On Thu, Dec 13, 2018 at 6:01 PM John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 6:13 PM Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> > An electron can change in time and space, 3 can not change in either. >>> >> >> You are ruling out the block time view, which contradicts special >> relativity. >> > > The block universe changes along the time dimension and special relativity > deals with time, but the number 3 never changes with time and has nothing > to do with it. > Then you agree that there can be an objectively static object, and that if we proceed through it in some dimension some view of it changes. How is this different from a platonic computation, along which you can view the state of the machine at individual steps? > > >> > What are particles but computations involving positional coordinates? >> > > What are computations but the descriptions of particle's motion? Particles > can do computations but computations can't do particles. > > How are the motions of "really real" particles different from the motions of particles in a simulation of particles? You believe a simulation of a conscious mind still results in consciousness, don't you? I think you are being inconsistent here. How are simulated particles different from really real particles from within the level where those particles are simulated and appear to move? > > > Change is an illusion. >> > > As we're talking about subjectivity and an illusion is subjective that > statement contains ZERO information. How would things be different if > change were not an illusion? > Because you use "math is static and can't change" as an argument against it supporting computations and consciousness. But this same argument could be leveled against the physical reality we are in. If change is an illusion, that illusion can exist within the conscious minds implemented in platonic computations as well. > > >> > Think of consecutively computed states in the Game of Life, for >> example. >> > > Bad example. There is no memory in the Game of Life, > I picked the example on purpose. Game Of Life is Turing Complete. You can build Turing Machines in the Game of Life, so you can build systems with memories that perform arbitrary processing. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My8AsV7bA94 > from within the game there is no way to know what your previous state was > because more than one previous state could produce the exact same current > state. > Likewise with out universe, as the quantum erasure experiment shows, or even just the single photon interferometer experiment. > And the Game of Life needs either a biological brain or a electronic > computer for the game to change, that is to say for it to DO anything, and > both brains and computers are made of matter and obey physics. > False, see above. You can have a non-biological, non-electronic computer built within the "physics" of the Game of Life. This computer could simulate a mind with consciousness. No electrons or photons are needed. Just a lot of gliders and glider guns, and other such structures. All built from very simple rules. > > *>They observe changes between computation states.* >> > > For me to compare my present state I need a record of it , and that means > my previous state must have somehow changed something that I can read now. > But my previous state had only numbers to work with so which number did it > change, is 3 no longer 3? All I want is for you to tell me of something > other than mass/energy that can change. > All you need to support an experience of change is a memory that contains information about an older and a more recent state. Experiencing change is the temporal equivalent of your experience of depth perception by making comparisons between two similar sets of information. Notably, this part of the brain can fail in humans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetopsia > > *> The value of a variable in a computation may change from one >> computational step to the next.* >> > > Yes, and when I make a long calculation I need a scratch pad to write down > the results of one part of it so I remember it while I work on some other > part of the calculation, but a scratch pad it made of matter and it took me > energy to write on it, but you have neither all you have to work with is > numbers; so what is your scratchpad made of and how do you change it? > > What keeps track of the fact that 2+2=4? Or any of the other infinite facts in mathematics? Mathematical truth tracks each of the states of the computation, as in the example I provided with the equation that describes the evolution of an x86 CPU processing a LISP program. > > *The mathematical truth of the valid solutions to the equations yields >> the executions of every possible LISP program at every possible time step. * >> > > No. You're simply asserting the very thing you're trying to prove. Nothing > gets executed and nothing yields anything without matter/energy. > "You're simply asserting the very thing you're trying to prove." -> "Nothing gets executed and nothing yields anything without matter/energy." How can you reach such a conclusion unless you claim to know all of reality? You are trying to use experimentalism/personal experience to do metaphysics (talk about things outside of physics). It's the wrong tool for the job, and may explain why you have been stuck for so many years. > > at every possible time step. > > > Time does not change numbers, arithmetic worked the same way in the > Jurassic as it does now. > Why should this universe be able to change any other? Do you believe everything in reality is causally connected or do you think there can be isolated domains which share no causal links? > > >> > *Its solutions yields a fractal like structure within which you would >> see the execution traces of every program, and within the patterns of the >> registers in some of those solutions, you would see evolved life >> manifesting behaviors we would ascribe to conscious beings, such as writing >> books about consciousness, and talking over e-mail lists about >> consciousness.* >> > > All that could indeed happen if the program was executed on a computer, > but it it's not all you'll see is a inert sequence of squiggles printed on > a paper that never changes and is unable to DO anything. > Define "do". > > >> If I'm in the integer 8 in the Fibonacci sequence there is no way I >>> could know that I was in the Fibonacci sequence or in a sequence of any >>> sort unless I remembered that my previous state was a 5 and the one before >>> that was a 3, but to form a memory something has to change and 3, 5 and 8 >>> never change. >>> >> >> > No, but if you were something with a memory [...] >> > > And that is exactly the problem! Pure numbers have no memory because > regardless of how you arrange them they never change in space or time. > Do you agree an execution trace of a program changes along the dimension of the program counter? > > >> > When you say "there is no way for X", might it be a failure of >> imagination? >> > > That depends on what X is. If X is a pure number then you'd better hope > nobody can change it because if they did then mathematics would not only > become useless it would be ridiculous. And without change you can't have > memory and without memory you can't make a calculation and without > calculation you can't have intelligence or consciousness. Fortunately for > us numbers can't change but one thing can, matter/energy. > > They don't though. Jason -- 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 [email protected]. 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