> On 21 Aug 2018, at 21:25, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 8/21/2018 2:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> On 21 Aug 2018, at 07:56, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 8/20/2018 9:54 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 09:03:04PM -0700, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>>>> We must be looking at some different enumeration of the argument.  I have:
>>>>> 
>>>> Clearly. I was referring to the enumeration in the SANE2004 paper, which 
>>>> is kind of canonical:
>>> OK. I also have the SANE paper.
>>> 
>>>> 7) The seventh step introduces the Universal Dovetailer (UD). Let N 
>>>> denotes the set of
>>>> natural numbers. A function from N to N is said to be total if it is 
>>>> defined on all natural
>>>> numbers. A function is said to be computable iff there is a programme 
>>>> FORTRAN which
>>>> computes it12. Church thesis (CT) makes the particular choice of FORTRAN 
>>>> irrelevant. CT
>>>> claims that all computable functions, total or not, are computed by 
>>>> algorithm expressible in
>>>> FORTRAN. In particular all total computable functions are computed by such 
>>>> FORTRAN
>>>> program...
>>> Yes I understood it introduced the UD and per the C-T inferred that all 
>>> possible computations are performed by it.
>>> 
>>> Bruno wrote,"In that case consciousness is associated with a digital 
>>> self-referential entity which cannot distinguish
>>>  a “bottom” (primary) physical reality from an arithmetical reality"
>>> 
>>> I objected, "But you didn't show that."
>>> 
>>> You responded, "This is directly the result at step 7 of the UDA. And it is 
>>> pretty much required for the Church Turing thesis to hold."
>>> 
>>> So I still don't see why the UD implies consciousness is associated with a 
>>> digital self-referential entity which cannot distinguish a “bottom” 
>>> (primary) physical reality from an arithmetical reality.
>> 
>> It is not the UD which implies this, but just the digital mechanist 
>> hypothesis. A person whose brain is in a vat, with the right configuration, 
>> cannot know that she is in a brain in a vat. Similarly, we cannot know if we 
>> are processed by something primarily physical or not. If I implement the 
>> combinators in FORTRAN or in LISP, no combinators can distinguish the two 
>> from their personal experience (that without observation). Same for the 
>> arithmetical/physical.
>> 
>> The UD is used to formulate the measure problem, not to argue that a digital 
>> machine cannot distinguish an arithmetical from a physical “master machine”, 
>> which is a direct consequence of digital mechanism.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> It seems to me like the rock that computes everything.  The UD is 
>>> effectively running every possible simulation at once
>> So to speak. The universal dovetailer has to dovetail, of course.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> and so is simulating everything at once.  Whether some thread within it 
>>> simulates you or simulates a rock on alpha centauri becomes a matter of 
>>> interpretation.
>> ? If it simulates you, you will feel to be conscious. The point will be that 
>> there is no rock which could ever be simulable by any computer, except those 
>> exloiting directly the infinities of computations below our level of 
>> substitution, like plausibly, a quantum computer.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> The computations of the UD can have no unique interpretation.
>> 
>> A computation *is* an interpretation, made by a universal machine. That is 
>> what the universal do: computation.
> 
> But that doesn't make it an interpretation. 

?

A computation is a relation between a universal machine (or machinery) making 
the universal machine interpreting a program to get some (hopefully) output 
with some input, or none.





> My wristwatch does universal computation.

You can run LISP on your wristwatch? I doubt it. Implement K and S on your 
wristwatch!





> 
>> Then with mechanism, some can be associated to consciousness, when they 
>> emulate self-referential entity.
> 
> Can you watch a running program and tell that it is emulating a 
> self-referential entity or not?


Only those I can build. To be a program computing the factorial function is 
already undecidable. 



> 
>> If curiosity is conscious on Mars, it has to be conscious in the virtual 
>> mars during its training on Earth, and it has to be conscious in arithmetic, 
>> in virtue of the same number relations.
> 
> Exactly my point.  The Mars Rover is not conscious simpliciter, it is 
> conscious of its body and its environment.  The program running on it's cpu 
> could have any interpretation; it is only its connections to the environment 
> that provide a definite interpretation. 

Yes. That is where the nuance []p & p, and []p & <>p come from. 




> The enivronment can be simulated too, but then the closed system cannot 
> provide its own interpretation.  Number relations do not of themselves 
> provide an interpretation.

Yes. Those are higher order dreams, but the physical is bound up by a sort of 
first person limit on all computations. A curious sum, no doubt.

Bruno




> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>>> 8) Yes, but what if we don’t grant a concrete robust physical universe? Up 
>>>> to this
>>>> stage, we can still escape the conclusion of the seven preceding reasoning 
>>>> steps, by
>>>> postulating that a ‘‘physical universe’’ really ‘‘exists’’ and is too 
>>>> little in the sense of not being
>>>> able to generate the entire UD*,
>>> The entire UD is infinite.  So it cannot exist in the physical universe.
>> 
>> Better to not assume a “god" when doing metaphysics; It biases the whole 
>> reasoning.The idea that seeing is the criterion of reality is the 
>> Aristotelian speculation that Plato warned us to not fall in.
> 
> Exactly.  You are assuming a UD god that is infinite.
> 
> Brent
> 
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