On 25 May 2015, at 08:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 18 May 2015, at 02:31, Bruce Kellett wrote:
LizR wrote:
On 17 May 2015 at 11:44, Bruce Kellett
<[email protected] I can see that
computationalism might well have difficulties
accommodating a gradual evolutionary understanding of almost
anything -- after all, the dovetailer is there in Platonia
before anything physical ever appears. So how can
consciousness
evolve gradually?
This is the tired old misunderstanding of the concept of a block
universe. It's as though Minkowski never existed.
OK. Explain to me exactly how the block universe ideas work out in
Platonia.
I thought I saw an answer by Liz, but don't find it.
No, Liz only snipes from the sidelines.....she does not answer
substantive questions.
I am not sure that the "block physical universe" ideas work out in
Platonia, although block physical multiverse appearance might be
explainable by the rather canonical "all computations", which is
offered once we agree that 2+2 = 4, or any theorem of RA, is true
independently of him/her/it.
The block multiverse could well be a different concept from the
block universe of the Minkowskian understanding of special relativity.
The question arose in a discussion of the possibility of an
evolutionary understanding of consciousness. This does not, on the
face of it, appear to sit terribly easily in comp, since comp starts
from the individual conscious moment or moments, and seeks to
understand physics as somehow emergent from the statistics of all
such instantiations of this set of computations in the UD.
Comp just assumes the invariance of consciousness or first person
experience for some digital substitution. It is an assumption of "non
magic", or "non actual infinities playing some role" and it is the
default assumption of many materialist.
Then UDA is an argument showing that this leads to the necessity of
deriving physics from the math of the machine's dreams and their
theoretical computer science important redundancies.
Then a theory of consciousness is suggested, as the first person view
of consistency, as it will corroborate both the comp discourse of the
machine, and some common conscious experience (if you agree it is
undoubtable, unjustifiable, unexpressible in 3p discourses, etc.).
This does not appear to relate easily to an account of times before
and after the existence of that particular consciousness.
UDA explains the problem, and AUDA, which is UDA made so simple and
elementary that we can explain it to any (Löbian) universal machine,
and indeed, it is the machine's answer that I give.
Part of my problem is that the UD does not execute any actual
program sequentially: after each step in a program it executes the
next step of the next program and so on, until it reaches the first
step of some program, at which point it loops back to the start.
The UD does execute sequentially *each* specific program, but the UD
adds delays, due to its dovetailing duties, which we already know
(step 2) that it does not change the first person experience of the
entiuty supported by that execution.
So if the conscious moment is evinced by a logical sequence of steps
by the dovetailer, it does not correspond to any particular program,
but a rather arbitrary assortment of steps from many programs.
?
Each execution of the programs is well individuated in the UD*. You
can descrbied them by sequences
phi_i^k(j) k = 0, 1, 2, ... (with i and j fixed).
Of course, given that all programs are executed, this sequence of
steps does correspond to some program, somewhere, but not
necessarily any of the ones partially executed for generating that
conscious moment.
Yes. So what?
There is also a question as to whether this sequence of
computational steps generates one conscious moment
To be sure, I do not believe in "one conscious moment". I believe that
a person can be conscious of moment. But the consciousness of a moment
is not associated with a moment, but with an infinity of instantiation
of some relative computational state in (sigma_1) arithmetic.
-- of some shorter or longer duration (duration being in experienced
time, since the computations are timeless) -- or whether a whole
conscious life is generated by a continuous sequence of steps, or
whether the whole history of the world that contains that
consciousness (and all other conscious beings, past, present, and
future) are generated by the same (extraordinarily long) continuous
sequence of computational steps.
Good, you begin to see the problem.
If the idea is something along the lines of the latter possibility,
then the block universe might well be the result. The problem then,
of course, is that any particular consciousness will be generated an
indefinitely great number of separate times for each time this whole
universe is generated. This, of course, is the Boltzmann brain
problem, and I do not think you have adequately addressed this.
?
AUDA adressed this, and give the solution at the logical propositional
level, and indeed provide the quantization needed for having a measure
(and we got already a quantum measure).
Of course, it is a poisonous gift, as it leads to the necessary
search, for the computationalist, of a measure on the border of the
sigma_1 reality.
It is long to explain, but you might appreciate shortcuts, as the
sigma_1 arithmetical reality emulates all rational approximations
of physical equations, and so, abstracting from the (comp) measure
problem temporarily, you can make sense of relative local block
universe in that reality, as that part of the arithmetical reality
mimics the physicists block universe or universes (perhaps only
locally too).
Generating all rational approximations of physical equations is not
going to get you a block universe -- or any sort of universe, for
that matter.
The points was that it leads to a local notion of block universe,n and
that is enough for making sense of such an internal times. the goial
was not to suggest anything reasonable at all on the physical reality.
The equations of physics describe the behaviour of the physical
world, they are not that physical world -- map and territory again.
The point was that once you look at the emulation of the Milky Way
below your substitution level in arithmetic, the map has a fixed point
in the territory, and the Bruce Kellet emulated in that arithmetical
virtual Milky way, is as much conscious than the possible Bruce Kellet
who would live in some "physical reality", if that exists, which *is*
the point under scrutiny, once we assume comp.
Once you assume comp, you can no more invoke a "real" physical universe.
What we do believe (when assuming comp) is that arithmetic contains a
web of dreams, or a multi-matrices, which frome inside as a complex
structure, with indication of where the physical reality comes from
(the prediction points of view leads to coherence conditions or
glueing conditions on those dreams).
Of course such shortcuts might not have the right measure, and so
we need to use a vaster net.
My point is that if our brains or bodies are Turing emulable then
they are Turing emulated in a small part of the arithmetical
reality. The first person points of view gives an internal
perspective which is much complex, in fact of unboundable
complexity, but with important invariants too.
In the technic parts I exploit important relations between the
sigma_1 truth, the sigma_1 provable and the (with CT) intuitively
computable.
I can explain, if you want, but my feeling is that you don't like
the idea (that the aristotelian materialist dogma can be doubted),
nor does it seems you are ready to involve in more of computer
science.
But if you don't study the work, you should try to not criticize it
from personal taste only. I can't pretend liking all consequences
of comp, but that is another topic. Science is NOT wishful
thinking, a priori.
No, but I am not critical of comp because it clashes with any
particular metaphysical ideas. I am critical because I do not think
it makes sense at a deep and fundamental level
But then you have to search for what would be non Turing emulable in
the brain, and how that has been able to appear, etc.
What is your theory of mind? Are you really interested in the mind-
body problem?
-- and because it is clearly falsified by everyday observations
?
-- such as the role of the physical brain in consciousness, and the
physical explanation of that role via evolution.
The theory of evolution requires comp. The use of the physical
explanation of the brain usually use comp too.
Only people who believes that consciousness collapse the wave packet
have a problem with comp, which amplifies what they already dislike in
Everett QM. (Our loss of unicity).
Also, it is not a matter of a willingness to work through all the
details of computer science. If you cannot explain your ideas
without resorting to the sort of jargon that you typically use, the
only conclusion that I can draw is that you do not really understand
what you are talking about.
UDA is already AUDA for the novice. It is the explanation of the
problem, and also a deductive argument, showing we cannot escape it
without adding magic to the computationalist theory of mind.
I forget who it was that said something along the lines that it is
only in explaining your ideas to a novice that you ever get to
really understand them.
I have no problem with novice. Just tell me what you don't understand,
in UDA.
And in this context, I refer to comment you made in another post:
"Modal logic is the tool. Modal logic is to self-reference what
Tensor analysis is the General Relativity."
That is why there is no modal logic in the UDA.
I am a logician. I do not defend comp, nor non-comp. I explain that
comp makes physicalism (and weak materialism) non-sensical.
AUDA "just" shows that UDA can't be taken as a refutation of comp, as
both the self-referential discourse of the machine put much order on
the possibilities, but the physicists themselves already debate on the
nature of reality, in a way making sense to the consequence of comp
(the Everett way).
I think that I could quite readily explain the basic ideas and
results of general relativity to a complete novice without ever
mentioning tensor analysis: if I couldn't, I would take that as
evidence that I didn't really understand what I was trying to explain.
If you understand UDA, you get the "novice" point. For AUDA, by
construction, it has to be technical, given that AUDA is the
translation of UDA in a so simple language that all (Löbian) machine,
like PA, ZF (but not RA!) can understand.
UDA and AUDA are exactly the same thing. But UDA use the human
intuition of mechanism, to decompose the step in relatively big steps.
AUDA decomposes all steps in addition, multiplication modus ponens,
and induction (in the math sense).
Also, in science we don't need to convince the novice, but only the
courageous experts which take the time to get the idea (in an
interdisciplinany works, which is not so easy to do).
Only those not reading the work have problem with it. UDA is simple,
and AUDA is fundamentally even simpler, but tedious if you have not
yet read the original papers.
I am not sure why you patronized me on this, just ask question if you
don't understand. What I say is extraordinary ... only to people who
have the simultaneous dogma of mechanism and physicalism, or weak
materialism.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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