Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Hi George, At 15:33 03/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: Bruno, I reread your post of 5/11/2004 and it raised some questions and a possible paradox involving the idea that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable. (see below, for a quotation from your post) GL wrote It may be that using the observer as starting points will force White Rabbits to be filtered out of the observable world BM wrote: And again I totally agree. It *is* what is proved in my thesis. I have done two things: 1) I have given a proof that if we are machine then physics must be redefined as a science which isolates and exploits a (first person plural) measure on the set of all computational histories. The proof is rigorous, I would say definitive (unless some systematic error of course), although provably unformalizable (so that only 1 person can grasp it). 2) I provide a mathematical confirmation of comp by showing that (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay ...) we can literally interview a universal machine, acting like a scientist ---by which I mean we will have only a third person discourse with her. BUT we can interview her about the possible 1-person discourse. That is a tour de force in the sense that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable (and so we cannot define it in any third person way). But by using in a special way ideas from Plato's Theaetetus + Aristotle-Kripke modal logic + Godel's incompleteness discovery make the tour de force easily tractable. Here I can only be technical or poetical, and because being technical seems yet premature I will sum up by saying that with comp, the plenitude is just the incredibly big set of universal machine's ignorance, and physics is the common sharable border of that ignorance, and it has been confirmed because that sharable border has been shown to obey to quantum laws. I get recently new result: one confirm that with comp the first person can hardly know or even just believe in comp; the other (related to an error in my thesis I talked about in some previous post) is the apparition of a new quantum logic (I did not command it!) and even (I must verify) an infinity of quantum logics between the singular first person and the totally sharable classical discourses. This could go along with your old theory that there could be a continuum of person-point-of-view between the 1 and 3 person, and that would confirms that you are rather gifted as an introspecter (do you remember? I thought you were silly). But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? The adoption of the first person as a frame of reference (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. In other words, the logical system governing the mental processes of the observer becomes part of the frame of reference However, we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... and very often their beliefs about the world is just wrong. Very often they even make arithmetic errors such as 8x7 = 65. So if we assume a relative formulation, here is the dilemma: 1) if we adopt a formal system such as the one(s) your have talked about we assign an absolute quality to the observer which violates our premise of relative formulation. 2) If we adopt a non-formal human logical system, we are left with an extremely complicated task of reconciling the observations obtained by several observers who in my terminology share the same frame of reference One of the question that arise is how fundamental should be the concept of frame of reference or of the mechanism/logic that underlies our thinking: 1) Is it governed at the atomic level by physical laws down to resolution of Planck's constant? The notion of observer is defined here with a Planck resolution. If we share the same physical laws then we can say that we share the same frame of reference. This option avoids the inconsistencies of the human logical systems but throws out of the window the relativistic formulation. In addition this approach provides a neat justification for the equivalence of the sets describing the physical world and the mental world. 2) Is it governed at the neurological or even at the psychological level? The notion of observer here has a very coarse resolution compared to the first option. This approach keeps the relative formulation but becomes a quagmire because of its lack of formalism. How can the notion of objective reality be defined? In fact, is there such a thing as a true psychological objective reality? However, the fact that a psychological objective reality is an oxymoron (contradiction in terms) does not invalidate the definition of the observer at the psychological level. Au contraire. - Remember that my starting point is the computationalist hypothesis in the theoretical cognitive science. I take as objective truth arithmetical truth, and as third person objective communicable
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
George, I am afraid there is a point which I should still comment in your post. BM:But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? GL: The adoption of the first person as a frame of reference (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. OK, but then why are you looking for the ultimate relativization? It *is* the recent discovery that physics in some way seems to appear also with S4GRz that is the formal capture of the informal first person I talk in the last post. I thought that should be impossible, for S4Grz is related to antisymmetrical frame, and the quantum logic should be symmetrical. But someone pointed that I should have prove that impossibility by induction, and quickly I have been lead to counterexemples, and then Quantum Logics (re)appeared where I did not suspect it to appear, It makes possible your ultimated first person view. But even such singling out of the first person makes only sense here only through the acceptance of the ultimate third person arithmetical truth and then the interview of the universal machine. It is related to a choice of methodology due to my willingness of being a modest scientist, saying hopefully clear and verifiable propositions... Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Bruno, do we have an agreed-upon identification "what" to call an observer? I may heve missed it on the list, if yes. Your post below speaks about the topic, but I don't see some conclusion: is it the unformalizable first person concept, is it upon formal, or nonformal considerations? Isthe essence of an 'observer' unresolved and so hard to involve it in activities for conclusions? I mean a short, concise plain language identification. In my (non-physics) verbalizing I tried lately to identify an observer with something receiving (maybe responding to) any topically relatable information (not the 'bit' of course). Very close to my "cop-out" for consciousness of a decade ago. Sorry for my simplistic question John Mikes - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: Everything List Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 10:22 AM Subject: Re: First Person Frame of Reference Hi George,At 15:33 03/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: Bruno,I reread your post of 5/11/2004 and it raised some questions and a possible paradox involving the idea that the "notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable." (see below, for a quotation from your post)GL wrote It may be that using the observer as starting points will force White Rabbits to be filtered out of the observable worldBM wrote:And again I totally agree. It *is* what is proved in my thesis. I have done two things: 1) I have given a proof that if we are machine then physics must be redefined as a science which isolates and exploits a (first person plural) measure on the set of all computational histories. The proof is rigorous, I would say definitive (unless some systematic error of course), although provably unformalizable (so that only 1 person can grasp it). 2) I provide a mathematical confirmation of comp by showing that (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay ...) we can literally interview a universal machine, acting like a scientist ---by which I mean we will have only a third person discourse with her. BUT we can interview her about the possible 1-person discourse. That is a "tour de force" in the sense that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable (and so we cannot define it in any third person way). But by using in a special way ideas from Plato's Theaetetus + Aristotle-Kripke modal logic + Godel's incompleteness discovery make the "tour de force" easily tractable. Here I can only be technical or poetical, and because being technical seems yet premature I will sum up by saying that with comp, the plenitude is just the incredibly big "set" of universal machine's ignorance, and physics is the common sharable border of that ignorance, and it has been confirmed because that sharable border has been shown to obey to quantum laws. I get recently new result: one confirm that with comp the first person can hardly know or even just believe in comp; the other (related to an error in my thesis I talked about in some previous post) is the apparition of a "new" quantum logic (I did not command it!) and even (I must verify) an infinity of quantum logics between the singular first person and the totally sharable classical discourses. This could go along with your old theory that there could be a continuum of person-point-of-view between the 1 and 3 person, and that would confirms that you are rather gifted as an "introspecter" (do you remember? I thought you were silly). But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? The adoption of the first person as a "frame of reference" (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. In other words, the logical system governing the mental processes of the observer becomes part of the "frame of reference However, we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... and very often their beliefs about the world is just wrong. Very often they even make arithmetic errors such as 8x7 = 65.So if we assume a relative formulation, here is the dilemma: 1) if we adopt a formal system such as the one(s) your have talked about we assign an absolute quality to the observer which violates our premise of relative formulation.2) If we adopt a non-formal human logical system," we are left with an extremely complicated task of reconciling the observations obtained by several observers who in my terminology "share the same frame of reference" One of the question that arise is how fundamental should be the concept of "frame of reference" or of the mechanism/logic that underlies our thinking:1) Is it governed at the atomic level by physical laws down to resolution of Planck's constant? The notion of observer
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
GL wrote: How can the notion of "objective reality" be defined? The question (in non-physics terms) is IMO a series of oxymorons: "Objective" anything (unless we imply unknow(n)/able features) is restricted to whatever the mind has interpreted upon impact(?) it received. Eo ips'objective' is 'subjective'. "Reality" ditto, what WE accept as 'reality' - so objective reality is indeed callable some subjective virtuality. "Defined" however is pure mind-work, the epitome of subjective, virtual activity. It seems GL concentrates on the "observable world" (White Rabbits to be filtered out of theobservable world) which brings the discussion down to Earth. "Frame of reference" is IMO mindset, with all its fundaments. Seems strongly relatable with '1st person' (GL). "we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. The 'formality' (in human identification) is subject to inadequacies (like Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... ) all as identified by the human mind. I doubt whether this is the only (logical?) system applicable? in which case our 'errors' may be OK in another view. Maybe more and for us controversial ones are OKable in some other system (beyondhuman capabilities). I don't feel like discussing the dilemma (1 and 2) exposed by GL. John Mikes (What I want to add - as a joke maybe - is a 'Freudian' afterthought to the example which GV gave to the arithmetic human error: ...8x7 = 65... which points to Germanto be right: 8x7 = 6 und 5zig. He did not write 37 or 143 - Just for the fun of it. Excuse)- JM - Original Message - From: George Levy To: Everything List Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 6:33 PM Subject: First Person Frame of Reference Bruno,I reread your post of 5/11/2004 and it raised some questions and a possible paradox involving the idea that the "notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable." (see below, for a quotation from your post)GL wrote It may be that using the observer as starting points will force White Rabbits to be filtered out of the observable worldBM wrote:And again I totally agree. It *is* what is proved in my thesis. I have done two things: 1) I have given a proof that if we are machine then physics must be redefined as a science which isolates and exploits a (first person plural) measure on the set of all computational histories. The proof is rigorous, I would say definitive (unless some systematic error of course), although provably unformalizable (so that only 1 person can grasp it). 2) I provide a mathematical confirmation of comp by showing that (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay ...) we can literally interview a universal machine, acting like a scientist ---by which I mean we will have only a third person discourse with her. BUT we can interview her about the possible 1-person discourse. That is a "tour de force" in the sense that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable (and so we cannot define it in any third person way). But by using in a special way ideas from Plato's Theaetetus + Aristotle-Kripke modal logic + Godel's incompleteness discovery make the "tour de force" easily tractable. Here I can only be technical or poetical, and because being technical seems yet premature I will sum up by saying that with comp, the plenitude is just the incredibly big "set" of universal machine's ignorance, and physics is the common sharable border of that ignorance, and it has been confirmed because that sharable border has been shown to obey to quantum laws. I get recently new result: one confirm that with comp the first person can hardly know or even just believe in comp; the other (related to an error in my thesis I talked about in some previous post) is the apparition of a "new" quantum logic (I did not command it!) and even (I must verify) an infinity of quantum logics between the singular first person and the totally sharable classical discourses. This could go along with your old theory that there could be a continuum of person-point-of-view between the 1 and 3 person, and that would confirms that you are rather gifted as an "introspecter" (do you remember? I thought you were silly). But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? The adoption of the first person as a "frame of reference" (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. In other words, the logical system governing the mental processes of the observer becomes part of the "frame of reference However, we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... and very often their beliefs about the world is just wrong. Very often they even make arithmetic errors such as 8x7 = 65. So if we assume a relative formulation, here is the dilemma: 1) if we adopt a
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
At 11:04 04/06/04 -0400, John M wrote: Bruno, do we have an agreed-upon identification what to call an observer? I may heve missed it on the list, if yes. Your post below speaks about the topic, but I don't see some conclusion: is it the unformalizable first person concept, is it upon formal, or nonformal considerations? Is the essence of an 'observer' unresolved and so hard to involve it in activities for conclusions? I mean a short, concise plain language identification. OK, from the UDA and its arithmetical translation, an (atomic) physical observable yes-no proposition is just a true arithmetical sigma_1 sentence ( i. e. with the shape it exists a number n such that P(n) with F(n) decidable (= UD accessible), explicitely provable (= true in all consistent extensions) and explicitely true in at least one consistent extension. If you quantize p by []p, that is sum up on the world where you survive (comp immortality) you get the measure 1 logic. It remains open exactly which sort of quantum logic we get. The sensible observer is the same + the truth of p. Let me summarize the theaetetical variants, understanding could come later :) 1) Independently of comp (!) The scientific discourse = []p The first person discourse = []p p The observer discourse = []p p The sensible observer disc. = []p p p This gives 4 logics (G, S4Grz, Z, X), x 2, because of G/G* distinction, minus 1, because S4Grz* = S4Grz. 7 logics. 2) with comp you must add the axiom p - []p (= the modal form of the arithmetical UD accessibility, I call it 1 for sigma_1: indeed EnP(n) - []EnP(n)) That gives 8 new logics: G1, S4Grz1, Z1, X1, G1*, S4Grz1*, Z1*, X1* Minus 1, because I conjecture (S4Grz+ p-[]p)* = S4Grz+ p-[]p. In my (non-physics) verbalizing I tried lately to identify an observer with something receiving (maybe responding to) any topically relatable information (not the 'bit' of course). Mmm.. Very close to my cop-out for consciousness of a decade ago. Don't hesitate to remind links or to summarize in a post. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
