Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Le 05-oct.-06, à 04:01, Brent Meeker a écrit : There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. This is just saying that you generalized brain is the whole physical universe. Then either the physical universe is turing emulable, and in that case the reasoning of Maudlin still work. Or the physical universe is not turing emulable, but then comp is false (giving that here your brain is equal to the whole universe). Note that in general, if your brain is not the entire universe, comp entails that the physical universe is not turing emulable. 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: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Brent Meeker wrote: There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. But this is precisely my point - to sustain supervenience, there must be a *unique* implementation of the 'computation' that is deemed responsible for *unique* effects - in which case we are then free to discard the metaphor of 'computation' and point to the physics as doing the work. Perhaps there needs to be a distinction on this list (or have I just missed it?) between: C1) analyses of consciousness in terms of 'computation', notwithstanding which any 'effect-in-the-world' is seen as reducing to the behaviour of some specific physical implementation (i.e. as defined on a non-computationally-established 'substrate'); C2) 'pure' computational analysis of consciousness, whereby any 'effect-in-the-world' is deemed invariant to 'implementation' (or more precisely, all notions of 'implementation' - and hence 'the world' - are alike defined on a computationally-established 'substrate'). C1 is computational theory within physicalism. C2 is what I understand Bruno et al. to mean by 'comp'. The notion of 'implementation' doesn't disappear in C2, it just becomes a set of nested 'substitution levels' within a recursive computational 'reality'. This can be a major source of confusion IMO. The point remains that you can't consistently hold both C1 and C2 to be true. The belief that there is an invariant mapping between consciousness and 'pure' computation (at the correct substitution level) *entails* a belief in C2, and hence is inconsistent with C1. This doesn't mean that C1 is *false*, but it isn't 'comp'. C1 and C2 have precisely opposite explanatory directions and intent. Hence...you pays your money etc. (but hopefully pending empirical prediction and disconfirmation). This is switching computation in place of consciousness: relying on the idea that every computation is conscious? I don't claim this, but this is apparently what Hofstadter et al. do (IMO egregiously) maintain, having (apparently) missed the notion of substitution level inherent in C2. Under C2, we can't be sure that every 'computation' is conscious: because of substitution uncertainty we always have the choice of saying 'No' to the doctor. Ant Hillary is a case in point - AFAICS the only way to make an ant hill 'conscious' - however you may *interpret* its behaviour - is to eat it (ughh!!) and thereby incorporate it at the correct level of substitution. But for me this would definitely be a case of 'No chef'. David David Nyman wrote: Russell Standish wrote: Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Is there not a more general appeal to plausibility open to the non-supervenience argument? We are after all attempting to show the *consequences* of a thoroughgoing assumption of comp, not prove its truth. Under comp, a specific conscious state is taken as mapping to, and consistently co-varying with, some equally specific, but purely computationally defined, entity. The general problem is that any attempt to preserve such consistency of mapping through supervention on a logically and ontically prior 'physical' reality must fail, because under physicalism comp *must* reduce to an arbitrary gloss on the behaviour at an arbitrary level of arbitrarily many *physical* architectures or substrates. There is another possibility: that consciousness is relative to what it is conscious *of* and any computation that implements consciousness must also implement the whole world which the consciousness is conscious of. In that case there may be only one, unique physical universe that implements our consciousness. In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). This is switching computation in place of consciousness: relying on the idea that every computation is conscious? 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,
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
- Original Message - Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) (Brent's quote): David Nyman wrote: (I skip the discussion...) In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? 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: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Stathis: let me skip the quoted texts and ask a particular question. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:41 PM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) You wrote: Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou - My question is about 'copy' and 'emulate'. Are we considering 'copying' the model and its content (in which case the coal shoveling robot last sentence applies) or do we include the interconnections unlimited in experience, beyond the particular model we talk about? If we go all the way and include all input from the unlimited totality that may 'format' or 'complete' the model-experience, then we re-create the 'real thing' and it is not a copy. If we restrict our copying to the aspect in question (model) then we copy only that aspect and should not draw conclusions on the total. Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Le 04-oct.-06, à 18:09, [EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit : That is how YOU formulate these concepts in YOUR mind (i.e. comprehension), Yes, but I make that comprehension sharable by being clear on the hypotheses. I would say that this is how science work. We make theories, which can only just be hypothetical. Then we derive theorems, that is consequences, and we compare them with the facts. Puzzles me: are WE not ALL machines? Can we 'comprehend' the limitations of some bigger (=more comprehensive G>) construct of which we are part of? That is all the point of the limitation phenomena in digital machine theory (computer science). Once a machine complexity is higher than a precise logical threshold, then the machine can prove its own incompleteness theorem: If I am consistent then I cannot prove that I am consistent. Still, the machine can bet on such So, machine which introspect themselves sufficiently closely can not only guess the existence of something bigger, but the machine can study the mathematical structure of its ignorance border. I think most people understand the first seven steps of the eight [UDA] steps (Do I envy them) (May be you are perhaps just ironical, but I will answer like you were not). You can ask question, even on the first step, or on the hypotheses. The basic idea is simple. As David reminds us the game is to search the consequence of comp which is the digital version of the very old mechanist assumption: we are machine. It means there is no part of our body which cannot be substituted at some level by functional artificial (and digital) device. This is the yes doctor guess. Then the steps of the UDA follows gently, except the last one which is harder (I talk about the version in 8 steps). My original motivation for the UDA was only to explain that the mind-body problem is *far* from being solved, but that a simple and natural hypothesis makes it translatable in mathematics; and of course the math appearing there are NOT simple as we can expect. I got results though, like the fact that although comp makes it possible to comprehend the whole of the third person describable reality, it makes impossible to comprehend the whole of any first person reality. I have also results showing that the first person plural reality obeys quantum-like rules. Those are tiny bits of confirmation of the comp hypothesis (not a proof, obviously). Only atheist have reason to dislike the consequence of comp. Not because they would be wrong, but because their belief in nature is shown to need an act of faith (and atheists hate the very notion of faith). 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
SV: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Only atheist have reason to dislike the consequence of comp. Not because they would be wrong, but because their belief in nature is shown to need an act of faith (and atheists hate the very notion of faith). Bruno That is the most absurd statement so far --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~--- --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John I was thinking of various examples in 'Godel, Escher, Bach', and it's years since I read it. Here's a URL I just Googled that may be relevant: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6100/geb.html From memory, Hofstadter decribes 'implementations' of computations that involve the detailed behaviour of anthills, and worse yet, detailed descriptions of 'Einstein's Brain' listed in a book that you can supposedly ask questions and receive answers! Trouble is, Hofstadter is such a brilliantly witty and creative writer that I could never be completely sure whether he was deliberately torturing your credulity by putting these forward as tongue-in-cheek reductios (like Schroedinger with his cat apparently) or whether he was actually serious. I'll have to re-read the book. David - Original Message - Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) (Brent's quote): David Nyman wrote: (I skip the discussion...) In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? 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: SV: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Le 05-oct.-06, à 16:03, Lennart Nilsson a écrit : Only atheist have reason to dislike the consequence of comp. Not because they would be wrong, but because their belief in nature is shown to need an act of faith (and atheists hate the very notion of faith). Bruno That is the most absurd statement so far… Unless you are confusing atheism and agnosticism, or ... you should explain why you find this absurd. the UDA precisely illustrates that the modest scientist should not take nature for granted. Of course by nature, I mean the aristotelian conception of nature as something primitive, i.e. which is at the root of everything else. This does not necessarily jeopardize the actual *theories* of nature, just the interpretation of those theories. This is a good thing given that physicists today admit there is no unanimity on the interpretation of physical theories. And I argue since that if we assume comp physics cannot be the fundamental science, it has to be derive from psychology, biology, theology, number theory, computer science, well chose your favorite name, they are all imprecise enough. 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
SV: SV: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
To be an atheist means to deny God, not to believe i nature. Från: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] För Bruno Marchal Skickat: den 5 oktober 2006 17:07 Till: everything-list@googlegroups.com Ämne: Re: SV: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia Le 05-oct.-06, à 16:03, Lennart Nilsson a écrit : Only atheist have reason to dislike the consequence of comp. Not because they would be wrong, but because their belief in nature is shown to need an act of faith (and atheists hate the very notion of faith). Bruno That is the most absurd statement so far Unless you are confusing atheism and agnosticism, or ... you should explain why you find this absurd. the UDA precisely illustrates that the modest scientist should not take nature for granted. Of course by nature, I mean the aristotelian conception of nature as something primitive, i.e. which is at the root of everything else. This does not necessarily jeopardize the actual *theories* of nature, just the interpretation of those theories. This is a good thing given that physicists today admit there is no unanimity on the interpretation of physical theories. And I argue since that if we assume comp physics cannot be the fundamental science, it has to be derive from psychology, biology, theology, number theory, computer science, well chose your favorite name, they are all imprecise enough. 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~--- --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: SV: SV: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Le 05-oct.-06, à 17:15, Lennart Nilsson a écrit : x-tad-biggerTo be an atheist means to deny God, not to believe i ”nature”./x-tad-bigger Fair enough. My confusion (it is still debatable) comes from the fact that I have never met a real atheist (as opposed to an agnostic who believes to be an atheist) who does not take the primitivity of matter for granted. If you have references I am very interested. Most atheist I read are ardent defender of materialism, up to the point of being often eliminativist, consciousness would be an illusion (a statement which I have never understand). I am sensible on this point because such hard materialism negates the first person existence, and in europa we know where such philosophies can lead. Now, if you are open to an objective idealist atheism, then I am open to the idea that comp could be the most atheist doctrine: it denies the Nature-God. But I think this could be very confusing, if only because, as the yes doctor problem illustrates, comp needs a sort of act of faith by itself (in technology, in numbers, ...). And the comp reasoning guaranties that such an act of faith is not blind, it does not kill the doubt. Actually I should perhaps not use the word faith which could be a sort of false friend (not exactly the same meaning in french and english, or worst, not the same meaning according to your most fundamental beliefs). Bruno x-tad-bigger /x-tad-bigger x-tad-biggerFrån:/x-tad-biggerx-tad-bigger everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] /x-tad-biggerx-tad-biggerFör /x-tad-biggerx-tad-biggerBruno Marchal/x-tad-bigger x-tad-biggerSkickat:/x-tad-biggerx-tad-bigger den 5 oktober 2006 17:07/x-tad-bigger x-tad-biggerTill:/x-tad-biggerx-tad-bigger everything-list@googlegroups.com/x-tad-bigger x-tad-biggerÄmne:/x-tad-biggerx-tad-bigger Re: SV: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia/x-tad-bigger Le 05-oct.-06, à 16:03, Lennart Nilsson a écrit : Only atheist have reason to dislike the consequence of comp. Not because they would be wrong, but because their belief in nature is shown to need an act of faith (and atheists hate the very notion of faith). Bruno That is the most absurd statement so far… Unless you are confusing atheism and agnosticism, or ... you should explain why you find this absurd. the UDA precisely illustrates that the modest scientist should not take nature for granted. Of course by nature, I mean the aristotelian conception of nature as something primitive, i.e. which is at the root of everything else. This does not necessarily jeopardize the actual *theories* of nature, just the interpretation of those theories. This is a good thing given that physicists today admit there is no unanimity on the interpretation of physical theories. And I argue since that if we assume comp physics cannot be the fundamental science, it has to be derive from psychology, biology, theology, number theory, computer science, well chose your favorite name, they are all imprecise enough. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 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: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
David, thanks. Hofstadter's G-E-B is a delightful (BIG) book, I regret that I lost my (voracious ?) reading situation (possibility), especially to re-read it. Just next week I will quote GEB at a recital I will perform for our area music club about the Wohltemperiertes which Bach wrote for his sons to practice their fingers in piano-technique learning. I also loved his translation-book about that French poem of 1 word lines.- I cannot recall in which book I read that he was tricked by AI people into asking esoteric questions from an AI-computer - getting incredible answers, until next day 'they' confessed and showed him the 5 young guys in another room who made up the replies for him. Thanks for the URL To the statement in question here: a 'computation' can be anything I say it is - I find true, as long as I feel free to identify 'comp' as I like (need) it. (Same for 'numbers' and 'consciousness). John - Original Message - From: David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 10:38 AM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John I was thinking of various examples in 'Godel, Escher, Bach', and it's years since I read it. Here's a URL I just Googled that may be relevant: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6100/geb.html From memory, Hofstadter decribes 'implementations' of computations that involve the detailed behaviour of anthills, and worse yet, detailed descriptions of 'Einstein's Brain' listed in a book that you can supposedly ask questions and receive answers! Trouble is, Hofstadter is such a brilliantly witty and creative writer that I could never be completely sure whether he was deliberately torturing your credulity by putting these forward as tongue-in-cheek reductios (like Schroedinger with his cat apparently) or whether he was actually serious. I'll have to re-read the book. David - Original Message - Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) (Brent's quote): David Nyman wrote: (I skip the discussion...) In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? 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: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
George Levy wrote: The correct conclusion IMHO is that consciousness is independent of time, space, substrate and level and in fact can span all of these just as Maudlin partially demonstrated - but you still need an implementation -- so what is left? Like the Cheshire cat, nothing except the software itself: Consistent logical links operating in a bootstrapping reflexive emergent manner. Surely this is the 'correct conclusion' only given that one first *accepts comp*? We can show that a maximalist comp position (like the UDA argument) cannot depend on 'computationally independent' (i.e. as distinct from 'computationally substituted') physical supervention, at root because such supervention can be shown to be arbitrary. That is: any computation can be implemented in arbitrarily many physical implementations that may incidentally be *interpreted* as being computationally equivalent, without this having the slightest effect on what actually occurs in the world. In other words, given physicalism, comp can only be a metaphor, relying entirely on physics to do whatever work is entailed in acting-in-the-world. For supervention to be true (as it may be) consciousness would have to map to, and co-vary with, *specific* physical processes, that happen incidentally to be capable of interpretation as computations. This is simply entailed by what we mean by physicalism - all complex processes *reduce* in principle to unique physical events. Conversely, for comp to be true, the 'physical' must *emerge* from recursively nested computational operations - i.e. the reverse explanatory direction. This disjunction is in itself is an extremely powerful result with profound, and as yet unresolved, consequences for AI and the study of consciousness. But as to which is true (or neither for that matter) we can only follow the consequences of our assumptions here - 'proof' requires empirically falsifiable prediction and experiment. David List members I scanned Maudlin's paper. Thank you Russell. As I suspected I found a few questionable passages: Page417: line 14: So the spatial sequence of the troughs need not reflect their 'computational sequence'. We may so contrive that any sequence of address lie next to each other spatially. Page 418 line 5: The first step in our construction is to rearrange Klara's tape so that address T[0] to T[N] lie spatially in sequence, T[0] next to T[1] next to T[2], etc... How does Maudlin know how to arrange the order of the tape locations? He must run his task Pi in his head or on a calculator. Maudlin's reaches a quasi religious conclusion when he states: Olympia has shown us a least that some other level beside the computational must be sought. But until we have found that level and until we have explicated the relationship between it and the computational structure, the belief that ...of pure computationalism will ever lead to the creation of artificial minds or the the understanding of natural ones, remains only a pious hope. Let me try to summarize: Maudlin is wrong in concluding that there must be something non-computational necessary for consciouness. Maudlin himself was the unwitting missing consciousness piece inserted in his machine at programming time i.e., the machine's consciouness spanned execution time and programming time. He himself was the unwitting missing piece when he design his tape. The correct conclusion IMHO is that consciousness is independent of time, space, substrate and level and in fact can span all of these just as Maudlin partially demonstrated - but you still need an implementation -- so what is left? Like the Cheshire cat, nothing except the software itself: Consistent logical links operating in a bootstrapping reflexive emergent manner. Bruno is right in applying math/logic to solve the consciousness/physical world (Mind/Body) riddle. Physics can be derived from machine psychology. George Russell Standish wrote: If I can sumarise George's summary as this: In order to generate a recording, one must physically instantiate the conscious computation. Consciousness supervenes on this, presumably. Maudlin say aha - lets take the recording, and add to it an inert machine that handles the counterfactuals. This combined machine is computationally equivalent to the original. But since the new machine is physically equivalent to a recording, how could consciousness supervene on it. If we want to keep supervenience, there must be something noncomputational that means the first machine is conscious, and the second not. Marchal says consciousness supervenes on neither of the physical machines, but on the abstract computation, and there is only one consciousness involved (not two). Of course, this all applies to dreaming machines, or machines hooked up to recordings of the real world. This is where I concentrate my attack on the
Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;)
Bruno, I started to read [the English version of] your discourse on Origin of Physical Laws and Sensations. I will read more later. It is certainly very interesting and thought provoking. It makes me think of 'Reasons and Persons' by Derek Parfitt. His book is very dry in places but mostly very well worth the effort of ploughing through it. As a non-mathematician I can only argue using my form of 'common sense' plus general knowledge. [En passant - I am happy to see that your French language discourse features a debate between Jean Pierre Changeaux and a mathematician. Changeaux's book 'Neuronal Man' was a major influence in setting me off on my quest to understand the nature of consciousness. He helped me to find a very reasonable understanding which makes a lot of sense of the world. Merci beacoup a JPC. :-] I dispute the assumption that we can consider and reify number/s and/or logic apart from its incarnation. It is like the 'ceteris paribus' so beloved of economists; it is a conceptual tool not a description of the world. Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 02-oct.-06, à 18:03, markpeaty a écrit : snip So you assume a primitive world. From this I can already infer you have to distrust the computationalist hypothesis in the cognitive science. snip I agree. That is what makes the human mind turing universal. When it lacks memory space it extends itself through the use of pebble, wall, etc. There are practical and in-principle limits to what can be achieved computationally. Any computational device, however much it might seem to be divine, has to BE somewhere, instantiated in some form. This means that no computer is ever going to fully emulate a system in the real world. Problems preventing total emulation include, truncation of numbers in calculation, arbitrary cut-offs in the accuracy of measurements, and entropy. [The latter will manifest as 'Murphy's Law' .] Now, are you really saying that mathematical truth (not the mathematical expression that humans have developed to talk about that mathematical truth) is a human's construct. MP: Yes. To assume otherwise is to believe in a 'Truth' or 'Truths' beyond that which we can sense, feel or think. That is OK, as long as it is seen for the religious practice that it is. But in reality [I say :-] we are limited to asserting the existence of self and world, although we are very safe to do so due to the contradictions involved in denying the existence of either self or world. All the rest is descriptions of one sort or another. Would you say that the number 17 was not a prime number at the time of the dinosaurs? In which case you distrust the Arithmetical realism part of comp, and you are remarkably coherent. If dinosaurs could count and think with sufficient levels of abstraction, presumably they would have come across prime numbers in their spare time. Otherwise, like trees falling in the forests of the early carboniferous which made very little 'sound', prime numbers would have been very thin on the ground, so to speak. That said, I read with interest a year or two ago about certain kinds of insects [I think they are in North America somewhere] which lie dormant in the earth in some pre-adult stage for a PRIME number of years, 11, 13, were chosen by different species. Apparently the payoff for this strategy is that few predator species can match this length of time, and repeating cycles of shorter periods cannot 'resonate' so as to launch a large cohort of predators when the prey species produces its glut after waiting for the prime number of years. I suspect that this could have started happening way back in the Cretaceous or whenever. That so much of what occurs in 'the world' CAN be represented by numbers and other mathematical/logical objects and processes, is better expained by assuming that the great 'IT' of noumenal nature is actually made up of many simple elements [taken firstly in the general sense]. This underlying simplicity which yet combines and permutates itself into vast complexity, is something we infer with good reason - it works! This would make sense if you can specify those simple elements. Have you heard about Bell, Kochen and Specker and other weird facts predicted and verified from quantum mechanics. I am afraid such simple elements are already rule out empirically, even, with the Many World assumptions. I fail to see what is the problem here. You cannot separate number from that which is numbered, except as a mental trick, but within the brain mathematical objects are instantiated within neural networks. Now even mentioning quantum mechanics, I refer to my work (see the URL) for an argument showing that the hypothesis that we are turing emulable at some level (whatever that level) entails the laws of physics have to be explained without assuming a physical primitive world. Of course this refutes the current Aristotelian Naturalistic paradigm, but does rehabilitate Plato and the
Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;)
On Thu, October 5, 2006 11:49, markpeaty wrote: That said, I read with interest a year or two ago about certain kinds of insects [I think they are in North America somewhere] which lie dormant in the earth in some pre-adult stage for a PRIME number of years, 11, 13, were chosen by different species. Apparently the payoff for this strategy is that few predator species can match this length of time, and repeating cycles of shorter periods cannot 'resonate' so as to launch a large cohort of predators when the prey species produces its glut after waiting for the prime number of years. An alternative hypothesis put forth, equally plausible to me, is that different species co-evolved to be dormant different prime numbers of years. This would create the minimum competition for environmental resources as they came out of their dormant period; prime numbers having the largest least common multiple. Of course they didn't do this with any intention or awareness; natural selection on random variations in dormancy period length would favor this kind of outcome. -Johnathan --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Barbour's mistake: ..to Bruno
Bruno, kind reply, I was not ironical. You did not deny my position that ALL you do is coming from YOUR mind. However your justification ends with a 'funny' word: FACTS. What would YOU accept as facts and what would I? (Mind-body? our conscious feelings of a 'body(?) and all its accessory jazz is how WE (1st pers?) interpret our response to impacts we realize(d). Pain? Idea? Sport achievement? all from our solipsistic self considered as 'facts' (I start to be impressed by Colin's solipsism). So I am not impressed by (your) science based on (your) facts. I listen to them an - maybe - accept (in toto or in part). The Goedel-infection of complex machines (ourselves) was much simpler expressed by George (cannot prove that I am not crazy). "So, machine which introspect themselves sufficiently closely can not only guess the existence of something "bigger", but the machine can study the mathematical structure of its ignorance border." still does not show that 'it' comprehends the 'items' of such "BIGGER", only that 'it' accepts the existence of (something) such. Even more: it can study its (incomprehending) ignorance. * UDA step 1: do you really 'believe'(?!) that we, identified as (complex) machines are really ONLY the PARTS of the BODY? you seem to be in favor of the 'mind-body' idea (G) - where is the mind IN US? you replace (yes doctor) the body-parts and the mind just goes with it? I use YOUR words here, I would say 'mentality' or 'ideation' the part neurologists cannot give account for. Or would you 'make' mentality a bodily organ, not flesh and blood, but of ideational stuff? then 'mind' would merge into body and you are not in favor of that. Anyway such an extended body-concept in my appreciation for Gestalt would please me. Just like "brainS" is not the plural of "brain", the goo. Facilitation of the hard problem. Materialists cannot come up to such solutions.Theymeasure mVs- mAmps. So what does (your) body consist of? Or: what do you let go into the 'mind', what the YD does not exchange? Your 2nd par "*far* from being solved" is not explained by a cloudy allowance that it surely can be mathematically solved. I say similarly cloudily: no, it cannot. My fact. And I am not impressed by a reference to 'quantum-like rules', to refer to a simplified linear 1-track methodology in understanding something that is complex. Your 'results' (no matter how much I appreciate them) are still within the comprehension of your thinking, not of a mathematical structuring(Godel) that there issome 'BIG' which is above your comprehension. (QED). * I find your reference to atheists irrelevant as far as I am concerned. I simply do not find 'room' for 'supernatural' or any extraneous intelligence that would 'create', 'rule', 'organize' or do any other 'godly' activity over our (not understood) existence. So: no 'theo' for me. (a- or not). People with similar ideas in earlier times coined the 'pantheist' _expression_, but that. too, was a variant of the religious formula. I still stay with my 'scientific agnosticism': I dunno. But I can criticize. Best regards John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 9:53 AM Subject: Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia Le 04-oct.-06, à 18:09, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : "That is how YOU formulate these concepts in YOUR mind (i.e.comprehension),"Yes, but I make that comprehension sharable by being clear on the hypotheses. I would say that this is how science work. We make theories, which can only just be hypothetical. Then we derive theorems, that is consequences, and we compare them with the facts. "Puzzles me: are WE not ALL machines? Can we 'comprehend' the limitations of some "bigger" (=more comprehensive G) construct of which we are part of?"That is all the point of the limitation phenomena in "digital machine theory" (computer science). Once a machine complexity is higher than a precise "logical" threshold, then the machine can prove its own incompleteness theorem: "If I am consistent then I cannot prove that I am consistent". Still, the machine can bet on suchSo, machine which introspect themselves sufficiently closely can not only guess the existence of something "bigger", but the machine can study the mathematical structure of its ignorance border. I think most people understand the first seven steps of the eight [UDA] steps"(Do I envy them)"(May be you are perhaps just ironical, but I will answer like you were not).You can ask question, even on the first step, or on the hypotheses. The basic idea is simple. As David reminds us the game is to search the consequence of comp which is the digital version of the very old mechanist assumption: we are machine. It means there is no part of our body which cannot be substituted at
