Re: Fermi Paradox and measure
Large has a lot to do with old. Universes where conscious life arose by a lengthy evolutionary process will have larger measure (by vitue of simpler initial conditions) than do universes whose conscious life arises spontaneously, or by relatively short evolutionary processes. It is also interesting to speculate on the observed difficulty in achieving self-awareness - see Robin Hanson's argument in "Hard Steps" (do a Google search). This would probably imply that a number of difficult transitions in the evolutionary sequence is of higher measure than evolutionary sequences generating self-aware lifeforms without difficult transitions. And difficult transitions imply large, empty universes. Cheers On Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 05:38:56PM -0700, "Hal Finney" wrote: > > Ron Hale-Evans writes: > > My favourite answer to the Fermi Paradox has been that the aliens are > > using nearly-perfect compression or encryption for their radio signals > > (if they're using radio), and that's why all we can detect is noise. > > > > However, tonight another "answer" occurred to me. What if we're living > > in a finite simulation? > > I don't know that multiverse concepts explain the Fermi paradox, but > they do cast it in a different light. > > As Bruno points out, our first-person experiences could be created by > many different kinds of programs, corresponding to different "realities". > It could be that everything is pretty much as it seems. Or perhaps we > are living in a simulation controlled by aliens, or our descendants, > or robots. Or it's even possible that everything is an illusion and we > are in effect imagining it. All of these possibilities contribute to the > measure of our experiences. So in some sense it must be simultaneously > true that we are in a simulation, and that we are not in a simulation. > Both situations exist in the multiverse and both contribute to the > reality of our experiences. > > The hard part of the Fermi question still remains. It might be stated, > why is the universe seemingly so large and so empty? In multiverse > terms, why is the measure of observers who live in large, empty universes > so large, compared to the measure of observers who live in universes > teeming with life? For if the measure of the latter observers were much > greater than the measure of the former, we would be highly unlikely to > find ourselves one of that very small set of observers who see sparse > universes. > > (Of course, I am skipping past the various conventional explanations that > have been offered which allow for the universe to in fact be full of life > but for it somehow not to be observable. Those have not been generally > found to be convincing so we should focus on the hard part. Also, > note that while I write "life" for short I really mean intelligent life.) > > A while back I speculated as follows. Presumably there are laws of > physics which would lead to very densely populated universes. And we > know that there are laws that lead to very sparse universes, like > the ones we live in. All universes exist; all laws are instantiated. > > For various reasons many of us argue that universes with simpler laws > are likely to be more common, to have larger measure. Now, we know that > if the laws are too simple, life cannot exist. Trivial universes are > not living ones. Presumably, as the laws get more complex, we pass a > threshold where life can start to exist. But perhaps it is reasonable > to assume that we will first find laws where life can barely exist, > before we find laws where life is very common. If so, then there is a > band of complexity where universes at the simple end of this band have > very sparse intelligent life, and universes at the complex end have very > dense intelligent life. > > Then, to be consistent with our observations, we have to conclude that > this band is quite wide - that universes that are just barely complex > enough for life have much simpler laws than universes that are teeming > with life. That is how we would explain the fact that we find ourselves > in one of the first kind. Their boost from having simpler laws must > outweigh the increase in numbers of intelligent life forms in the more > complex universes. > > I read that the universe is estimated to have about 10^23 stars. > A universe with a high density of intelligent life might therefore be > 10^23 times more densely populated than ours. This is about 2^75 times. > Therefore we would predict that the physical laws necessary to create > such a densely populated universe would be at least 75 bits longer than > the simpler laws of our own universe. > > This is a prediction of multiverse theory as I interpret it. If it should > turn out that there are very simple sets of laws that would create very > numerous observers, then that would contradict the theory in this form. > > Hal Finney > > -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of t
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno, I have found myself in this lifetime to be a staunch OP-ponent and challenger to Godel's incompleteness theorems. In the way that they are structured - with the premises Godel preset, of initial boundaries for what he was about to design by 'proof' - his theorems are both sufficiently closed and constituently -accurate- in their conclusion and notions. _But_, what I find disturbing about them is that they are RELIANT on a more formative -presumption-, which presumption enables an analyst to draw quite a -contradiction aspect- to what Godel announced. A self-discontinuity _within_ his theorems, as it were. Clearly, this: He tacitly identifies any information resident -outside- any current/known, as -eventually accessible, connectible, relatable-, even if it means restructuring known-information in regard to alternative/new criteria and standards definitions, descriptions, statements. It is through this process of "add then rerevaluate" that new paradigms are achieved. But, it is dependent on the compatibility of the whole scope of all the information -then- present; and the eventual capacity to coordinate statements with all content addressable by statements. So, his thesis that at any given moment in time, not all information is present or gathered, and that this makes for limited statement making, where some evaluation statements in the data-set may instead be reliant on future/other yet-to-be-included information .. is a worthy logical notion. A closed system may not completely evaluate itself -- some evaluations are indeterminant. But, think for a moment about what that presumption of eventual includability dictates: That we -can- (right now) state something specific and projective about the qualia and nature of knowledge and information -- currently -beyond- the bounds of actual experience and encounter and access. It also aserts: information 'unknown' is compatible with and eventually relatable with information 'known'. The first foundation of Godel's '"I can't decide about that" Theorems' is the moot statement: 'I -can- decide about -everything- and here's why'; --which is a contradiction of logic. The "limited" set can make true-false statement about the totality of existence (internal and external to known-ness), but it cannot guarantee it's own true-false statements without added 'external' information made internal. Therefore, the logic of future science and knowledge, I assert, is -incorrectly- contrained and defined by this - by Godel and his Incompleteness Theorems. Rather, the logic of future science and knowledge is premised in Information and Performance Holism. The unitary interactional and information accessible quality of Existence. Which fundamental notion is what Godel ignores and rejects and tries to discredit. Where, we CAN in fact make VALID STATEMENTS -about that which- the incompleteness theorems 'conclude': we should not be able to say -anything- at all. You can absolutely place me in the community of thinkers who do not "swallow the incompleteness phenomena". Because my statements/logic are not incorrect and they do identify flaw/weakness/incorrectness in Godel. He used not a tautology but a strange negative tautology. If A then not-A ; if not-A, then never(A) as long as not-A exists; and since not-A always exists then A is not accessible to evaluate not-A; but not-A can assert A and assess A. All Godel did was give a validation for information hiding and manipulation -- something useful to politicians and economic manipulators and spiritual advocates. He didn't do science or logic or math any favors. Or the future for that matter. James N Rose Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:59, James N Rose a écrit : > > > > > Math and reductive science ignore and dis-consider collateral > > co-extancy. > > The comp assumption leads to the less reductive possible account of the > person and person POVs. > For example, comp does not guaranties *any* survival, but it guaranties > that no such survival-guaranties are possible. It guaranties > eventually that personal identity can only be a matter of ... > *personal* matter. > > Perhaps are you confusing math before and after > Post-Turing-Church-Godel-Lob ... > > ... or you refer to those mathematicians who have not yet swallow the > incompleteness phenomena... > > Actually I believe that the incompleteness theorem (especially with > comp or weaker) makes it impossible for science, or better, for the > scientific attitude, to be reductive. With comp the diagonalization > tale is before all a lesson of modesty. > > Despite this, Goel's incompleteness theorem is a constructive theorem, > and it leads to the discovery that "machine ignorance" is wonderfully > structured, rich, productive ... > And UDA justifies why the laws of physics comes from there, in a > testable way. > > To assume our finiteness, what comp really is about, enlarge
Re: Back to Existence: Physically Real vs. Platonic
Lee Corbin wrote: > Stathis wrote, Friday, June 30, 2006 12:24 AM > > >>A book is the analogy that came to mind, but there is an >>important difference between this and conscious experience. >>Books, sentences, words may not need to be physically >>collected together to make a coherent larger structure, >>but they do need to be somehow sorted in the mind of an >>observer; otherwise, we could say that a dictionary >>contains every book ever written or yet to be written. > > > Okay, suppose that there are no observers, and the Earth > has been burnt to a cinder except for one copy of Milton's > "Paradise Lost", and one copy of the Oxford English dictionary. > It seems to me that we should say that just two books still > exist. Do you agree? > > (Sorry for asking what you have said many times one > way or the other; I'm not clear as to who has said > what.) > > Supposing that you do agree that these two book in our > spacetime still exist, then as you have said, all the > words in "Paradise Lost" can be found in the Oxford > dictionary. > > Next we begin the slippery slope argument where Paradise Lost > is broken apart into its separate pages and scattered > throughout the cosmos. I agree with you that in one sense > Milton's book no longer exists, but it still does exist in > the sense that there is enough redundancy to piece it back > together again were a new sentient life form to come into > being, and to find those pages, and to bind them. > > What I disagree with is your statement that the mind of the > observer really played any key role. I find that implausible. You're assuming that the pages could be put back in order without recognizing any meaning of the words. Do you think you could put the pages of a book written in Chinese in order? - I couldn't. I think you are implicitly assuming that rules of syntax and grammar are in the text itself. For a long book, it might be possible to infer those rules with some confidence - but not with certainty. As this analogizes OMs, my conception of OMs is that they would correspond roughly to sentences, not pages; so reconstruction is even less likely. Brent Meeker "A solopist is like the man who gave up turning around because whatever he saw was always in front of him." --- Ernst Mach --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > >>Sure it is. Just because something cannot be directly experienced >>doesn't rule it out of a >>scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but their effects can. > > > > OK, but we were discussing about theories. general relativity, as a > theory does not assume the existence of readers of "relativity > journal". The quantum theory *with collapse* is already less clear on > that ... > > > >>So I believe in other people's >>first person experience because that is a good way to predict their >>behavoir. > > > Except the same theory would predict the behavior of zombie. We are > arguing on a fundamental level. All what I argue for is that once you > *assume* comp, then there is no aristotelian primary matter, and > eventually physics is branch of number's bio/psych/theo/logy. As I understand it, assuming comp is assuming that there are no zombies. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis also wrote in the same email, Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 12:24 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > Brent wrote > > That's why I suggest that OMs are not an adequate ontological basis for a > > world model. On the other > > hand, if we include brain processes, or more abstractly, subconscious > > thoughts, then we would have > > enough information to string them together. > > I know some people on this list have attempted world-building > with OMs, but my starting point is the less ambitious idea that > consciousness can in principle extend across time and space > without being specially linked. If a person's stream of consciousness > were chopped up into seconds, minutes, days or whatever, using > whatever vehicle it takes to run a human mind, and these moments > of consciousness randomly dispersed throughout the multiverse, > they would all connect up by virtue of their information content. > Do you disagree that it would in principle be possible? So if I understand you right, this is where the difference between a book and a person arises. When a book's letters are scattered over the cosmos, the information is lost, but when the observer moments are so scattered, the subjective experience still remains. Now we suppose from quantum mechanics that the Bekenstein bound on the number of states a human can be in is less than 10^10^45. (Tipler, 1993, "The Physics of Immortality".) So each state of your life is a very special small subset of all those states. Let's do something special with just *one* life that you've led (will lead) in the universe, one life, that is, in a particular spacetime. I propose to take something quite a bit like observer-moments and ask some questions about it. Suppose that an exact frozen replica of your brain is made corresponding to each 10^-42 seconds of your life. This gives us about 10^42 * 10^7 * 70years, or about 10^50 states (a far cry from all those possible for humans, 10^10^45). We place those 10^50 states in a long row, and then, for an audience, we round up all the billions of observers in the visible universe to watch the show. First the spotlight is on your brain the second after you were born. Then one 10^-42 seconds later the spotlight moves to the next frozen brain, and so forth. The audience is placed in the same frame of reference as the moving light, and so they see an apparently continuous evolution of your brain. How is this any different from what happened to you actually? From an external scientific point of view, it seems remarkably identical. (I am ultimately to claim that something essential---but not "consciousness" or anything like that is missing, but rather *causality* is missing.) I suppose that you would assert that a first person experience was attached to this performance, a performance moving against a background of stars as the stage. Is that correct? Next we begin a process of deconstruction. First, on one century's performance, there is trouble with the spotlight, and it's very dim although the audience can still see the show. But a few performances (centuries) later, the spotlight goes out altogether. Still, the audience knows from the notes passed out exactly what is happening. On another night, the audience fails to show up. Do these things really affect whether or not a first person experience attends the brain? In other performances, the spotlight dances all around, from a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a hundred trillionth of a second (about 10^-50 seconds) from your brain in midlife to your brain as an adolescent, then to your brain as a young adult, then to the geezer Stathis brain, and so on, completely wrecking the order. Now from what you wrote above about > it takes to run a human mind, and these moments > of consciousness randomly dispersed throughout the multiverse, > they would all connect up by virtue of their information content. one might surmise that you believe that the order that these frozen brains appear is irrelevant. (I happen to agree---my own view is that as soon as there was no longer causality connecting each frozen brain with another brain---that is, that no real computation was taking place---the first person experience no longer occurred.) But if I have surmised correctly, then you wouldn't care that the frozen brains were not only shown sometimes out of sequence, but that there did not have to be an audience, nor was the spatial relative locations of the brains relevant. They could be jumbled all over the cosmos. But next, what about the neurons making up the brains? What would be lost if they too were dispersed through time and space? Finally, just when, if any time, would anything be lost: what if the neurons are themselves separated into atoms and dispersed? Well, to me this is the ultimate reductio, because it means that among the dust in the vast, vast, vast volumes of the cosmos, each of y
Back to Existence: Physically Real vs. Platonic
Stathis wrote, Friday, June 30, 2006 12:24 AM > A book is the analogy that came to mind, but there is an > important difference between this and conscious experience. > Books, sentences, words may not need to be physically > collected together to make a coherent larger structure, > but they do need to be somehow sorted in the mind of an > observer; otherwise, we could say that a dictionary > contains every book ever written or yet to be written. Okay, suppose that there are no observers, and the Earth has been burnt to a cinder except for one copy of Milton's "Paradise Lost", and one copy of the Oxford English dictionary. It seems to me that we should say that just two books still exist. Do you agree? (Sorry for asking what you have said many times one way or the other; I'm not clear as to who has said what.) Supposing that you do agree that these two book in our spacetime still exist, then as you have said, all the words in "Paradise Lost" can be found in the Oxford dictionary. Next we begin the slippery slope argument where Paradise Lost is broken apart into its separate pages and scattered throughout the cosmos. I agree with you that in one sense Milton's book no longer exists, but it still does exist in the sense that there is enough redundancy to piece it back together again were a new sentient life form to come into being, and to find those pages, and to bind them. What I disagree with is your statement that the mind of the observer really played any key role. True, in most realistic situations it helped for the new sentient race to have minds and to exercise them in the conscious collection of these far flung pages; but accidental solar winds from millions of stars per chance could have done exactly the same thing. So the book would come back into existence again, totally without observers being present anywhere in the universe. > I know some people on this list have attempted world- > building with OMs, but my starting point is the less > ambitious idea that consciousness can in principle > extend across time and space without being specially > linked. If a person's stream of consciousness were > chopped up into seconds, minutes, days or whatever, > using whatever vehicle it takes to run a human mind, > and these moments of consciousness randomly dispersed > throughout the multiverse, they would all connect up > by virtue of their information content. Do you > disagree that it would in principle be possible? Lee P.S. Apologies to all: I have not been able to keep up with list volume, and so am sorry if I am repeating (or failing to address) subsequent arguments made by others. It seems a risk worth taking; experience seems to indicate that we usually make different points. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
- Original Message - From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 3:34 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > > John M wrote: > > > > ... > > >Stathis wrote: > > >... > > > "I agree. Other people are part of the model of the > world we form. And in the same way the existence of > myself, as a durable entity, is also a part of that > model. > Brent Meeker" > > * > > Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close > > on solipsism? > > Not if you accept that *all* our ideas of reality are models. The fact that they work well and are > coherent makes me believe they are models of an external reality - not a personal illusion - but I > can still doubt that they *are reality* itself. In other words I take them to be like scientific > theories: provisionally accepted, but subject to refutation. > Provided that your solipsism does not 'illusion' similarly thinking persons and phenomena that all match closely he one you imagined as the 'original' one. 'Scientific theories' ditto. Solipsism is an irrefutable quagmire of lunacy. > > > > Then again: >... > I have memories from when I was 5yrs old, but the source of identity I feel in those memories arises > only from the fact that I remember a personal viewpoint in spactime and I remember emotions. Those > are the same aspects of memories of last week that make them coherent with >my model of myself as a being who persists over time. > > Brent Meeker > I would love to go a bit further than that. I am working on it without firmly believing to arrive at a "good" solution soon. (I.e. during the time I have left). John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Hello, Quentin: we agree in spite of a different formulation: "death" - I wrote about it as a process in a concept, while I feel you refer to the 'death' of a 'person' or whatever, as a state. The person (or whatever) is a complex entity of its (his?) interconnected and self-reflective (yes, even 'lifeless' features) components - in connection with "the rest of the world" and when "death" (my semantics) steps in - such complex entity starts ;losing connection and accordingly ceases to exist altogether (as in its entirety). Portions of it do not qualify for the (entire) complex entity subjected to the 'death' (your semantics) process. It may continue to be something partially similar, but not anymore the entire complex. I have to differentiate in this respect between "essential" and "non essential" ingredients: a limb does not seem to be essential to a person, so the loss of a leg does not destroy the 'person' complexity into death. Even a (larger) part of the neuronic brain is not necessarily 'death-inducing', nor the partial loss of mentality. I have yet to find the criteria for identifying the kinds of 'ingredients' the loss (destruction, paralysis, dysfunction) of which we may qualify for 'death-inducing' - I do not rely on the ongoing medical terms which allow 'near-death' and reversible 'clinical' death (coma?) and consider the medically pronounceable death in a physiological restriction. I have no acceptable (for me) identification for "life". For sure I consider it wider than the churning of C-H-O-N based molecules in the Terrestrial biosphere. Feeling identical with that kid of 5 is a funny notion: emotionally it is memory of that early "I" in my present terms, mentality is the present one, not that 5 year old (logic, experience, cognitive inventory, even use of memes) and - allegedly none of my present 'atoms' in my 'body' is the same anymore. So what is what I feel as "MYSELF"? In spite of Saibal's 'killing of a person by adding too much new information to his experience'??? I am still 'alive'(?) and feel identical to that (Saibal-killed) infant. And when I die, that kid also dies (with/in me). This question of the two of us is real, within common sense normalcy, no teleportation or duplication involved. Regards John M - Original Message - From: "Quentin Anciaux" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 6:51 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity Hi John, Le Vendredi 30 Juin 2006 21:06, John M a écrit : > An interesting observation from Saibal that increasing > the info-input to one's brain kills person(ality?). > I would not say "dead", rather 'changed' as into some > different one. (It is a gradual change, death is being > thought of as something more abrupt and > comprehensive.) For me death means to never be conscious again... never. That's why death is meaningless in a 1st person point of view, because it is impossible by definition to feel being dead, because if you could feel being dead, it means you're not (dead), if you were by definition you couldn't feel/experience it. So "the you" at 3 years old could not be dead, because you remember being it (in your "bones"). That's why I think speaking of 1st person experience/identity as being illusionary is a bad step for explaining 1st person experience, which is the only thing we ever experience, the only real thing we can be sure of. > In spite of that, knowing that when as a 5-yo I had > different person-ality and ideas, brainfunction and > emotions, I still feel NOW identity with THAT PERSON. I totally agree with this. And I think speaking (bis repetita) of 1st person experience/continuous identity through time as being an illusion can not explain the feeling of being "a self" every day till ... ? ;) > The best > > John M Regards, Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Interesting question. I am interested in your own answer. I let Stathis answer (to see if he will give the comp one). Note that the comp answer here is not needed in the UDA argument where overlapping reconstitution (like in duplications) are never followed by somethings which looks (at least) like a murder. Bruno Le 02-juil.-06, à 07:52, Lee Corbin a écrit : > > Stathis wrote > >> Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 5:53 AM > >> which is why in symmetrical duplication experiments I anticipate >> that I will become one of the duplicates with equal probability. > > What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know > that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated, > but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates, > and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other > returned to your bed completely unaware? > > Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.) > > One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's > the one that dies, then your number is up.) > > One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and > resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our > fiendish experiments began when he was five years old)) > > Lee > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Only Existence is necessary?
Le 02-juil.-06, à 08:44, Tom Caylor a écrit : > My point is that of the thread title "Only Existence is necessary?" > Not that observers are necessary for existence, but that existence is > insufficient for meaning. I'm still holding out for Bruno to work the > rest of his diagonalization tricks to maybe try to prove otherwise. OK, and I'm sorry for the interruption. I am also troubled by Norman's post, I am afraid he loses the track just for reason of notation. The beauty of recursion theory is that you can arrive quickly, without prerequisites, to startling fundamental results. Now, as I said recently, it is really the UD Argument (UDA) which makes mental and physical existence secondary to arithmetical truth. The diag stuff just isolates a more constructive path so as to make comp testable. Somehow I agree with you: existence (being physical, mental, or numerical) is not enough for meaning, but once we assume comp, meaning, seen as first person apprehension, is, by definition, related to some relative computations. Now the main point is perhaps that although existence is not enough, it is not necessary either. And that is what really UDA shows, mental and physical existence are appearances (locally stable for purely number theoretical reasons) emerging from arithmetical truth. Comp gives a way to progress without relying on the mystery of first person quale (which makes meaning meaning), nor on the mystery of quanta existence. Our qualitative belief in numbers remains a mystery, like the truly qualitative part of qualia. Don't expect from the diagonalization posts that I solve *that* mystery, although it can be argued, assuming comp and self-referential correctness, that the lobian interview gives the closer third person explanation of why the first persons cannot escape the percept of many non communicable mysteries. I would bet consciousness is one of them, but hardly the only one. That consciousness is a mystery would already follow if you accept the following weak definition of consciousness. Consciousness as a qualitative part of an anticipation of (a) reality. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:59, James N Rose a écrit : > > Math and reductive science ignore and dis-consider collateral > co-extancy. The comp assumption leads to the less reductive possible account of the person and person POVs. For example, comp does not guaranties *any* survival, but it guaranties that no such survival-guaranties are possible. It guaranties eventually that personal identity can only be a matter of ... *personal* matter. Perhaps are you confusing math before and after Post-Turing-Church-Godel-Lob ... ... or you refer to those mathematicians who have not yet swallow the incompleteness phenomena... Actually I believe that the incompleteness theorem (especially with comp or weaker) makes it impossible for science, or better, for the scientific attitude, to be reductive. With comp the diagonalization tale is before all a lesson of modesty. Despite this, Goel's incompleteness theorem is a constructive theorem, and it leads to the discovery that "machine ignorance" is wonderfully structured, rich, productive ... And UDA justifies why the laws of physics comes from there, in a testable way. To assume our finiteness, what comp really is about, enlarges the range of our possible infinite realms. With comp only the gods can miss the unconceivable freedom. Somehow. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > Sure it is. Just because something cannot be directly experienced > doesn't rule it out of a > scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but their effects can. OK, but we were discussing about theories. general relativity, as a theory does not assume the existence of readers of "relativity journal". The quantum theory *with collapse* is already less clear on that ... > So I believe in other people's > first person experience because that is a good way to predict their > behavoir. Except the same theory would predict the behavior of zombie. We are arguing on a fundamental level. All what I argue for is that once you *assume* comp, then there is no aristotelian primary matter, and eventually physics is branch of number's bio/psych/theo/logy. > I consult a model in > which I use my first person experience to perdict how they will behave > - this is called emphathizing > - and I find it works pretty well. You are lucky but then I don't know any other ways. But again, in those threads we are not just interested in prediction (even if they are the ultimate test) but in understanding. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:35, Brent Meeker a écrit : > That's not contrary to my conception at all. I certainly do "bet" on > the existence of others, and > of chairs and tables and stars and electrons and myself, and all for > the essentially the same reasons. OK. > > I don't understand the conjunction of "necessarily" and > "serendipitous". It can be proved that if I am a self-referentially correct machine then I cannot know which machine I am. So if the doctor *guaranties* that I will survive the digital graft at the substitution level he has chosen, then I'l better run ... (if I can). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
