On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 7:31 AM Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
*> I believe in the physical reality, but I do not necessarily believe that > the physical reality is the fundamental reality.* > Who cares? Fundamental stuff by definition is not made of parts and so its behavior is simple and dull, non-fundamental stuff, like intelagent behavior, is complex and interesting. *> **Look at experimental physicists. They measure numbers only,* > How can you measure the pure number 7? You can't, nobody can measure a pure number, experimental physicists measure units that are based on physics, like mass in kilograms or speed in meters per second or acceleration in meters per second per second. >> It's the very best sort of bet. If I win I receive a infinitely large > jackpot. If I don't win then I've lost nothing except $80,000 and I can > afford that. > *> That is a bit like 0 and 1, in a context where there are many more > possibilities in between the jackpot and some putative inexistence. You > have no idea who will be the doctor who would reconstitute you, nor his > intent, and life might be not so rosy, if not hellish* > If Everett is right then the doctor who awakens me will be angelic and bring me to technological heaven, and the doctor who awakens me will be satanic and bring me to technological hell. But the situation is no different for you because you will somehow end up getting frozen even though you haven't paid for it or want it. But as I've said before, although Everett has my favorite quantum interpretation I'm not willing to stake my life on it. >> I'm betting that certain atoms don't have my name scratched on them and > atoms are generic. I'm betting that the key aspect of what makes me be me > is not the particular atoms that make up my body right now but the related > orientation the atoms have with each each other, and that is information > can be stored digitally. I'm betting that is the road to immortality if > such a road exists. > > *> With mechanism, we are already immortal.* > Could be but nobody knows because every time you try to explain what you mean by "mechanism" you start using words like "fundamental " and "primitive" which are irrelevant in a philosophical discussion about immortality, intelagent behavior or consciousness. > *>Our digital information is store in the many number relations, and > execute in all possible relative computational histories,* > I know and that is exactly the trouble. There are an infinite number of computational relationships, but most of them are nonsense and pure mathematics has no way to sort the sense from nonsense, but physics does. If you have one rock of a certain mass moving at a certain velocity and then you get another identical rock then you have exactly 2 times the energy and momentum, not 1 or 3 or 4 or any other number, only 2 will work. Without physics numbers wouldn't even have a consistent meaning. And of course there would be no way to make a calculation or form a thought. > *> and there is an infinity of such histories realised in all the models > of arithmetic.* > I know, and because of that in pure mathematics there is nothing special about 2+2=4, 2+2=5 works fine, but there is something about 2+2=4 in Physics that 2+2=5 lacks. > *> “Primitive” refer to what I have to assume.* > Whatever that primitive stuff is there are 2 things we know for certain about it: 1) It has contrast, that is to say everything either exists or it does not and there is a detectable difference between the two; "nonexistence" has the property of infinite unbounded homogeneity and existence is everything else. 2) The primitive stuff must be able to be organized into parts that are themselves organized in complex ways and behave in ways the unorganized primitive stuff could not. > *To define what is a digital machine* [...] > To hell with definitions, Turing taught us how to BUILD a digital machine. So we can just point and say a digital machine is one of those. > *> I have to assume the natural numbers and at least addition and > multiplication.* > You don't have to assume numbers or anything else, you only need to observe that things change in time and space and if it's a digital machine the change occurs in steps, and you can always predict what the next step will be but not necessarily the last step. There might not even be a last step. > *> I cannot select one computation as more real than other,* > Yes you can! Some computations, like the sort INTEL makes with their silicon, can play a part in cause and effect, and some "calculations", like your silly phantom calculations, can not. >> Complex things are by definition NOT primitive > > *> We agree on this important point.* > And complex things have complex behavior and simple things have simple behavior, so why does someone interested in complex stuff like intelligence and consciousness talk so much about what is and what is not primitive? *> That is a reason why I do not assume, neither matter, nor consciousness,* > Not even your own consciousness? You think you may be a zombie? > * > consciousness is just the obvious indubitable truth that no universal > machine can avoid, and that the Löbian machine* [...] > And now nobody knows what you're talking about, at least nobody that Google or Bing has ever heard of. > (A Löbian machine is a universal machine capable of proving its own > Turing universality. > A universal Turing machine can emulate any Turing Machine by reading its input tape which contains the description of the machine to be simulated as well as the data to be worked on. So all Löbian machines are Turing Machines but not all Turing Machines are Löbian machines. Most people can't prove anything so they can't be Löbian machines, so I guess only mathematicians are conscious. > >> the John Clark in Physics is totally uninterested in the John Clark in > arithmetic because the John Clark in arithmetic can not change and thus > can not behave intelligently or be conscious or *do" anything at all. > > *> The John Clark in arithmetic change relatively to the universal numbers > running them. Take the number corresponding to a simulation of our cluster > of galaxies at the level of strings with 10^(10^10000) decimals.* > That huge number never changes, or at least it wouldn't if it existed, but if the entire expanding accelerating universe lacks the ability to even express a number with that many digits (much less calculate it!) then ii makes no difference to any THING if the number exists or not. > >> What textbooks prove is one set of ASCII characters that belong to the > lambda universe is equivalent to another set of ASCII characters that > belongs to the Turing universe. > > *> Programming language are not just set of characters. There is a > grammar, and a notion of reality attached* > The notion of reality that needs to be attached is hardware, a computer made of matter that obeys the laws of physics; because without that the programing language is just a set of characters that never change and is incapable of changing anything. >> What those textbooks most certainly do *NOT *prove or even hint at is > that either set of ASCII characters can do what a Physical Turing Machine > can do. > > *> Indeed. They don’t even assumes anything physical, unless they have a > chapter on the physical machines, which is rare in the theoretical textbook > I refer too. But none assume a primitively real reality.* > Oh no we're back with "primitive"! You agree a Physical Turing Machine can do things that pure numbers can not and that's all that's important, it's irrelevant if it's primitive. *> You confuse x and “x”. Here x did not refer to anything syntactical, but > on what the apparent syntax refers for. I point the finger toward the moon, > but you keep looking at the finger.* > I wouldn't do that because both your finger and the moon are physical objects, but if you point to the number 7 I would have no choice but to look at your finger because there would be nothing else to look at. *> Gödel is a are thinker who did not take the “natural world” for granted, > and was fond on theological reflection. Unlike Einstein, who was religious > in the meliorative sense of the word, Gödel advocate the return of reason > in theology, so much that he wrote that ontological proof (a formal > rendering of St-Anselmus proof of the existence of God). * > Gödel was a genius but he went insane, Einstein never did. > >>Nature selected the belief in matter because it worked, so there must > be some truth to it. > > *> True does not make something primitive,* > Who cares if it's primitive or not?! > > *Animals do not believe in physics. They believe in a physical reality, > and rightly so. Everybody in this list, and elsewhere, believe in the > physical reality.* > Because if anybody on this list did not believe in physical reality they'd be killed the first time they tried to cross a street. But I have never believed in your phantom calculations but I survive just fine. > > *The point is on the Plato/Aristotle* [...] > And the mention of people who didn't know where the sun went at night is my cue to say goodnight. John K Clark -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv3Adb7Z8yps5RBS-5BxTAHX2zozEG9J%3D%2B1uwg5mvXWwTg%40mail.gmail.com.
