On 01 Jul 2016, at 17:32, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
To my ignorant brain, the very definition of matter needs, somehow,
to be precisely, described, and the same with energy.
And the same with numbers, or anything we are willing to talk about.
But we can't do that.
What we can do is agreeing on some formula about them, and thus using
what is known as axiomatic method.
This means, when we talk on fundamental question, that at some point
we have to put the hypotheses in some language which avoids all the
metaphysical baggage, even if the goal is a metaphysical theory (like
a TOE has to be).
Computationalism is a priori neutral on the idea that we have to
assume the existence of a physical reality. We have to locally assume
it, because we bet on doctors and brains and computers, which are
physical object, but we identofy ourselves to an immaterial entity,
capable of surviving a digital encodings at some level.
Then it leads to a problem, for all Turing complete theory, similar to
the "interpretation of QM problem".
Sometimes, I feel, even doing this is an impossible task. This
exchange makes me posit two questions, related, but perhaps dull-
making to the writers. Is it conceivable in the physics of what we
know, that there is some physical, hyperspace, call it Platonic,
where a computation can run?
If physicalism is right, and QM is correct, and Everett is correct, is
not the universal wave equation such a "Platonic hyperspace"?
But if computationalism is right, you need no more than the sigma_1
truth, for what will be said to exist, and the usual second-order
arithmetic, analysis, for studying the statistics of the relative
state of the sigma_1 observers, which usually will have much stronger
beliefs than the sigma_1 beliefs. (Basically "sigma_1-complete" is the
arithmetical version of Turing universal.
You need to understand what John Clark try to deny, which is that the
theory of computability, alias Recursion Theory or Theoretical
Computer Science, is a branch of mathematical logic, and it happens
that the (partial) computable set/functions can be defined by the
sigma_1 predicates. Gödel's beweisbar, []p, is itself sigma_1, and
indeed, is Turing universal. That theory can be faithfully embedded in
arithmetic. Once one universal system is fixed, machine became number
identifiable, a bit like when one coordinate system is fixed, position
becomes number identifiable.
In that frame, you can almost redefine physicalism itself, like by
saying that the physical reality is that number, + some oracle may be.
But, computationalism shows that this cannot work, the physical
computationalist bottom of the arithmetical reality seen from inside
is necessarily given by a statistic on all the infinitely many
computations going through your actual state. The only possible
constraints are the logical and self-referential one, at that level.
The physical becomes secondary: it is the border of the universal mind
when it observes itself close enough. It is not new, Parmenides,
Moderatus of Gades, Plotinus, Sri Aurobindo, and many others get close
to something like this, and logically it comes from the (antic) dream
argument.
Back to matter-energy, is a photon, or a neutrino, massless, is that
matter or energy?
Since Einstein, this is basically the same thing. Mass is sort of
condensed energy (E=mc^2). Nuclear energy is when the mass release
that energy (in stars that happens all the times).
Secondly, do virtual particles, say a photon (are photons the only
such virtual particle?), that emerge from (where?) and the re-absorb
to (where?)??
Virtual is a relative notion in QM with Everett. To get the exact
result we need to compute all path, but macroscopically, the random
phasing of the aberrant histories focuses us on the shortest path. But
that is exactly what we need to verify in arithmetic to test
computationalism. Carzily enough, at the propositional level, it works.
I ask, philosophically, because, as we say in the States, I am not
the sharpest tool in the shed. If calculation space for computations
exist,
Computations exists and are "realized", "implemented" "manifested" ...
in all the relative way in a tiny segment of arithmetic.
It seems that the physical is Turing complete, and this in many ways,
so the physical can run universal systems, and DNA, brain and
computers are examples. Is the ultimate reality physical or
arithmetical? Given that we have all computations in the sigma_1
reality, and given that a Turing machine first person view evolution
is a statistic on all computations (in arithmetic) we can test this
empirically.
The thing which should be obvious is that today we don't know, but
also that thanks to QM (without collapse) the evidence are for the
numbers dream.
where physically, might such a "phase space" exist, or is this
metaphor?
It has to be a metaphor, or you need to define it, plausibly
mathematically. It seems to me you are pointing on the Hilbert space.
With computationalism, you need only to assume the natural numbers
together with the laws of addition and multiplication.
I imagine gigantic super machines whirring away somewhere in my
mythical hyperspace, waiting for humans to use AI to develop the
technology to contact them. This, is known as Fantasy, gibberish,
and my favorite science fiction. Hey! This is how I function.
Have you read Daniel B. Galouye. In Simulacron III the heroine got the
main computationalist logical point.
Of course the hero dismissed it at once, and (only) mocked it,
anticipating the common easy deny.
I am having enough trouble learning and memorizing computer
networking, let, alone, join discussions of the Cosmos, yet, here I
write.
I think you are still a bit physicalist "a priori". You might need to
buy at least one book in logic and computability, to understand at
least one example of a science which do not rely on any physical
assumption, and is reducible to precise computable *and* non
computable natural number relations. Church thesis rehabilitates a
precise form of neopythagoreanism.
In that case, there is no space at all, just numbers and numbers
relations defining internal dreams. The math confirms that some
sharable stable dreams can cohere enough to be like physically real to
*many* (dreaming) machines/numbers.
You can call that the "many-dream" interpretation of arithmetic, but
the point is that if you assume computationalism (alais digital
mechanism), you can't avoid it without adding a non Turing emulable
element in the brain, for which we lack evidence.
Bruno
-----Original Message-----
From: Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
To: everything-list <[email protected]>
Sent: Thu, Jun 30, 2016 10:54 am
Subject: Re: The search of truth
On 26 Jun 2016, at 00:04, John Clark wrote:
Forget the "primary" crap. Matter is needed for the existence of
computations period.
No, matter is needed locally to make a calculation relative to you
in the physical reality.
But the relative computations exist, provably so in any sigma_1
complete theory.
Good, as the existence and explanation of the physical reality
appearances relies on those computations existing in arithmetic.
You begin again to just repeat nonsensical slogan. I will (try) to
not answer them, as they have all already been answered.
You say you are not religious, but you systematically argue like a
dogmatic priest from an institutionalized religion.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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