On 03 Jul 2011, at 00:55, John Mikes wrote:
Dear Bruno, here we go again....
A very colorful discussion about that darn consciousness, indeed, as
it develops. I find YOUR scholarly text a bit skewed (Goedel and
Goedel) since math logic is IMO a product of human(!) consciousness.
This is either self-defeating, or universal and empty. Would you say
"no" to the digitalist doctor because the artificial brain is a human
construct?
I do not comment on your "MACHINE" consciousness, since I don't feel
comfortable as a machine with set inventory/design,
I don't argue that we are machine. I argue that if we are machine, the
entire Aristotelian conception of reality has to be revised.
even a universal one - IF IT IS a machine.
The universal machine is a machine. I have no clue to what other
universal thing you are alluding too.
The human intellect (another unknown! - not sarcastically said) has
no borders or inventory, at least we have not experienced such so far.
Yes. And the assumption that we are machine does explain that fact.
Today, assuming we are machine, we know that we know nothing even in
the apparently restricted field of what machine can do. No borders or
inventory for the machine abilities.
A "causally effective" Ccness? I wrote already my 'causality'
deviation as considered within the 'model' of our so far acquired
knowledge and the deterministic 'reasons' considered only by factors
'within', while the still unknown factors (maybe lots of such) also
influence all that happens assigned to 'causality' of the partial
listing.
When you say yes to the doctor, you don't pray for a model, but for
the real thing.
(This is the reason why our terms are not 'absolute' and "The Truth".)
Of course. But they might be fact under an assumption, or theorem in a
theory.
We may 'list' EFFECTIVE causes, but maybe not all.
Sure. Actually we can prove that they are not listable.
<I would not like to offend you with my hint to 'the world beyond
arithmetical truth (logic).>
The point is that the inside machine's view of arithmetic is already
beyond arithmetical truth (which is far beyond logic).
------------------------
Soroud's expression: "consciousness is always embodied
consciousness of life..."
begs the question: what is life? how different is it from Ccness, if
I identify the latter as
'response to relations' (information)? what else is life?
They seem to be close in such formulation. None of them "human" or
even "terrestrial".
Not even 'bodily ascertainable' which is a part of the figment
"physical world".
The JCS-online list has a long discussion about structured and
unstructured dualism.
I think Descartes HAD to include the soul into his 'human' unit to
escape from Inquisition and that is why he anticipated the
"complexity" in our time's idea - that includes the body and mind
with its bi sided influences as a body-soul dualism. (I don't want
to start a battle on this).
Consciousness - as the process of responding to relations is
universal, human and terrestrial concepts are includable, it is
independent of our so far acquired knowledge and does not restrict
the application to the physical world and so the domains developed
by the human mind. I have no theory to that, am insecure about the
deterministic 'happening' - a term that requires 'time' - for a
system where there is no time-factor identified as we know it. The
so far perceived reality I know of did not give me(!) answers to a
lot of questions.
That's why I say I am agnostic.
All scientists are agnostic. But we can put theories and reason in the
theories. No scientist will ever pretend it has the true theory. Those
who does are pseudo-priesters in disguise.
Bruno
John Mikes
On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 7:27 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 01 Jul 2011, at 13:23, selva kumar wrote:
Is consciousness causally effective ?
I found this question in previous threads,but I didn't find a answer.
Was it in the FOR list (on the book Fabric of reality by David
Deutsch) ? I thought I did answer this question, which is a very
imprtant and fundamental question.
It is also a tricky question, which is very similar or related to
the question of free-will, and it can lead to vocabulary issue. I
often defend the idea that consciousness is effective. Indeed the
role I usually defend for consciousness is a relative self-speeding
up ability. Yet the question is tricky, especially due to the
presence of the "causally", which is harder to grasp or define than
"consciousness" itself.
Let me try to explain. For this I need some definition, and I hope
for some understanding of the UDA and a bit of AUDA. Ask precision
if needed.
The main ingredient for the explanation are three theorems due to
Gödel:
- the Gödel completeness theorem (available for machine talking
first order logic or a sufficiently effective higher order logic).
The theorem says that a theory or machine is consistent (syntactical
notion, = ~Bf) iff the theory has a model (a mathematical structure
in which it makes sense to say that a proposition is true). I will
rephrase this by saying that a machine is consistent if and only if
the machine's beliefs make sense in some reality.
- the Gödel second incompleteness theorem ~Bf -> ~B(~Bf): if the
machine is consistent, then this is not provable by the machine. So
if the beliefs are real in some reality, the machine cannot prove
the existence of that reality. This is used in some strict way,
because we don't assume the machine can prove its completeness
(despite this has shown to be the case by Orey). This entails that
eventually, the machine can add as new axiom its own consistency,
but this leads to a new machine, for which a novel notion of
consistency appears, and the 'new' machine can still not prove the
existence of a reality "satisfying its beliefs. yet that machine can
easily prove the consistency of the machine she was. This can be
reitered as many times as their are (constructive) ordinals, and
this is what I describe as a climbing from G to G*. The modal logic
of self-reference remains unchanged, but the arithmetical
interpretation of it expands. An infinity of previously undecidable
propositions become decidable, and ... another phenomenon occurs:
- Gödel length of proof theorem. Once a machine adds an undecidable
proposition, like its own consistency, as a new axiom/belief, not
only an infinity of (arithmetical) propositions become decidable,
but an infinity of already provable propositions get shorter proofs.
Indeed, and amazingly enough, for any number x, we can find a
proposition which proofs will be x times shorter than its shorter
proof in the beliefs system without the undecidable proposition. A
similar, but not entirely equivalent theorem is true for universal
computation ability, showing in particular that there is no bound to
the rapidity of computers, and this just by change of the software
(alas, with finite numbers of exceptions in the *effective* self-
speeding up: but evolution of species needs not to be effective or
programmable in advance).
Now I suggest to (re)define consciousness as a machine (instinctive,
preprogrammed) ability to bet on a reality. This is equivalent
(stricto sensu: the machine does not need to know this) to an
ability of betting its own consistency (excluding that very new
axiom to avoid inconsistency). As a universal system, this will
speed-up the machine relatively to the probable local universal
system(s) and will in that way augment its freedom degree. If two
machines play ping-pong, the machine which is quicker has a greater
range of possible moves/strategy than its opponent.
So the answer to the question "is consciousness effective" would be
yes, if you accept such definition.
Is that consciousness *causally* effective? That is the tricky part
related to free will. If you accept the definition of free will that
I often suggested, then the answer is yes. Causality will have its
normal "physical definition", except that with comp such
physicalness is given by an arithmetical quantization (based on the
material hypostase defined by Bp & Dp): p physically causes q, iff
something like BD(BDp -> BDq). I recall Dp = ~B ~p. But of course,
in God eyes, there is only true (and false) number relations. The
löbian phenomenon then shows that the consciousness self-speeding up
is coupled with the building of the reality that the machine bet on.
At that level, it is like if consciousness is the main force,
perhaps the only original one, in the physical universe! This needs
still more work to make precise enough. There is a complex tradeoff
in between the "causally" and the "effective" at play, I think.
I hope this was not too technical. The work of Gödel plays a
fundamental role. This explanation is detailed in "Conscience et
Mécanisme", and related more precisely to the inference inductive
frame.
To sum up: machine consciousness, in the theory, confers self-
speeding up abilities to the machine with respect to the most
probable continuation/universal-machine. It is obviously something
useful for self-moving creature: to make them able to anticipate and
avoid obstacles, which would explain why the self-moving creatures
have developed self-reflexive brains, and become Löbian (self-
conscious). Note that here the role is attributed to self-
consciousness, and not really to consciousness. But you need
consciousness to have self-consciousness. Consciousness per se has
no role, like in pure contemplation, but once reflected in the
Löbian way, it might be the stronger causally effective force
operating in the 'arithmetical truth', the very origin of the (self)
acceleration/force.
Note that the Gödel speed-up theorem is not hard to prove. There is
a simple proof of it in the excellent book by Torkel Franzen
"Gödel's theorem An Incomplete Guide To Its Use and Abuse" which I
recommend the reading (despite it is more on the abuses than the
uses). The original paper is in the book by Davis: the undecidable
(republished in Dover), and which I consider as a bible for
"machine's theology".
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 [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
.
--
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
.
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 [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.
