> On 5 Sep 2018, at 18:58, Philip Thrift <cloudver...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 9:12:49 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 5 Sep 2018, at 11:54, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com <javascript:>> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 2:28:39 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2 Sep 2018, at 21:32, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com <>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sunday, September 2, 2018 at 8:15:01 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 30 Aug 2018, at 01:04, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com <>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Wednesday, August 29, 2018 at 4:55:12 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>>>> Do you have some evidence for doubting CT?  It seems that it's 
>>>> essentially a definition of digital computation.  So you could offer 
>>>> some other definition, but it would need to be realisable. 
>>>> 
>>>> Brent 
>>>> 
>>>> On 8/29/2018 12:12 PM, Philip Thrift wrote: 
>>>> > also thought by some in what I call the UCNC gang 
>>>> 
>>>> Also thought WHAT? 
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> In terms of theory, Joel David  Hamkins  @JDHamkins 
>>>> <https://twitter.com/JDHamkins>   (the set-theorist now at Oxford) 
>>>> considers infinite-time TMs to be a part of "computation":
>>>> 
>>>>                 http://jdh.hamkins.org/ittms/ 
>>>> <http://jdh.hamkins.org/ittms/>
>>>> 
>>>> If computation is the fundamental "substrate" of nature, and  ITTMs are 
>>>> "natural" extensions of TMs, there is no reason to exclude ITTMs.
>>>> 
>>> I have explained in this list, and in my papers, that Church’s thesis (with 
>>> Mechanism) entails that matter and nature are non computable. Elementary 
>>> arithmetic realise/emulate all computations, and physics is reduced into a 
>>> statistic on all computations, which is not something a priori computable. 
>>> If mechanism is refuted some day, it will be by showing that nature is “too 
>>> much computable”, not by showing that nature is not computable. Mechanism 
>>> in cognitive science is incompatible with Mechanism in physics. Now, it 
>>> could be that the only not computable things is just a random oracle, but 
>>> this does not change the class of computable function. It would change the 
>>> class of polynomial-time computable function, as we suspect nature do, but 
>>> that confirms mechanism which predicts this.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> But what does the presence of ITTMs  mean for the CT thesis? Whether ITTMs 
>>>> are "realizable" remains to be seen.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> The CT thesis identifies human intuitively computable functions with 
>>> functions programmable on a computer. It is a priori neutral on what the 
>>> physical reality can compute. With mechanism, CT entails the existence of 
>>> non emulable phenomena by computer “in real time”.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> In terms of practice, UCNC people think that computers made with 
>>>> non-standard materials, e.g. "live" bioware produced by synthetic biology, 
>>>> could have novel computational (behavioural) abilities not equivalently 
>>>> replicable in a simulation.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Quantum computer can emulate some piece of matter more quickly than a 
>>> classical computer. But that was a prediction of mechanism. You can read 
>>> the basic explanation in my paper here if interested. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> B. Marchal. The Origin of Physical Laws and Sensations. In 4th 
>>> International System Administration and Network Engineering Conference, 
>>> SANE 2004, Amsterdam, 2004.
>>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html 
>>> <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html>
>>>  (sane04)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The key notion if the “first person indeterminacy” which is just the fact 
>>> that if we are machine, we are duplicable, and duplicated in arithmetic, 
>>> and whatever we predict about our first person experience is indeterminate 
>>> on the set of all computations (in arithmetic) which go through our local 
>>> and actual state of mind (that is: an infinity). Physicalism is refuted 
>>> with mechanism, and becomes a branch of machine psychology, or better 
>>> machine theology (the study of the non provable true propositions).
>>> 
>>> I am just know writing a post on why Church’s thesis is a quasi-miracle in 
>>> mathematics and epistemology. In particular it entails the incompleteness 
>>> phenomenon, from which we can derive mathematically the physical laws. That 
>>> makes Mechanism testable, and indeed, we recover already the quantum 
>>> logical core of the formalism.
>>> 
>>> Bruno
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> This is very interesting. (I've written about the irreducibility of 
>>> "matter" to physics, e.g.,
>>> [ https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/06/20/materialism-vs-physicalism/ 
>>> <https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/06/20/materialism-vs-physicalism/> 
>>> ].)
>> 
>> 
>> I will take a look, but feel free to explain the basic. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Do you see what role a "multiverse perspective of mathematical truth" could 
>>> play in your theory?
>>> 
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_David_Hamkins#Philosophy_of_set_theory 
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_David_Hamkins#Philosophy_of_set_theory>
>>> https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4223 <https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4223>
>>> 
>> 
>> I am not sure why you say that the the universe of set is well defined. To 
>> be franc, although I am realist on arithmetic, I am not for set theory, nor 
>> analysis, second ordre arithmetic.
>> 
>> Most set theories that I know are first order theory, ans thus they have 
>> infinitely many non-isomorphic models, including enumerable one. A problem 
>> here is that we call set theory, well set theory or theory of sets, when we 
>> should say “theory of universes” (in the math sense of universes of set), if 
>> we use “of” like in theory of groups, or we should call “theory of groups” a 
>> theory of vectors, or a theory of transformation. That gives the feeling 
>> that set theory admit one clear model, but it has many. Arithmetic also has 
>> many non-isomorphic models, but most people agree on a notion of standard 
>> model, which lacks for set. Also, there are many set theories, which all 
>> have different models, but quite different theorems too. In Quine set theory 
>> (New Foundations, NF), the universes can belong to themselves, which is not 
>> the case in Zermelo-Fraekel of Von Neuman Bernays Gödel set theories. That 
>> is a reason why I prefer to put “set theory” in the catalog of the mind of 
>> the universal machine looking at itself.
>> 
>> Once we postulate Mechanism, the “cardinality” of the mathematical 
>> "universe" becomes undecidable, and it is simpler to use enumerable models. 
>> In fact, the standard model of arithmetic is already too much big, and we 
>> can decide to postulate only the “sigma_1 truth”, or the “PI_1 truth”, that 
>> is the truth of the proposition having the shape ExP(x,y) with P decidable 
>> (and their negations). That is, we need only the notion of computation 
>> (which provably exists in any Sigma_1 complete (= Turing universal) theory. 
>> We do get a constructive “multiverse” of some sort, which I call Universal 
>> Dovetailer. It is a program which generates all programs, and executes them 
>> all, in a dovetailed way, pieces by pieces to avoid being stuck in non 
>> terminating computations (something that I have just explained to be non 
>> predictable in advance). From this I have extracted the mathematics of a 
>> physical multiverse, but that structure is phenomenological: it exist only 
>> in the mind of the machines (naturally implemented in arithmetic). Physics 
>> becomes a statistics on computations, and the math fit well with some 
>> version of Quantum Mechanics, until now.
>> 
>> More on this later, very plausibly. 
>> 
>> Bruno
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On the reduction of all matter to physics:
>> 
>> I consider "all matter" to include everything studied by natural sciences: 
>> physics, chemistry, biology, etc. I cite in some of my Notes* the concept 
>> that there may be "laws" of chemistry (or biology) that cannot be "reduced" 
>> to "laws" of physics.
>> 
>> * e.g.   87. Backward and Downward!
>> https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/backward-and-downward/ 
>> <https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/backward-and-downward/>
>> (the references there  to "downward causation")
>> 
>> There is another term:  Incommensurability of the sciences
>> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incommensurability/ 
>> <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incommensurability/>
>> http://depa.fquim.unam.mx/sieq/Documentos/floresgallegosgarritzgarciaincommensurabilityse2007.pdf
>>  
>> <http://depa.fquim.unam.mx/sieq/Documentos/floresgallegosgarritzgarciaincommensurabilityse2007.pdf>
>> 
>> The idea is that the spectrum of matter (from particles to people) has a 
>> spectrum of laws.
>> 
>> 
>> On a (computational) universal dovetailer and its relationship to conscious 
>> matter: worth finding out more.
> 
> 
> I can explain that IF we assume that the brain or the body is Turing 
> emulable, then everything can be reduced to arithmetic. Note that arithmetic 
> is not a computable thing (the computable part of arithmetic is a very tiny 
> part of arithmetic). It makes machine theology becoming the fundamental 
> science. In particular physics and the natural science get reduced to 
> “machine theology”, and this has been proven constructively: so that physics 
> is deducible from arithmetical self-reference. That makes mechanism testable 
> by comparing the physics deducible from theology with the physics inferred 
> from observation. This works (until now), where physicalism does not work (as 
> most people grasping the mind)body problem are more or less aware since long).
> 
> I can agree that there is a spectrum of laws, that is the natural case in 
> computer science. To understand a brain by studying neurons cannot work. It 
> would be like trying to understand Big Blue strategy to win Chess game by 
> studying the electronic gates. That might explain how some strategy is 
> implemented, but that will not put light on which strategy is used.
> 
> I am skeptical on (primary) matter. That is not used in physics, only in 
> metaphysics, and its use is more like the use of God in some theologies: to 
> prevent the search of theories and make people stopping asking question. 
> 
> What is matter? If I may ask? What are your evidence for all is matter? And 
> are you open to the mechanist theory of mind? (The idea that there is no 
> magic operating in a brain, or the idea that we could survive with a digital 
> brain transplant, obtained by copying it at some level of description). 
> Mechanism is my working hypothesis, and it makes primary matter very 
> doubtful. We get a simpler explanation of both mind and matter-appearances 
> without it, as matter, nor a god, can select a computation in arithmetic.
> 
> The notion of computation is a purely mathematical (arithmetical) notion. It 
> should not be confused with the notion of physical computation, which will 
> appear to be a very special case, observable by the average universal 
> (digital) machine/number from inside arithmetic.
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have mainly followed the perspective of the late Turing scholar S. Barry 
> Cooper
> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._Barry_Cooper ]:
> 
> Incomputability after Alan Turing
> [ https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.6363 ]

I appreciate very much Barry Cooper. He invited me at one of the European 
Meeting on Computability (CiE).
It is there that I prenseted my Plotinus paper (accessible on my URL frontage).



> 
> Basically: We don't know the full nature of physical [ that is, material ] 
> computation.

OK. But Feynman and Dutch, like Landauer and Bekenstein did great advances. Of 
course many great questions remain unsolved.



> Corollary: We don't know the full nature of matter.

I can explain in all details that “matter” (in its usual occidental sense of 
primary substance) does not make sense once we postulate (Digital) Mechanism. 
To put it simply: matter do not exist. There is no physical universe, … or 
Mechanism is false, but there are no evidence for that. On the contrary, modern 
physics sides more and more with the immaterialist theology/metaphysics. The 
more we observe nature, the more we guess the deep mathematical reality at its 
origin.




> 
> Computation without matter, even though we don't know completely what matter 
> is (like Kant's noumenon) remains a ghostly entity,

Here I disagree. Unless you mean that 2+2=4 is a ghostly truth (in which case I 
invite you to convince my taxe inspector!
The (arithmetical) notion of computation is a astonishingly clear mathematical 
notion thanks to Church thesis. It admit an infinity of apparently very 
different definitions, yet they can be shown equivalent, and indeed equivalent 
to very simple definition of them, like I illustrate with the combinators. It 
is a unique fact in the history of mathematics: an epistemological (computable) 
notion which get a precise mathematical (even arithmetical) definition. I am as 
sure about the existence of computations than I am about the existence of prime 
numbers. I am less sure of Mechanism, but then that is why I proposed an 
experimental testing procedure, and as I said, physics confirms Mechanism (up 
to now at least, thanks mainly to quantum-mechanics-without-collapse).




> one where there is no real experientiality (like the pleasure of eating a 
> candy bar).

On the contrary, the logic of self-reference explains both qualia and quanta, 
and link them without using the brain-mind identity thesis, which has been 
debunked in the frame of Mechanism. Why would there be no real experience, and 
how could you know that? Yet, your position might be coherent: if matter exist 
and play a role in consciousness, then we cannot be digital machine, and there 
must be actual infinities in nature. But that seems rather speculative, given 
the absence of evidence for both actual infinite in Nature, and the evidences 
for mechanism (Darwin theory of evolution uses mechanism quasi explicitly, for 
example).

So, you would not accept a digital brain transplant (in theory, in practice me 
too!). That seems to me like invoking something more complex that what we want 
to explain, to avoid searching an explanation. Matter is a speculative 
hypothesis in metaphysics without evidences, and which hides more the problem 
than clarifying it, I think. I prefer to assume Mechanism, and see if we are 
lead to absurdity or to facts contradicted by nature. But the most startling 
fact predicted by Mechanim, —the fact that physics is a statistic on many 
computations is somehow confirmed by Quantum Mechanics (without collapse). Then 
it took me 30 years to confirms this mathematically (using the self-reference 
logics of Gödel, Löb and Solovay).

Bruno.




> 
> 
> - Philip Thrift
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>.
> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 
> <mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>.
> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list 
> <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout 
> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Reply via email to