On 10/24/2012 11:58 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
2012/10/23 Bruno Marchal <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
On 22 Oct 2012, at 21:50, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
2012/10/22 Stephen P. King <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
On 10/22/2012 2:38 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
2012/10/22 Russell Standish <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 11:38:46PM -0400, Stephen P. King wrote:
> Hi Rusell,
>
> How does Schmidhuber consider the physicality of resources?
>
> --
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
No. The concept doesn't enter consideration. What he considers is
that
the Great Programmer has finite (or perhaps bounded resources),
which
gives an additional boost to algorithms that run efficiently.
that´s the problem that I insist, has a natural solution considering
the
computational needs of living beings under natural selection, without
resorting to a everithing-theory of reality based of a UD algorithm,
like
the Schmidhuber one.
--
Dear Alberto,
My suspicion is that there does *not* exist a single global
computation of
the behavior of living (or other) beings and that "natural selection"
is a
local computation between each being and its environment. We end up
with a
model where there are many computations occurring concurrently and
there is no
single computation that can dovetail all of them together such that a
picture
of the universe can be considered as a single simulation running on a
single
computer except for a very trivial case (where the total universe is in
a bound
state and at maximum equilibrium).
Yes, that'`s also what I think. These computations are material, in the
sense that
they are subject to limitation of resources (nervous signal speeds, chemical
equilibrion, diffusion of hormones etc. So the bias toward a low kolmogorov
complexity of an habitable universe can be naturally deduced from that.
Natural selection is the mechanism for making discoveries, individual life
incorporate these discoveries, called adaptations. A cat that jump to catch
a fish
has not discovered the laws of newton, Instead, the evolution has found a
way to
modulate the force exerted by the muscles according with how long the jump
must be,
and depending on the weight of the cat (that is calibrated by playing at at
the
early age).
But this technique depends on the lineality and continuity of the law of
newton for
short distances. If the law of newton were more complicated, that would not
be
possible. So a low complexity of the macroscopical laws permit a low
complexity and
a low use of resources of the living computers that deal with them, and a
faster
dsicovery of adaptations by natural selection. But that complexity has a
upper
limit; Lineality seems to be a requirement for the operation of natural
selection
in the search for adaptations.
http://ilevolucionista.blogspot.com.es/2008/06/ockham-razor-and-genetic-algoritms-life.html
I kind of agree with all what you say here, and on the basic philosophy.
But I think
that what you describe admits a more general description, in which the laws
of
physics are themselves selected by a process similar but more general than
evolution. It makes me think that life (and brains at some different level)
is what
happen when a universal system mirrors itself. A universal machine is a
dynamical
mirror, and life can develop once you put the dynamical mirror in front of
itself
(again a case of diagonalization). I think I follow your philosophy, but
apply it in
arithmetic and/or computer science.
I envision also a kind of selection of the mind over the matter , since the most basic
notion of existence implies and observer, that is,a mind and a mind, in a universe
where history has a meaning (that discard boltzmann brains) , and hold a kind of
intelligence (since intelligence permits to make use of experience) impose very strong
antropic restrictions not only in the nature of the phisical laws, as I said, but in the
matematicity of them. With matematicity i mean a reuse of the same simple structures at
different levels of reality. I mean that the most simple mathematical structures are
more represented in the structure of reality than complicated ones, to minimize the
complexity.
But aren't those all the same conclusions that would arise from assuming that mathematics
and physical laws are our inventions for describing and reasoning about the world and they
are simple because that makes them understandable; they reflect our limited cognitive
ability to think about only a few things at a time. Notice that physics, as it has become
more mathematical and abstract, has left more and more to contingency and the randomness
of QM. So physicists no longer propose to answer, "Why are there just eight planets?" or
"Why is there a Moon?"
Now I am just afraid, to talk frankly, that it looks like you have a
reductionist
conception of numbers and machines, which does not take into account the
discovery
of the universal machine (by the Post-Church-Kleene-Turing thesis) which
makes you
miss that your philosophy might be the natural philosophy of all universal
numbers.
(I probably exaggerate my point for attempt to be short).
I do not discard your point of view. the difference is that I go the easy path, from
inside to outside, in a cartesian process, may call it, So my interest is centered not
in a simple production principle, and explain the human experience from it, but to go
from consciousness (with some leaps of faith) out to ascertain the nature of what is
known with the aid of some hopefully testable hypotheses. To go in the opposite
direction i need a kind of understanding and inspiration that I don´t have. I perhaps
need a kind of leap in imagination to see the big picture, but my natural selectionist
bias force me to think that there would be no intellgence without purpose, and no
purpose without environmnetal pressure, that is impossible without an environment, and a
environment impossible without a preexistent matter, with preexistent laws. So a
universal machine seems to me the inmaterial equivalent of a boltzman brain, made with
no purpose, for no purpose and this devoid of meaning, with little to understand about
it...
If you're going to explain purpose, meaning, qualia, thoughts,...you need to start from
something simpler that does not assume those things. Bruno proposes to explain matter as
well, so he has to start without matter.
Brent
The web of this world is woven of Necessity and Chance. Woe to
him who has accustomed himself from his youth up to find
something necessary in what is capricious, and who would ascribe
something like reason to Chance and make a religion of
surrendering to it.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Unless some restrictions of resources, pruposes etc are aplied, that is a selection
process.....
We can already talk with the "Löbian numbers". I already recognize myself.
I already
don't take them as zombie. It does not matter that the talk admits a local
atemporal
description. Arithmetic is full of life and dreams
And if we limit ourselves, non constructively (it is the price) to the
*arithmetically sound* Löbian numbers, we get an arithmetical
interpretation of a
platonist conception of reality. Decidable on its propositional parts.
In that conception physics is the border of the universal mind, which by
assuming
comp, might be the mind of the universal machine.
Can that philosophy helps to solve the 1p measure problems, or guide us in
the
"human" interpretation of the arithmetical interpretation? Hard to say.
Plausible.
There will be different methods, and insight.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>
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