On Jan 20, 2:03 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > On 20 Jan 2012, at 02:34, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> > > What machine makes the infinite tape? > > Eventually the numbers themselves. It is simpler than the universal > unitary rotation of the physicist, but if you want an infinite tape, > you need to postulate at least once infinite thing. At the meta-level, > or in the epistemology, or in the ontology. Why do numbers make machines or tapes? Do the want to? Do they have a choice? > > > > >> That error comfort me in talking about universal numbers, and > >> defining > >> them by the relation > > >> phi_u(<x, y>) = phi_x(y). u is the universal machine, x is a > >> program and y is a data. "phi" refer to some other universal number > >> made implicit (in my context it is explicited by elementary > >> arithmetic). > > > So a universal machine's universal number made implicit from data in a > > program = a program's universal number from data. I don't understand > > what it means. > > A number (code, body) transforms itself into a function relatively to > a universal number. > u is a computer. Phi_u is the universal function computed by u. If you > a program x and a data y to the computer u, it will simulate x on the > input y, and will output phi_x(y). u does that for all program x, and > so is a universal simulator. It sounds like you are saying that what makes a machine universal is if it computes any given program the same way as every other universal machine. I don't have a problem with that. By that definition though, it still appears to me that consciousness, being both idiosyncratically unique to each individual and each moment and sharable through common sense and experience is the opposite of a universal and the opposite of a machine. > > > > >>> It's an object oriented syntax that is limited to > >>> particular kinds of functions, none of which include biological > >>> awareness (which might make sense since biology is almost entirely > >>> fluid-solution based.) > > >> This worth than the notion of primitive matter. It is mystification > >> of > >> primitive matter. > > > It's not an assertion of mysticism, it's just a plain old > > generalization of ordinary observations. Programs don't get excited or > > tired, they don't get sick and die, they don't catch a cold, etc. They > > share none of the differences which make biology different from > > physics. > > I know that you believe in non-comp. > Is that supposed to invalidate the observations? Programs do get tired? They do catch colds? > > > > > > > > > > > >>>> Do asteroids and planets exist "out there" even if no one perceives > >>>> them? > > >>> They don't need humans to perceive them to exist, but my view is > >>> that > >>> gravity is evidence that all physical objects perceive each other. > >>> Not > >>> in a biological sense of feeling, seeing, or knowing, but in the > >>> most > >>> primitive forms of collision detection, accumulation, attraction to > >>> mass, etc. > > >> I can agree with that. This is in the spirit of Everett, which treat > >> observation as interaction. But there is no reason to associate > >> primitive qualia and private sensation from that. It lacks the > >> "retrieving memory" and self-reference. > > > Doesn't an asteroid maintain it's identity through it's trajectory? > > I can agree with this. > > > Can't the traces of it's collisions be traced forensically by > > examining it. > > Yes. > > > Memory and self reference have to come from somewhere, > > why not there? > > Because self-reference needs a non trivial programming loop (whose > existence is assured by computer science theorem like Kleene second > recursion theorem). I know that you believe in comp. I propose another possibility. Imagine a universe where things can become what they actually are without running a program. Running a program supervenes not only on sequential recursion but on a whole universe of logical consequence, ideas of representation, memory, continuous temporal execution, etc. What if those things are aspects of particular experience and not universal primitives? What if the entire cosmos is a monad; a boundless and implicit firmament through which objects and experiences are diffracted? The primordial dynamic is not mechanism but stillness and stasis, like a spectrum to a prism. Anchored in that stable unity, matter is the more direct representation of this singularity (ie the many alchemical references to 'stone'). The subjective correlate would be silent and dark void as well as solar fusion and stellar profusion. This is realism. A prism is not a machine, it is an object which reveals the essential coherence of visual qualia. Machines are the second tier of sensemaking. A dedication of what already exists to a specific function which arises from the consequence of it's existence rather than as the cause of it. > there are no evidence that such program is at play > in an asteroid above your substitution level. Below your substitution > level, the asteroids implement all computations, but this is relevant > only to your observation, not to the asteroid. Assuming comp. I don't. > > > Don't forget, without human consciousness going as a > > comparison, we can't assume that the experience of raw matter is > > ephemeral like ours is. It may not be memory which is the invention of > > biology, but forgetting. > > Profound remark, and I agree. But subjective memory is an attribute of > a subject, and there are no evidence the asteroid is a subject, at > least related in the sense of having private experiences. It lacks too > much ability in self-representation, made possible by complex > cooperation between cells in living systems, and programs in computers. Heh. Now who is discriminating against inanimate objects? > > > > > > > > > > > > >>> Machines have no feeling. > > >> What I say three times is true. > >> What I say three times is true. > >> What I say three times is true. > >> (Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark). > > > I really don't find it a controversial > > statement.http://thesaurus.com/browse/mechanical > > > mechanical [muh-kan-i-kuhl] > > Part of Speech: adjective > > > Definition: done by machine; machinelike > > > Synonyms: automated, automatic, cold, cursory, *emotionless*, fixed, > > habitual, impersonal, instinctive, involuntary, laborsaving, > > *lifeless*, machine-driven, matter-of-fact, monotonous, perfunctory, > > programmed, routine, *spiritless*, standardized, stereotyped, > > unchanging, **unconscious, unfeeling, unthinking**, useful > > > Antonyms: by hand, **conscious, feeling**, manual > > > This is not evidence that machines are incapable of feeling but it > > indicates broad commonsense support for my interpretation. Of course > > popularity does not mean truth, but it does mean that I don't have to > > accept accusations of some sort of fanciful eccentricity peculiar to > > myself alone. My interpretation is conservative, yours is radically > > experimental and completely unproven. How can you act as if it were > > the other way around? It's dishonest. > > Other have well commented this, as you have admitted. You should read > the little book by Jacques Lafitte, in french, "la science des > machines" which in the early 20th century describe machine as natural > extension of life. "we" call that "artificial", but machines are as > natural product of earth than apple and jumping spiders. Oh I actually agree with that, and have for a long time. Life emerged from inorganic matter. I think that self replicating crystals began to add organic molecules to their repertoire for greater flexibility and convenience. Biology is geological technology. We have come full circle now and are impregnating inorganic crystals with the honey of our anthropological hive - the skimmed cream of our evolutionary organic journey is going to return toward the inorganic from which it came but not backward to trivial intelligence, forward to post-organic synthesis. We can't lose the organic matter, we will always have to live in it or we will not be us. The challenge is to integrate and hybridize without losing sight of who we are and why we care about living in the first place. > Today's > computers and net can be seen as neo or neoneocortex, and the math > shows this can develop autonomously and we have only partial control > on the process. > But we use the term machine in both its natural and man made sense. It > basically means no magic, made precise with Church-Turing thesis, > magic means precisely non-Turing emulable nor 1-person UD recoverable. I understand completely. You are channeling my exact worldview circa 1990. Since then I have explored some other ideas which make more sense to me, and which I think will eventually make more sense to others. We are extending a noosphere or a technocortex, yes, but like the brain, we do not discard our limbic system and brain stem. We might like to, but we can't or there will be no 'we' left. > > > > > > > > > > > > >>> These kinds of careers rely on sensitivity > >>> to human feeling and meaning. They require that you care about > >>> things > >>> that humans care about. Caring cannot be programmed. That is the > >>> opposite of caring, because programming requires no investment by > >>> the > >>> programmed. There is no subject in a program, only an object > >>> programmed to behave in a way that seems like it could be a > >>> subject in > >>> some ways. > > >> If you define the subject by the knower, believability by > >> provability, > >> and if you accept the classical theory of knwoledge (the axioms: Kp- > >> >p, K(p->q)->(Kp->Kq)). Then it is a theorem that a subject exist > >> for > >> machine, and indeed that machine have to be puzzled by the relation > >> between that subject and their body. > > > It sounds like I can name anything 'knower' and have that be a theorem > > for subjectivity. > > On the contrary. the definition I gave is quite specific, yet very > general. It leads to the ideal theology of the self-referentially > correct universal machine, including its physics (as it should by UDA, > MGA). It still sounds like it means that knowers must be subjects since subjects are knowers. > > > > >> Now, there is no reason to expect a *human* subject. Unless the > >> machine is a copy of a human at some genuine level. But most machines > >> are not a priori human machines. > > > Right. I don't have a problem with natural holarchies of the parts of > > a material machine being subjects, just not likely very high quality > > subjects. > > Looks racist to me. Not racism, taxonomy. Kingdom, phylum, class, order... you have heard of this, yes? > > > I just don't think the parts know each other unless they > > naturally grew as parts of a whole. > > Man made machines already do that, they grow as a part of the same > whole we share with them. > Babies also look dumb, weak and so dependent. What is an example of a man made machine whose parts naturally grow as part of the same whole? > Anyway, my point is that mechanism is a testable hypothesis. If > mechanism is false, we will find this out more easily by reasoning > from its assumption, than by criticizing it superficially at the start > through racist prejudices. If you say so. Who are we waiting on to complete the test? Craig -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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