On Fri, Apr 19, 2019, at 11:21, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> On 18 Apr 2019, at 15:36, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, at 18:45, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>>> On 17 Apr 2019, at 08:08, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, at 05:03, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 4/16/2019 6:10 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019, at 03:44, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: >>>>>>> You seem to make self-reference into something esoteric. Every Mars >>>>>>> Rover knows where it is, the state of its batteries, its instruments, >>>>>>> its communications link, what time it is, what its mission plan is. >>>>>> >>>>>> I don't agree that the Mars Rover checking "it's own" battery levels is >>>>>> an example of what is meant by self-reference in this type of >>>>>> discussion. The entity "Mars Rover" exists in your mind and mine, but >>>>>> there is no "Mars Rover mind" where it also exists. The entity "Telmo" >>>>>> exists in your mind and mine, and I happen to be an entity "Telmo" in >>>>>> whose mind the entity "Telmo" also exists. This is real self-reference. >>>>>> >>>>>> Or, allow me to invent a programming language where something like this >>>>>> could me made more explicit. Let's say that, in this language, you can >>>>>> define a program P like this: >>>>>> >>>>>> program P: >>>>>> x = 1 >>>>>> if x == 1: >>>>>> print('My variable x s holding the value 1') >>>>>> >>>>>> The above is the weak form of self-reference that you allude to. It >>>>>> would be like me measuring my arm and noting the result. Oh, my arm is x >>>>>> cm long. But let me show what could me meant instead by real >>>>>> self-reference: >>>>>> >>>>>> program P: >>>>>> if length(P) > 1000: >>>>>> print('I am a complicated program') >>>>>> else: >>>>>> print('I am a simple program') >>>>>> >>>>>> Do you accept there is a fundamental difference here? >>>>> >>>>> I take your point. But I think the difference is only one of degree. In >>>>> my example the Rover knows where it is, lat and long and topology. That >>>>> entails having a model of the world, admittedly simple, in which the >>>>> Rover is represented by itself. >>>>> >>>>> I would also say that I think far too much importance is attached to >>>>> self-reference. It's just a part of intelligence to run "simulations" in >>>>> trying to foresee the consequences of potential actions. The simulation >>>>> must generally include the actor at some level. It's not some mysterious >>>>> property raising up a ghost in the machine. >>>> >>>> With self-reference comes also self-modification. The self-replicators of >>>> nature that slowly adapt and complexify, the brain "rewiring itself"... >>>> Things get both weird and generative. I suspect that it goes to the core >>>> of what human intelligence is, and what computer intelligence is not >>>> (yet). But if you say that self-reference has not magic property that >>>> explains consciousness, I agree with you. >>> >>> >>> You need some magic, but the magic of the truth of “2+3=5” is enough. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> >>>> On consciousness I have nothing interesting to say (no jokes about ever >>>> having had, please :). I think that: >>>> >>>> consciousness = existence >>> >>> >>> Hmm… That looks like God made it. Or like “it is”. >>> >>> Are you OK with the ideas that from the point of view of a conscious >>> entity, consciousness is something: >>> >>> Immediately knowable, and indubitable, (in case the machine can reason) >>> Non definable, and non provable to any other machine. >> >> I agree. Would this not also apply to the concept of "existance”? > > I am not sure what you mean by “existence” when used alone. It might be a > “professional deformation”, but to me existence is a logical quantifier, and > is not a intrinsic property.
Ok, I see. I'm not sure if the existential qualifier in predicate logic, for example, points to the same thing I mean. > > I think that may be consciousness is a fixed point of existence, in the sense > that “existence of consciousness” is equivalent with “consciousness”. > > If you are using “existence” is a more sophisticated sense, then this should > be elaborated? I'm trying to use it in the least sophisticated way possible. > > We cannot prove the existence of anything, without assuming the existence of > something. With mechanism, we have to assume the existence of numbers (or to > derive from something Turing equivalent, like I did with the combinators), so > I doubt that existence is immediately knowable, etc. Unless again, you meant > “existence of consciousness”, but then this cannot apply to define > consciousness. > > You might need to elaborate about what you mean by “existence”, when used > alone. I mean there being something rather than nothing, the universe, or multiverse, or whatever the whole cow is. > > > > > >> >>> >>> Then the mathematical theory of self-reference explains why machine will >>> conclude that they are conscious, in that sense. They will know that they >>> know something that they cannot doubt, yet cannot prove to us, or to >>> anyone. And they can understand that they can test mechanism by observation. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> >>>> Existence entails self-referential machines, self-referential evolutionary >>>> processes, the whole shebang. But not the other way around. >>> >>> Existence of the natural numbers + the laws of addition and multiplication >>> does that, and also justify what you don’t get any of that with any weaker >>> theory, having less axioms, than Robinson Arithmetic. >>> >>> We have to assume numbers if we want just define precisely what a machine >>> is, but we cannot assume a physical universe: that is the price, we have to >>> derive it from arithmetic “seen from inside”. >> >> I agree. >> >> My point is much less sophisticated. It is such a trivial observation that I >> would call it a Lapalissade. And yet, in out current culture, you risk being >> considered insance for saying it: >> >> Our first-person experience of the world is what exists, as far as we know. > > Yes, but as far as we know it for sure, we know only our own personal > experience here-and-now. We have no other certainties. OK. Right, but what I mean is that ontologies with particles at the bottom are favored these days, but there is no particular reason to prefer them to ontologies with first-person experiences at the bottom. I subscribe to John Wheeler's view that our universe is participatory. What there is is something observing itself. The third-person reality is a useful model, but perhaps it is a second-order thing. The fashionable idea of our times is that "we" are the second-order thing, not the particles. https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*v2X3sbLjk8rs-uFK. > >> Everything else is a model, including the third-person view. > > Yes. (Of course a logician would call that a theory, as a model = a reality, > like the painters used that word). It is very confusing to use these words with mathematicians... :) > >> There was no Big Bang at the same ontological level that there is a blue pen >> in my desk, because the Big Bang is nobody's experience (or is it?). > > With resect to Mechanism, the pen of he desk is similar to the Big Bang. We > believe in them from indirect evidence. It does not seem so for the pen, > because our brain make the relevant computation mostly unconsciously. For the > Big Bang, we have used much more brains (using indirectly the brain of > colleagues, Hubble, Einstein, and using telescope, making the computations > more consciously, but it is just a matter of degree. Ok, that's a good point. > >> The Big Bang is something that the machine has to answer if you ask it >> certain questions. As you say, if the machine is consistent then the big >> bang is "true" in a sense, if the macine is malevolent all bets are off. > > > Gödel proved that “consistent” is the same as having a model (in the logician > sense of reality, not a theory). So the notion of truth is always relative to > a model, the reality we are pointing too. In our local reality, there are > evidence of personal birth, star, galaxies, and the Big Bang. Now if the > logic of the material modes where contradicted by nature, that would be an > evidence that the Big Bang, and some physical stuff, is ontologically real, Ok with the rest, but I don't get this step... Telmo. > but thanks to quantum mechanics, we have the contrary evidences, which means > the Big Bang is more like a percept in some video games (which all exist in > arithmetic). Below the substitution level, mechanism predict that we can > “see” (indirectly) the presence of the infinitely many computations which > support us, and that explain the quantum from the machine’s theory of > consciousness/knowledge/observation. > > The fundamental science is theology, or metaphysics. Physics is a statistics > deducible from the logic of the first person plural view ([]p & <>t, you can > read it “p is true in all models é there is one model”): that give the > probability one for p. ([]p alone cannot work, because of the cul-de-sac > worlds where []p is vacuously true). > > The malevolent machine must be invoked, for being logically correct, even if > that can be judged non reasonable. I mean, if Z1* departs from nature > observation, it means that mechanism is false OR we are in a malevolent > simulation. But up to now, thanks to “many-world QM”, nature confirms > Mechanism, and thus indirectly the whole theory of consciousness or theology. > > Bruno > > > > > >> >> Telmo. >> >>> >>> Bruno >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> >>>> Telmo. >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Brent >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Telmo >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Whether it is "formalizable" or not would seem to depend on choosing >>>>>>> the right formalization to describe what engineers already create. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Brent >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 4/15/2019 11:28 AM, za_wishy via Everything List wrote: >>>>>>>> Hmm... the thing is that what I'm arguing for in the book is that >>>>>>>> self-reference is unformalizable, so there can be no mathematics of >>>>>>>> self-reference. More than this, self-reference is not some concept in >>>>>>>> a theory, but it is us, each and everyone of us is a form of >>>>>>>> manifestation of self-reference. Self-reference is an eternal logical >>>>>>>> structure that eternally looks-back-at-itself. And this >>>>>>>> looking-back-at-itself automatically generates a subjective ontology, >>>>>>>> an "I am". In other words, the very definition of the concept of >>>>>>>> "existence" is the looking-back-at-itself of self-reference. So, >>>>>>>> existence can only be subjective, so all that can exists is >>>>>>>> consciousness. I talk in the book how the looking-back-at-itself >>>>>>>> implies 3 properties: identity (self-reference is itself, x=x), >>>>>>>> inclusion (self-reference is included in itself, x<x) and >>>>>>>> transcendence (self-reference is more than itself, x>x). And all these >>>>>>>> apparently contradictory properties are happening all at the same >>>>>>>> time. So, x=x, x<x, x>x all at the same time. But there is no actual >>>>>>>> contradiction here, because self-reference is unformalizable. The >>>>>>>> reason why I get to such weird conclusions is explored throughout the >>>>>>>> book where a phenomenological analysis of consciousness is done and it >>>>>>>> is shown how it is structured on an emergent holarchy of levels, a >>>>>>>> holarchy meaning that a higher level includes the lower levels, and I >>>>>>>> conclude that this can only happen if there is an entity called >>>>>>>> "self-reference" which has the above mentioned properties. So as you >>>>>>>> can see, there pretty much cannot be a mathematics of self-reference. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I will also present about self-reference at The Science of >>>>>>>> Consciousness conference this year at Interlaken, Switzerland, so if >>>>>>>> you are there we can talk more about these issues. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Thursday, 11 April 2019 02:55:55 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>>>>>>>> Hi Cosmin, >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> It seems your conclusion fits well with the conclusion already given >>>>>>>>> by the universal machine (the Gödel-Löbian one which are those who >>>>>>>>> already knows that they are Turing universal, like ZF, PA, or the >>>>>>>>> combinators + some induction principle). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Self-reference is capital indeed, but you seem to miss the >>>>>>>>> mathematical theory of self-reference, brought by the work of Gödel >>>>>>>>> and Löb, and Solovay ultimate formalisation of it at the first order >>>>>>>>> logic level. You cite Penrose, which is deadly wrong on this. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> In fact incompleteness is a chance for mechanism, as it provides >>>>>>>>> almost directly a theory of consciousness, if you are willing to >>>>>>>>> agree that consciousness is true, indubitable, immediately knowable, >>>>>>>>> non provable and non definable, as each Löbian machine is confronted >>>>>>>>> to such proposition all the “time”. But this enforces also, as I have >>>>>>>>> shown, that the whole of physics has to be justified by some of the >>>>>>>>> modes of self-reference, making physics into a subbranch of >>>>>>>>> elementary arithmetic. This works in the sense that at the three >>>>>>>>> places where physics should appear we get a quantum logic, and this >>>>>>>>> with the advantage of a transparent clear-cut between the qualia (not >>>>>>>>> sharable) and the quanta (sharable in the first person plural sense). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> You seem to have a good (I mean correct with respect to Mechanism) >>>>>>>>> insight on consciousness, but you seem to have wrong information on >>>>>>>>> the theory of the digital machines/numbers and the role of Gödel. >>>>>>>>> Gödel’s theorem is really a chance for the Mechanist theory, as it >>>>>>>>> explains that the digital machine are non predictable, full of non >>>>>>>>> communicable subjective knowledge and beliefs, and capable of >>>>>>>>> defeating all reductionist theory that we can made of them. Indeed, >>>>>>>>> they are literally universal dissident, and they are born with a >>>>>>>>> conflict between 8 modes of self-apprehension. In my last paper(*) I >>>>>>>>> argue that they can be enlightened, and this shows also that >>>>>>>>> enlightenment and blasphemy are very close, and that religion leads >>>>>>>>> easily to a theological trap making the machine inconsistent, except >>>>>>>>> by staying mute, or referring to Mechanism (which is itself highly >>>>>>>>> unprovable by the consistent machine). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Bruno >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>>>> 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]. >>>>>>>>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>>>>>>>>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>>>>>>>>> For more options, visit 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 [email protected]. >>>>>>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>>>>>>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>>>>>>> For more options, visit 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 [email protected]. >>>>>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>>>>>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>>>>>> For more options, visit 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 [email protected]. >>>>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>>>>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>>>>> For more options, visit 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 [email protected]. >>>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>>>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>>>> For more options, visit 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 [email protected]. >>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>>> For more options, visit 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 [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit 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 [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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