Hmm... I just reply from the new mail address, but of course, I don't have (yet) the permission. Some difficulties to change the setting. I copy my answer directly on the webpage of this list.
Hi spudboy100, Thanks! Do we have the choice in what we are observing? Yes and No. To take the paradigmatic exemple, imagine that you are in Helsinki, and you will be scanned, copy, destroyed, and reconstitute in Washington and Moscow. For a third person observer looking at this, you are in W and in M. From your (multiple) first person view, you feel that a choice or a selection has been made, but that cannot possibly be "your choice". Indeed in Helsinki you might desire to become the one in Moscow, but the guy in Washington will illustrate that indeed it was not a question of choice, unless he suicides himself immediately somehow. You could, when still in Helsinki, write a letter, or a mail, to the people in Washington, asking them to NOT make the reconstitution, making Moscow into a "probability 1 by default", though, and this illustrates that making a choice is a form of suicide. If you are in love with Alice and Eve, and decide to marry Eve, it is somehow equivalent with killing the "you" who would have lived with Alice. In that sense, I answer "yes". We do have partial choice in observing or moving in our life, and it is a sort of preselection among our (infinitely many) futures. Can we make better? I guess so. At least relatively to what you might consider as better, for example by selection the option which maximize this or that things that you might prefer, for you or for other you care about. With the "many-worlds", or "many-histories" or the non quantum (a priori) "many-computations" in arithmetic, the quantum woo is minimized, in fact the whole quantum is explained through the common "amoeba" first person indeterminacy in arithmetic You can see (Indexical, Digital) Mechanism as the hypothesis using the less magic, in fact only the magic of mathematical logic or computer science. No need of a magical personal-god, or impersonal-god, just elementary arithmetic which execute all computations in the bloc-universe, or better bloc-mindscape manner. Something we know, or should know, since the 1930s. Bruno On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 3:57:45 AM UTC+2 [email protected] wrote: > Just for confirmation, Bruno, you message has been received if not > completely comprehended by myself, but just as a saying "received" by your > email provider. My only thought might be is "Do we have a choice in what we > are observing?" Moreover, "if we somehow do, can we make better by > observing." Many would say this is quantum woo, and that is fine by me. The > follow up would be, mayhaps if we form a 'better node' say, of millions of > observer's we could fix things better? As in Quantum Woo style-all focus > upon the same thing? > > Probably not, so it's back to work for scientists and engineers.... > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> > To: Everything List <[email protected]> > Sent: Mon, Jul 19, 2021 9:07 am > Subject: Re: Hitler against Godel's Theorem > > I have answered this, but I don't find my answer. Penrose use Gödel's > theorem to argue that we are not machine, by a reasoning similar to one > already found, and refuted, by Emil Post, and later developed (wrongly) by > Lucas and Penrose. Eventually Penrose got it right, and that kind of > argument does not show that Gödel's incompleteness is a problem for > Mechanism, but it does show that a machine cannot know which machine she > is, nor which computations support it in arithmetic, which is indeed a step > in the reduction of the laws of physics to the statistics on all relative > computations in arithmetic. That explains why, after deriving the > phenomenology of the wave collapse from the Schroedinger equation, like > Everett did, it is still necessary to derive the wave equation from the > statistics on all computations (as seen from inside, which is the hard part > to define, except that it becomes easy once we get the theology of the > machine. > > The propositional machine theology G1* has been given here. It is the > modal logic with all theorem of G as axioms, + []A ->A, + p -> []p (for p > propositional letter), and importantly without the Necessitation rule. And > G is the (normal modal logic) with axiom []([]A -> A) -> []A (the Löb > formula). A normal modal theory has [](A->B) -> ([]A -> []B) as axioms, and > is closed for the Modus ponens and the necessitation rule. > > Then the logic of the observable is given by the modal logic of the > intensional variant, defined in G1(*) by the logic of []A & <>t & A, and > some related. > That gives a quantum logic for the observable by universal numbers in > arithmetic, naturally related to the many computations structure implied by > elementary arithmetic or Turing equivalent. > > More on this later. I am also testing the mail system, and if the > google-group still recognise my old adresses. > > Bruno > > On Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 1:28:36 PM UTC+2 Lawrence Crowell wrote: > > It is Penrose's thesis that consciousness is a sort of Godel trick. Back > in the 1980s as an undergraduate I would have agreed with this, when I > started reading about this. I read Hofstadter's book "Godel, Escher, Bach" > and began pondering these things. I have however come to think there were > problems with this. It is clear humans are not consistent Turing machines > or computers. Computers are infernally consistent, and can compute > numerical sequences, but they do not make an inductive leap in saying the > set of natural numbers has infinite cardinality. Humans can rather easily > see the set is infinite and however make mistakes. > > LC > > On Wednesday, June 2, 2021 at 11:47:26 AM UTC-5 [email protected] wrote: > > On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 8:38 AM Lawrence Crowell <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Godel's theorems are our friend. It is even a friend in physics. With > physics I think it is a "sieve" that conforms physical principle to have > horizon conditions, whether uncertainty principles or event horizons in GR, > that conform physical reality to fit within the Church-Turing thesis. > > > Some claim Godel proved that the human mind is more than just a Turing > Machine, but I disagree. Godel found a way to use numbers to write a > sentence that talks about itself, it says "I am not provable in this formal > system", and the operations of a particular Turing Machine are analogous to > a formal system; however a human being can look at that sentence and see > that it is true even though the machine itself could never produce it, > therefore the human mind can do something the Turing machine can't. > However, what Godel proved is that an operating system powerful enough to > perform arithmetic THAT IS CONSISTENT cannot be complete, and he says no > operating system can prove its own consistency. But when human beings are > not doing formal logic exercises but just living everyday lives their > operating system is most certainly not consistent, they can have two > logically contradictory opinions at the same time, a brief glance at > politics shows it is very common. And humans can be absolutely positively > 100% certain about something, (that is to say they have proven it to their > own satisfaction), and still be dead wrong. Godel's biography illustrates > this point, he refused to eat and died of starvation because he was > absolutely positively 100% certain that his food was being poisoned. > > So we are inconsistent Turing machines. And even today we could easily > make a machine that could answer any question, provided you don't mind if > it sometimes gave an answer that was wrong or even idiotic. > > 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/4bf6dfec-463c-4c37-a5a6-610065e03905n%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/4bf6dfec-463c-4c37-a5a6-610065e03905n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > > . > -- 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/743e16ec-9358-4aa2-8461-eb048e3f24dfn%40googlegroups.com.
