On 9/4/2017 2:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Sun, Sep 03, 2017 at 10:13:56PM -0700, Brent Meeker wrote:
The whole point of the the bitstrings is that they are interpreted by
something we call an observer. In the usual Comp Sci setup, there is a
reference universal Turing machine, but when talking about everything
theories, there can be no such thing - it must always be relative to
an observer. Note that this doesn't rule out that it is the
bitstrings, or some part of the bitstrings that is the observer, so
that what is happening is self-observation, so one cannot claim this
must be dualist.
But then we need some explication of how one bitstring observes
another bitstring and
why this relation is the one we would attribute to ourselves as
observing for a moment.
For a complete theory perhaps. For now, it suffices that there is an
interpreter (observer) and interpretee (data, or the bitstrings). I
was just making the point there was no need to assume that these were
two different kinds of things.
But then you need to show how they can be the same kind of thing. How
does one bitstring interpret another bitstring?
To think of a concrete model - consider Bruno's universal
dovetailer. The bitstrings are the histories that make up the
dovetailer's trace, UD* as he denotes it. An observer moment is made
up of all computations having the same trace up to that point in
time. OM are sets of things. Bruno's theory is monistic - everything
is "number stuff", showing that dualism is not a necessary condition.
But he doesn't show that. Just naming the dovetailers trace "OM"
doesn't give it all and only all the properties needed to identify it
with a bit of human experience. The identification is deficient on both
ends. Those bits of human experience are not very well defined either.
For example I think they must have duration/overlap, but others insist
on them being discrete so they can be indentified with states of a
Turing machine.
Where in the bit strings is the information that one knows? How
does a bitstring know
a different bitstring?
Information is in the constraints. If I know something or other, then
this entails that some bitstrings are compatible with my existence,
and others are not.
But as Bruce pointed out, that's a dualist model in which "you" are
different than bitstrings and you "know" things. How would some
bitstring NOT be compatible with your existence? Aren't you supposing
that all bitstrings exist?
Brent
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