On 08 Feb 2016, at 19:34, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
>> I just have to make something that behaves as my original
biological brain did because none of the atoms in my brain have the
name "John K Clark" scratched on them. One Hydrogen atom is as
good as another.
> of course. But you need your actual brain to continue.
That depends on what "actual brain" means. You need the
information that was in your biological brain to be implemented in
something physical so that it behaves in the same way, but it
makes no difference if the physics is done in biology or electronics
or tinker toys.
Or in Robinson Arithmetic, given that it provides a Turing complete
environment: whatever digital process you can emulate with one
universal system can be emulate with any other one, and all universal
dovetailer executions are provably emulated through the sigma_1 true
relations.
The only shocking thing is that the reality is static, but that
difficulty is the difficulty to conceive any "block-view of reality".
If something "physical" is at play, it has to be non Turing emulable
so as to make a difference from its arithmetical implementation (in
the sense of Church-Turing-Post-Kleene-...) in arithmetic, but the the
burden of the proofs is on your side (weak materialism).
You need to have a theory of matter, and which is such that it makes
possible a behavior which is not Turing emulable, to make the physical
capable of selecting the consciousness, which is no more Turing
supported.
>> I like the Many Worlds Interpretation and think it's
superior to any competing interpretation that I know of, but I'm
not so confident it's correct that I'd bet my life on it. Bruno,
I know you're certain
> No. I have no certainty, and I have never expose any of my
opinions on this. It is private matter.
If you're willing to entertain the possibility that maybe just
maybe your philosophy is wrong then don't you think it might be
wise to have a plan B insurance policy? Cryonics could be that
insurance policy.
I keep my philosophy secret. It is none of your business.
I show that Mechanism and Materialism are incompatible with
rationalism/Occam. Then I show that Mechanism restores the
*appearances* of matter. Physics per se does not really handle the
conscious part of the appearances.
>> if you're right (and I don't think you are) and physical
implementation is unnecessary and the mere existence of a Godel
number can create intelligence and consciousness then all those bad
things are going to happen to you regardless of if a human or
anything else plugs your Godel number into a physical computer.
> Nope. You need to take into account the *relative*
probabilities. What you decide to do augment or diminish the
probability of the possible happenings.
Are you right and the existence of the Godel number of a mind
OK but this can be misinterpreted. The Gödel number is of the brain:
it is any third person description of some instantaneous state of the
brain at some correct substitution level, which exists by assumption,
but that no machine can claim to know-as-sure).
is sufficient to guarantee its existence,
The mind and soul are not attached to the Gödel number/program, but
through the trueness of (infinities of) arithmetical relations that it
has with respect to some other universal numbers (indeed an infinities
below its substitution level: which is "confirmed" intuitively by the
MW, and formally by the math of self-reference).
Claiming there is a special one, and calling it physical, does not
help. In this frame, it is using the God "Matter" just to hide a gap
of explanation (with respect to the 1p/3p relation problem).
or are you wrong and the number needs to be implemented in physics?
It needs to be implemented in some Turing universal reality. Physics
or some tiny portion of the arithmetical reality.
Then it is easier to explain the conscious appearances of physics in
arithmetic, than the conscience appearances of arithmetic in physics.
If you're right and it's sufficient then cryonics is wasted effort
doing no good but doing no harm either. However if you're wrong then
cryonics could save your life. Do you really want to bet your life
that you're right?
No, the probably is contingently higher things go wrong when you give
the codes to humans, if you look at what humans are capable of, than
trusting nature and perhaps arithmetic in the dying process. The
relative probability of "shit happens" are different. But I have no
certainty in the matter, and I don't want to discourage you in your
enterprise.
>>> there are much simplest and safe ways to be
"immortal", in my *opinion* (like perhaps smoking salvia divinorum,
>> Well it's simple I'll give you that, the active ingredient
in salvia divinorum has only 23 Carbon atoms 28 Hydrogen atoms
and 8 Oxygen atoms, but I don't see how a arrangement of matter
that simple could make you immortal.
> It can help some people to understand that the idea that we
have primitively material brain is hypothetical.
And yet a primitive material consisting of only
23 Carbon atoms 28 Hydrogen atoms and 8 Oxygen atoms will produce
that understanding.
Not with the computationalist theory of mind. The Carbon and hydrogen
are only used to implement an higher level of computation. You said it
yourself above. The understanding is in the relevant relations between
those atoms, but if they can be digitalized and emulate by a computer,
they are, out of time and space, emulated by a tiny part of the
semantic of Robinson arithmetic, that is through the truth of some
(infinitely many) arithmetical relations.
This is the part some people find the most astonishing, and it is the
part where I have been asked often to avoid explaining as it is well
known (by mathematical logicians).
If physical implementation is not needed for consciousness then
why does this simple molecule have such a profound effect on
consciousness?
Perhaps because that molecule imitates the action of some key endogen
molecules, perhaps used in state of intense stress or difficultly.
Once you are implemented through molecules and chemistry, there is
nothing strange that some molecules produces such effects. That is
independent of the question if the molecules and atoms emerges from
infinities of immaterial computations or not. That is what I show to
be testable.
> It can help to doubt Aristotle theology
To hell with Aristotle and to hell with theology and
to hell with all ancient Greek philosophers!
Not at all. They are very important. Science is born including the
spiritual/theological inquiries. You neglect the progress from
Pythagorus to Damascius, which have played a role in the birth and
development of science. You want that theology remains in the hands of
those who will stolen the theology, which is not a so bad idea, but
which they will frozen, and mix it with fairy tales to exploit the
fear of people.
You do seem to have a theology, with apparently zero person-god, and
one non-person god (primary matter, the object, not of physics, but of
metaphysical physicalism).
I am neutral on this and just show constructively that digital
mechanism entails that physics is part of the machine canonical
theology, and that it makes such theology empirically testable.
It fits indeed rather well, and so give some evidence in favor of the
immaterial theology of the neopythagorean and the neoplatonists who
got similar idea by self-introspection. No miracle given that all
universal machine, enough correct/honest find it. Gödel and Post saw
already the embryo of this.
> which is needed to believe that when the brain stop
functioning physically, you die in some absolute way.
It's not theology if there is experimental evidence that it's true
and in this case there is. When anesthesia enters your brain
it stops working and your thoughts stop too until the
anesthesia wears off and your brain starts up again; If a
bullet enters your brain it will stop working too and it is
reasonable to hypothesize your thought's will also,
but in this case the bullet never wears off and instead your brain
rots away and never starts up again. If death means having a last
thought (and I don't know what else it could mean) then the
bullet has caused your death.
Only where the bullet has been shoot, but no everywhere else in
arithmetic or in a multiverse.
you argument show only that we can associate consciousness to a
computation implemented relatively to you only. Not that we should not
associate consciousness to the similar computation except the bullet
did not go through.
You are again confusing the 1p logic and the 3p logic. You can't use
that argument to claim the other continuations have no consciousness.
> salvia can help to conceive and understand some points
capable of making you into shaking prejudices or unconscious dogma.
I'm sure that drug will make people feel like they're smarter
No, you feel infinitely more dumber that you could have imagine, as
you don't even remember the meaning of "remembering", you get about
100% amnesic of whatever you know here, and remind something very
familiar yet utterly strange at least conceived from here. If you
remember your life, you think at it like it was an hallucination.
but are they really smarter or are they just fooling themselves?
it shows some possible state of consciousness you were not normally
aware of, or that you thought only amenable by serious fasting or more
dangerous brain perturbation methods.
In that sense you are smarter, like someone capable of reminding
dreams compared to someone who cannot. You learn something about what
a brain can do, at the least, and you learn to doubt some prejudices
about the mind-body relation. But here logic is enough for that.
I propose a test. Have 10 programmers of equal ability independently
code for the same problem, give 5 of them salvia and give no drug to
the other 5. Then have a double blind impartial panel judge the
quality of the 10 programs giving them a grade between 0 and 100. Do
you think the control group or the salvia group would get the higher
grade? I know where I'd put my money.
Me too, no problem. Salvia does not change your state. It is like a
dream, but a very special one. It lasts 4/8minutes, and you feel well
after, although many can be shocked in case they believe in total
control or have some solid metaphysical prejudices. Most people are
not lucid in that dream, the first thing that you forget is that you
have taken salvia. And if you remember it, you don't believe in it,
you feel like waking up of a dream. It short but very intense, and
needs to be done with some sober friend in the neighborhood. True or
not you feel to literally leave this reality for something you could
not have conceived even to be imaginable. I do not pretend it confirms
computationalism and its consequences. It surely gives more problem to
solve. It seems crazy at first sight that some part of such an
experience can be memorized.
Bruno
John K Clark
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