Re: If Quantum Mechanics can be derived using arithmetic only, how would that derivation begin?

[agrayson2000]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 12:11:50 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 30 Nov 2018, at 12:13, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 12:34:13 AM UTC, Brent wrote:
>>
>> What can be inferred always depends on what you take as premises.  If you 
>> start from the Hilbert space formulation of QM or an equivalent formulation* 
>> and you premise that there is a probability interpretation of  a state*, 
>> then Gleason's theorem tells you that the Born rule provides the unique 
>> probability values.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
>
> *So to get Born's Rule, Bruno would have to assume a huge amount IN 
> ADDITION TO ARITHMETIC. I don't buy it. AG *
>
>
> On the contrary, mechanism assumes less than any other theory. And 
> Mechanism is roughly the idea that the brain does not invoke magical things.
>
> The theory of everything, with mechanism assumed at the metalevel, assume 
> only S K, S≠K, and the axioms
>
> 1) If x = y and x = z, then y = z
> 2) If x = y then xz = yz
> 3) If x = y then zx = zy
> 4) Kxy = x
> 5) Sxyz = xz(yz)
>
> I doubt that you will find an easier theory.
> (Exercice: prove that x = x)
>
> Bruno
>

*But you haven't replied to my objection. In addition to logic and the 
axioms of arithmetic, you must ALSO assume such a thing as probability 
exists to even approach QM. What you have above won't cut it, IMO. AG *

>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On 11/29/2018 10:23 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> *Regardless of rules of arithmetic and mathematical logic, I simply don't 
>> believe that something like Born's Rule can be inferred without actually 
>> observing a quantum interference pattern. AG*
>>
>>
>>
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Re: Towards Conscious AI Systems (a symposium at the AAAI Stanford Spring Symposium 2019)

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 29 Nov 2018, at 20:00, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 10:27:00 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 27 Nov 2018, at 18:50, Philip Thrift > 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 4:32:53 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 24 Nov 2018, at 17:27, John Clark > wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Turing explained how matter can behave intelligently,
>> 
>> No. He showed how a person can be attached to a computation, and also that 
>> physics is Turing complete, so that we can use matter to implement 
>> computations, like nature plausibly does. But it is not matter which behave 
>> intelligently: it is the person associated to the computation, and it 
>> behaves as well relatively to numbers than to matter. You use of matter is 
>> “magical”.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> If humans are matter (meaning of course that human brains are matter), then 
>> humans behave intelligently means that (at least some) matter behaves 
>> intelligently.  
> 
> Like with a computer: some arrangement of some matter can emulate a 
> (universal) computation. That means that the physical laws are Turing 
> complete. 
> 
> It does not mean that primary matter exists (see my reminding of what this 
> means in my answer to Brent, soon enough!).
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> It is not clear that Turing in his last ("morphogenesis") years thought that 
>> the Turing machine was a complete definition of computing in nature.
> 
> 
> If mechanism is true, in principle, nature has more powerful processing 
> ability than any computer. Now, it could mean only that nature use a random 
> oracle, which would come only from our ignorance about which computations run 
> us, if I may say.
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Going by something Barry Cooper wrote
> 
> The intuition is that computational unconventionality certainly entails 
> higher-type computation, with a correspondingly enhanced respect for embodied 
> information. There is some understanding of the algorithmic content of 
> descriptions. But so far we have merely scratched the surface.
> 
> "natural computing" may involve something that is non-Turing in a sense that 
> doesn't involve actual oracles in the hyperarithmetical processing sense (but 
> could involve topology: We can say that topology is precisely about the 
> relation between finiteness and infiniteness that is relevant to computation. 
> [ 
> http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mhe/papers/introduction-to-higher-order-computation-NLS-2017.pdf
>  ]).
> 
> 
> I posit that experience processing is a "natural computing" that is 
> non-Turing.
> 
> This new article may be of interest:
> 
> 
> "there are now many signs that consciousness-like phenomena might exist not 
> just among humans or even great apes – but that insects might have them, too"
> ] 
> https://aeon.co/essays/inside-the-mind-of-a-bee-is-a-hive-of-sensory-activity 
> ]

I am OK with this. I am open that plants do think, somehow. What is provably 
inconsistent with digital mechanism is that consciousness is “natural” or a 
product of matter. That equates two different kind of mysteries, without adding 
light on Matter nor Consciousness. That might be true, but I don’t see any 
evidence for such a move. 

Bruno



> 
> 
> 
> - pt
> 
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Re: Measuring a system in a superposition of states vs in a mixed state

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 30 Nov 2018, at 12:29, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 9:03:51 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 28 Nov 2018, at 15:02, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at 1:41:03 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 26 Nov 2018, at 22:43, agrays...@gmail.com <> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Monday, November 26, 2018 at 4:41:42 PM UTC, agrays...@gmail.com 
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Monday, November 26, 2018 at 12:01:05 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> 
 On 23 Nov 2018, at 13:30, agrays...@gmail.com <> wrote:
 
 
 
 On Friday, November 23, 2018 at 11:29:14 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
> On 21 Nov 2018, at 18:03, agrays...@gmail.com <> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Monday, November 19, 2018 at 3:52:37 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 18 Nov 2018, at 14:00, agrays...@gmail.com <> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 12:19:20 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 16 Nov 2018, at 15:38, agrays...@gmail.com <> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Friday, November 16, 2018 at 10:14:32 AM UTC, scerir wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
 Il 16 novembre 2018 alle 10.19 agrays...@gmail.com <> ha scritto: 
 
 
 
 On Thursday, November 15, 2018 at 2:14:48 PM UTC, scerir wrote:
 
 
> Il 15 novembre 2018 alle 14.29 agrays...@gmail.com <> ha scritto: 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday, November 15, 2018 at 8:04:53 AM UTC, scerir wrote:
> Imagine a spin-1/2 particle described by the state psi = sqrt(1/2) 
> [(s+)_z + (s-)_z] .
> 
> If the x-component of spin is measured by passing the spin-1/2 
> particle through a Stern-Gerlach with its field oriented along the 
> x-axis, the particle will ALWAYS emerge 'up'.
> 
> 
> Why?  Won't the measured value be along the x axis in both 
> directions, in effect Up or Dn? AG
 "Hence we must conclude that the system described by the |+>x state is 
 not the
 same as a mixture of atoms in the |+> and !-> states. This means that 
 each atom in the
 beam is in a state that itself is a combination of the |+> and |-> 
 states. A superposition
 state is often called a coherent superposition since the relative 
 phase of the two terms is
 important."
 
 .see pages 18-19 here https://tinyurl.com/ybm56whu 
 
 
 Try answering in your own words. When the SG device is oriented along 
 the x axis, now effectively the z-axix IIUC, and we're dealing with 
 superpositions, the outcomes will be 50-50 plus and minus. Therefore, 
 unless I am making some error, what you stated above is incorrect. AG
>>> sqrt(1/2) [(s+)_z +(s-)_z]  is a superposition, but since sqrt(1/2) 
>>> [(s+)_z +(s-)_z]  =  (s+)_x the particle will always emerge 'up'
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I'll probably get back to on the foregoing. In the meantime, consider 
>>> this; I claim one can never MEASURE Up + Dn or Up - Dn with a SG 
>>> apparatus regardless of how many other instruments one uses to create a 
>>> composite measuring apparatus (Bruno's claim IIUC). The reason is 
>>> simple. We know that the spin operator
>> 
>> Which one?
>> 
>> Good question. AG
>> 
>> There are spin operator for each direction in space. The superposition 
>> of up and down is a precise pure state, with precise eigenvalues, when 
>> measuring state in the complementary directions.
>> 
>> As I wrote earlier, based on scerir's superpositions on different axes, 
>> and simulation, I now think that Up + Dn and Up - Dn can be measured 
>> along the x axis but not along the z axis (which I was focused on).
> 
> All you need to do is a change of base. The operator will be defined 
> clearly by the Eigen value on the diagonal in the corresponding base. You 
> can prepare any state, and measure them “in any base”. 
> 
> I'll get back to this issue in my next post. AG 
>> You were probably correct about x axis measurements, but perhaps were 
>> not clear enough. You were not explicit that measurements along the x 
>> axis is a different SG experiment from along z axis.
> 
> OK. Sorry. 
>> I thought you meant do them in succession, not as separate experiments.
> 
> Ah? OK.
>> Also introducing an infinity of universes seems extraneous and confusing 
>> for a solution to this problem. AG 
> I are probably different on this. I don’t take the word “universe” too 
> much seriously, as with mechanism we know at the start that there is 
> “physical universe” at all, just the natural numbers with the laws of 

Re: If Quantum Mechanics can be derived using arithmetic only, how would that derivation begin?

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 30 Nov 2018, at 12:13, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 12:34:13 AM UTC, Brent wrote:
> What can be inferred always depends on what you take as premises.  If you 
> start from the Hilbert space formulation of QM or an equivalent formulation 
> and you premise that there is a probability interpretation of  a state, then 
> Gleason's theorem tells you that the Born rule provides the unique 
> probability values.
> 
> Brent
> 
> So to get Born's Rule, Bruno would have to assume a huge amount IN ADDITION 
> TO ARITHMETIC. I don't buy it. AG 

On the contrary, mechanism assumes less than any other theory. And Mechanism is 
roughly the idea that the brain does not invoke magical things.

The theory of everything, with mechanism assumed at the metalevel, assume only 
S K, S≠K, and the axioms

1) If x = y and x = z, then y = z
2) If x = y then xz = yz
3) If x = y then zx = zy
4) Kxy = x
5) Sxyz = xz(yz)

I doubt that you will find an easier theory.
(Exercice: prove that x = x)

Bruno





> 
> On 11/29/2018 10:23 AM, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>> Regardless of rules of arithmetic and mathematical logic, I simply don't 
>> believe that something like Born's Rule can be inferred without actually 
>> observing a quantum interference pattern. AG
> 
> 
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Re: Where Max Tegmark is really wrong

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 30 Nov 2018, at 17:44, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 6:39:19 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 9:13:29 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> 
>> This may be a simplistic pov, but since there was IMO no Original Sin, there 
>> was no need for a Sacrifice for its forgiveness. Under this view, 
>> Christianity is overwhelmingly an illusion. And since Theology seems to be 
>> primarily an extended argument about the historical history and truths about 
>> Christianity, it too is essentially worthless; an extended wrangling over 
>> nothing. AG 
> 
> That comes from the 1500 years of brainwashing. I use theology in the sense 
> of Plato, not the Gospel. Only atheists believe in JC,
> 
> Really? It seems you never met any Christians on a personal level. If you 
> did, you'd see how uninformed you are. AG
>  
> except for the TV evangelist, which are arguably con men.
> That was the goal of the Christian after 529. To make us forget that the 
> original question of the greeks was about the existence of a (primary) 
> physical universe. God exist by definition: it is, by definition, the truth 
> we intuit to be larger than ourselves.
> 
> I really doubt the question about the nature of matter has been forgotten. AG 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is no truth outside of language, and matter's just another word for 
> nothing left to lose.


Language have no relation with truth a priori. Theories might have. Semantics 
are truth “by definition”, by relativising it to the notion of model/reality.

Bruno





> 
> - pt
> 
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Re: Measuring a system in a superposition of states vs in a mixed state

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 1 Dec 2018, at 17:12, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 8:53:43 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 27 Nov 2018, at 22:55, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 8:43:55 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 2:05:04 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com <> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 6:49:51 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 12:17:08 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com <> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 6:00:50 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 8:43:35 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com <> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 9:27:46 AM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Monday, November 26, 2018 at 3:43:14 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com <> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> I checked the postulates in Feynman's Sums Over Histories (in link provided 
>> by Phil) and I see nothing related to waves, as expected, and thus nothing 
>> about collapse of anything. I would suppose the same applies to Heisenberg's 
>> Matrix Mechanics; no waves, no collapse. I suppose you could say they just 
>> produce correct probabilities, and imply nothing about relative states other 
>> than their probabilities (which wave mechanics does), but certainly nothing 
>> about consciousness. To summarize: you're right that they are "no collapse" 
>> theories, but IMO they say nothing about consciousness. AG
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> In terms of the path-integral (PI) interpretation [ interesting lecture: 
>> https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/videos/path-integral-interpretation-quantum-mechanics
>>  
>> 
>>  ], there is in effect no waves or wave function, just paths, or histories, 
>> in the sum-over-histories (SOH) terminology.
>> 
>> There is still "decoherence" in the SOH (a single history is ultimately 
>> "realized"), but it could be called "selection": a single history is 
>> selected from the total ensemble of multiple and interfering histories. E.g. 
>> a single point on a screen is "hit" by a photon in the double-slit 
>> experiment.
>> 
>> Does "selection" add any insight to the measurement problem; that is, why do 
>> we get what we get? And if not, what is its value? TIA, AG 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> If you look at it as a "selection of the fittest" (one history surviving 
>> from an ensemble of histories), then it's like a form of quantum Darwinism. 
>> The quantum substrate is a cruel world where all histories (but one) die.
>> 
>> That's not an explanation; rather, a vacuous statement of the result. AG 
>> 
>> 
>> But that is a criticism of Darwinism (natural selection) in general.
>> 
>> Ridiculous comparison IMO. Darwinism posits a changing environment and 
>> competition among species for niches. Nothing comparable in Quantum 
>> Darwinism other than all outcomes fail except for one which succeeds in each 
>> single trial, which we knew from the get-go. AG
>> 
>> Quantum Darwinism is a theory claiming to explain the emergence of the 
>> classical world from the 
>> quantum world  as due to a 
>> process of Darwinian  natural 
>> selection ; where the many 
>> possible quantum states  are 
>> selected against in favor of a stable pointer state 
>> .
>> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Darwinism 
>>  ]
>> 
>> - pt
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> As for "competition for niches", the histories are in a sense competing. 
>> Perhaps there is some conservation principle at work, so only one history 
>> can win. 
>> 
>> I don't know. Physicists don't know. We're even. :)
>> 
>> Darwin had a theory or proposal to explain why some changes occur and 
>> persist, but Quantum Darwinism doesn't, as far as I can tell. AG 
> 
> I think that the comparison with Darwin makes sense, and in both case, there 
> are many “fittest” entities.
> 
> IMO, it's a ridiculous comparison. If you affirm the MWI, then ALL histories 
> survive.

Only the relatively consistent one, and then with very different relative 
measure. If you go through the windows instead of taking the lift, you will 
survive in both case, but in the normal/Gaussian worlds (measure close to 1), 
you are severely injured in the first case, and not so in the second case.

Bruno


> If you deny the MWI, there's no model whatever of "fittest" to explain why 
> all histories cease to exist except the one measured for a single trial. The 
> only thing remarkable here is that I have to explain this. AG 
> 
> Evolution gives a tree, with many branches, and 

Re: Towards Conscious AI Systems (a symposium at the AAAI Stanford Spring Symposium 2019)

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 5:23:15 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 29 Nov 2018, at 20:00, Philip Thrift > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 10:27:00 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 27 Nov 2018, at 18:50, Philip Thrift  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 4:32:53 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 24 Nov 2018, at 17:27, John Clark  wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Turing explained how matter can behave intelligently, 
>>>
>>>
>>> No. He showed how a person can be attached to a computation, and also 
>>> that physics is Turing complete, so that we can use matter to implement 
>>> computations, like nature plausibly does. But it is not matter which behave 
>>> intelligently: it is the person associated to the computation, and it 
>>> behaves as well relatively to numbers than to matter. You use of matter is 
>>> “magical”.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> If humans are matter (meaning of course that human brains are matter), 
>> then *humans behave intelligently* means that (at least some) *matter 
>> behaves intelligently*.  
>>
>>
>> Like with a computer: some arrangement of some matter can emulate a 
>> (universal) computation. That means that the physical laws are Turing 
>> complete. 
>>
>> It does not mean that primary matter exists (see my reminding of what 
>> this means in my answer to Brent, soon enough!).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> It is not clear that Turing in his last ("morphogenesis") years thought 
>> that the Turing machine was a complete definition of computing in nature.
>>
>>
>>
>> If mechanism is true, in principle, nature has more powerful processing 
>> ability than any computer. Now, it could mean only that nature use a random 
>> oracle, which would come only from our ignorance about which computations 
>> run us, if I may say.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> Going by something Barry Cooper wrote
>
> *The intuition is that computational unconventionality certainly entails 
> higher-type computation, with a correspondingly enhanced respect for 
> embodied information. There is some understanding of the algorithmic 
> content of descriptions. But so far we have merely scratched the surface.*
>
> "natural computing" may involve something that is non-Turing in a sense 
> that doesn't involve actual oracles in the hyperarithmetical processing 
> sense (but could involve topology: *We can say that topology is precisely 
> about the relation between finiteness and infiniteness that is relevant to 
> computation.* [ 
> http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mhe/papers/introduction-to-higher-order-computation-NLS-2017.pdf
>  
> ]).
>
>
> I posit that *experience processing* is a "natural computing" that is 
> non-Turing.
>
> This new article may be of interest:
>
>
> "there are now many signs that consciousness-like phenomena might exist 
> not just among humans or even great apes – but that insects might have 
> them, too"
> ] 
> https://aeon.co/essays/inside-the-mind-of-a-bee-is-a-hive-of-sensory-activity 
> ]
>
>
> I am OK with this. I am open that plants do think, somehow. What is 
> provably inconsistent with digital mechanism is that consciousness is 
> “natural” or a product of matter. That equates two different kind of 
> mysteries, without adding light on Matter nor Consciousness. That might be 
> true, but I don’t see any evidence for such a move. 
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
That consciousness is an "intrinsic" property of patter will be the subject 
of

Galileo's Error
Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness

by Philip Goff
(coming from Penguin Random House)


What higher-order computing matter does is an open question. But there is 
no evidence that there is any mathematical entity existing outside of 
matter (the subject of science).

- pt

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Re: Where Max Tegmark is really wrong

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 30 Nov 2018, at 19:22, Brent Meeker  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/30/2018 1:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 Perspectivism is a form of modalism.
>>> 
>>> Nietzsche is vindicated.
>> 
>> Interesting. If you elaborate, you might change my mind on Nietzche, perhaps!
>> All what I say is very close the Neoplatonism and Negative Theology (capable 
>> only of saying what God is not).
>> 
>> Bruno
> 
> From  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ 
> 
> 6.2 Perspectivism
> 
> Much of Nietzsche’s reaction to the theoretical philosophy of his 
> predecessors is mediated through his interest in the notion of perspective. 
> He thought that past philosophers had largely ignored the influence of their 
> own perspectives on their work, and had therefore failed to control those 
> perspectival effects (BGE 6; see BGE I more generally). Commentators have 
> been both fascinated and perplexed by what has come to be called Nietzsche’s 
> “perspectivism”, and it has been a major concern in a number of large-scale 
> Nietzsche commentaries (see, e.g., Danto 1965; Kaulbach 1980, 1990; Schacht 
> 1983; Abel 1984; Nehamas 1985; Clark 1990; Poellner 1995; Richardson 1996; 
> Benne 2005). There has been as much contestation over exactly what doctrine 
> or group of commitments belong under that heading as about their 
> philosophical merits, but a few points are relatively uncontroversial and can 
> provide a useful way into this strand of Nietzsche’s thinking.
> 
> Nietzsche’s appeals to the notion of perspective (or, equivalently in his 
> usage, to an   “optics” of knowledge) have a positive, as well as a 
> critical side. Nietzsche frequently criticizes “dogmatic” philosophers for 
> ignoring the perspectival limitations on their theorizing, but as we saw, he 
> simultaneously holds that the operation of perspective makes a positive 
> contribution to our cognitive endeavors: speaking of (what he takes to be) 
> the perversely counterintuitive doctrines of some past philosophers, he 
> writes,
> 
> Particularly as knowers, let us not be ungrateful toward such resolute 
> reversals of the familiar perspectives and valuations with which the 
> spirit has raged against itself all too long… : to see differently in this 
> way for once, to want to see differently, is no small discipline and 
> preparation of the intellect for its future “objectivity”—the latter 
> understood not as “disinterested contemplation” (which is a non-concept and 
> absurdity), but rather as the capacity to have one’s Pro and Contra in one’s 
> power, and to shift them in and out, so that one knows how to make precisely 
> the difference in perspectives and affective interpretations useful for 
> knowledge. (GM III, 12)
> 
> This famous passage bluntly rejects the idea, dominant in philosophy at least 
> since Plato, that knowledge essentially involves a form of objectivity that 
> penetrates behind all subjective appearances to reveal the way things really 
> are, independently of any point of view whatsoever. Instead, the proposal is 
> to approach “objectivity” (in a revised conception) asymptotically, by 
> exploiting the difference between one perspective and another, using each to 
> overcome the limitations of others, without assuming that anything like a 
> “view from nowhere” is so much as possible. There is of course an implicit 
> criticism of the traditional picture of a-perspectival objectivity here, but 
> there is equally a positive set of recommendations about how to pursue 
> knowledge as a finite, limited cognitive agent.
> 
> 

Thanks. But I do not oppose perspectivism with Plato, and certainly not with 
neoplatonism, which explains everything from the many perspective of the One, 
or at least can be interpreted that way.

Pure perspectivism is an extreme position which leads to pure relativism, which 
does not make sense, as we can only doubt starting from indubitable things (cf 
Descartes). But Nietzsche might have been OK, as the text above suggested a 
“revised conception” of objective. 

With mechanism, you have an ablate truth (the sigma_1 arithmetical truth), and 
the rest is explained by the perspective enforced by incompleteness.

Bruno 



> 
> Brent
> 
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Re: Where Max Tegmark is really wrong

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 30 Nov 2018, at 13:39, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 9:13:29 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 29 Nov 2018, at 21:27, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 7:38:26 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 28 Nov 2018, at 16:03, Lawrence Crowell > 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Friday, November 9, 2018 at 6:51:06 PM UTC-6, Bruce wrote:
>>> From: Brent Meeker >
 
 You're dodging my point.  The "issue" of how we have subjective experience 
 only seems to be an issue because in comparison to the "objective" 
 experience of matter where we can trace long, mathematically define causal 
 chains down to...a Lagrangian and coupling constants or something similar, 
 which is long enough and esoteric enough that almost everyone loses 
 interest along the way.  But some people (like Vic) are going to say, "But 
 where does the Langrangian and coupling constants come from?"  and "Why a 
 Lagrangian anyway?" My point is that when we can give a similarly deep and 
 detailed account of why you think of an elephant when reading this, then 
 nobody will worry about "the hard problem of consciousness"; just like 
 they don't worry about "the hard problems of matter" like where that 
 Lagrangian comes from or why a complex Hilbert space.
>>> 
>>> Why can't I worry about those things? Where does the Lagrangian come from? 
>>> And why use a complex Hilbert space? I don't think this is the underlying 
>>> reason for saying that the "hard problem" of consciousness dissolves on 
>>> solving the engineering problems. Solving the engineering problems will 
>>> enable us to produce a fully conscious AI -- but will we then know how it 
>>> works? We will certainly know where it came from.
>>> 
>>> Bruce
>>> 
>>> When it comes to science I have to back what Bruce says here.
>> 
>> Me to. The clever machines of tomorrow might be the descendants of our bugs, 
>> not our programs …
>> But I think the universal machine is very smart, it is us who don’t listen.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> All knowledge faces the limits of the Münchhausen trilemma, where we have 
>>> three possible types of arguments. The first is the basic axiomatic 
>>> approach, which generally is the cornerstone and capstone of mathematics 
>>> and science. The second is a "turtles all the way down," where an argument 
>>> is based on premises that have deeper reasons, and this nests endlessly. 
>>> Vic Stenger found this to be of most interest with his "models all the way 
>>> down." The third is a circular argument which would mean all truth is just 
>>> tautology. The second and third turn out to have some relevancy, where 
>>> these are complement in Godel's theorem. While in general we use the first 
>>> in science and mathematics we generally can't completely eliminate the 
>>> other two. However, for most work we have an FAPP limitation to how far we 
>>> want to go. Because of that if there is ultimately just a quantum vacuum, 
>>> or some set of vacua, that is eternal, we may then just rest our case there.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Yu risk to eliminate consciousness, and the machine’s explanation of 
>> consciousness.
>> 
>> Assuming mechanism, we know exactly why we have too assume a universal 
>> machinery, and nothing more. Then we can use the whole of mathematics to 
>> derive the phenomenology, including matter, and compare with what we observe.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> If one wants to do philosophy or theology that may be fine, but one has to 
>>> make sure not to confuse these as categories with the category of science.
>> 
>> No. That is the habit since theology has been stealer from science by the 
>> con-man. 
>> 
>> Maybe you know a theology which does not need science, that which does not 
>> need modesty, caution, critically open, etc.
>> 
>> The problem when you forget hat theology is a science, is that you take the 
>> risk of imposing some theology or metaphysical axiom, like if today’s 
>> science did solved the Plato/Aristotle extreme disjunct.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Maybe as Dennett says, philosophy is what we do when we do not understand 
>>> how to ask the question right.
>> 
>> That is science. Bad philosophy and bad science is when we assert a problem 
>> is solved, when it is not.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> In that setting at best we can only do sort of "pre-science," but not 
>>> really science as such. Theology is an even looser area of thought, and I 
>>> generally see no connection with science at all.
>> 
>> 
>> Theology is just Metaphysics with the understanding that we must do a bet of 
>> some sort, be it on some physical thing, (a material universe), or a 
>> metaphysical things (the Tao?), or a mathematical, or musical, whatever 
>> things.
>> 
>> If you study the history of occidental science, theology is the science 
>> which brings mathematics and physics, and mathematics was a source of 
>> inspiration for many non 

Re: Where Max Tegmark is really wrong

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 6:52:38 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 30 Nov 2018, at 17:44, Philip Thrift > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 6:39:19 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 9:13:29 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *This may be a simplistic pov, but since there was IMO no Original Sin, 
>>> there was no need for a Sacrifice for its forgiveness. Under this view, 
>>> Christianity is overwhelmingly an illusion. And since Theology seems to be 
>>> primarily an extended argument about the historical history and truths 
>>> about Christianity, it too is essentially worthless; an extended wrangling 
>>> over nothing. AG *
>>>
>>>
>>> That comes from the 1500 years of brainwashing. I use theology in the 
>>> sense of Plato, not the Gospel. Only atheists believe in JC, 
>>>
>>
>> *Really? It seems you never met any Christians on a personal level. If 
>> you did, you'd see how uninformed you are. AG*
>>  
>>
>>> except for the TV evangelist, which are arguably con men.
>>> That was the goal of the Christian after 529. To make us forget that the 
>>> original question of the greeks was about the existence of a (primary) 
>>> physical universe. God exist by definition: it is, by definition, the truth 
>>> we intuit to be larger than ourselves.
>>>
>>
>> *I really doubt the question about the nature of matter has been 
>> forgotten. AG *
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> There is no truth outside of language, and matter's just another word for 
> nothing left to lose.
>
>
>
> Language have no relation with truth a priori. Theories might have. 
> Semantics are truth “by definition”, by relativising it to the notion of 
> model/reality.
>
> Bruno
>
>
 

*Rorty* is right, I think: Better not to use the word "truth" at all.

It's just "justification". Or "judgment" (a type-theoretic term).

- pt

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Re: Measuring a system in a superposition of states vs in a mixed state

[agrayson2000]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 1:27:05 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 1 Dec 2018, at 17:12, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, November 30, 2018 at 8:53:43 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 27 Nov 2018, at 22:55, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 8:43:55 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 2:05:04 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>>> wrote:



 On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 6:49:51 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 12:17:08 PM UTC-6, 
> agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 6:00:50 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 8:43:35 AM UTC-6, 
>>> agrays...@gmail.com wrote:



 On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 9:27:46 AM UTC, Philip Thrift 
 wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, November 26, 2018 at 3:43:14 PM UTC-6, 
> agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>> *I checked the postulates in Feynman's Sums Over Histories (in 
>> link provided by Phil) and I see nothing related to waves, as 
>> expected, and 
>> thus nothing about collapse of anything. I would suppose the same 
>> applies 
>> to Heisenberg's Matrix Mechanics; no waves, no collapse. I suppose 
>> you 
>> could say they just produce correct probabilities, and imply nothing 
>> about 
>> relative states other than their probabilities (which wave mechanics 
>> does), 
>> but certainly nothing about consciousness. To summarize: you're 
>> right that 
>> they are "no collapse" theories, but IMO they say nothing about 
>> consciousness. AG*
>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
> In terms of the path-integral (PI) interpretation [ interesting 
> lecture: 
> https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/videos/path-integral-interpretation-quantum-mechanics
>  
> ], there is in effect no waves or wave function, just paths, or 
> histories, 
> in the sum-over-histories (SOH) terminology.
>
> There is still "decoherence" in the SOH (a single history is 
> ultimately "realized"), but it could be called "selection": a single 
> history is selected from the total ensemble of multiple and 
> interfering 
> histories. E.g. a single point on a screen is "hit" by a photon in 
> the 
> double-slit experiment.
>

 *Does "selection" add any insight to the measurement problem; that 
 is, why do we get what we get? And if not, what is its value? TIA, AG *

>
>
>
>>> If you look at it as a "selection of the fittest" (one history 
>>> surviving from an ensemble of histories), then it's like a form of 
>>> quantum 
>>> Darwinism. The quantum substrate is a cruel world where all histories 
>>> (but 
>>> one) die.
>>>
>>
>> That's not an explanation; rather, a vacuous statement of the result. 
>> AG 
>>
>>>
>>>
> But that is a criticism of Darwinism (*natural selection*) in general.
>

 *Ridiculous comparison IMO. Darwinism posits a changing environment and 
 competition among species for niches. Nothing comparable in Quantum 
 Darwinism other than all outcomes fail except for one which succeeds in 
 each single trial, which we knew from the get-go. AG*

>
> *Quantum Darwinism* is a theory claiming to explain the emergence of 
> the classical world from 
> the quantum world  as 
> due to *a process of **Darwinian 
>  natural selection 
> *; where the many 
> possible quantum states  
> are 
> selected against in favor of a stable pointer state 
> .
> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Darwinism ]
>
> - pt
>  
>

>>>
>>>
>>> As for "competition for niches", the histories are in a sense competing. 
>>> Perhaps there is some conservation principle at work, so only one history 
>>> can win. 
>>>
>>> I don't know. Physicists don't know. We're even. :)
>>>
>>
>> *Darwin had a theory or proposal to explain why some changes occur and 
>> persist, but Quantum Darwinism doesn't, as far as I can tell. AG *
>>
>>
>> I think that the comparison with Darwin makes sense, and in both case, 
>> there are many “fittest” entities.
>>
>
> *IMO, it's a ridiculous comparison. If you affirm the MWI, 

Re: The most accurate clock ever

[John Clark]

On Sat, Dec 1, 2018 at 6:59 PM Brent Meeker  wrote:

> *But an ocean wave many feet high would change the gravitational field
> less than would moving a centimeter relative to the Earth's center of mass.*


Not so. In 1798 technology was good enough for Cavendish to measure the
gravitational attraction between 2 cannonballs a few inches apart (and by
doing so determine the value of the Gravitational Constant) but until a few
months ago no technology was good enough to measure the difference in
strength of a gravitational field that was 637,000,000 centimeters from the
center of the Earth and one that was 637,000,001 centimeters from the
center of the Earth. But the technology is good enough now thanks to this
new clock. And this isn't the end of the line for clock technology, nobody
has made one yet but a Thorium Nuclear Clock would be even more accurate.

John K Clark

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Re: Where Max Tegmark is really wrong

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/2/2018 4:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Nov 2018, at 19:22, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 11/30/2018 1:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Perspectivism is a form of modalism.


Nietzsche is vindicated.


Interesting. If you elaborate, you might change my mind on Nietzche, 
perhaps!
All what I say is very close the Neoplatonism and Negative Theology 
(capable only of saying what God is not).


Bruno


From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/


  6.2 Perspectivism

Much of Nietzsche’s reaction to the theoretical philosophy of his 
predecessors is mediated through his interest in the notion of 
perspective. He thought that past philosophers had largely ignored 
the influence of their own perspectives on their work, and had 
therefore failed to control those perspectival effects (/BGE/6; 
see/BGE/I more generally). Commentators have been both fascinated and 
perplexed by what has come to be called Nietzsche’s “perspectivism”, 
and it has been a major concern in a number of large-scale Nietzsche 
commentaries (see, e.g., Danto 1965; Kaulbach 1980, 1990; Schacht 
1983; Abel 1984; Nehamas 1985; Clark 1990; Poellner 1995; Richardson 
1996; Benne 2005). There has been as much contestation over exactly 
what doctrine or group of commitments belong under that heading as 
about their philosophical merits, but a few points are relatively 
uncontroversial and can provide a useful way into this strand of 
Nietzsche’s thinking.


Nietzsche’s appeals to the notion of perspective (or, equivalently in 
his usage, to an “optics” of knowledge) have a positive, as well as a 
critical side. Nietzsche frequently criticizes “dogmatic” 
philosophers for ignoring the perspectival limitations on their 
theorizing, but as we saw, he simultaneously holds that the operation 
of perspective makes a positive contribution to our cognitive 
endeavors: speaking of (what he takes to be) the perversely 
counterintuitive doctrines of some past philosophers, he writes,


Particularly as knowers, let us not be ungrateful toward such
resolute reversals of the familiar perspectives and valuations
with which the spirit has raged against itself all too long… : to
see differently in this way for once,/to want/to see differently,
is no small discipline and preparation of the intellect for its
future “objectivity”—the latter understood not as “disinterested
contemplation” (which is a non-concept and absurdity), but rather
as the capacity to have one’s Pro and Contra/in one’s power/, and
to shift them in and out, so that one knows how to make precisely
the/difference/in perspectives and affective interpretations
useful for knowledge. (/GM/III, 12)

This famous passage bluntly rejects the idea, dominant in philosophy 
at least since Plato, that knowledge essentially involves a form of 
objectivity that penetrates behind all subjective appearances to 
reveal the way things really are, independently of any point of view 
whatsoever. Instead, the proposal is to approach “objectivity” (in a 
revised conception) asymptotically, by exploiting the difference 
between one perspective and another, using each to overcome the 
limitations of others, without assuming that anything like a “view 
from nowhere” is so much as possible. There is of course an implicit 
criticism of the traditional picture of a-perspectival objectivity 
here, but there is equally a positive set of recommendations about 
how to pursue knowledge as a finite, limited cognitive agent.





Thanks. But I do not oppose perspectivism with Plato, and certainly 
not with neoplatonism, which explains everything from the many 
perspective of the One, or at least can be interpreted that way.


Pure perspectivism is an extreme position which leads to pure 
relativism, which does not make sense, as we can only doubt starting 
from indubitable things (cf Descartes). But Nietzsche might have been 
OK, as the text above suggested a “revised conception” of objective.


With mechanism, you have an ablate truth (the sigma_1 arithmetical 
truth), and the rest is explained by the perspective enforced by 
incompleteness.


My reading of Nietzsche is he thought that there are many different 
perspectives and one can only approach the truth by looking from 
different perspectives but never taking one of them as definitive. This 
goes along with his denial and rejection of being a system builder.  I 
think he equated system builders with those who took their perspective 
to be the only one.


Brent

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Re: Towards Conscious AI Systems (a symposium at the AAAI Stanford Spring Symposium 2019)

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 29 Nov 2018, at 20:24, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 10:44:05 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 27 Nov 2018, at 20:21, Brent Meeker > 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> What is this "primary matter" of which you speak? 
> 
> 
> X is Primary means basically that we have to assume X (or something judged 
> enough equivalent).
> 
> The idea of primary matter is the (physicalist) idea that we have to assume a 
> bit of physics, to get the physical law. It is used by people who dislike the 
> idea that matter might be explained without assuming anything physical. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My understanding of "primary matter" is that it is what matter (hyle) is 
> before it meets form, hence hylomorphism [ 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism ]. 
> 
> Thomas Aquinas thought (from what I've read) that matter is that which gives 
> forms individual instances, or "character", like individual trees, or people, 
> etc.
> 

That is the usual Aristotelian explanation. It is inconsistent with the 
assumption of digital mechanism.



> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> molecules?
> 
> Assuming contemporary chemistry, molecules are explained by quarks and 
> electrons, and quantum mechanics.
> 
> 
> Why are there so many articles today that claim to refute this?

Read them, and if one convince you, you can explain it here. Note that the 
background of those paper are Aristotelian, where Mechanism enforces the 
platonic view (if only to define properly what is a computation or machine).

Bruno



> 
> [ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3262307/ ]
> [ 
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/historical-contingency-and-the-futility-of-reductionism-why-chemistry-and-biology-is-not-physics/
>  ]
> 
>  - pt
> 
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Re: Towards Conscious AI Systems (a symposium at the AAAI Stanford Spring Symposium 2019)

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 5:26:14 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 29 Nov 2018, at 20:24, Philip Thrift > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 10:44:05 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 27 Nov 2018, at 20:21, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>>
>>
>> What is this "primary matter" of which you speak? 
>>
>>
>>
>> X is Primary means basically that we have to assume X (or something 
>> judged enough equivalent).
>>
>> The idea of primary matter is the (physicalist) idea that we have to 
>> assume a bit of physics, to get the physical law. It is used by people who 
>> dislike the idea that matter might be explained without assuming anything 
>> physical. 
>>
>>
>>
>>
> My understanding of "primary matter" is that it is what matter (hyle) is 
> before it meets form, hence *hylomorphism *[ 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism ]. 
>
> Thomas Aquinas thought (from what I've read) that matter is that which 
> gives forms individual instances, or "character", like individual trees, or 
> people, etc.
>
>
> That is the usual Aristotelian explanation. It is inconsistent with the 
> assumption of digital mechanism.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> molecules? 
>>
>>
>> Assuming contemporary chemistry, molecules are explained by quarks and 
>> electrons, and quantum mechanics.
>>
>
>
> Why are there so many articles today that claim to refute this?
>
>
> Read them, and if one convince you, you can explain it here. Note that the 
> background of those paper are Aristotelian, where Mechanism enforces the 
> platonic view (if only to define properly what is a computation or machine).
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
The papers in scientific publications (in recent science news, etc.) mainly 
involve positing *downward causation*: There are chemical laws that cannot 
be reduced to physical laws, and these (higher-level chemical) laws are 
needed to explain currently "unsolved" problems in chemistry and 
biochemistry.


- pt

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Re: Measuring a system in a superposition of states vs in a mixed state

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 8:13:48 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> *Obviously, from a one-world perspective, only one history survives for a 
> single trial. But to even grossly approach anything describable as 
> "Darwinian", you have to identify characteristics of histories which 
> contribute positively or negatively wrt surviving but I don't see an 
> inkling of that. IMO, Quantum Darwinism is at best a vacuous restatement of 
> the measurement problemt; that we don't know why we get what we get. AG*
>
>>
>>
>>

In the *sum over histories* interpretation - of the double-slit experiment, 
for example - each history carries a unit complex number - like a gene - 
and this gene reenforces (positively) or interferes (negatively) with other 
history's genes in the sum.

- pt

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Re: Where Max Tegmark is really wrong

[agrayson2000]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 8:25:47 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 2:02:43 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/2/2018 4:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 30 Nov 2018, at 19:22, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/30/2018 1:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> Perspectivism is a form of modalism.
>>
>>
>> Nietzsche is vindicated.
>>
>>
>> Interesting. If you elaborate, you might change my mind on Nietzche, 
>> perhaps!
>> All what I say is very close the Neoplatonism and Negative Theology 
>> (capable only of saying what God is not).
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>> From  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
>> 6.2 Perspectivism 
>>
>> Much of Nietzsche’s reaction to the theoretical philosophy of his 
>> predecessors is mediated through his interest in the notion of perspective. 
>> He thought that past philosophers had largely ignored the influence of 
>> their own perspectives on their work, and had therefore failed to control 
>> those perspectival effects (*BGE* 6; see *BGE* I more generally). 
>> Commentators have been both fascinated and perplexed by what has come to be 
>> called Nietzsche’s “perspectivism”, and it has been a major concern in a 
>> number of large-scale Nietzsche commentaries (see, e.g., Danto 1965; 
>> Kaulbach 1980, 1990; Schacht 1983; Abel 1984; Nehamas 1985; Clark 1990; 
>> Poellner 1995; Richardson 1996; Benne 2005). There has been as much 
>> contestation over exactly what doctrine or group of commitments belong 
>> under that heading as about their philosophical merits, but a few points 
>> are relatively uncontroversial and can provide a useful way into this 
>> strand of Nietzsche’s thinking.
>>
>> Nietzsche’s appeals to the notion of perspective (or, equivalently in his 
>> usage, to an “optics” of knowledge) have a positive, as well as a critical 
>> side. Nietzsche frequently criticizes “dogmatic” philosophers for ignoring 
>> the perspectival limitations on their theorizing, but as we saw, he 
>> simultaneously holds that the operation of perspective makes a positive 
>> contribution to our cognitive endeavors: speaking of (what he takes to be) 
>> the perversely counterintuitive doctrines of some past philosophers, he 
>> writes,
>>
>> Particularly as knowers, let us not be ungrateful toward such resolute 
>> reversals of the familiar perspectives and valuations with which the spirit 
>> has raged against itself all too long… : to see differently in this way for 
>> once, *to want* to see differently, is no small discipline and 
>> preparation of the intellect for its future “objectivity”—the latter 
>> understood not as “disinterested contemplation” (which is a non-concept and 
>> absurdity), but rather as the capacity to have one’s Pro and Contra *in 
>> one’s power*, and to shift them in and out, so that one knows how to 
>> make precisely the *difference* in perspectives and affective 
>> interpretations useful for knowledge. (*GM* III, 12)
>>
>> This famous passage bluntly rejects the idea, dominant in philosophy at 
>> least since Plato, that knowledge essentially involves a form of 
>> objectivity that penetrates behind all subjective appearances to reveal the 
>> way things really are, independently of any point of view whatsoever. 
>> Instead, the proposal is to approach “objectivity” (in a revised 
>> conception) asymptotically, by exploiting the difference between one 
>> perspective and another, using each to overcome the limitations of others, 
>> without assuming that anything like a “view from nowhere” is so much as 
>> possible. There is of course an implicit criticism of the traditional 
>> picture of a-perspectival objectivity here, but there is equally a positive 
>> set of recommendations about how to pursue knowledge as a finite, limited 
>> cognitive agent.
>>
>>
>> Thanks. But I do not oppose perspectivism with Plato, and certainly not 
>> with neoplatonism, which explains everything from the many perspective of 
>> the One, or at least can be interpreted that way.
>>
>> Pure perspectivism is an extreme position which leads to pure relativism, 
>> which does not make sense, as we can only doubt starting from indubitable 
>> things (cf Descartes). But Nietzsche might have been OK, as the text above 
>> suggested a “revised conception” of objective. 
>>
>> With mechanism, you have an ablate truth (the sigma_1 arithmetical 
>> truth), and the rest is explained by the perspective enforced by 
>> incompleteness.
>>
>>
>> My reading of Nietzsche is he thought that there are many different 
>> perspectives and one can only approach the truth by looking from different 
>> perspectives but never taking one of them as definitive.  This goes along 
>> with his denial and rejection of being a system builder.  I think he 
>> equated system builders with those who took their perspective to be the 
>> only one.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
>
> Nietzsche  is famous for two quotes:
>
> *God is dead!*
>


*Those who don't 

Re: Where Max Tegmark is really wrong

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/2/2018 4:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Language have no relation with truth a priori. Theories might have. 
Semantics are truth “by definition”, by relativising it to the notion 
of model/reality.




Then what is this "true" and "false" which you attribute to the 
propositions of modal logic?


Brent

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Re: Where Max Tegmark is really wrong

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 2:02:43 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 12/2/2018 4:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 30 Nov 2018, at 19:22, Brent Meeker > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 11/30/2018 1:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> Perspectivism is a form of modalism.
>
>
> Nietzsche is vindicated.
>
>
> Interesting. If you elaborate, you might change my mind on Nietzche, 
> perhaps!
> All what I say is very close the Neoplatonism and Negative Theology 
> (capable only of saying what God is not).
>
> Bruno
>
>
> From  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
> 6.2 Perspectivism 
>
> Much of Nietzsche’s reaction to the theoretical philosophy of his 
> predecessors is mediated through his interest in the notion of perspective. 
> He thought that past philosophers had largely ignored the influence of 
> their own perspectives on their work, and had therefore failed to control 
> those perspectival effects (*BGE* 6; see *BGE* I more generally). 
> Commentators have been both fascinated and perplexed by what has come to be 
> called Nietzsche’s “perspectivism”, and it has been a major concern in a 
> number of large-scale Nietzsche commentaries (see, e.g., Danto 1965; 
> Kaulbach 1980, 1990; Schacht 1983; Abel 1984; Nehamas 1985; Clark 1990; 
> Poellner 1995; Richardson 1996; Benne 2005). There has been as much 
> contestation over exactly what doctrine or group of commitments belong 
> under that heading as about their philosophical merits, but a few points 
> are relatively uncontroversial and can provide a useful way into this 
> strand of Nietzsche’s thinking.
>
> Nietzsche’s appeals to the notion of perspective (or, equivalently in his 
> usage, to an “optics” of knowledge) have a positive, as well as a critical 
> side. Nietzsche frequently criticizes “dogmatic” philosophers for ignoring 
> the perspectival limitations on their theorizing, but as we saw, he 
> simultaneously holds that the operation of perspective makes a positive 
> contribution to our cognitive endeavors: speaking of (what he takes to be) 
> the perversely counterintuitive doctrines of some past philosophers, he 
> writes,
>
> Particularly as knowers, let us not be ungrateful toward such resolute 
> reversals of the familiar perspectives and valuations with which the spirit 
> has raged against itself all too long… : to see differently in this way for 
> once, *to want* to see differently, is no small discipline and 
> preparation of the intellect for its future “objectivity”—the latter 
> understood not as “disinterested contemplation” (which is a non-concept and 
> absurdity), but rather as the capacity to have one’s Pro and Contra *in 
> one’s power*, and to shift them in and out, so that one knows how to make 
> precisely the *difference* in perspectives and affective interpretations 
> useful for knowledge. (*GM* III, 12)
>
> This famous passage bluntly rejects the idea, dominant in philosophy at 
> least since Plato, that knowledge essentially involves a form of 
> objectivity that penetrates behind all subjective appearances to reveal the 
> way things really are, independently of any point of view whatsoever. 
> Instead, the proposal is to approach “objectivity” (in a revised 
> conception) asymptotically, by exploiting the difference between one 
> perspective and another, using each to overcome the limitations of others, 
> without assuming that anything like a “view from nowhere” is so much as 
> possible. There is of course an implicit criticism of the traditional 
> picture of a-perspectival objectivity here, but there is equally a positive 
> set of recommendations about how to pursue knowledge as a finite, limited 
> cognitive agent.
>
>
> Thanks. But I do not oppose perspectivism with Plato, and certainly not 
> with neoplatonism, which explains everything from the many perspective of 
> the One, or at least can be interpreted that way.
>
> Pure perspectivism is an extreme position which leads to pure relativism, 
> which does not make sense, as we can only doubt starting from indubitable 
> things (cf Descartes). But Nietzsche might have been OK, as the text above 
> suggested a “revised conception” of objective. 
>
> With mechanism, you have an ablate truth (the sigma_1 arithmetical truth), 
> and the rest is explained by the perspective enforced by incompleteness.
>
>
> My reading of Nietzsche is he thought that there are many different 
> perspectives and one can only approach the truth by looking from different 
> perspectives but never taking one of them as definitive.  This goes along 
> with his denial and rejection of being a system builder.  I think he 
> equated system builders with those who took their perspective to be the 
> only one.
>
> Brent
>


Nietzsche  is famous for two quotes:

*God is dead!*

*There are no facts, only interpretations.*


Notebooks (Summer 1886 – Fall 1887)

   - Variant translation: Against that positivism which stops before 
   phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I 

Re: The most accurate clock ever

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/2/2018 6:22 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Sat, Dec 1, 2018 at 6:59 PM Brent Meeker > wrote:


> /But an ocean wave many feet high would change the gravitational
field less than would moving a centimeter relative to the Earth's
center of mass./


Not so. In 1798 technology was good enough for Cavendish to measure 
the gravitational attraction between 2 cannonballs a few inches apart 
(and by doing so determine the value of the Gravitational Constant) 
but until a few months ago no technology was good enough to measure 
the difference in strength of a gravitational field that was 
637,000,000 centimeters from the center of the Earth and one that was 
637,000,001 centimeters from the center of the Earth. But the 
technology is good enough nowthanks to this new clock. And this isn't 
the end of the line for clock technology, nobody has made one yet but 
a Thorium Nuclear Clock would be even more accurate.


No.  The potential difference measured by the cesium clock when raised 
1cm relative to the Earth was 2.03e9 times bigger than the smallest 
difference measured by Cavendish (assuming he could measure 0.00025m 
deflection).  The Earth is 3.9e22 times heavier than Cavendishes cannon 
ball.     So 300yrs ago Cavendishes technology was good enough; it's 
just hard to hang two Earth masses in a big box.


Brent

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Re: Measuring a system in a superposition of states vs in a mixed state

[Philip Thrift]

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 4:25:04 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 12/2/2018 11:42 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 8:13:48 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote: 
>>
>>
>> *Obviously, from a one-world perspective, only one history survives for a 
>> single trial. But to even grossly approach anything describable as 
>> "Darwinian", you have to identify characteristics of histories which 
>> contribute positively or negatively wrt surviving but I don't see an 
>> inkling of that. IMO, Quantum Darwinism is at best a vacuous restatement of 
>> the measurement problemt; that we don't know why we get what we get. AG*
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> In the *sum over histories* interpretation - of the double-slit 
> experiment, for example - each history carries a unit complex number - like 
> a gene - and this gene reenforces (positively) or interferes (negatively) 
> with other history's genes in the sum.
>
>
> But I thought you said the ontology was that only one history "popped out 
> of the Lottery machine"?  Here you seem to contemplate an ensemble of 
> histories, all those ending at the given spot, as being real.
>
> Brent
>




All are real until all but one dies.
RIP: All those losing histories.

- pt 

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Re: Measuring a system in a superposition of states vs in a mixed state

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/2/2018 5:14 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 4:25:04 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:



On 12/2/2018 11:42 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 8:13:48 AM UTC-6,
agrays...@gmail.com wrote:

*
*
*Obviously, from a one-world perspective, only one history
survives for a single trial. But to even grossly approach
anything describable as "Darwinian", you have to identify
characteristics of histories which contribute positively or
negatively wrt surviving but I don't see an inkling of that.
IMO, Quantum Darwinism is at best a vacuous restatement of
the measurement problemt; that we don't know why we get what
we get. AG*





In the *sum over histories* interpretation - of the double-slit
experiment, for example - each history carries a unit complex
number - like a gene - and this gene reenforces (positively) or
interferes (negatively) with other history's genes in the sum.


But I thought you said the ontology was that only one history
"popped out of the Lottery machine"?  Here you seem to contemplate
an ensemble of histories, all those ending at the given spot, as
being real.

Brent





All are real until all but one dies.
RIP: All those losing histories.


The trouble with that is the Born probability doesn't apply to 
histories, it applies to results.  So your theory says nothing about the 
probability of the fundamental ontologies.


Brent

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Re: The most accurate clock ever

[John Clark]

On Sun, Dec 2, 2018 at 4:29 PM Brent Meeker  wrote:


> *> The Earth is 3.9e22 times heavier than Cavendishes cannon ball. *
>

The mass of the earth is irrelevant because we're talking about measuring the
difference in the strength of gravity as distance increases not its
absolute value.

>> In 1798 technology was good enough for Cavendish to measure the
>> gravitational attraction between 2 cannonballs a few inches apart (andby
>> doing so determine the value of the Gravitational Constant) but until a
>> few months ago no technology was good enough to measure the difference in
>> strength of a gravitational field that was 637,000,000 centimeters from the
>> center of the Earth and one that was 637,000,001 centimeters from the
>> center of the Earth. But the technology is good enough now thanks to
>> this new clock.
>
>
> > *N**o.  The potential difference measured by the cesium clock when
> raised 1cm relative to the Earth was 2.03e9 times bigger than the smallest
> difference measured by Cavendish (assuming he could measure 0.00025m
> deflection).  The Earth is 3.9e22 times heavier than Cavendishes cannon
> ball. So 300yrs ago Cavendishes technology was good enough;*


If you are on the Earth's surface and you raise a clock by one centimeter
you've increased its distance from the earth's center by one part in
637,000,000, it is now 1.16 times further away. The intensity of
the gravitational field is proportional to the square of the distance so
gravity was 1.31 times stronger before you raised raised the clock.
Cavendish did not have a scale good enough to measure that, even today the
very best (and very expensive) lab weight scale might be able to measure a
change of 1.001 but the clock can do several hundred times better.


> > (assuming he could measure 0.00025m deflection).
>

When Cavendish measured a deflection he was measuring the strength of the
attraction between 2 canon balls, he was not measuring the difference in
the gravitational field at 2 points. Cavendish used a torsion balance and
its very good at measuring weak forces but it can't measure the super small
difference between 2 strong forces, to do that he'd need a weight scale, or
a super accurate clock.

John K Clark
>
>
>
>

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Re: The most accurate clock ever

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/2/2018 7:04 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Dec 2, 2018 at 4:29 PM Brent Meeker > wrote:


/> The Earth is 3.9e22 times heavier than Cavendishes cannon ball. /


The mass of the earth is irrelevant because we're talking about 
measuring the difference in the strength of gravity as distance 
increases not its absolute value.


>> In 1798 technology was good enough for Cavendish to measure
the gravitational attraction between 2 cannonballs a few
inches apart (andby doing so determine the value of the
Gravitational Constant) but until a few months ago no
technology was good enough to measure the difference in
strength of a gravitational field that was 637,000,000
centimeters from the center of the Earth and one that was
637,000,001 centimeters from the center of the Earth. But the
technology is good enough now thanks to this new clock. 



> /N//o.  The potential difference measured by the cesium clock when
raised 1cm relative to the Earth was 2.03e9 times bigger than the
smallest difference measured by Cavendish (assuming he could
measure 0.00025m deflection).  The Earth is 3.9e22 times heavier
than Cavendishes cannon ball.     So 300yrs ago Cavendishes
technology was good enough;/


If you are on the Earth's surface and you raise a clock by one 
centimeter you've increased its distance from the earth's center by 
one part in 637,000,000, it is now 1.16 times further away. 
The intensity of the gravitational field is proportional to the square 
of the distance so gravity was 1.31 times stronger before you 
raised raised the clock. Cavendish did not have a scale good enough to 
measure that, even today the very best (and very expensive) lab weight 
scale might be able to measure a change of 1.001 but the clock can 
do several hundred times better.


He was measuring the change in a much smaller gravitational field.



> (assuming he could measure 0.00025m deflection).


When Cavendish measured a deflection he was measuring the strength of 
the attraction between 2 canon balls, he was not measuring the 
difference in the gravitational field at 2 points. Cavendish used a 
torsion balanceand its very good at measuring weak forces but it can't 
measure the super small difference between 2 strong forces, to do that 
he'd need a weight scale, or a super accurate clock.


He was measuring the difference between the force on the torsion balance 
with the cannon balls present vs absent.


Brent

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Re: Measuring a system in a superposition of states vs in a mixed state

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/2/2018 11:42 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 8:13:48 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
wrote:


*
*
*Obviously, from a one-world perspective, only one history
survives for a single trial. But to even grossly approach anything
describable as "Darwinian", you have to identify characteristics
of histories which contribute positively or negatively wrt
surviving but I don't see an inkling of that. IMO, Quantum
Darwinism is at best a vacuous restatement of the measurement
problemt; that we don't know why we get what we get. AG*





In the *sum over histories* interpretation - of the double-slit 
experiment, for example - each history carries a unit complex number - 
like a gene - and this gene reenforces (positively) or interferes 
(negatively) with other history's genes in the sum.


But I thought you said the ontology was that only one history "popped 
out of the Lottery machine"?  Here you seem to contemplate an ensemble 
of histories, all those ending at the given spot, as being real.


Brent

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