On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 11:56 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 12/16/2013 9:36 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 11:11 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> On 12/16/2013 6:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 6:07 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/16/2013 2:27 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 3:14 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 12/16/2013 12:40 PM, LizR wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 17 December 2013 08:06, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> JKC makes a big point of the complete separation of quantum worlds,
>>>>> although Everett didn't write about multiple worlds. Everett only
>>>>> considered one world and wrote about the "relative state" of the observer
>>>>> and the observed system. In some ways this is more fundamental because in
>>>>> principle the "different worlds" of MWI can interfere with one another.
>>>>> That they usually don't is a statistical result.
>>>>>
>>>>> ("Many worlds" is just a nice (and roughly accurate) description,
>>>> like Big Bang (better than Small Hiss) or Black Hole (better than Very
>>>> Faintly Glowing Region of Infinite Gravity :)
>>>>
>>>> I think that's an unfair criticism of Copenhagen. Deterministic
>>>>> theories just push the problem back in time. Ultimately there is either
>>>>> an
>>>>> uncaused event or an infinite past. So there is not great intellectual
>>>>> virtue in rejecting uncaused events. Quantum mechanics is an interesting
>>>>> intermediate case. It has randomness, but randomness that is strictly
>>>>> limited and limited in such a way that it produces the classical world at
>>>>> a
>>>>> statistical level.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The problem is pushed back onto whatever is considered fundamental.
>>>> If there is an original event, it is only uncaused if it doesn't emerge
>>>> naturally from (for example) the equations that are believed to describe
>>>> the universe. One can say the same about an infinite past.
>>>>
>>>> Your own theory also introduces uncaused events, namely the
>>>>> computations of a universal dovetailer. The whole idea of "everythingism"
>>>>> was inspired by QM, but QM itself doesn't entail that everything happens.
>>>>> If you measure a variable you only get eigenvalues of that variable - not
>>>>> every possible value. If you measure it again you get the same eigenvalue
>>>>> again - not any value.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I was given to believe that the computations of the UD aren't events,
>>>> and that they simply exist within arithmetic as a logically necessary
>>>> consequence of its existence. Did I get that wrong?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I wouldn't say "wrong". It depends on whether you think "There exists
>>>> a successor of 2." implies that 3 exists. Personally I think it is a
>>>> confusion to say that a logical formula is satisfied by X is the same as
>>>> saying X exists in the ontological sense.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On the contrary, self-duplication explains the appearance of such
>>>>> indeterminacy, without adding any further assumptions.
>>>>>
>>>> Well, the existence of self-duplication, even via Everett, is a
>>>> further assumption.
>>>>
>>>> Surely the existence of duplication (rather than self-duplication)
>>>> arises from the equations? So one has self-duplication as a consequence, to
>>>> the same extent that one has it within ones own personal past? Or have I
>>>> misunderstood that too?
>>>>
>>>> (Or are you just talking about the sort of assumptions we have to
>>>> make all the time anyway?)
>>>>
>>>> Occam favors it. Your belief in "3)" substitutes a very simple
>>>>> explanation by a call to a form of built-in-non-explainable magic.
>>>>>
>>>> No more magic than a UD.
>>>>
>>>> Why is the UD magic? (Is arithmetic magic?)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It's hypothetically generating all possible worlds, but where is it?
>>>> It's in Platonia. It's "the word made flesh." Sounds a lot more magical
>>>> than "that atom decayed by potential tunneling just like the equations
>>>> say."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> In a sense, one can be more certain about arithmetical reality than
>>> the physical reality. An evil demon could be responsible for our belief in
>>> atoms, and stars, and photons, etc., but it is may be impossible for that
>>> same demon to give us the experience of factoring 7 in to two integers
>>> besides 1 and 7.
>>>
>>>
>>> But that's because we made up 1 and 7 and the defintion of factoring.
>>> Their our language and that's why we have control of them.
>>>
>>>
>> That's what Hilbert thought, but Godel showed he was wrong.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> So while Descartes could doubt physical reality, he could not doubt
>>> the "unreality of arithmetically impossible experiences".
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't think Descartes could doubt physical reality.
>>>
>>
>>
>> He did. It could have all be an illusion or a dream, as in the Matrix.
>> There is no proof that your perceptions correspond to reality any more than
>> the reality necessary to create your perceptions.
>>
>>
>> Proof is for mathematicians - and they are only relative to axioms. My
>> point is not that Descarte couldn't say he doubted reality, but that he
>> couldn't act on that doubt; he couldn't really doubt it because that makes
>> the concept of "reality" meaningless.
>>
>
>
> Maybe some people come to that conclusion, and become insane,
> nihilistic, or depressed as a result.
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Even Bruno rejects solipism and that's just doubting the reality of
>>> other people. I find it pretty easy to doubt that you can always add one
>>> more to an integer. I think 10^10^10 + 1 may well equal 10^10^10 in most
>>> contexts.
>>>
>>
>> I don't see the relevance of this to the fact that even a highly
>> doubtful person (such as Descartes or yourself :-) ), can reason that his
>> possible experiences are constrained by mathematical possibility (even if
>> all his (or your) perceptions are created by an evil demon, a dream, or the
>> matrix).
>>
>> Descartes gave up too quickly.
>>
>>
>> Indeed, all he should have concluded is "This is a thought.". "I" and
>> "am thinking" are inferences.
>>
>
> You went from "Descartes went to far" to "Descarte didn't go far enough".
>
>
> I went from what Descartes could really do to what he could have concluded
> from radical doubt.
>
>
I see.
>
>
>>
>>
>> Instead of concluding only that the only thing he could prove is that
>> "he exists", he might have reasoned further that mathematical laws exist,
>>
>>
>> Only by adopting the mathematicians idea of "exists" = "satisfies some
>> predicate".
>>
>
> I mean it in a deeper sense than that. They exist in the same way any
> physical laws exist; they limit and restrict what is possible to
> experience, they have a genuine perceptible effect.
>
>
> Indeed, physical laws tell us what to expect - but they don't restrict
> anything, rather they are restricted to agree with observation. You seem
> to have picture of a divine lawgiver who gave us the laws on golden tablets.
>
>
I believe there is a truth we search for. In both mathematics and physics,
we never get the ultimate truth, but the reality is something out there and
it is real.
There are the "true physical laws", and there is our imperfect and
incomplete conception of them.
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> and from there he could have proven the existence of the rest of the
>> universe around him.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> In that sense, arithmetic would in-part control possible experiences,
>>> and is harder to doubt than the possibility that physics is constrains
>>> experiences. Indeed, computationalism suggests this is true. An
>>> appropriately programmed computer can generate any experience that can be
>>> possibly experienced in any universe: our own "laws of physics" do not
>>> constrain our possible experience whatsoever,
>>>
>>>
>>> ?? They seem to constrain my experience of breathing under water and
>>> flying to Mars.
>>>
>>
>> Those represent constraints on physical possibilities, not experiences.
>>
>>
>> More than that, since I have not had the experiences there is no way to
>> know when a simulation would have succeeded in creating them.
>>
>
> You are just not being imaginative enough. Look at the worlds created
> in various video games for some inspiration.
>
>
> Yes, those are other possible worlds - but I only experience playing the
> game, I don't know how it would actually *feel* to fly.
>
You could know what it is feels like to actually fly, you could not
experience "actual flight" from the standpoint of it being a physically
instantiated experience, but the two could be indistinguishable as far as
you are concerned.
Jason
> I assume that's what Bruno means by 1p experience is incommunicable.
>
> Brent
>
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