Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 15 Jun 2011, at 21:20, benjayk wrote: > >> >> Hi Bruno, >> >> >> Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>> I think that comp might imply that simple virgin (non programmed) >>> universal (and immaterial) machine are already conscious. Perhaps >>> even >>> maximally conscious. >>> >> What could "maximally conscious" mean? My intuition says quite >> strongly that >> consciousness is a dynamic open-ended process and that there is no >> such >> thing as maximally conscious (exept maybe in the trivial sense of >> "simply >> conscious at all"). > > I tend to think that consciousness is the same for all conscious > being, except that prejudices coming from competence can make it more > sleepy. What is it that is the same about consciousness? Consciousness is - or at least appears - very heterogenous. The only thing that I can easily see as being the same for all conscious beings (or, for that matter states of conscious being) is some sense of subjectivity or self-consistency (whatever is experienced is experienced). But this is quite trivial and it is a very weak statement. Especially because it seems like some consciousness is inacessibly "weak". A methaphor for this is peripheral sight. There is something there, but it is hardly perceivable and to you have to look at it and at this point it is not peripheral sight anymore. In the same way I think consciousness in deep sleep or the "consciousness" of the universe before the development of complex brains might be like that, existent, but ungraspable due to its hazyness (without objectifying it, which doesn't capture its essential character). I think it fits the fact that the material world developed from apparent unconsciousness to conscious beings much more nicely then "pure" / "perfect" / "maximal" consciousness in the beginning (or rather outside of the beginning - eternal - and giving rise to the beginning). So in this way it makes most sense for me to say that consciousness can be different among different beings or states of beings in every aspect but the most trivial.
I'm not sure, though, how this fits with COMP, so I'd be interested in your thoughts on that. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > So, paradoxically, consciousness might be maximal in the case > of absence of knowledge and beliefs. In some situations this might seem true (like some drug experiences or states of meditation), but in some the opposite seems to be the case. When I dream (and have a hazy consciousness) I often have less knowledge about the world and hold less beliefs then in normal life. For example I often don't believe in a consistent reality (which really is a big bunch of interrelated beliefs) and thus don't wonder about crazy things happening. Sometimes I seem to be incapable of believing, because there really is no person to hold a belief. These are often very interesting dreams, because they are so unlike the waking state. When I am lucid dreaming (and thus feel much more conscious) I am believing more things, like "I am dreaming", "I am Benjamin, an 21 old human", "What happens in this dream will most probably not directly influence the waking world", "This dream will end", "I can just wake up if I want", "Nothing in this dream can hurt me", etc... The clarity might be an illusion, but there is really nothing suggesting to me that it is. So I feel that whether you feel very conscious or not doesn't necessarily directly relates to whether you (strongly) hold many beliefs or not. It is just that you can't know / believe much with a hazy consciousness. Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> I can't even conceive what this could be like. > > Well, some drugs can help with that respect. I know what you're getting at, because on some drugs it might seem like you're maximally conscious, because you lose sense of time and space and feel unified with something greater, which can feel like being an stable, eternal, "absolute" experience. I experienced something like this and it was very profound and influenced my thinking quite strongly (not only positively, though). So in this way I can conceive what one could mean with maximal consciousness. The problem is rather that I don't know how I could know that this is in any way really a maximum, rather than "maximum" just being an metaphor to convey what I experienced, like saying "This was the best movie ever". Because of this I don't see what kind of experience could accurately be called an experience of maximal consciousness. The more I reflect upon it, the more it becomes more clear for me that it is just a experience of relative importance like any other experience (albeit it is a very profound one). I am amazed that there are such experiences, but nevertheless I don't assume that such a state is somehow the maximum of consciousness, just because we are tempted to use this as a description of such a state. In fact it would be quite dissapointing to me if this state was the maximum of consciousness. After all, it'd make consciousness limited. The thought that this probably is just one mode of consciousness the brain is capable of generating (or maybe more accurately manifesting) sounds much better and much more plausible to me. Technologically enhanced brains or consciousness run on hardware specifically design to create mystic (or just generally good) states of consciousness could surpass those states to an unimaginable degree. This possibility makes me very excited about the future. Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> >> >> Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>> Then adding induction gives them Löbianity, and >>> this makes them self-conscious (which might already be a delusion of >>> some sort). >> Why do you think it could be a delusion? This would be a bit >> reminscent of >> buddhism. For me it sounds like quite a terrible thought. After all >> it would >> mean all progress is in a way illusory and maybe not even desirable, >> whereas >> I really wish (and pragmatically believe) that eternal progress is >> the thing >> that can fullfill our ideals of truth, conscious insight and >> happiness. > > I am no more sure on this. I can understand the appeal of the idea of > progress, but progress might just make pain more painful, frustation > more frustrating, etc. Well there is certainly something to this. Plants probably don't suffer much, but "further progressed" organisms like mammal, do. This might be a good thing, though, because through pain organsims can quickly learn what they don't want, allowing live to evolve faster in the direction of what we want. Pain surely is bad, but probably better then indifference towards the worst things. But even though progress temporarily makes life more painful, it seems quite impossible to me that that this will always be the case. Pain is already (often) quite unuseful for modern human. So there is no reason why we should keep pain as soon as we can get rid of it. And I have little doubt we will have the ability to do this. Why shouldn't we? We already can largly rid us of pain by drugs, it is just that this works crudely and with many side effects (mostly addiction and adverse effect on congnition and behaviour). After we leave behind pain and strife and come together in peace to learn and blossom ever faster, our lives may become very glorious, and they will become only better. Of course we can't see into the future and we don't know what obstacles there might be on our way, but ultimately I have no doubt the good will prevail in a drastic way. We are already on a promising way, from what I see. Also, what is the alternative to progress? I have yet to see any way to escape progress. Even so called enlightened people are still obviously subject to change. They are just in a generally stable / peaceful (but often dispassionate) state of consciousness. And drug experiences may seem eternal, but they clearly aren't from the sober perspective. Furthermore I believe the idea of progress not being desirable opens up large philosophical problems, too. The universe apparently has a drive towards progress. If we assume the world makes any sense from a point of conscious beings it wouldn't have this drive if there wasn't something to gain by this. If there wasn't, there would be a fundmental error in in this omniverse. There is too much perfection in the fundamental principles of the omniverse (as shown by math) for me to believe that. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Truth is simply not fulfillable, Well, it's certainly not completly fullfillable. But this can be seen as a good thing and encourage us to do fullfill more of it. Everything can eternally be improved, no matter how good it already is. The greatest truth is the truth that is beyond itself and the greatest being the one that is greater even then itself - thus not completely fullfillable but constantly self-fullfilling in its becoming. Retracting into stasis or mere apparent perfection would be contrary to this, wouldn't it? Perfection is the beginning, I'd say, and not the end. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > and happiness > is more in equilibrium and balances than in the pursuit of bigger > satisfaction. I don't buy this dichotomy. I think as we find balance we can easier pursue bigger satisfaction and as we pursue bigger satisfaction we can find balance. We just have to be careful not to understand balance as indifference and pursuit as stress. Instead we should try find calm, clear-headedness and peace through balance in our lifes - and fun, excitement and motivation through relentless pursuit of our deep wishes and hopes. I see this clearly in myself. It's when I actually pursue things that are important to me that I find contenment (sometimes there comes stress and anxiety with this, but overall it is clearly worth it). Almost all happy people pursue something they think is important. Monks are rare and not nearly all of them are happy, I think. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > But then comp might be wrong, and I might miss the > point > But, yes, comp leads close to buddhism, and to ethical > detachment.. Does this really have much do to with COMP? I don't see this, at least. Maybe you could explain. Optimally without too much mathematical terminology, because even in case I understand it I can't really connect it to practical matters. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > A machine is intelligent if and only if it is not stupid. > A machine is stupid when one of the following clause is satisfied: > - the machine believes that she is intelligent > - the machine believes that she is stupid I don't like this definition. Assuming you are either stupid or intelligent and you know and believe this definition, you either are intelligent but in denial of yourself or you are already stupid in the first place. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Now that theory admits a transparent arithmetical interpretation. > Replace "intelligent" by consistent (Dt), and stupid by not consistent > (~Dt, that is Bf). Then the theory is just Gödel's second > incompleteness theorem, and is a sub-theory of G* (BDt -> Bf). There seems to be a relation between intelligent and consistency, but for me it still seems like a stretch to identify them. Also it is not clear to me why Gödel prevents you from consistently believing that you are intelligent. From what I see it just implies you can't prove your intelligence (there is always an unprovable part of your intelligence that is obviously true - and thus believable - but not provable from any given axioms). Bruno Marchal wrote: > > An obvious defect of that theory is that it makes pebbles intelligent. > But then, why not? Who has ever heard a pebble saying that it is > intelligent, or stupid, or said any kind stupidities. Like with the > taoists, the wise person keep silent. Well, I think you just gave a reductio ad absurdum of your theory. It seems pragmatically unwise to me to define intelligence in a way that is many ways opposite to what we usually call intelligence. Clearly we should keep silent if we have nothing to say, but this is just a small part of intelligence. If all wise persons kept silent the stupid people would dominate communication and be the only ones spreading their ideas, which is IMO clearly not a good goal for intelligent persons. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Roughly speaking a machine becomes stupid when it confuses > intelligence and competence and begin to feel superior, or inferior, > and begin to lack some amount of respect for his living being fellows. > I can see this. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > "Science" per se, does not lead to intelligence, as I think it is > sadly illustrated by those last centuries. Science can kill > intelligence, and science without intelligence can lead to hell, > especially if science is confused with a sort of theology, instead of > being used to genuinely tackle, interrogate, the (theological) > fundamental questions. Humans cannot yet accept their ignorance. OK, but then I didn't say that doing science is sufficient for intelligence. But it helps, as it confronts us with reality, with is where I believe intelligence lies. The last century has been a triumph for science and I think we've become much more intelligent during it. Our morals have improved much and superstition has a less firm ground now. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > I have already argued that science, well understood, is born with > Pythagorus, and is ended with the apparition of the roman empire. > Fundamental questions are still complete taboo, for most scientists. They mostly do not talk about them in the scientific community, but they often do have a great interest in them personally. The problem with fundamental questions is that they are hard to settle with evidence and talking about it yields little objective progress which probably is why it is not much of a topic in the scientific community. Many think they are simply too difficult to tackle right now. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > There is no question to rise any doubt on the theology of Aristotle. Many ideas of Aristotle are not widely believed anymore, but you probably mean materialism. I agree that this is a problem, in that it makes people ignore the fundamental facts beyond physical space and time (eg numbers). But then materialism is most often meant as naturalism as opposed to belief in the supernatural, belief in things not accessible through reason that intervene in the world. And I think this is a useful belief. It is just that now many scientist throw out the baby with the bathwater and - for example - try to make the truth of ineffability of subjective experience into something irrational. I don't believe this reflects that we have abonded real science, but that we must learn to better distinguish between claims that seem irrational from some perspective and claims that really are irrational. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Neither atheists nor Christians can accept that. I would consider myself an atheist by most people's conception of atheism and I acknowledge the shortcomings of materialistic "theology". So there is at least one counterexample :). And to be honest, my atheistic friends / family are quiet open to questioning materialistic dogma. Bruno Marchal wrote: > Free thinking is a myth. Well, yes, most people largly simply believe what they are told. But nowadays you can meet many people that are open to a wide variety of ideas and you can speak about them mostly without being suppressed. So we are a lot closer to freethinking than ever before. But there is still a long way to go. The school and the state and most of the religions are still severly restricting free thinking, and unfortunately even more, free action. You can't even freely decide what to ingest or freely provide the most important services (and the ones most demanding freedom) like education, security, law and currency. Bruno Marchal wrote: > > You are not even burned alive > for your ideas, today, which is a mark of acknowledging the existence > of you and your ideas. Today, obscurantism has developed more > efficacious means. This results in an impoverishment of ideas, and in > powerful mediatic propaganda. Yes, is there still is much propaganda. But I don't know where you live that you think there is an impoverishment of ideas. New ideas are blossoming, even though they only slowly displace the old, widespread, ugly weeds. Our culture(s) is/are more diverse than ever. There are people of many different religions and world views and political views living together. Of course many valid ones are still not universally respected, but at least widely tolerated. You now can be an atheist, muslim, communist or homosexual in Germany and still live a mostly normal life and rarely be persecuted without hiding what you believe in or are. Whereas 70 years ago... Bruno Marchal wrote: > > A good example is the politics of health > and prohibition, which destroys lives and minds more efficaciously > than atomic bombs. I agree. Politics doesn't really care for scientifc truth, but it never did (and I think it never will, which is why we should get rid of it). But this is not a good example that we don't do good science. Science has just begun - and only a minority practices it - but this is not the fault of scientists. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Mathematical-closure-of-consciousness-and-computation-tp31771136p31871063.html Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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.
