On Sun, Nov 11, 2012Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> I do know that over the past year you have told this list that >> information does not exist, and neither do electrons or time or space or >> bits or even logic, so I don't see why the nonexistence of movement in a >> "comp universe" or any other sort of universe would bother you. >> > > > It bothers me because it doesn't make sense to suggest that a universe > of experiences full of objects and positions can be reduced to a mechanism >
But a universe without electrons or time or space or bits or logic does make sense? Lack of logic makes sense? > What I am pointing out is that what comp implies is a universe which > looks and feels nothing like the one which we actually live in. > I'm not here to defend "comp", that's Bruno's job, I don't even know what the word means. > It does present a plausible range of logical functions which remind us of > some aspects of our minds, but I think that there is another reason for > that, which has to do with the nature of arithmetic. > So the fact that arithmetic can produce the exact same sort of behavior that minds are so proud of, like playing Chess or solving equations or winning millions on Jeopardy, is all just a big coincidence. If you really believe that then there is a bridge I'd like to sell you. >> Electrons move around the chips in your computer, and potassium and >> sodium ions move around the Cerebral Cortex of your brain. >> > > > That doesn't matter. > Doesn't matter?! If I change the position of those potassium and sodium ions in your brain it will matter very much to you because your consciousness will change. Yes that's right, the position of those "meaningless objects" can be the difference between ecstasy and suicidal depression, and you Craig Weinberg will never find anything that matters more than that. > My point is that our senses require a particular presentation of forms > and experience for us to consciously make sense, > Einstein had access to the same raw data as everybody else, but being a genius he could make sense out of it even though the data was not presented in a ideal way, and once he had done that he could teach those with less powerful minds, like you and me, how to make sense out of it too. Exactly the same is true of computers. > I would agree that it [a computer] is better at plotting such a complex > object rotation on a screen for us to admire, but the computer itself > wouldn't know an object from a string of bank transactions. Computers know > nothing, > I would like to know how you know that computers know nothing. Did that knowledge come to you in a dream? > What a computer does is no different than what a lever does when a metal > ball falls on to one side of it and the other side rises. > Well... A computer is no different from a few hundred trillion levers interconnected in just the right way that rise and fall several billion times a second, and you're no different from that either. > You will likely tell me again that potassium ions are no different, and > you aren't wrong, but the difference is that we know for a fact that > potassium ions are part of an evolved self organizing biological system > that thinks > Yes. > and feels > Although other evolved self organizing biological system behave as if they feel there is only one that I know for a fact actually does feel, and it goes by the name of John Clark. My hunch is that other biological systems can feel too, my hunch is that being biological is not necessary for that to happen but I don't know it for a fact. > while no inorganic lever system seems to aspire to anything other than > doing the same thing over and over again. > A computer calculating the value of PI never repeats itself, it never returns to a previous state. >> I don't have a theory that explains everything about the universe and >> neither does anybody else, but unlike some I am wise enough to know that I >> am ignorant. >> > > > Yet you claim to be omniscient about what I can't know. > I didn't specifically mention you, but if you have a guilty conscience don't blame me, and I do seem to remember you saying something about having solved the "AI hard problem", nobody seems very clear about exactly what that problem is but it certainly sounds hard. John K Clark -- 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.
