Hi John,
On 06 Dec 2009, at 21:01, John Mikes wrote: > Dear Bruno, > on diverse lists (I cannot call them 'science-branches' since lately > most domains are discussed in considering aspects of several of such > on the diverse discussion-lists) - > CONCEPTS (I wish I knew a better word) appear by different content. > > If somebody has the time and feels like (knows how to) do it, a > brief reconsiderational ID listing would help us outsiders to > reconfirm what "WE" mean by > > Comp - (computing, computer-universal or not,) The doctrine that we are machine. More precisely: digital machine, that is emulable by a computer program (emulation = numerically exact simulation). > The application of (=your relevance of) the Church thesis It is used to avoid the use of "Turing machine" or "combinators", or "natural numbers", or any precise universal system/programming language. All those things can be proved equivalent, and with Church thesis, they are equivalent with any computation concept appearing in the future. Without Church thesis, the concept of computability is ambiguous. > Universal machine - BTW: machine, or God, as in (our) theology A number or machine which through encoding can emulated all possible computable relation between numbers. Examples are given by brain, the DNA genome, physical universe, programming language interpreter, general purpose computer, etc. If we accept Church thesis, then the (mathematically existing) Turing universal machine, *is* a universal machine. > White rabbit, (and I don't even dare write:) numbers, - > and in not much than 1-2 lines(!!!) ea: If you take all the computations (mathematically well defined) which exists in elementary arithmetic (which is universal in the sense above, so all computations are there), you will find many aberrant computations, like one where pigs have wings, tea transforms into coffee, etc. The UDA reasoning shows that whatever is observable is a sort of sum on all computations. We have to explain why the aberrant computations seems so rare empirically. I am used to the term "white rabbit" to refer to the aberrant histories/computations. It is an allusion to the "white rabbit" of Lewis Carroll. > UD, UDA, AUDA, with: > hints to "YES" to the doctor, and maybe some more - > * The "yes doctor" is just a pedagogical tool to give a quasi operational definition of the digital mechanism hypothesis (synonym: comp). Comp = you accept that you are a machine in the practical sense of saying "yes" to a doctor which will scan your body, and reconstituted in or through a computer. You are the immaterial owner of a body. Comp is believed implicitly by 99% of the rationalist today. Alas, most believe also that mechanism fits well with physicalism, but I gave an argument (UDA) according to which mechanism and physicalism are incompatible. UD = the Universal Dovetailer. It is a program which has no input and no output, which runs without vere stopping, and go through the emulation of all things emulable. It exists as a consequence of Church thesis. If you are a machine, the UD will generate all the possible computationnal truth which makes you conscious and which makes believing whatever you believe. Sometimes I wrote UD* for the universal dovetailing, that is the block static structure of the entire running of a universal dovetailer. The UD is something very concrete. See my long french text appendices for an implementation of an UD in LISP, and some piece of its running. UDA = the Universal Dovetailer Argument. An argument which show how and why the physical laws emerge from any universal dovetailing. Note that a very little part of the set of true arithmetical sentences constituted already a universal dovetailing. AUDA is UDA without "yes doctor". With UDA we can know why and how the physical laws (and sensations) originated in elementary arithmetic. With AUDA we begin the precise derivation of the laws of physics and of the laws of the physical sensations, from number theory/computer science. It predicts less well the notion of matter than usual physics (to say the least) but it accounts already for the qualia and quanta similarity and differences (usual physics just ignore the qualia). The main tools of the AUDA are the modal logics of Gödel-Löb-Solovay(*) G and G*. I hope this can help the veteran and the newcomers alike! > which the 'old listers' apply here with ease (yet maybe(!) in their > modified i.e. personalised taste?) - newcomers. however, usually > first misinterpret into 'other' vernaculars. > > (It is my several decade long research experience to sit down once > in a while and recap > (recoop?) the terms used in the daily efforts. They change by the > (ab?)use and re-realizing their original content may push the > research effort ahead from a stagnant hole it falls into inevitably > during most "routine" thinking. - > In doing so, almost all the time there occurred an "AHA". > > One cannot do it privately and alone. We cannot slip out from our > skin. I did it with someone knowledgeable in the broader field > (maybe even a fresh graduate?) or on a public lecture, where > questions and opposite opinions could be expected. > > Best for the hooiday season: this may be a present for Chirstmas. > On St. Nicholas Day Don't hesitate to ask any question when you feel something has been left unclear. Despite its non problematical academical reception, there are still rumors that something is wrong in the reasoning, but up to now, it seems to be only that: just rumors. It may subsist an error, of course, it is even probable, but then I am interested in knowing which one. Unfortunately those who spread such rumor never says what the errors consist in (except things like "consciousness" is crackpot, first person does not exist, many-world is science fiction, or vague things like that, and always behind my back. I suspect it comes from those who demolish (behind my back, already) my old projects in artificial intelligence, in quantum information processing, and in biological computing, in the seventies ...). I wish you the best John. Bruno > > On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> > wrote: > > On 05 Dec 2009, at 21:00, Rex Allen wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Brent Meeker > > <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote: > >> Rex Allen wrote: > >>> What is your alternative to the "everything" universal acid? That > >>> things just are the way they are (uniquely), and there's > >>> ultimately no > >>> explanation for that. Right? > >>> > >> > >> Exactly so. "It's just happened that way" and "Everything happens > >> and > >> so this happens too." are both equally useless. Progress is only > >> made > >> when we can explain why this rather than that. > > > > So, we have our observations, and we want to explain them, so we > need > > some context to place them in. So we postulate the existence of an > > external universe. But then we want to explain what we see in this > > external universe, and the only option is to postulate the existence > > of a multiverse. > > > > Nothing can be explained in terms of only itself. To explain it, > you > > have to place it in the context of something larger. Otherwise, no > > explanation is possible, you just have to say, "this is the way it > is > > because that's the way it is." > > > > Right? > > > > Basically there's only two way the process can end. Two possible > > answers to the question of "Why is the universe this way instead of > > some other way?": > > > > 1) Because things just are the way they are, and there's no further > > explanation possible. > > 2) Because EVERYTHING happens, and so this was inevitable in that > > larger context of "everything". > > > > What other option is there, do you think? > > Well in this list we follow the option "2". (As its name indicates). > To progress we need to make the everything idea more precise. Most > naive "everything idea" are either trivial and non informative, or can > be shown inconsistent. > QM is an amazing everything theory, astoundingly accurate. Yet it is > based on comp (or variety of comp), which means that if you take > serioulsy the first person experiences into consideration, then you > have to derive the Schroedinger waves from a deeper purely > arithmetical derivation. > But with the computable, something happens: the discovery of the > universal machine (accepting Church's thesis). > This makes enough to confront all universal machine, actually the > Löbian one will even understand why", with a "consciousness/reality" > problem, or first-person/third person relation problem, and that the > Löbian machine can develop the means to explore the many gaps which > exists there. > > > > > > > > > > >>> So we can take our observations of the world around us and > >>> construct a > >>> narrative that is consistent with what we see...a narrative that > >>> involves big bangs and electrons. But what caused the big bang? > >>> Why > >>> do electrons have the particular properties that they have? If > you > >>> propose a particular cause for these things, what caused that > cause? > >>> > >>> How is that better than a narrative that allows for "everything"? > >>> They would seem to have equal explanatory power. Which is to say: > >>> zero. > >> We have much evidence about the big bang and some theories as to > >> how it > >> may have happened which are testable. > > > > So the existence of a big bang event certainly seems consistent with > > our observations. But so does the idea of a Boltzmann style > > statistical fluctuation from thermal equilibrium. Or the idea that > > this is just the dream of the infinitude of relations between > numbers. > > > > We construct narratives that are consistent with our observations, > but > > these narratives are about our observations, not about what really > > exists. You seem to have jumped to some unfounded ontological > > conclusions. > > > > You can talk about big bangs if that helps you think about your > > observations, helps you identify patterns in what you experience. > > But, that's as far as it can reasonably go, right? > > > > At the end of the day, we're always right back at where we > > started...with our observations...with our subjective conscious > > experience. > > I think we have made progress. We "know" (assuming digital mechanism) > that we know nothing about the consequence of addition and > multiplication, but that we can explore, and that it is divided into > sharable and non sharable parts. > > We may correct a widespread error: the sharable part is the objective > and doubtable part, the non sharable part is the subjective and > undoubtable part. > > We have a theology. A "greek" one, by which I mean, that is the bad > news for some, we have to do mathematics. > > And nobody ask you to believe it, unless you decide to say "yes" to > some doctor and believe that 2 + 2 = 4. > > You can call it a toy theology, given that it is the theology of an > ideally relatively self-referentially correct Löbian machine. It > exists as a branch of math, and it applies to us if comp is true and > as far as we are correct ourselves, which we can never known. But we > can bet on levels, like "nature" apparently already did, and prey or > hope or something like that. > > The quest of truth will continue. If comp is true reality is beyond > fictions. For the best or the worth, this depends *partially* on us. > Who "us"? "Us" the universal machines. > > The motto: be vigilant toward any *form* of authoritative argument, > even those of nature. Eventually it is a matter of personal freedom, > but it is far better to get the personal understanding in those > matter. All universal machine "soon or later" understands this. > > Bruno 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 > . > > > > > -- > > 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 > . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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