On 11/19/2012 9:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 19 Nov 2012, at 05:03, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 11/18/2012 8:12 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 07:48:57PM -0500, Stephen P. King wrote:
Hi Russell,
I agree with this view, especially the part about the
compatibility of bases leading to a 'sharing of realities' that then
gives rise to an illusion of a single classical reality; I just
phrase the concepts differently. My question to you is how 'simple'
can an observer be, as a system? It seems to me that even particles
could be considered as observers. I buy Chalmers' argument for
panpsychism.
I doubt that very much, as if true, then we should expect to find
ourselves as particles, which is the Occam's catastrophe redux I point
out in my book.
Hi Russell,
And how could we know that we are not particles dreaming that we
are humans? Particles are, after all, just an artifact of a
particular basis that some set of "observers with compatible bases
can sharing their realities". Is a reality something that is 1p in
your thinking? It isn't in my thinking but I'll put that aside for now.
That is a very interesting point and I have long wondered about
the distribution arguments (ala Bostrum
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Bostrom#Simulation_hypothesis>)
and Occam's catastrophe
<http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg22943.html>.
It seems to me that there is something that is being assumed about
consciousness in those reasonings, something that is being taken for
granted. (For one thing, the Solomonoff-Levin distribution assumes a
universal ensemble that is very much like Leibniz' pre-established
harmony and thus problematic as it is not computable
<http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Algorithmic_probability>.
Bruno's rejection of infinities seems to disallow for such priors to
work for comp, IMHO.)
Partially OK. It is more complex as the probabilities, although
"objective", concerned the 1p, which might contains actual infinities
(at least in some sense).
Dear Bruno,
OK, I need to understand where actual infinities are permitted
within comp's theoretical structure.
I think that we can think of this cryptic idea that there is
somehow a difference of the 'we' or, more correctly, the 'I' that is,
as I claim, instantiated in a electron or an ant or a human or a
giant Black Cloud and that this difference can somehow be remembered
and passed along in continuations. It is the one complaint that I
have with reincarnation theories, the idea that some memories that
can only be defined with reference to physical bodies can be
continued. I think that the 'I' is not much different from the center
of mass of physics. The C.o.M. does not really exist at all as a
substance or physical object and yet it has causal efficacy in some
way...
Could be that consciousness is being assumed to be some kind of
substance that has persistent existence, like material substances in
Parmenidean and Aristotelian science? What if this assumption is 'not
even wrong'? What happens to the center of mass of an aggregate when
the members of that aggregate are altered? What if consciousness is
not a 'thing', but is a 'process' - something more like a 'stream
<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonwellfounded-set-theory/#sectionstreams>'.
Computer science has no problem with streams that I know of... I am
trying to get Bruno to consider streams, as he does seem to be OK
with Quine atoms (which are the canonical case of a stream!)
Could explain the realtion between Quine atoms and streams?
I do not know how to explain this relation is words at this time.
Please allow me to refer to some definitions and ask for some thought on
your part.
From:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonwellfounded-set-theory/#sectionstreams
"A/stream of numbers/is an ordered pair whose first coordinate is a
number and whose second coordinate is again a stream of numbers. The
first coordinate is called the/head/, and the second the/tail/. The tail
of a given stream might be different from it, but again, it might be the
very same stream. For example, consider the stream/s/whose head is 0 and
whose tail is/s/again. Thus the tail of the tail of/s/is/s/itself. We
have/s/= ? 0, /s/? ,/s/= ? 0, ? 0, /s/? ? , etc. This stream/s /exhibits
object circularity. It is natural to "unravel" its definition as:
(0,0,...,0,...)
It is natural to understand the unraveled form is as an/infinite
sequence/; standardly, infinite sequences are taken to be functions
whose domain is the set/N/of natural numbers. So we can take the
unraveled form to be the constant function with value 0. Whether we want
to take the stream/s/described above to/be/this function is an issue we
want to explore in a general way in this entry. Notice that since we
defined/s/to be an ordered pair, it follows from the way pairs are
constructed in ordinary mathematics that/s/will not itself be the
constant sequence 0."
A Quine atom is a set that only has itself as a member or "Quine
Atom is a set Q that satisfies Q={Q}".
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_atom and
http://math.eretrandre.org/mybb/showthread.php?tid=28
It might be helpful to think of a Quine atom as a labeled
transition system to understand my point about the relation between
Quine atoms and streams.
Note that the UD dovetails on all programs, with all inputs including
all streams.
Yes. This is why I think that your UD idea is very important!
Are you assuming that consciousness is somehow independent of
bodies, ala Bruno's immaterialism of numbers? Isn't this just an
obscure form of Cartesian dualism that just argues away the existence
of the 'res extensa' as being, as per Bruno's argument, something
that Occam's razor cuts out of ontology and thus are left with a
'arithmetic body problem' where the 'res extensa
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Res_extensa>' used to be?
But you need to postulate a small physical universe, and to speculate
on a flaw in step 8, to get this.
Why? I am only taking comp seriously and considering that a finite
but very large plurality of Löbian entities can form a defacto 'physical
world' by their mutual agreements or truths. This 'physical world' is
not to be considered as ontological primitive!
I thought for a long time on this list that the step 8 was not needed
here, as the postulation of a small primitive physical universe cut
the benefits of everything-like philosophy, which was the starting of
this very list.
Yes, so why is my idea so difficult for you to grok?
Also, to be "left with the body problem" is what is intersting in
comp, as it gives the realm, and the ways, matter can appear and be
explained. All the other theories assumed matter at the start.
I know and this is what I wish to overcome, but I which for a model
of interactions between Löbian entities.
Bruno
I suspect that as human beings, we rank amongst the simplest of all
possible observers.
Is this because of your argument that self-awareness is necessary
for consciousness? Maybe you are right but thinking of it backwards;
could you consider that there is a difference between being able to
'know' that one is conscious and simply being conscious? I think that
Craig is making the case that 'sense' or raw 'something that is like
being in the world' is not separable from the 'being in the world'.
What we have is the case where the 'simulation of the entity' is the
entity itself; yet this wording does violence to the concept that I
have been trying to explain.
The best explanation that I have to point to is Kaufman and
Zuckerman & Miranker's Russell operator idea and the Quine atom as a
formal mathematical concept and its identification of the object with
itself. It cannot be understood so long as one is embedded in the
vision of the universe as being well founded and 'regular
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_regularity>' - that there are
a single set of 'irreducible' parts that make it up. It amazes me
that the ideas of those Greek guys from 2000 years ago still carry so
much influence over our thinking!
--
Onward!
Stephen
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