On 7/24/2012 7:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Le 23-juil.-12, à 20:30, Stephen P. King a écrit :
On 7/23/2012 6:00 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
If this is relevant for UDA, you should show to me. You start from
an assumption of some primitive physical reality.
Dear Bruno,
Could you please explain to me why it is that you make this claim
in spite of repeated explanation that show the contrary?
Because despite you repeat that physics is not primary, you argue that
something is invalid in UDA by mentioning physical interactions, and
by referring to papers which assumes physicalism (implicitly or
explicitly). As I said you contradict yourself.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Dear Bruno,
It would be a contradiction if I where not qualifying the
definition of "physical interactions". Have you noticed that I mention
that I am putting the physical at the same level as the numbers, not by
making the physical primitive but instead by making the numbers (the
immaterial aspect as per your designation) occur (within my approach) at
the same level. Neither numbers nor physical objects are primitive. Let
me re-post something I wrote yesterday that you may have missed:
On 7/22/2012 2:41 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
Many (as implied by the word plural
<http://www.google.com/#hl=en&gs_nf=1&pq=domain%20range%20map&cp=10&gs_id=l&xhr=t&q=plural+definition&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&oq=plural+def&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=d0885a1bd80304c5&biw=1680&bih=894>)
_is not just a number_. A plurality of 1p is a mapping function from
some domain to some co-domain (or range), no? If there is no
distinction between the domain and co-domain, what kind of map is it?
Maybe it is an automorphism
<http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=automorphism+definition&oq=automorphism+definition&gs_l=serp.1.0.0j0i5i30.43772.43772.2.44960.1.1.0.0.0.0.63.63.1.1.0...0.0...1c.vfE317HvrJQ&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=d0885a1bd80304c5&biw=1680&bih=894>,
but it is not something that allows us to extract a plurality over
which variation can occur. You are talking as if the variation
<http://www.google.com/#hl=en&gs_nf=1&gs_mss=automorphism%20definition&pq=automorphism%20definition&cp=10&gs_id=1d&xhr=t&q=variation+definition&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&oq=variation+definition&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=d0885a1bd80304c5&biw=1680&bih=894>
was present but not allowing the means for that variation to occur!
The use of the word "plurality" is thus meaningless as you are using
it: "first person plural view of physical reality".
You must show first how it is that the plurality obtains without
the use of a space if you are going to make claims that there is no
space and yet plurality (of 1p) is possible. In the explanation that
you give there is discussion of Moscow, Helsinki and Washington. These
are locations that exists and have meaning in a wider context. At
least there is assumed to be a set of possible locations and that the
set is not a singleton (such as {0}) nor does it collapse into a
singleton.
and
On 7/22/2012 2:41 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
[SPK] If the computer is defined as a closed system then
solipsism automatically follows.
[BM]
It is not define as a close system. that is even why it is natural
(but conceptually wrong) to put the infinite tape in the definition
of the universal machine. But the universal numbers are open in a lot
of sense. Now, even a closed computer, with a finite non extensible
memory, can emulate a plurality of observers, defeating solipsim
locally, if its memory is enough big.
[SPK]
Ah! Exactly! "...even a closed computer, with a finite non
extensible memory, can emulate a plurality of observers, defeating
solipsim locally, if its memory is enough big." YES! Defeating
_/*solipsism locally*/_. That is exactly what I am trying to discuss
with you, that is what the verbosity about "local measures" is trying
to convey. The "memory" is a resource, it is the computer's version of
space. It is where the plurality is necessary.
Let us recap the idea so far: A Computer, defined abstractly, is a
closed system. It must be closed if it has a fixed point identity (ala
Kleene theorems) , but this closure causes it to be solipsist. It
cannot name anything or have knowledge of anything that is not within
the span of its being. How do we solve this problem? We first have to
accept the problem. Like the alcoholic that wants rehabilitation, we
must accept that we are - as observers - solipsists, but there is a
chance that we are not doomed to this misery. If the memory of the
computer is "big enough" then there is a non-zero chance that the
memory of a separate and different computer has a state of its memory
that is identical. This allows for a partial bisimilarity to exist
between the two computers.
My idea is that if there is sufficient bisimilarity between a
disjoint pair of closed computational systems and if there is a smooth
transformation that allows homomorphisms
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphism> of arbitrary states within
a memory, then the appearance of plurality of computational observers
is possible. The Stone duality then implies that if a homomorphism
between a pair of Boolean algebras exists then there is a
transformation between a pair of Stone spaces that exists. If physics
can be defined in terms of Stone spaces and abstract computations in
terms of Boolean algebras then the mind-body problem is solved. There
is no need to "reduce" the mind-body problem to a body or a mind
problem (in the singular sense). There is a reduction to a Minds
(plural) or Bodies (plural) problem, and this is the interaction
problem that I am trying to explain. If you would only read that
article on the Concurrency Problem in Wiki, this might have been an
easier journey.
The key is that I am considering the body problem (as you define it
in your discussion of UDA) to be the dual of the mind problem for
materialism. Perhaps the only problem in our mutual understanding is
vocabulary and definitions of words. What we are considering is very
subtle and hard (almost impossible!) to define exactly. I need to be
more patient in my explanations.
Do you understand the key isomorphism that is being postulated to
"connect" the physical with the mental aspects? It is the identification
of a physical object with its best possible computational simulation. It
for this reason that I insist that we cannot disconnect the mental world
of mathematics (including any form of number or arithmetic - including
{N, +, *} - from the physical world of objects. There must be at least
one physical system that can implement a given computation for that
computation to qualify for universality. Of course universality demands
that the computation can operate on any functionally equivalent system,
so there is an invariance with respect to function, but the equivalence
class "pivots" on the necessity that it can actually be run on a
physical system. Otherwise computations (as per the abstract theory of
Universal Turing Machines) would have nothing at all to do with physical
computers and be a purely mental exercise of fantasy.
--
Onward!
Stephen
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
~ Francis Bacon
--
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.
