can effectively relate to time and space. Assuming comp you can relate it to fixed point of self- observation and other logical (but non geometrical) things. Then discourses made by conscious entities have themselves invariant pattern, like we cannot define it, we cannot explain it that you can (with luck) recognize in the (more geometrical) marks. Bruno Marchal On 03 Jan 2009, at 06:46, Thomas Laursen wrote: If I understand the standard MWI right (with my layman brain) Abram Demski's view of time is very much in accordance with it, except that time should be looked at simply as a fourth space dimension. A bird's eye view on the whole universe (= all it's actualized worlds) would be like a static picture where, lets say, the beginning (big bang) is at the left side (or right if you're Chinese), the present in the middle, and the future at the right. Of course this (2-dimensional) picture is extremely simplified but the idea behind is true (if I understand Everett and others, mainly Deutsch and Tegmark in their popular papers, right). Memory is then nothing but marks in the brain, and consciousness just like other moving things in nature with a (relatively) stable structure (a body, river, plant, etc), only more complex. 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
If I understand the standard MWI right (with my layman brain) Abram Demski's view of time is very much in accordance with it, except that time should be looked at simply as a fourth space dimension. A bird's eye view on the whole universe (= all it's actualized worlds) would be like a static picture where, lets say, the beginning (big bang) is at the left side (or right if you're Chinese), the present in the middle, and the future at the right. Of course this (2-dimensional) picture is extremely simplified but the idea behind is true (if I understand Everett and others, mainly Deutsch and Tegmark in their popular papers, right). Memory is then nothing but marks in the brain, and consciousness just like other moving things in nature with a (relatively) stable structure (a body, river, plant, etc), only more complex. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Hi Kim, On 25 Dec 2008, at 06:21, Kim Jones wrote: A bit of an end-of-year ramble. For the multi-lingual, illogically- minded, lateral thinkers: My last post was a bit self-destructive ramble as I am able to do once a time. But that's ok. (I hope I am not shocking). It is rather kind of you to pursue the destructive task. I guess it is a tradition in december. I continue the ramble. Love bread - having lived and worked in France for 3 years France is good for bread, wine and cheese. that's true! - love rice; my partner is Japanese and she has all of that wonderful imagination for rice cooking the Japanese have - drink water constantly in coffee, tea, beer, wine, gin, whisky, vodka, sake, shōchū - you name it A very long time ago a doctor told me your liver are bad; you must quit alcohol. I said NO, doctor. And I quit doctors. I stopped alcohol, eventually. It does not make me feel good. I have used cannabis as a very efficacious harm reduction technic in that setting. Occasionally I can still take some wine (don't panic when you will borrow my body!). I also drink plenty of H2O neat as well - I am not of the mindset of W.C. Fields who famously said I never drink water. Fish fuck in it - although the taste of chlorine in the Sydney water supply adds little to the experience I must say... I wonder whether Boltzmann Brains need anything to keep them going? Have never read anything about the energy needs of Boltzmann Brains... By definition, I would say that they use unreasonable statistical events that you can interpret as providing unreasonable energy. A bit like water boiling in the fridge. A rare event! A classical white rabbits. - in the morning: drink as much coffee or tea up until you remember your 1 times table multiplication. It is enough. Yes, I am a caffeine lover too and do precisely this. Doesn't appear to help with mathematical understanding though. Merely allows me to feel real enough to confront the world. Nobody should even dare to say hello to me before I have raised the caffeine levels to where they must be. OK. We are the same person with respect to coffee. Hmm - might need something more artificial here, like a surgically- embedded nano-chip with Newton's Principia imprinted in it or at the very least Mathematics for Dummies. Your response to this thought in the Kim 2.1 thread was: The pleasure is in the (long) path (I'm afraid). Note that a math book, a course or a conversation is already a good approximation of this. Bien sûr - It was, after all, moi who was saying recently that we all need to learn Chinese or Medieval Mongolian in our dotage to keep our brains healthy! I agree - it's the journey (of learning) that is more important than the arrival. Where do we arrive at, anyway? I imagine you would probably expect to continue to learn new things about numbers until you expire, so there is *no* arrival, no endpoint to learning. Nevertheless, the monsters of time and entropy are starting to bear down on me and my brain cells at age 51 (the digi-brain you supplied unfortunately needs to be replaced every three years or at the very least requires an exorbitantly costly hardware upgrade. In this respect, wet, messy biological brains are still the better option for the foreseeable future if you can only be satisfied with their puny processing power). The pleasure is in the walk, but perhaps even more in the pause, when looking at the panorama. Like the pleasure in research is given by the pause coffee :) Although a devotee of life-long learning I need to optimise my efforts toward practical ends as death approaches and processing power wanes. Is not the long path the path for the young learner? Even COMP/ MEC plus quantum immortality doesn't help here; there appears to be no carry-over of knowledge between instantiations. Well a priori there is. Which a priori is rather unpleasant, especially in bad form of death, like violent accident, or Alzheimer. Fortunately, looking at the (more technical alas) details, things are ... far more complex. When you arrive at the panorama, you have the time to wonder how big the mountain is. Science points on a mountain which appears bigger and bigger as we climb on it. Assuming comp this is necessary. (As you will perhaps see one day). If I die of natural causes, I have to start the learning all over again in my neophite self. If I go to Gaza and get a bullet in my head during a firefight I will default to a parallel self or instantiation elsewhere in the MV, but, once again - there is no carry-over. Also, by the time I have mastered récherché math by age 81, the technology of instantaneous learning will almost certainly have arrived by then which means I could have devoted the intervening time to something just as pleasurable but maybe considerably less difficult. You seem to be suggesting that
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Hi Kim and all, On 23 Dec 2008, at 11:50, Kim Jones wrote: Bruno, things are starting to hang together in my new digital brain (bright yellow) Good. you wrote the plan: --- A) UDA (Universal Dovetailer Argument) 1) I explain that if you are a machine, you are already immaterial. --- Fine. This thought is merely surprising and somewhat (strangely) satisfying. It doesn't affect the way I live my life, but it sure as hell gets me some funny looks from people when I try to explain it to them! Most people think I am identifying the self with the soul or the spirit or some other metaphysical conjecture that they have heard of from religion or from their grandmother. They simply do not buy it when I tell them that all of reality is like this - that the assumption of a primitive, primary material reality is probably a gross error of perception albeit quite an understandable one. People are so hoodwinked by appearances, by their senses. Somehow I still think we are *meant* to be fooled by appearances - although this thought may well be self-contradictory. You are pointing on a difficult point which we will have to address soon or later. It's a good thing I find most things quite unconvincing - including appearances and reality generally! Good to be skeptical. But mind the relativist trap. I am always asking myself What is really going on here? Why are things THIS way, in particular? Why not some other way? I have always been like this. Some people find me quite annoying in this regard... Don't mind this, though. Except during the feast perhaps ... - 2) Mechanism entails the existence of a subjective or first person indeterminacy or uncertainty. - In the sense that I cannot know who or what I am, BEING who or what I am. Correct? Perhaps you are a little too quick here. I would necessarily have to step outside my existence to do so - manifestly impossible, given the laws of physics (or simply given MEC/COMP). I would have to reboot from a different system; be a different entity in fact. This will be possible, in some sense. You are definitely too quick here. Paradox Alert: Without a first person perspective there could be no third person perspectives anyway, isn't that correct? Just by assuming MEC there will be third person realities conceivable without first person. Why then doesn't some part of the first person uncertainty (ie my uncertainty about me) translate into 3rd person perspectives? Ah Ah! Good question. You know, the first person knows always very well who she is, despite she cannot tell. In the frame of the UDA, the first person indeterminacy does not concern who you are (you know that even if you cannot translate that in any third person description), but it concerns the more practical (even physical) question of predicting who you will be in the next instant, like before and after a sequance of self-polyplication. Anything I might say or merely perceive about something or someone else is surely contaminated by my uncertainties...so, in the quest to know myself how can I trust the veracity of any knowledge that comes to me from outside? All knowledge comes via brains (wet, messy ones) and all of these brains are suffering the same uncertainties about their identity as I. That is why we assume comp, and then use logic and computer science. We need a theory to provide light. Note, I am not a solipsist. Very good. Let us decide to abandon the comp hypothesis if it leads us toward solipsism. That may still be possible. Also, you cannot experience the experience that I experience and vice versa. Which is why I think art and music in particular are important revelations of the first person perspective. Yes. Music is an ATTEMPT to overcome first person indeterminacy by universalising certain qualia. Tchaikowsky expects you to BECOME Tchaikowsky when you listen to the first movement of his 6th Symphony. You suffer and agonise and die with him. It's a VR experience. Madonna just doesn't do this for me. Not a chance for Madonna, but apparently she succeeds with some others, and that is fine. I am ok with you here. However, new research has shown that reading the mind is literally possible. We can now assemble an image seen via an optical system transmitted only via the electrical impulses read in a brain system (NewScientist last ed.) Perhaps it is not too far from here to the thought that you and I might swap instantiations for a short time? Maybe it would be fun to think, walk, talk and act like Bruno Marchal, if only for 5 minutes. In fact, I would pay a princely sum to have that experience. In an age when some people will spend gazillions on a space tourist (virtual) reality experience, I would go for the Be Bruno for Five Minutes option long
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Abram, On 23 Dec 2008, at 00:23, Abram Demski wrote: I think you are right in calling this view eliminative materialism. I am saying that the I is a convenient fiction. All right. It is a normal tendency for scientist. It is like wanting to see Platonia from outside. It is like deciding to believe only in the third person description view, abstracting away our experiences and subjectivity. Then the I, free-will, decisions, and eventually consciousness are explained ... away. Hmmm... If you were correct, it seems to me you should say he when you talk about yourself in the future. I love coffee so he will drink coffee. Maybe We love coffee, so we will drink coffee (with we referring to many moment-selves). Does your we includes my we ? Or, perhaps, Abram loves coffee, so Abram will drink coffee (no identification of a self, only of an identity). Almost like a regression. To hide the first person data, you have to change the language. You are very coherent (as time-skeptic). OK. It is also a pity to think that you will die the time I finish this sentence. You think now you have survived that reading, but you did'nt, you are the copy. Since all possible moments exist, that old self did not die. Again, you talk like if you are seeing the whole platonia. But I think that none of you are an observer-moment. You are inextricably linked to time. You are an observer moment embedded in a set of observer moments with a proximity relation among them. My after-reading consciousness can observe that it is not the before-reading consciousness, and the before-reading consciousness could observe that it is not the after-reading consciousness, but that is all. There is no switching from one to the other, since that would require time (which does not exist). :) Nice. You give me the opportunity to (re)define time: it is the switching from one to the other. The switching can be defined eventually by the relation among numbers which captures the universal computational dependency. Time is a creation of the first person. Look at the occidental Brouwer or the oriental Dogen for analysis of consciousness in term of time creation. Of course, that is where I-as-time-skeptic have trouble knowing what it means to choose. Not a good thing before Christmas ! I can understand being-in-a-state-of-choosing, but I refuse to accept the cause/effect reasoning that gos along with that state. (In other words, I can understand choosing from the 3rd person perspective, but cannot understand it from the 1st person perspective.) No machine can. No bodies can know from inside who the chooser really is. That is perhaps why the meditation on the question who am I (cf Ramana Maharshi) can lead to the enlightenment. That is probably why in the eastern art of the war, people learns to not-decide, yet act. Bruno --Abram On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:16 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I wrote: Abram wrote --When I tell you my bet about which movie I will see, I am not minimizing the chance of being condemned to hell, I am minimizing the number of my copies that will be so carried. ? OK. I was distracted. To do this by altruism? And *you* (in your sense) you die. Is this what you mean? And you say yes to the doctor because you die at each instant. And you still care about the quality and seriousness of the doctor because you care by altruism for the copy. With MEC we have indeed this at each instant ( through QM or not). But then, you will have to think about anything you do in the future as an act of altruism. You take a cigarette because you care about the satisfaction feeling of the copy who will smoke it, and you abandon the cigarette because you care of the lungs of the copies of the future. Egoism as pure self-altruisme, why not? But then, assuming MEC, any statement of any laws (physical, arithmetical, juridic, etc.) concerns our copies, and this means that taking this point of view or not is not relevant in the reasoning, we have still to derive the laws, be it by altruism or egoism according to the interpretation of identity. Hmmm... If you were correct, it seems to me you should say he when you talk about yourself in the future. I love coffee so he will drink coffee. I think that if you put yourself in the place of the polycopies, none will feel like that except a few exception. I mean the quasi- tautology that none *feels* dying at each instant. You have to meditate eight hours per day during eight years or to eat or smoke something (legal!), or to die, or perhaps to dream for PERHAPS get a feeling of what dying could be, according to some. But your view is coherent and rather cool too, so let us continue the UDA reasoning, by altruism for *all* our descendants and why not the many others descendant to:) It is also a pity to think that you will die the time I
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno, things are starting to hang together in my new digital brain (bright yellow) you wrote the plan: --- A) UDA (Universal Dovetailer Argument) 1) I explain that if you are a machine, you are already immaterial. --- Fine. This thought is merely surprising and somewhat (strangely) satisfying. It doesn't affect the way I live my life, but it sure as hell gets me some funny looks from people when I try to explain it to them! Most people think I am identifying the self with the soul or the spirit or some other metaphysical conjecture that they have heard of from religion or from their grandmother. They simply do not buy it when I tell them that all of reality is like this - that the assumption of a primitive, primary material reality is probably a gross error of perception albeit quite an understandable one. People are so hoodwinked by appearances, by their senses. Somehow I still think we are *meant* to be fooled by appearances - although this thought may well be self-contradictory. It's a good thing I find most things quite unconvincing - including appearances and reality generally! I am always asking myself What is really going on here? Why are things THIS way, in particular? Why not some other way? I have always been like this. Some people find me quite annoying in this regard... - 2) Mechanism entails the existence of a subjective or first person indeterminacy or uncertainty. - In the sense that I cannot know who or what I am, BEING who or what I am. Correct? I would necessarily have to step outside my existence to do so - manifestly impossible, given the laws of physics (or simply given MEC/COMP). I would have to reboot from a different system; be a different entity in fact. Paradox Alert: Without a first person perspective there could be no third person perspectives anyway, isn't that correct? Why then doesn't some part of the first person uncertainty (ie my uncertainty about me) translate into 3rd person perspectives? Anything I might say or merely perceive about something or someone else is surely contaminated by my uncertainties...so, in the quest to know myself how can I trust the veracity of any knowledge that comes to me from outside? All knowledge comes via brains (wet, messy ones) and all of these brains are suffering the same uncertainties about their identity as I. Note, I am not a solipsist. Also, you cannot experience the experience that I experience and vice versa. Which is why I think art and music in particular are important revelations of the first person perspective. Music is an ATTEMPT to overcome first person indeterminacy by universalising certain qualia. Tchaikowsky expects you to BECOME Tchaikowsky when you listen to the first movement of his 6th Symphony. You suffer and agonise and die with him. It's a VR experience. Madonna just doesn't do this for me. However, new research has shown that reading the mind is literally possible. We can now assemble an image seen via an optical system transmitted only via the electrical impulses read in a brain system (NewScientist last ed.) Perhaps it is not too far from here to the thought that you and I might swap instantiations for a short time? Maybe it would be fun to think, walk, talk and act like Bruno Marchal, if only for 5 minutes. In fact, I would pay a princely sum to have that experience. In an age when some people will spend gazillions on a space tourist (virtual) reality experience, I would go for the Be Bruno for Five Minutes option long before I would want to see the globe from orbit - 3) The Universal Machine, the Universal Dovetailer and the reversal physics/bio-psycho-theo-whatever-logy. -- OK - so Abram has been impatient on this point but I guess I am ready too: On 23/12/2008, at 8:11 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Abram, On 23 Dec 2008, at 00:23, Abram Demski wrote: I think you are right in calling this view eliminative materialism. I am saying that the I is a convenient fiction. All right. It is a normal tendency for scientist. It is like wanting to see Platonia from outside. I always think of the Sydney Opera House as Platonia. You cannot predict how it looks on the outside if you are teleported into the foyer! Also, the Tardis of Doctor Who has a similar asymmetry between outside and inside view. Are you saying Platonia has no outside? The true inside of all outsides - just like the 1st person perspective, in fact. It is like deciding to believe only in the third person description view, abstracting away our experiences and subjectivity. Then the I, free-will, decisions, and eventually consciousness are explained ... away. Yes - and then, to make matters worse, we turn the whole morass of uncertainty over to the religionists who reify a
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
I wrote: Abram wrote --When I tell you my bet about which movie I will see, I am not minimizing the chance of being condemned to hell, I am minimizing the number of my copies that will be so carried. ? OK. I was distracted. To do this by altruism? And *you* (in your sense) you die. Is this what you mean? And you say yes to the doctor because you die at each instant. And you still care about the quality and seriousness of the doctor because you care by altruism for the copy. With MEC we have indeed this at each instant ( through QM or not). But then, you will have to think about anything you do in the future as an act of altruism. You take a cigarette because you care about the satisfaction feeling of the copy who will smoke it, and you abandon the cigarette because you care of the lungs of the copies of the future. Egoism as pure self-altruisme, why not? But then, assuming MEC, any statement of any laws (physical, arithmetical, juridic, etc.) concerns our copies, and this means that taking this point of view or not is not relevant in the reasoning, we have still to derive the laws, be it by altruism or egoism according to the interpretation of identity. Hmmm... If you were correct, it seems to me you should say he when you talk about yourself in the future. I love coffee so he will drink coffee. I think that if you put yourself in the place of the polycopies, none will feel like that except a few exception. I mean the quasi-tautology that none *feels* dying at each instant. You have to meditate eight hours per day during eight years or to eat or smoke something (legal!), or to die, or perhaps to dream for PERHAPS get a feeling of what dying could be, according to some. But your view is coherent and rather cool too, so let us continue the UDA reasoning, by altruism for *all* our descendants and why not the many others descendant to:) It is also a pity to think that you will die the time I finish this sentence. You think now you have survived that reading, but you did'nt, you are the copy. Computability can be thought as a topological notion. MEC is the assumption that I, and my continuous life, is preserved in teleportation, and polyplication (duplication and other self- multiplication). (I know you are playing the role of the time person skeptic). 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-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno, I think you are right in calling this view eliminative materialism. I am saying that the I is a convenient fiction. Hmmm... If you were correct, it seems to me you should say he when you talk about yourself in the future. I love coffee so he will drink coffee. Maybe We love coffee, so we will drink coffee (with we referring to many moment-selves). Or, perhaps, Abram loves coffee, so Abram will drink coffee (no identification of a self, only of an identity). It is also a pity to think that you will die the time I finish this sentence. You think now you have survived that reading, but you did'nt, you are the copy. Since all possible moments exist, that old self did not die. My after-reading consciousness can observe that it is not the before-reading consciousness, and the before-reading consciousness could observe that it is not the after-reading consciousness, but that is all. There is no switching from one to the other, since that would require time (which does not exist). :) Of course, that is where I-as-time-skeptic have trouble knowing what it means to choose. I can understand being-in-a-state-of-choosing, but I refuse to accept the cause/effect reasoning that gos along with that state. (In other words, I can understand choosing from the 3rd person perspective, but cannot understand it from the 1st person perspective.) --Abram On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:16 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I wrote: Abram wrote --When I tell you my bet about which movie I will see, I am not minimizing the chance of being condemned to hell, I am minimizing the number of my copies that will be so carried. ? OK. I was distracted. To do this by altruism? And *you* (in your sense) you die. Is this what you mean? And you say yes to the doctor because you die at each instant. And you still care about the quality and seriousness of the doctor because you care by altruism for the copy. With MEC we have indeed this at each instant ( through QM or not). But then, you will have to think about anything you do in the future as an act of altruism. You take a cigarette because you care about the satisfaction feeling of the copy who will smoke it, and you abandon the cigarette because you care of the lungs of the copies of the future. Egoism as pure self-altruisme, why not? But then, assuming MEC, any statement of any laws (physical, arithmetical, juridic, etc.) concerns our copies, and this means that taking this point of view or not is not relevant in the reasoning, we have still to derive the laws, be it by altruism or egoism according to the interpretation of identity. Hmmm... If you were correct, it seems to me you should say he when you talk about yourself in the future. I love coffee so he will drink coffee. I think that if you put yourself in the place of the polycopies, none will feel like that except a few exception. I mean the quasi-tautology that none *feels* dying at each instant. You have to meditate eight hours per day during eight years or to eat or smoke something (legal!), or to die, or perhaps to dream for PERHAPS get a feeling of what dying could be, according to some. But your view is coherent and rather cool too, so let us continue the UDA reasoning, by altruism for *all* our descendants and why not the many others descendant to:) It is also a pity to think that you will die the time I finish this sentence. You think now you have survived that reading, but you did'nt, you are the copy. Computability can be thought as a topological notion. MEC is the assumption that I, and my continuous life, is preserved in teleportation, and polyplication (duplication and other self- multiplication). (I know you are playing the role of the time person skeptic). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- Abram Demski Public address: abram-dem...@googlegroups.com Public archive: http://groups.google.com/group/abram-demski Private address: abramdem...@gmail.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno, Interesting thought experiment. My initial reaction (from my time skeptic position): --Since my consciousness is relative to a single moment, I can't talk about that same consciousness being carried over to the next moment: the consciousness in the next moment is a different consciousness that remembers the previous one. To suppose otherwise is to invent an imaginary entity that is carried along through time, which effects the world (to the extent that my consciousness alters the world) but does not itself change. --To then ask which copy of me I will have the experience of is to ask which location that imaginary entity will be carried to; in other words, it is a meaningless question. --When I tell you my bet about which movie I will see, I am not minimizing the chance of being condemned to hell, I am minimizing the number of my copies that will be so carried. I can and should take this into account; for example, if I am OK with only a few copies surviving so long as those copies get to see the original Dracula movie, then I could bet that I will see the original Dracula movie. --This perspective does not prevent me from entering the teleporter or saying yes to the doctor, because I already believe that I am a different consciousness each moment. In fairness, the time skeptic cannot really give so complete an answer, since the time skeptic doesn't quite know what it means to make decisions, particularly decisions that choose between potential futures... but let us say that the time skeptic is for now playing along with the experiment. Oh, and just to be clear... the time skeptic is asserting that the above solution is the only possible solution, not merely that it is a working one. :) --Abram On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 1:44 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Hi Abram, Him Kim, Kim, while answering Abram, I realised I was doing the KIM 2.3, you can read it before KIM 2.2 without problem I think, in any case tell me if you have follow the argument. I don't answer the questions, so you or Abram, or anyone else can answer. Abram, The answer to your post is really the step 3 of the UDA reasoning. It is the justification of the first person indeterminacy, and the definition of (relatively) normal machine. On 20 Dec 2008, at 04:46, Abram Demski wrote: Bruno, From what assumptions could a probability ultimately be derived? From the assumption that when I do an experience or an experiment, I will observe a result. And from the hope I will be able to interpret that result in my or our favorite current theory from which I can *deduce* the probability laws. This is akin to a self-consistency assumption. It seems that a coherent theory of the probability of future events is needed (otherwise the passing of time could be white noise), but I do not see where such probabilities could come out of more basic assumptions. UDA is a non constructive proof that in the MEC theory, we have to derive the probabilities from the discourse of the normal machine, which I will define below (anticipating on the KIM 2 thread). AUDA is a path toward a constructive derivation of the probability laws. The basic idea is simple: let us ask the question directly to the universal machine. In QM, without collapse, Everett (+ Gleason theorem) has convinced me that 1. There is no probabilities in the theory. 2. Quantum and classical probabilities are justified in the normal self-observing machines by the SWE only. But there is a hic. A little problem. That derivation assumes MEC (or weakenings). And MEC forces the probabilities to be derived from all type of computations, no way to chose a particular universal machine at the start, any must do. This is really what UDA shows. The good news is that such an extraction can then justify both the quanta and the qualia. Quanta are (should be here) particular case of (sharable) qualia. To reason about the future, we assume that we are in a randomly chosen computation-- Right now I don't feel like being on a randomly chosen computation. I belong(s) on all computations which have reached my actual state(s) (singular for the 1-state, and plural for the 3-states, or the 1-plural states, see below). My next state will be chosen partially randomly among many consistent continuations. but then we are already using some probability distribution. At some level it is the Gaussian distribution. See the definition of the normal machine below. Evolution is at the root of our ability to predict probabilistically. We use one probability distribution over another because it helps us survive. However, this is not good enough of an answer in the multiverse: every possible form survives anyway. Once you bet on everything you have to accept also, among many realities, those who does not survive, the cul-de-sac. At the level of reasoning in comp this is equivalent with a self- consistency assumption,
