On 14 Mar 2014, at 21:40, [email protected] wrote:
On Friday, March 14, 2014 8:26:47 PM UTC, [email protected] wrote:
On Friday, March 14, 2014 5:21:05 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 14 Mar 2014, at 16:18, [email protected] wrote:
On Sunday, March 9, 2014 6:32:08 PM UTC, Brent wrote:
On 3/9/2014 12:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 08 Mar 2014, at 06:16, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/7/2014 8:26 PM, LizR wrote:
On 8 March 2014 08:14, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 3/7/2014 1:24 AM, LizR wrote:
On 7 March 2014 18:29, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 3/6/2014 9:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
A related question is, is there any such thing as true randomness at
all? Or is every case of true randomness an instance of FPI?
Or is FPI just a convoluted way to pretend there isn't true
randomness?
If one assumes QM and the MWI are correct then it isn't pretending,
True; but I don't assume that.
Since your original statement above only makes sense in some context
- which you haven't revealed, as far as I can tell - perhaps you
could tell us what you are assuming?
I'm not assuming anything, I'm just pointing out that one could
assume something different than QM and MWI. For instance, start
with MWI but then suppose that at each "branching" only one instance
of you continues. Doesn't that accord with all experience?
Like Ptolemeaus epicycles. The point is to accord with the simplest
theories we have for most if not all experiences, like QM, or
computationalism.
At each "branching" only one instance of you continue, you say, but
that does not accord well with the simplest explanation of the two
slits experience. You will have to explain why the superpositions
act in the micro and not the macro, and this needs big changes in QM
(= SWE), or even bigger to computationalism.
But you have to explain this anyway; except the question is
transformed into why do I only experience one reality. Presumably
the answer is in decoherence and the off-diagonal terms of the
density matrix becoming very small (or maybe even zero). Once you
have this answer then you can look at the density matrix, as Omnes
does, and say, "QM is a probabilistic theory, so it predicts
probabilities. What did you expect?"
My point is that these sharp questions are asked of QM because it is
a mature theory with lots of very accurate predictions, but "comp"
as a new speculative theory kind of gets a free ride
hear hear. And MWI.
Frankly, to me comp seems less speculative than any form of non-
comp, especially if it relies on the faith in primitive matter.
Then QM-without-collapse, which is just MWI as far as we agree to
not play with words, seems to me less speculative than QM-with-
collapse.
Comp is a theory of mind, it is a weak form of what most people take
granted in the cognitive sciences. It is a quasi assumption of
"absence of magic". Non comp is either non intelligible or invoke
actual infinities.
Then the TOE eventually postulates only non negative integers and +
and *, which is a subtheory of many other theories in used everyday.
Comp might be false, and if Z1* departs from QM, I might really
begin to believe that comp is false (finding not plausible the
simulation move, ... nor do I find plausible that the classical
definition of "knowledge" is inaccurate (S4)).
Until then, I would say that asserting that comp is false or already
refuted, requires an extraordinary evidence.
UDA should be perhaps understood as a (failed) refutation of comp,
as it seems to predict an inflation of "self-superposition" in
infinitely many histories.
This fails, because
1) our best actual very good (indeed) theory, QM, makes practically
no sense, without a similar inflation of self-superposition.
2) taking into account self-correctness imposes a quantum like
structure on the way universal machines can view themselves in the
picture, so we have to do the math before concluding arithmetic
inflates too much.
Now, if you have a genuinely non-comp theory to offer, I am all ears.
Bruno
I don't look at it like that. There's a lot we see things
differently about. For example in our discussions about comp, you've
persistently interpreted what I have said solely in terms of your
own theory. Which is understandable because your view is that
science, in context of one person relating a theory to another
person, seeking take-up, operates by that other person accepting the
terms of that theory as the starting point, as standard.
The reason you probably think that is because your starting points
enjoy a consensus in the field you work in, and among those
proximate to you. Like most others here on this list.
But that isn't the true starting point for the scientist, but
instead a special case of the starting point defined by whatever the
shared position is at the outset. The true starting point is to look
at the field, or its components, at a high level and assess first
whether the construction of the starting position of the theory, is
properly supported in hard science. Or is it pregnant with
unhandled, unsupported assumptions.
It's not necessary to learn that much up front, if it is possible to
simply ask what the assumptions are in simple terms, and whether and
what extent they are supported. This, is not actually about the
assumptions themselves, but the methodological approaches to their
assembly. It's acceptable in science to have unsupported
assumptions, but the way this is managed is by compensating for the
knowledge gap, methodologically by hardening that end up. So to
balance.
That's the way it has always been done, in the threads of science
that went on to be most influential and transformative. The
Popperian view is not all wrong, but it has a blind spot for this
sort of translation between hard knowledge and methodology. For
example, a central claim - of Popper or the Deutsch led neo-
Popperian view, is that everything starts with an explicit, well
detailed explanation.
This is what you ask for above. A competing explanation. The Popper
view has to require this, because it's only with a non-vague,
explicit set of claims, that the Popper conception of criticism can
fire into action. Whether it takes place internally in our minds, or
as a collaboration. And of course the Popper explanation of
objective knowledge is the outcome of sequences of conjecture
refutation events, that via rational memes acquire a version of
natural selection which drives evolution of knowledge.
Within this, there's the principle of fallibalism, that objectively
true statements must be assumed impossible, for the simple reason we
don't know for sure which parts are objective and which aren't. It's
possible to stumble on an objectively true statement, but how would
we know? It's the process of C&R that resolves the matter. And for
that we need explicit claims about the world that can be criticized.
All which is fine. But implicitly or otherwise, the assumption
becomes that objectively true statements are impossible to make.
And that isn't true. Popperianism sits at one end of a spectrum of
possibilities, that is traversable methodologically via exchanges
between certainty and usefulness. To the Popperian, suggestion of
this is irrelevant because how can something that isn't useable -
like something vague - have value. it can't be criticized, so
knowledge cannot be evolved.
But in fact, the other end of the spectrum, where objectively true
statements are possible, can be made useful by methodological
translation. The starting principle is that we can make an
objectively true statement just so long as we *deliberately* make
sure it contains no useful information, in and of itself. We make
this worthwhile by translating all the same principles to their
equivalent form at that end of the spectrum.
For example, instead of overt content-rich claims, we now have
constraints. A vague, objectively true but useless,
statement......paired to another vague, objectively true but useless
statement, may in some cases have implications when taken together.
That don't tell us anything about the world in terms of its
properties. But do constrain the possible range of properties that
can be true.
I'm talking about the tautology. The truism. The trivially true. I'm
talking about what is historically, overwhelming, the starting point
of what goes on to be successful science. Or one part of the
successful formula.
It's a part Popperianism excludes from itself. The reality of this -
just the fact it is incontrovertibly true as a historical fact -
leads to worse implications for Popperianism. For their response
would be "so what, there is no static Popperian view, but only the
conjectural. Criticism will sort it out".
But the question of whether there has been criticism of this
shortcoming is not philosophical, but historical. It never happened.
Despite the fact Science - its actual history which we can look at
retrospectively in terms of what work came to define the scientific
view and knowledge it contained - is unequivocal the starting points
were always the way I mention. Despite that, the criticism and
correction never arrived. Why? I think its because they lost the
conceptual distinctions that would be necessary upfront to think
coherently about the issue.
Done right, objective statements can be made, or maximized in their
objectivity, by ensuring by design, no useful information can be
taken away from them. Two of them together, properly paired (i.e.
not just any two) can have useful information when considered
together, and that useful information will inherit the quantity of
being maximally objectively true.
That's the construction of, say, Darwin's natural selection.
Individually useless, but objectively maximal statements are made,
and properly paired up. Taken together they have implications, that
lead on to an insight of natural selection. Such insights have a
special property that we intuitively recognize. The property is that
they seem to prove themselves by their very definition.
In fact the natural selection example, piles on further problems for
Popper, because seen this way, poppers own interpretation of natural
selection - that is fundamental to his whole theory, is drawn into
question. Very serious questions. But that's another story and I
already digress too far.
So back to the matter of comp, now in terms of the importance of
method, method now hopefully tentatively established as a powerfully
important component, that goes way beyond the boilerplate formulas
for what is 'science' currently in play.
I've asked questions about method. You have not answered them. You
say you have been trying to understand me. I believe you have been
trying. But what you haven't been doing, is trying to understand me
at all. Evidence? Well, is there a single instance in all our
discussion where you say "ok, so is this what you mean? I can see
what you are thinking. OK, I don't agree, but let's work this
through on your terms, and I believe we can do that , because I
believe the science is robust. Let's do that, and through doing
that, let us take that slightly scenic view together, off the beaten
track; walk with me and I'll escort you back to where I am already.
Because there are many paths, but only one landscape."
Or words to that effect.
And I get it, that you don't understand what I am thinking, and
there's likely a consensus around that too, that I'm not being
coherent.
Well, thanks for answering for me. I might indeed have some difficulty
seeing your point here. Usually I prefer to separate philosophical
analysis from the technical points. That is why I separate also
completely the question of the truth of comp and its consequences from
the question as to know if comp does lead to such consequences.
And I'm accommodating that and answering that, above. How could you
get what I'm asking while cloaked in the Popperian view as true.
I don't feel so much cloaked in the Popperian view. It has been been
refuted by John Case, notably (showing that Popper was doing science
in his own term, paradoxically).
I certainly don't believe anything in the sense of believing it true.
I prefer to just make clear the assumptions, and reason from there,
until I found a contradiction.
One of the thing I want to illustrate is that we can tackle
"philosophical" or "theological" questions with the same rigor than in
math or physics, once we choose the hypothesis making that possible.
Computationalism is such an hypothesis. It is a lamp and I search the
key under that lamps, because it is too much dark elsewhere.
Bruno
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