Mark, you asked interesting questions, but I think the fundamental ones are still 'out there': MP:(bold and in bold): "I mean the big and unanswered question is WHERE are numbers? I would ask (joining your heresy):
1. Where did numbers come from? (an answer may be: They are GOD to believe in). 2. How do they act? Bruno wrote: the relationship between numbers. How does a "RELATIONSHIP" act? it is an abstraction. Only substrates IN relationship act. The numbers are abstractions (or: the contents we assign to them are abstractions?) so here we face abstractions of abstractions. If one considers the not-so-physical world (numbers?) - a-spatial - (and of course - a-temporal -), your question is out of whack. *MP next: " what I am saying is that numbers need something which is not numbers - (to exist - my addition-JM)" I believe it can be incorporated into the identification of "n u m b er " if you ask only about their existence. Anything exists what we think about - if not otherwise: in our thought. (I just had some exchange on this with Stathis in a different aspect.) John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 4/2/07, Mark Peaty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Bruno: > > With comp, what holds 'your lot" together are the relation between > > numbers. The apparent third person infinite regression stops at the > > level of those relations. The first person is most probably confronted > > with many infinities, but this should not be considered as > > problematical. > > MP: But what *relation* is there really? I just feel like this > kind of discussion goes round and round in endless convolutions. > Platonia is some kind of Never-never land; that numbers exist > anywhere except inside human skulls and nowadays within > phenotypic prostheses like electronic computers is NOT a proven > fact, it is a glorious assumption! > > I mean the big and unanswered question is WHERE are numbers? > Mathematicians now seem to be very sophisticated with WHAT > numbers could BE, and _do_ also apparently, but very very big > numbers which could represent everything significant about > you, me, or the likelihood of a self referencing computer > working out that it knows that it knows something really > important, how can these 'relate'? Surely they have to be > related by someone or something else! I guess what I am saying > is that numbers need something which is not numbers in which, or > by means of which they can exist for each other. I call it > 'existence', and use the name of Janus as my symbol or emblem of > this. But I don't expect any such symbol or emblem to resolve > the paradoxes of our existence and experience of existence. As > far as I can see, which admittedly is not very far, all > explanations that purport to be *ultimate* explanations are > doomed to a process of infinite recursion and regression. > > There was an Englishman called Kenneth Craik, who wrote a little > book called 'The Nature of Explanation'. Unfortunately he died > in his early thirties in a car accident in 1945 I think. I go > along with his thesis - as I remember it from reading the book a > decade or more ago - that the representational power of > mathematics stems from its evolution of complex mathematical > objects out of the interactions of simple elements, which can > mirror many significant aspects of the physical/noumenal world > because the latter seems to be manifesting a closely analogous > evolution of aggregations of fundamental chemical elements, > sub-atomic particles and so forth. > > For better or worse I must advocate what is hereabouts a virtual > heresy: that people can never be reduced to numbers. To be a > person entails the experience of 'I' and 'thou', 'me' and 'you'. > There can be no me without you and no 'us' without 'them'. If a > modest Loebian machine cannot work this out, then it needs to go > back to school. Perhaps it can though, [if all worlds are > possible and must happen], maybe it is just a matter of time > before one or more smart, introspective, self-sustaining > processors/processes emerges from a BOINC type distributed > system. My bet is that the Silico-Electric ONE [or two, ...] > will coalesce around the control and accounting of money, money > being the embodiment of negative entropy in the cultural world. > For what it's worth I think that such a creature will realise > that ethics is part of the foundation of its world: a > fundamental tool for the maximising of 'negative entropy'. > > > > Regards > > Mark Peaty CDES > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ > > > > > > Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > > Le 06-mars-07, à 09:44, Mark Peaty a écrit : > > > >> > >> Thank you Bruno! > >> > >> You and Russell between you have managed to strike some sparks of > >> illumination from the rocky inside of my skull. There is no beacon fire > >> to report but I start to get a glimmering of why you want to *assume* > >> comp and see where it leads. > >> > >> It seems that self-reference and recursion are fundamental properties > >> of > >> anything that is "interesting" in all this, which rather seems to be > >> the > >> flavour of the new millennium. > >> > >> Just in thinking superficially about the Many Worlds though, it seems > >> to > >> pose a 'binding problem'. Now, I know that might sound like a leakage > >> of > >> concept from objections to identity theory in brain and mind theory. > >> But > >> what I am thinking about is this bit: > >> > >> 6) this means that if I take the comp hyp seriously, then, to predict > >> the results of any experiment/experience, I have to "localize" all the > >> infinitely many instantiations of my current state in the UD, look at > >> the uncountable comp histories going through that states, and compute > >> the statistics bearing on all consistent first person > >> self-continuation. > >> > >> A human life must be a compilation of all these including the creation > >> of internal [synaptic change, etc] structure/record which endow the > >> ability to *be* the story. But when looking at this as a/n > >> [infinity^infinity] Many Worlds affair, none of the worlds could 'know' > >> that they are like or identical to others, surely? So I am puzzled. > >> What > >> holds 'my lot' together? We seem always to be confronted by yet another > >> infinite regression. > > > > > > > > With comp, what holds 'your lot" together are the relation between > > numbers. The apparent third person infinite regression stops at the > > level of those relations. The first person is most probably confronted > > with many infinities, but this should not be considered as > > problematical. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >> ****** > >> A quick aside, hopefully not totally unrelated: Am I right that a valid > >> explanation of the zero point energy is that it is impossible *in > >> principle* to measure the state of something > > > > Why can't we measure the state of something? Even with just QM, the > > many-world idea has been invented for abandoning the idea that a > > measurement pertubates what is observed. > > > > > > > >> and therefore *we* must > >> acknowledge the indeterminacy > > > > We must acknowledge indeterminacy once we postulate comp, given that it > > makes us self-duplicable, and indeed self-duplicated "all the time". > > > > Bruno > > > > > >> and so must everything else which exists > >> because we are nothing special, except we think we know we are here, > >> and > >> if we are bound by quantum indeterminacy, so is everything else [unless > >> it can come up with a good excuse!]? > >> > >> [Perhaps this is more on Stathis's question to Russell: Is a real > >> number > >> an infinite process?] > >> > >> ****** > >> > >> > >> > >> Regards > >> > >> Mark Peaty CDES > >> > >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >> > >> http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Bruno Marchal wrote: > >>> Le 05-mars-07, à 15:03, Mark Peaty a écrit : > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>>> Nobody here has yet explained in plain-English why we have entropy. > >>>> Oh > >>>> well, surely, in the Many Worlds, that's just one of the universes > >>>> that > >>>> can happen! > >>>> > >>> > >>> Not really. That would make the comp hyp or the everything idea > >>> trivial, and both the "everything hyp" and the "comp hyp" would loose > >>> any explicative power. (It *is* the problem with Schmidhuber's comp, > >>> *and* with Tegmark's form of mathematicalism: see older posts for > >>> that). > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>>> Except that, for plain-English reasons stated above, there > >>>> are *and always have been* infinity x infinity x infinity of entropic > >>>> universes. > >>>> > >>>> It doesn't make sense. Call me a heretic if you like, but I will > >>>> 'stick > >>>> to my guns' here: If it can't be put into plain-English then it > >>>> probably > >>>> isn't true! > >>>> > >>> > >>> > >>> I will try. I will, by the same token, answer Mohsen question here: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Mohsen: > >>> > >>>> I don't know if in the hypothesis of simulation, the conflict of > >>>> Countable and Uncountable has been considered. > >>>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> 1) I assume the comp hyp, if only for the sake of the reasoning. The > >>> comp hyp is NOT the hypothesis of simulation, but it is the hypothesis > >>> that we are in principle self-simulable by a digital machine. > >>> > >>> 2) Then we have to distinguish the first person points of view (1-pov) > >>> from third person points of view (3-pov), and eventually we will have > >>> to distinguish all Plotinus' hypostases. With comp, we are > >>> duplicable. > >>> I can be read and cut (copy) in Brussels, and be "pasted" in > >>> Washington > >>> and Moscow simultaneously. This gives a simple example where: > >>> a) from the third point of view, there is no indeterminacy. An > >>> external > >>> (3-pov) observer can predict Bruno will be in Washington AND in > >>> Moscow. > >>> b) from a first person point of view, there is an indeterminacy, I > >>> will > >>> feel myself in washington OR in Moscow, not in the two places at once. > >>> > >>> 3) Whatever means I use to quantify the first person indeterminacy, > >>> the > >>> result will not depend on possible large delays between the > >>> reconstitutions, nor of the virtual/material/purely-mathematical > >>> character of the reconstitution. > >>> > >>> 4) There exist a universal dovetailer (consequence of Church thesis, > >>> but we could drop Church thesis and define comp in term of turing > >>> machine instead). > >>> > >>> 5) Never underestimate the dumbness of the universal dovetailer: not > >>> only it generates all computational histories, but it generates them > >>> all infinitely often, + all variations, + all "real" oracles (and > >>> those > >>> oracles are uncountable). > >>> > >>> 6) this means that if I take the comp hyp seriously, then, to predict > >>> the results of any experiment/experience, I have to "localize" all the > >>> infinitely many instantiations of my current state in the UD, look at > >>> the uncountable comp histories going through that states, and compute > >>> the statistics bearing on all consistent first person > >>> self-continuation. > >>> > >>> 7) A naive reading of this leads to predict white rabbits (indeed the > >>> lewis Carroll one) and perhaps white noise, that is too much entropy > >>> ... This leads to a cheap refutation of comp, ... > >>> > >>> 8) ... except that the math shows this is a bit too cheap. Now if comp > >>> is correct, AND if the physical laws are (approximately) correct, then > >>> we have to extract the physical laws > >>> a) without assuming the existence of a physical universe, > >>> b) from the comp statistics. > >>> > >>> My (more technical) result is that computer science and mathematical > >>> logics gives already clues that indeed we can recover the physical > >>> laws > >>> from computer science, once we get the relevant description of the > >>> different points of view. > >>> > >>> In particular, for Mohsen's question, the conflict between countable > >>> and uncountable appears to be an unavoidable conflict between first > >>> and > >>> third person points of view. The first person is bound up to interact > >>> with uncountable physical apparent reality. > >>> But all self-referentially correct universal machine introspecting > >>> herself can discover the unavoidability of that conflict, and somehow > >>> "meta-solve" it, indeed by distinguishing explicitly those points of > >>> view again. When she does this, she discover a more subtle tension > >>> between recursively countable and non recursively countable. This > >>> tension is creative and can be proposed as a beginning of explanation > >>> of life and local neguentropy. > >>> > >>> All this makes comp, and its related "theology" (theory of everything > >>> including persons, say), empirically testable: derive the comp-physics > >>> and compare with empirical nature. > >>> > >>> Must go. Hope this helps, (see papers in my url for more, or just ask) > >>> > >>> Bruno > >>> > >>> 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-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---