On 01 Nov 2013, at 11:19, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Bruno: No problem, Richard. But then UDA shows that our bodies are
not machines. You better have to say "no" to the doctor.
Richard: Indeed I would.
OK. That is clear, and makes your work coherent with respect to comp.
But I wonder how UDA shows that our bodies are not machines. What
else could they be?
Material bodies are persistent mental patterns, in the mind of some
machines, which have to appear through the FPI applied to relative
state of (universal) machine.
It is a easy, but quite tedious (and not that easy, due to little
traps hidden there, exercise to show that arithmetic (a tiny part of
arithmetical truth) emulates computations (indeed, like the UD, *all*
computations).
Then accepting comp, this contains all subjective experiences. UDA
shows that if we look at ourselves or at our neighborhood, below our
substitution level, we should see the manifestations of all the
computations going through our state, and what we take as our bodies,
is in fact a "summary" of all computations going trough the
computational states defining our (classical, plausibly) computations.
I took that idea as a refutation of comp, until I read EPR and Everett
(a long time ago).
Bruno: Then, "physics first", or its idealist counterpart "sense or
consciousness first" take what I want to understand for granted.
Richard: A "physics first" theory implies an infinite regress as the
Indra net of numbers implies the need for a higher order net for its
implication,
OK, but thanks to the arithmetization of meta-arithmetic, arithmetic
internalizes the higher order. So, ontologically, we don't need to go
outside of arithmetic.
whereas a "numbers first" theory appears to have a starting point in
arithmetic and logic
Indeed.
that could be called God, not that God is pejorative.
OK. Like in Kronecker's assertion that God created the integers. It
means mainly that no one can understand where the integers come from.
It is not an explanation of where the numbers comes from, as the "god"
notion is far more intricate and complex than numbers.
Wit the arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus, that is made clear by
identifying (even if provisorily) God and (arithmetical) Truth (as did
Plato/Pythagorus).
My primary concern is also to understand consciousness.
That is nice. There are many scientist who don't genuinely understand
the problem of consciousness (and others who grasp it a little bit,
but prefer to forget it or to provide ad hoc solutions).
But I consider that "matter" is also quite mysterious, and that a
solution of the consciousness/matter problem should explain both at
once (which is normal with comp, because matter, as we experience it,
is (at least) an experience of consciousness).
Bruno: Also, your own theory seems to take the number for granted.
So ..
Richard: Not sure what you mean by that. I say that comp takes
arithmetic and logic for granted.
That's correct. But all the books I have on String theory (not much, I
have three books on String Theory) assumes the intuition of numbers.
(And even sometimes Ramanujan type of intuition, like 1+2+3+... =
-1/12, which I love, but is demanding to understand the meaning).
I suggest that the real difference between us, other than the fact
that you have developed a theory whereas my model is entirely
conjecture, is that I conjecture a Metaverse (or Megaverse) that is
sufficiently "complete" to compute physical matter along with a
Universe (for which comp seems to apply) that computes a MWI dream-
world that is conscious and interacts (rather than coheres) with the
pre-existing SWI matter-world in a mind-matter dualism.
That is interesting, and who know, perhaps correct. It is difficult,
because String Theory, by itself, is very difficult. And it is
"Bohmian", in the sense that I suspect that you add complexity to
avoid the many-mutiplication, which for a computationalist, is as
natural as the many-numbers, which we learn in high school.
May I ask you what you think about this work:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.0051
Take your time, (it is not an easy read), but that might also relate
comp and string theory in some non trivial way, ... or it is trivial,
but I can't judge.
Bruno
Thank you for your continuing interest.
On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 4:03 AM, Pierz <[email protected]> wrote:
Come on Craig, admit you wrote that. It's the last paragraph that is
the dead give-away.
On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 4:07:59 PM UTC+11, Craig Weinberg
wrote:
A Quora answer to the following question. Nothing new for me here
probably, but It's maybe organized in a more concise way.
Philosophy: If human beings are nothing more than matter, why are
you conscious as yourself?
The implication of materialism is that we are in essence wet robots,
without free will, just chemical reactions. But if this is true and
we are conscious, then does it logically follow that all chemical
reactions have "consciousness" to some degree? If the human mind is
just an extremely advanced computer, then at what point does
"consciousness" occur?
We don’t know that chemical reactions are unconscious, but if they
were, then it makes sense that the entire universe would also be
unconscious. It is very tricky to examine the issue of consciousness
and to draw parallels within common experience without
unintentionally smuggling in our own expectations from consciousness
itself. This is the Petito principii or circular reasoning which
derails most fair considerations of consciousness before they even
begin in earnest.
Unlike a clock which is made up of gears, or a particular sized pile
of hay, the addition of consciousness has no conceivable consequence
to the physical function of a body. While we can observe a haystack
burst into flames because it has grown too hot, we cannot look at
the behavior of a human body see any special difference from the
behavior of any other physical body. There is complexity, but
complexity alone need not point to anything beyond an adjacency of
simple parts and isolated chains of effects.
Just as no degree of complication within a clock’s mechanism would
suddenly turn into a Shakespearean sonnet, the assumption of
universal substitution is not necessarily appropriate for all
phenomena, and for consciousness in particular. To get a color
image, for instance, we need to print in colored dots, not black and
white. Color TV programs cannot be broadcast over a monochrome
display without losing their color.
Unlike chemical or mechanical transformation, the nature of
awareness is not implicated in the shuffling of material particles
from one place or another. Any natural force can be used to do that.
We have no scientific reason to insist that conscious participation
and aesthetic appreciation is derived from some simpler functioning
of complex systems. To the contrary, ‘complexity’, and ‘system’ can
only make sense in the context of a window of perception and
attention. Without some teleological intent to see one part as part
of a whole, and to compare remembered events with current
perceptions, there is no such thing as ‘function’ at all.
There are several important points wrapped up in this question,
which I will try to sum up.
1. The failure to consider consciousness metaphysically.
This is the most important and most intractable issue, for three
reasons:
because it is difficult for anyone to try to put their mind outside
of mind. It’s annoying, and winds up feeling foolish and disoriented.
because it is difficult in particular for the very people who need
most to get past the difficulty. I have found that most people who
are good with logic and scientific reasoning are not necessarily
capable of doing what others can. The skillset appears to be
neurological, like handedness or gender orientation.
because those who do have difficulty with thinking this way are
often not used to intellectual challenges that escape their grasp,
their reaction is so defensive that they react with intolerance.
It’s not their fault, but it cannot be cured it seems. Some people
cannot see 3-D Magic Eye art. Some cannot program their way out of a
paper bag. In this case it is the ability to consider consciousness
from a prospective rather than a retrospective view which can prove
so inaccessible to so many people, that frothing at the mouth and
babbling about unicorns, magic, and the supernatural is considered a
reasonable and scientific, skeptical response. Of course, it is none
of those things, but it takes a lot of patience and courage to be
able to recognize one’s own prejudices, especially when we are used
to being the ones telling others about their biases.
2. The taboo against metaphysics, panpsychism, and transrationality
Long after Einstein, Gödel, and Heisenberg shattered the Humpty
Dumpty certainties of classical math and physics, we are still
trying to piece him back together. Regardless of how much we learn
about the strange properties of matter, time, energy, biology, and
neurology, there are a huge number of very intelligent people who
are convinced that we will only know the truth about the universe
when it all looks like a vast deterministic mechanism.
The compulsion to reduce awareness to passive mathematical or
physical states is ironic, given that the defense of automaticity is
often accompanied by very hands on personal intention. Even when it
is pointed out that arguing against free will is futile (since
someone without free will could not change their own opinion about
it even if they wanted to, let alone someone else’s opinion), the
mind of the determined determinist will always find a way of insist
upon being in the right, even when they are ultimately sawing of the
limb that they are sitting on.
When it comes to anything that suggests the possibility of non-human
awareness, many people not only become personally uncomfortable, but
they become socially uncomfortable as well. The taboo against
unconventional views on science (even when backed by anthropological
universality) is so pervasive and xenophobic that it is career
suicide for a working scientist to publicly acknowledge them in any
but the most condescending tones.
3. The pathetic fallacy
The pathetic fallacy is to take a metaphor in which some inanimate
object is given a human quality (“The camera loves you”), and take
it literally. While I count myself among those who once saw
computation and pattern as being the only ingredient necessary for
awareness or life, my understanding now is that no pattern can exist
without a capacity for pattern recognition. The ability to receive
and make sense of the real world is not a matter of generic
relations of disembodied bits of “information”, but is in fact the
concrete reality of the cosmos. The universe does not exist for us
humans, but it cannot exist as silent, unconscious, intangible
physics for billions of years and then suddenly invent the whole of
sensation, emotion, intuition, cognition, etc, just for some
hominids on this backwater planet. It now strikes me as profoundly
anthropocentric to imagine that the entire universe could be devoid
of perceptual content until life evolved.
In my view, the universe itself is nothing but a continuum of
qualities of consciousness. These qualities, however, relate to
experienced contexts. We cannot take the human-ness out of a human
and put it into a machine. Biology has mechanisms and performs
computation, but if that’s it was doing then the inside of the brain
would look like logic, not like sex and violence and musical theater.
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