On Tuesday, November 13, 2012 12:15:48 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: > > On Sun, Nov 11, 2012Craig Weinberg <[email protected] <javascript:>>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? >
Spacetime exists for us as objects, it just doesn't exist independently of objects. The difference between object surfaces is a spatial discernment of sense. Logic is an intellectual sense of summarizing other kinds of sense in a minimalist way. Bits are a figure of speech referring to the role played by a class of controlled physical structures. All of these things are very natural and easy to explain for me as aspects of sense. There is no mathematical justification for geometry though that I can think of. Nobody else seems to be able to think of one either. > > > 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. > Then we have no beef. > > > 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. > It's not a coincidence at all, but neither is the fact that arithmetic fails miserably at producing the sort of behavior that minds take for granted, like caring about something or having a personality. > > >> 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. > You are making my point. They only matter to me because of the feelings and experiences their configurations make available to me. Nobody cares about them for what they are, only what we feel, and what we feel is in no way linked to those objects except through empirical relation. There is no theory by which their configuration should lead to anything beyond the configuration itself. > > > 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. > Einstein made more sense of the data was through imagination and discovery, not through mechanistic data processing or accumulation of knowledge. That is not 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? > Because I understand what knowledge is and I understand why computers can't experience knowing. How do you know that Bugs Bunny isn't tasting anything when he eats a carrot? > > > 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. > We are completely different - we are a single cell which knows how to divide itself into trillions of copies. We are not an assembly of disconnected parts. > > > 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. > I would agree with you except that my hunch is that your hunch about biology being unnecessary is premature. I would call my hunch more of an understanding though. I see exactly why you and others are seduced by this hunch because I had the same hunch and I see why it ultimately fails to ground either symbols or matter. > > > 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. > It never leaves the state it's in. Calculating the value of Pi is one of the kinds of acts which requires infinite resources to complete, therefore it never gets chance to repeat itself...you have to finish 'peating' to be able to re-peat. > > >> 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. > I don't know what the AI hard problem is, but I do think that my approach does solve the Hard Problem of consciousness and bridges the Explanatory Gap, or at least provides the correct foundation for it. Craig > John K Clark > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/HFXFdNLk3LkJ. 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.
