Re: QTI & euthanasia (brouillon)

[Kory Heath]

On Nov 16, 2008, at 1:32 PM, Günther Greindl wrote:
> nicely put (the below), it captures my current metaphysical position
> quite accurately :-)

Thanks, Günther! It'll be interesting to see if we continue to agree  
as the MGA thread progresses. :)

-- Kory


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Re: MGA 1

[Kory Heath]

On Nov 18, 2008, at 11:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> The last question (of MGA 1) is:  was Alice, in this case, a zombie
> during the exam?

Of course, my personal answer would take into account the fact that I  
already have a problem with the materialist's idea of "matter". But I  
think we're supposed to be considering the question in the context of  
mechanism and materialism. So I'll ask, what should a mechanist- 
materialist say about the state of Alice's consciousness during the  
exam?

Maybe I'm jumping ahead, but I think this thought experiment creates a  
dilemma for the mechanist-materialist (which I think is Bruno's  
point). In contrast to many of the other responses in this thread, I  
don't think the mechanist-materialist should believe that Alice is  
conscious in the case when every gate has stopped functioning (but  
cosmic rays are randomly causing them to flip in the exact same way  
that they would have flipped if they were functioning). Alice is in  
that case functionally identical to a random-number generator. It  
shouldn't matter at all whether these cosmic rays are striking the  
broken gates in her head, or if the gates in her head are completely  
inert and the rays are striking the neurons in (say) her arms and her  
spinal chord, still causing her body to behave exactly as it would  
have without the breakdown. I agree with Telmo Menezes that the  
mechanist-materialist shouldn't view Alice as conscious in the latter  
case. But I don't think it's any different than the former case.

It sounds like many people are under the impression that mechanism- 
materialism, with it's rejection of zombies, is committed to the view  
that Lucky Alice must be conscious, because she's behaviorally  
indistinguishable from the Alice with the correctly-functioning brain.  
But, in the sense that matters, Lucky Alice is *not* behaviorally  
indistinguishable from fully-functional Alice. For the mechanist- 
materialist, everything physical counts as "behavior". And there is a  
clear physical difference between the two Alices, which would be  
physically discoverable by a nearby scientist with the proper  
instruments.

Lets imagine that, during the time that Alice's brain is broken but  
"luckily" acting as though it wasn't due to cosmic rays, someone  
throws a ball at Alice's head, and she ("luckily") ducks out of the  
way. The mechanist-materialist may be happy to agree that she did  
indeed "duck out of the way", since that's just a description of what  
her body did. But the mechanist-materialist can (and must) claim that  
Lucky Alice did not in fact respond to the ball at all. And that  
statement can be translated into pure physics-talk. The movements of  
Alice's body in this case are being caused by the cosmic rays. They  
are causally disconnected from the movements of the ball (except in  
the incidental way that the ball might be having some causal effect on  
the cosmic rays). When Alice's brain is working properly, her act of  
ducking *is* causally connected to the movement of the ball. And this  
kind of causal connection is an important part of what the mechanist- 
materialist means by "consciousness".

Dennett is able to - and in fact must - say that Alice is not  
conscious when all of her brain-gates are broken but very luckily  
being flipped by cosmic rays. When Dennett says that someone is  
conscious, he is referring precisely to these behavioral competences  
that can be described in physical terms. He means that this collection  
of physical stuff we call Alice really is responding to her immediate  
environment (like the ball), observing things, collecting data, etc.  
In that very objective sense, Lucky Alice is not responding to the  
ball at all. She's not conscious by Dennett's physicalist definition  
of consciousness. But she's also not a zombie, because she is behaving  
differently than fully-functional Alice. You just have to be able to  
have the proper instruments to know it.

If you still think that Dennett would claim that Lucky Alice is a  
zombie, take a look at this quote from 
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/zombic.htm 
  : "Just remember, by definition, a zombie behaves indistinguishably  
from a conscious being–in all possible tests, including not only  
answers to questions [as in the Turing test] but psychophysical tests,  
neurophysiological tests–all tests that any 'third-person' science can  
devise." Lucky Alice does *not* behave indistinguishably from a  
conscious being in all possible tests. The proper third-person test  
examining her logic gates would show that she is not responding to her  
immediate environment at all. Dennett should claim that she's a non- 
conscious non-zombie.

Nevertheless, I think Bruno's thought experiment causes a problem for  
the mechanist-materialist, as it is supposed to. If we believe that  
the fully-functional Alice is conscious and the random-gate-brain  
Alice is not conscious, what happens wh

Re: Little exercise

[A. Wolf]

> Well if you take any finite portion of the universe then you have a
> finite amount of matter, this finite amount of matter has a finite set
> of possible permutations hence for a given block of universes of the
> same size there is only a finite set of possible arrangement of the
> matter in those. The light speed is a constant means also that if the
> universe is infinite and unbounded there exists totally causaly
> disconnect finite block of "universe" inside the universe.

This is only true from the perspective of someone within the Universe.  From 
an "outside" perspective, the Universe is locally connected throughout.  The 
same CBR that reaches us also reaches parts of the Universe that are not in 
our light-cone.

> The only thing that matters for the UD is that it is a supertask
> assuming physical primary (I'd say level 0) real...  But then if
> computationalism is true then you couldn't make a test that will prove
> a level 0... you cannot distinguish between level of "simulation" and
> as such a level 0 is nonsense for me.

I'm not certain you are correct.  A Turing machine with infinite input would 
be qualitatively different in more ways than this.  For one obvious example, 
there is no blank space to the right of an infinite tape, which prevents it 
from computing anything that needs that extra memory without overwriting 
input...  So a Turing machine with infinite input with two tapes (one blank) 
would be more powerful than a similar machine with only one input.  Standard 
Turing machines are all reducible to a single tape, in contrast.  There's 
also a question of the reachability of some of the input, given that a 
finite set of production rules would not allow some of the tape to be 
recognized.  There's a good reason we don't talk about Turing machines of 
infinite input; it's because we can't formulate a good model for them 
because we are naturally bound to using language (which is infinite, but the 
strings are always finite) to describe the machines...our perspective biases 
us to finite machines.

> Well everything is always finite data...

I disagree.  :)  Everything we deal with is finite because our ability to 
handle information is finite.  That doesn't mean it is fundamentally 
reducible to the finite realm.

Anna


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Re: Little exercise

[Quentin Anciaux]

Hi,

2008/11/20 A. Wolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>>> No.  The tape isn't a standard Turing tape because it's
>>> infinitely long.  :)
>>
>> ?
>
> You're presuming the Universe contains finite data.  Most cosmological
> evidence suggests that the Universe is flat and unbounded, which implies it
> would be infinite in size.  If space is not quantized (which would be
> difficult to handle mathematically, anyway), then there's an infinite amount
> of information even in a finite universe.

Well if you take any finite portion of the universe then you have a
finite amount of matter, this finite amount of matter has a finite set
of possible permutations hence for a given block of universes of the
same size there is only a finite set of possible arrangement of the
matter in those. The light speed is a constant means also that if the
universe is infinite and unbounded there exists totally causaly
disconnect finite block of "universe" inside the universe.

The only thing that matters for the UD is that it is a supertask
assuming physical primary (I'd say level 0) real...  But then if
computationalism is true then you couldn't make a test that will prove
a level 0... you cannot distinguish between level of "simulation" and
as such a level 0 is nonsense for me.

>> He could dovetail. (The standard way to emulate parallelism in a
>> linear way).
>
> Of course.  But this still only works on finite data.
>
> I think you're confusing "can emulate with a Turing machine" with "is
> computable".  Everything that is computable /in finite time and space/ can
> be emulated on a Turing machine (if the Church-Turing thesis is true).  But
> infinite data sets cannot be handled directly on a Turing machine.  There's
> no model for handling infinite data, that I know of anyway.
>
> Anna

Well everything is always finite data... well... if computationalism
is true, there is a level of finite data describing you, bigger/accute
data won't change anything below this level... and all and every
natural numbers are finite even the big ones :)

Regards,
Quentin

>
> >
>



-- 
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

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Re: Little exercise

[A. Wolf]

>> No.  The tape isn't a standard Turing tape because it's
>> infinitely long.  :)
>
> ?

You're presuming the Universe contains finite data.  Most cosmological 
evidence suggests that the Universe is flat and unbounded, which implies it 
would be infinite in size.  If space is not quantized (which would be 
difficult to handle mathematically, anyway), then there's an infinite amount 
of information even in a finite universe.

> He could dovetail. (The standard way to emulate parallelism in a
> linear way).

Of course.  But this still only works on finite data.

I think you're confusing "can emulate with a Turing machine" with "is 
computable".  Everything that is computable /in finite time and space/ can 
be emulated on a Turing machine (if the Church-Turing thesis is true).  But 
infinite data sets cannot be handled directly on a Turing machine.  There's 
no model for handling infinite data, that I know of anyway.

Anna


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Re: MGA 1 bis (exercise)

[Telmo Menezes]

> Could you alter the so-lucky cosmic explosion beam a little bit so
> that Alice still succeed her math exam, but is, reasonably enough, a
> zombie  during the exam. With zombie taken in the traditional sense of
> Kory and Dennett.
> Of course you have to keep well *both*  MECH *and* MAT.

I think I can...

Instead of correcting the brain, the cosmic beams trigger output
neurons in a sequence that makes Alice write the right answers. That
is to say, the information content of the beams is no longer a
representation of an area of Alice's brain, but a representation of
the answers to the exam. An outside observer cannot distinguish one
case from the other. In the first she is Alice, in the second she is a
zombie.

Telmo.

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Re: MGA 1

[Brent Meeker]

Jason Resch wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> > wrote:
> 
> 
> On 19 Nov 2008, at 20:17, Jason Resch wrote:
> 
>> To add some clarification, I do not think spreading Alice's logic
>> gates across a field and allowing cosmic rays to cause each gate
>> to perform the same computations that they would had they existed
>> in her functioning brain would be conscious.  I think this because
>> in isolation the logic gates are not computing anything complex,
>> only AND, OR, NAND operations, etc.  This is why I believe rocks
>> are not conscious, the collisions of their molecules may be
>> performing simple computations, but they are never aggregated into
>> complex patterns to compute over a large set of information.
> 
> 
> Actually I agree with this argument. But it does not concern Alice,
> because I have provide her with an incredible amount of luck. The
> lucky rays  fix the neurons in a genuine way (by that abnormally big
> amount of pure luck). 
> 
> 
> If the cosmic rays are simply keeping her neurons working normally, then 
> I'm more inclined to believe she remains conscious, but I'm not certain 
> one way or the other.
> 
>  
> 
> If you doubt Alice remain conscious, how could you accept an
> experience of simple teleportation (UDA step 1 or 2). If you can
> recover consciousness from a relative digital description, how could
> that consciousness distinguish between a recovery from a genuine
> description send from earth (say), and a recovery from a description
> luckily generated by a random process?
> 
> 
> I believe consciousness can be recovered from a digital description, but 
> I don't believe the description itself is conscious while being beamed 
> from one teleporting station to the other.  I think it is only when the 
> body/computer simulation is instantiated can consciousness recovered 
> from the description.
> 
> Consider sending the description over an encrypted channel, without the 
> right decryption algorithm and key the description can't be 
> differentiated from random noise.  The same bits could be interpreted 
> entirely differently depending completely on how the recipient uses it. 
>  The "meaning" of the transmission is recovered when it forms a system 
> with complex relations, presumably the same relations as the original 
> one that was teleported, even though it may be running on a different 
> physical substrate, or a different computer architecture.

Right.  That's why I think that a simulation instantiating a conscious being 
would have to include a lot of environment and the being would only be 
conscious 
*relative to that environment*.  I think it is an interesting empirical 
question 
whether a person can be conscious with no interaction with their environment. 
It appears that it is possible for short periods of time, but I once read that 
in sensory deprivation experiments the subjects minds would go into a loop 
after 
a couple of hours.  Is that still being conscious?

Brent Meeker

> 
> I don't deny that a random process could be the source of a transmission 
> that resulted in the creation of a conscious being, what I deny is that 
> random *simple computations, lacking any causal linkages, could form 
> consciousness.
>  
> * By simple I mean the types of computation done in discrete steps, such 
> as multiplication, addition, etc.  Those done by a single neuron or a 
> small collection of logic gates.
> 
> If you recover from a description (comp), you cannot know if that
> description has been generated by a computation or a random process,
> unless you give some prescience to the logical gates. Keep in mind
> we try to refute the conjunction MECH and MAT.
> 
> 
> Here I would say that consciousness is not correlated with the physical 
> description at any point in time, but rather the computational history 
> and flow of information, and that this is responsible for the subjective 
> experience of being Alice.  If Alice's mind is described by a random 
> process, albeit one which gives the appearance of consciousness during 
> her exam, she nevertheless has no coherent computational history and her 
> mind contains no large scale informational structures.  The state 
> machine that would represent her in the case of injection of random 
> noise is a different state machine that would represent her normally 
> functioning brain. 
> 
> Jason
>  
> 
> 
> Nevertheless your intuition below is mainly correct, but the point
> is that accepting it really works, AND keeping MECH, will force us
> to negate MAT.
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> 
>>
>> Jason
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Jason Resch
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

Re: MGA 1

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
> On 19 Nov 2008, at 20:17, Jason Resch wrote:
>
> To add some clarification, I do not think spreading Alice's logic gates
> across a field and allowing cosmic rays to cause each gate to perform the
> same computations that they would had they existed in her functioning brain
> would be conscious.  I think this because in isolation the logic gates are
> not computing anything complex, only AND, OR, NAND operations, etc.  This is
> why I believe rocks are not conscious, the collisions of their molecules may
> be performing simple computations, but they are never aggregated into
> complex patterns to compute over a large set of information.
>
>
>
> Actually I agree with this argument. But it does not concern Alice, because
> I have provide her with an incredible amount of luck. The lucky rays  fix
> the neurons in a genuine way (by that abnormally big amount of pure luck).
>

If the cosmic rays are simply keeping her neurons working normally, then I'm
more inclined to believe she remains conscious, but I'm not certain one way
or the other.



> If you doubt Alice remain conscious, how could you accept an experience of
> simple teleportation (UDA step 1 or 2). If you can recover consciousness
> from a relative digital description, how could that consciousness
> distinguish between a recovery from a genuine description send from earth
> (say), and a recovery from a description luckily generated by a random
> process?
>

I believe consciousness can be recovered from a digital description, but I
don't believe the description itself is conscious while being beamed from
one teleporting station to the other.  I think it is only when the
body/computer simulation is instantiated can consciousness recovered from
the description.

Consider sending the description over an encrypted channel, without the
right decryption algorithm and key the description can't be differentiated
from random noise.  The same bits could be interpreted entirely differently
depending completely on how the recipient uses it.  The "meaning" of the
transmission is recovered when it forms a system with complex relations,
presumably the same relations as the original one that was teleported, even
though it may be running on a different physical substrate, or a different
computer architecture.

I don't deny that a random process could be the source of a transmission
that resulted in the creation of a conscious being, what I deny is that
random *simple computations, lacking any causal linkages, could form
consciousness.

* By simple I mean the types of computation done in discrete steps, such as
multiplication, addition, etc.  Those done by a single neuron or a small
collection of logic gates.

If you recover from a description (comp), you cannot know if that
> description has been generated by a computation or a random process, unless
> you give some prescience to the logical gates. Keep in mind we try to refute
> the conjunction MECH and MAT.
>

Here I would say that consciousness is not correlated with the physical
description at any point in time, but rather the computational history and
flow of information, and that this is responsible for the subjective
experience of being Alice.  If Alice's mind is described by a random
process, albeit one which gives the appearance of consciousness during her
exam, she nevertheless has no coherent computational history and her mind
contains no large scale informational structures.  The state machine that
would represent her in the case of injection of random noise is a different
state machine that would represent her normally functioning brain.

Jason


>
> Nevertheless your intuition below is mainly correct, but the point is that
> accepting it really works, AND keeping MECH, will force us to negate MAT.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
> Jason
>
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Jason Resch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Does everyone accept, like Russell,  that, assuming COMP and MAT, Alice
>>> is not a zombie? I mean, is there someone who object? Remember we are
>>> proving implication/ MAT+MECH => . We never try to argue
>>> about that  per se. Eventually we hope to prove MAT+MECH =>
>>> false, that is NOT(MAT & MECH) which is equivalent to MAT implies NOT
>>> MECH, MECH => NOT MAT, etc.
>>>
>>> (by MAT i mean materialism, or naturalism, or physicalism or more
>>> generally "the physical supervenience thesis", according to which
>>> consciousness supervenes on the physical activity of the brain.
>>>
>>
>> Bruno, I am on the fence as to whether or not Alice is a Zombie.  The
>> argument for her not being conscious is related to the non causal effect of
>> information in this scenario.  A string of 1's and 0's which is simply
>> defined out of nowhere, in my opinion cannot contain conscious observers,
>> even if it could be considered to encode bra

Re: MGA 1 bis (exercise)

[Brent Meeker]

Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> On 19 Nov 2008, at 16:06, Telmo Menezes wrote:
> 
> 
>> Bruno,
>>
>>> If no one objects, I will present MGA 2 (soon).
>> I also agree completely and am curious to see where this is going.
>> Please continue!
> 
> 
> Thanks Telmo, thanks also to Gordon.
> 
> I will try to send MGA 2 asap. But this asks me some time. Meanwhile I  
> suggest a little exercise, which, by the way, finishes the proof of  
> "MECH + MAT implies false", for those who thinks that there is no  
> (conceivable) zombies. (they think that "exists zombie" *is* false).
> 
> Exercise (mat+mec implies zombie exists or are conceivable):
> 
> Could you alter the so-lucky cosmic explosion beam a little bit so  
> that Alice still succeed her math exam, but is, reasonably enough, a  
> zombie  during the exam. With zombie taken in the traditional sense of  
> Kory and Dennett.
> Of course you have to keep well *both*  MECH *and* MAT.
> 
> Bruno

As I understand it a philosophical zombie is someone who looks and acts just 
like a conscious person but isn't conscious, i.e. has no "inner narrative". 
Time and circumstance play a part in this.  As Bruno pointed out a cardboard 
cutout of a person's photograph could be a zombie for a moment.  I assume the 
point of the exam is that an exam is long enough in duration and complex enough 
that it rules out the accidental, cutout zombie.  But then Alice has her normal 
behavior restored by a cosmic ray shower that is just as improbable as the 
accidental zombie, i.e. she is, for the duration of the shower, an accidental 
zombie.

So I'm puzzled as to how answer Bruno's question.  In general I don't believe 
in 
zombies, but that's in the same way I don't believe my glass of water will 
freeze at 20degC.  It's an opinion about what is likely, not what is possible. 
It seems similar to the question, could I have gotten in my car and driven to 
the store, bought something, and driven back and yet not be conscious of it. 
It's highly unlikely, yet people apparently have done such things.

Brent

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MGA 1 bis (exercise)

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Nov 2008, at 16:06, Telmo Menezes wrote:


>
> Bruno,
>
>> If no one objects, I will present MGA 2 (soon).
>
> I also agree completely and am curious to see where this is going.
> Please continue!


Thanks Telmo, thanks also to Gordon.

I will try to send MGA 2 asap. But this asks me some time. Meanwhile I  
suggest a little exercise, which, by the way, finishes the proof of  
"MECH + MAT implies false", for those who thinks that there is no  
(conceivable) zombies. (they think that "exists zombie" *is* false).

Exercise (mat+mec implies zombie exists or are conceivable):

Could you alter the so-lucky cosmic explosion beam a little bit so  
that Alice still succeed her math exam, but is, reasonably enough, a  
zombie  during the exam. With zombie taken in the traditional sense of  
Kory and Dennett.
Of course you have to keep well *both*  MECH *and* MAT.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: QTI & euthanasia (brouillon)

[m.a.]

Bruno,
I was just quoting you: "And if you do the math, you get a 
physics extracted from mechanism, and you can use it to confirm 
mechanism or to refute it."  Did you mean "refutes materialism"?

Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 19 Nov 2008, at 16:01, m.a. wrote:
>
>> *So you're saying that a "physics extracted from mechanism" which 
>> (let's assume) refutes mechanism, *
>
>
> If a physics extracted from mechanism refutes mechanism, then 
> mechanism is refuted. (p implies not p) is equivalent with (not p).
>
> I guess you meant "refutes materialism". One main point is that 
> physics extracted logically from comp could be refuted by the 
> experimental facts, and this would lead to an experimental refutation 
> of comp.
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> Hi m.a.
>>>
>>>
>>>  if mechanism is true, then the "physical universe" appears to be 
>>> the border of the universal machine "ignorance". The cosmos is the 
>>> tip of the iceberg. And the laws of physics are really something 
>>> which evolved, yet not in a space time, but in a logical space 
>>> gluing the possible machine "dreams". I am not saying this is true, 
>>> only that it is a consequence of the seemingly innocent (for some 
>>> naturalist) mechanist hypothesis.
>>>
>>>  It gives a way to justify the why and how of physical laws, and 
>>> this from mechanism, and this without making the (ad hoc) assumption 
>>> of a physical universe. _*And if you do the math, you get a physics 
>>> extracted from mechanism, and you can use it to confirm mechanism or 
>>> to refute it.*_
>>>
>>> You can take the reasoning train which is currently passing. Mainly 
>>> the MGA can be understood by patient layman having some notion of 
>>> digital machine.
>>>
>>> Bruno
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 
>
>
>
>
> >

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Re: MGA 1

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Nov 2008, at 20:17, Jason Resch wrote:

> To add some clarification, I do not think spreading Alice's logic  
> gates across a field and allowing cosmic rays to cause each gate to  
> perform the same computations that they would had they existed in  
> her functioning brain would be conscious.  I think this because in  
> isolation the logic gates are not computing anything complex, only  
> AND, OR, NAND operations, etc.  This is why I believe rocks are not  
> conscious, the collisions of their molecules may be performing  
> simple computations, but they are never aggregated into complex  
> patterns to compute over a large set of information.


Actually I agree with this argument. But it does not concern Alice,  
because I have provide her with an incredible amount of luck. The  
lucky rays  fix the neurons in a genuine way (by that abnormally big  
amount of pure luck).
If you doubt Alice remain conscious, how could you accept an  
experience of simple teleportation (UDA step 1 or 2). If you can  
recover consciousness from a relative digital description, how could  
that consciousness distinguish between a recovery from a genuine  
description send from earth (say), and a recovery from a description  
luckily generated by a random process? If you recover from a  
description (comp), you cannot know if that description has been  
generated by a computation or a random process, unless you give some  
prescience to the logical gates. Keep in mind we try to refute the  
conjunction MECH and MAT.

Nevertheless your intuition below is mainly correct, but the point is  
that accepting it really works, AND keeping MECH, will force us to  
negate MAT.

Bruno




>
> Jason
>
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Jason Resch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
> wrote:
>
>
> Does everyone accept, like Russell,  that, assuming COMP and MAT,  
> Alice
> is not a zombie? I mean, is there someone who object? Remember we are
> proving implication/ MAT+MECH => . We never try to argue
> about that  per se. Eventually we hope to prove MAT+MECH =>
> false, that is NOT(MAT & MECH) which is equivalent to MAT implies NOT
> MECH, MECH => NOT MAT, etc.
>
> (by MAT i mean materialism, or naturalism, or physicalism or more
> generally "the physical supervenience thesis", according to which
> consciousness supervenes on the physical activity of the brain.
>
> Bruno, I am on the fence as to whether or not Alice is a Zombie.   
> The argument for her not being conscious is related to the non  
> causal effect of information in this scenario.  A string of 1's and  
> 0's which is simply defined out of nowhere, in my opinion cannot  
> contain conscious observers, even if it could be considered to  
> encode brain states conscious observers or a universe with conscious  
> observers.  To have meaningful information there must be relations  
> between objects, such as the flow of information in the succession  
> of states in a Turing machine.  In the case of Alice, the  
> information coming from the cosmic rays is meaningless, and might as  
> well have occurred in isolation.  If all of Alice's logic gates had  
> been spread over a field, and made to fire in the same way due to  
> cosmic rays and if all logic gates remained otherwise disconnected  
> from each other, would anyone consider this field of logic gates be  
> conscious?
>
> I have an idea that consciousness is related to hierarchies of  
> information, at the lowest levels of neural activity, simple  
> computations of small amounts of information combine information  
> into a result, and then these higher level results are passed up to  
> higher levels of processing, etc.  For example the red/green/blue  
> data from the eyes are combined into single pixels, these pixels are  
> combined into an field of colors, this field of colors is then  
> processed by object classification sections of the brain.  So my  
> argument that Alice might not be conscious would be related to the  
> skipping of steps through the injection of information which is  
> "empty" (not having been computed from lower level sets of  
> information and hence not actually conveying any information).
>
> Jason
>
> ) I do not believe is
>
>
> >

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: MGA 1

[Michael Rosefield]

Are not logic gates black boxes, though? Does it really matter what happens
between Input and Output? In which case, it has absolutely no bearing on
Alice's consciousness whether the gate's a neuron, an electronic doodah, a
team of well-trained monkeys or a lucky quantum event or synchronicity. It
does not matter, really, where or when the actions of the gate take place.

2008/11/19 Jason Resch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

>
>
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Does everyone accept, like Russell,  that, assuming COMP and MAT, Alice
>> is not a zombie? I mean, is there someone who object? Remember we are
>> proving implication/ MAT+MECH => . We never try to argue
>> about that  per se. Eventually we hope to prove MAT+MECH =>
>> false, that is NOT(MAT & MECH) which is equivalent to MAT implies NOT
>> MECH, MECH => NOT MAT, etc.
>>
>> (by MAT i mean materialism, or naturalism, or physicalism or more
>> generally "the physical supervenience thesis", according to which
>> consciousness supervenes on the physical activity of the brain.
>>
>
> Bruno, I am on the fence as to whether or not Alice is a Zombie.  The
> argument for her not being conscious is related to the non causal effect of
> information in this scenario.  A string of 1's and 0's which is simply
> defined out of nowhere, in my opinion cannot contain conscious observers,
> even if it could be considered to encode brain states conscious observers or
> a universe with conscious observers.  To have meaningful information there
> must be relations between objects, such as the flow of information in the
> succession of states in a Turing machine.  In the case of Alice, the
> information coming from the cosmic rays is meaningless, and might as well
> have occurred in isolation.  If all of Alice's logic gates had been spread
> over a field, and made to fire in the same way due to cosmic rays and if all
> logic gates remained otherwise disconnected from each other, would anyone
> consider this field of logic gates be conscious?
>
> I have an idea that consciousness is related to hierarchies of information,
> at the lowest levels of neural activity, simple computations of small
> amounts of information combine information into a result, and then these
> higher level results are passed up to higher levels of processing, etc.  For
> example the red/green/blue data from the eyes are combined into single
> pixels, these pixels are combined into an field of colors, this field of
> colors is then processed by object classification sections of the brain.  So
> my argument that Alice might not be conscious would be related to the
> skipping of steps through the injection of information which is "empty" (not
> having been computed from lower level sets of information and hence not
> actually conveying any information).
>
> Jason
>
> ) I do not believe is
>
> >
>

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Re: QTI & euthanasia (brouillon)

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Nov 2008, at 16:01, m.a. wrote:

> So you're saying that a "physics extracted from mechanism" which  
> (let's assume) refutes mechanism,


If a physics extracted from mechanism refutes mechanism, then  
mechanism is refuted. (p implies not p) is equivalent with (not p).

I guess you meant "refutes materialism". One main point is that  
physics extracted logically from comp could be refuted by the  
experimental facts, and this would lead to an experimental refutation  
of comp.



> leads inescapably to a mathematical structure in logic-space which  
> actually  constitutes the "physical" universe.


Yes. (for "technical reasons" on which I should perhaps not insist, I  
am far from sure it makes sense to say it is a mathematical structure,  
but mathematical structures can approximate "it".)





> And thus we can justify and explain the physical laws without any  
> reference to matter.

My point is modest (although perhaps radical). It is that IF we assume  
mechanism, THEN we HAVE TO explain the physical laws without any  
reference to matter, energy, time, space. Those things are of second  
order, emerging eventually in "normal" dreams by numbers' dream".
But the math is there and we can already begin the comparison. (This  
is the more difficult "arithmetical UDA). With comp we can only refer  
to numbers, and what numbers "says" about numbers, etc.



> Is that it or are their other implications?

The physics we get is multiplied by two. It explains why the apple  
falls of the tree, and why it hurts (in case *you* are below the  
tree ...).
It explains both the origin of the sharable and doubtable quanta, and  
the private,  non doubtable and non sharable qualia, and how they are  
related. It gives a pretty coherent picture which is more akin to  
Plato than to Aristotle.

But the key point is that it makes mechanism a testable theory. That  
picture is testable. Somehow QM already confirms some "weird"  
consequences of comp, like its many realties/histories interfering  
statistically. This relation can be made more precise, but the thought  
experiment show "only" the *necessity* of explaining physics through  
number relations and the way (universal) numbers reflect those  
relations.


Bruno


>
>
>
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> Hi m.a.
>>
>>
>>  if mechanism is true, then the "physical universe" appears to be  
>> the border of the universal machine "ignorance". The cosmos is the  
>> tip of the iceberg. And the laws of physics are really something  
>> which evolved, yet not in a space time, but in a logical space  
>> gluing the possible machine "dreams". I am not saying this is true,  
>> only that it is a consequence of the seemingly innocent (for some  
>> naturalist) mechanist hypothesis.
>>
>>  It gives a way to justify the why and how of physical laws, and  
>> this from mechanism, and this without making the (ad hoc)  
>> assumption of a physical universe. And if you do the math, you get  
>> a physics extracted from mechanism, and you can use it to confirm  
>> mechanism or to refute it.
>>
>> You can take the reasoning train which is currently passing. Mainly  
>> the MGA can be understood by patient layman having some notion of  
>> digital machine.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> >

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: MGA 1

[Jason Resch]

To add some clarification, I do not think spreading Alice's logic gates
across a field and allowing cosmic rays to cause each gate to perform the
same computations that they would had they existed in her functioning brain
would be conscious.  I think this because in isolation the logic gates are
not computing anything complex, only AND, OR, NAND operations, etc.  This is
why I believe rocks are not conscious, the collisions of their molecules may
be performing simple computations, but they are never aggregated into
complex patterns to compute over a large set of information.
Jason

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Jason Resch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Does everyone accept, like Russell,  that, assuming COMP and MAT, Alice
>> is not a zombie? I mean, is there someone who object? Remember we are
>> proving implication/ MAT+MECH => . We never try to argue
>> about that  per se. Eventually we hope to prove MAT+MECH =>
>> false, that is NOT(MAT & MECH) which is equivalent to MAT implies NOT
>> MECH, MECH => NOT MAT, etc.
>>
>> (by MAT i mean materialism, or naturalism, or physicalism or more
>> generally "the physical supervenience thesis", according to which
>> consciousness supervenes on the physical activity of the brain.
>>
>
> Bruno, I am on the fence as to whether or not Alice is a Zombie.  The
> argument for her not being conscious is related to the non causal effect of
> information in this scenario.  A string of 1's and 0's which is simply
> defined out of nowhere, in my opinion cannot contain conscious observers,
> even if it could be considered to encode brain states conscious observers or
> a universe with conscious observers.  To have meaningful information there
> must be relations between objects, such as the flow of information in the
> succession of states in a Turing machine.  In the case of Alice, the
> information coming from the cosmic rays is meaningless, and might as well
> have occurred in isolation.  If all of Alice's logic gates had been spread
> over a field, and made to fire in the same way due to cosmic rays and if all
> logic gates remained otherwise disconnected from each other, would anyone
> consider this field of logic gates be conscious?
>
> I have an idea that consciousness is related to hierarchies of information,
> at the lowest levels of neural activity, simple computations of small
> amounts of information combine information into a result, and then these
> higher level results are passed up to higher levels of processing, etc.  For
> example the red/green/blue data from the eyes are combined into single
> pixels, these pixels are combined into an field of colors, this field of
> colors is then processed by object classification sections of the brain.  So
> my argument that Alice might not be conscious would be related to the
> skipping of steps through the injection of information which is "empty" (not
> having been computed from lower level sets of information and hence not
> actually conveying any information).
>
> Jason
>
> ) I do not believe is
>

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Re: MGA 1

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
>
> Does everyone accept, like Russell,  that, assuming COMP and MAT, Alice
> is not a zombie? I mean, is there someone who object? Remember we are
> proving implication/ MAT+MECH => . We never try to argue
> about that  per se. Eventually we hope to prove MAT+MECH =>
> false, that is NOT(MAT & MECH) which is equivalent to MAT implies NOT
> MECH, MECH => NOT MAT, etc.
>
> (by MAT i mean materialism, or naturalism, or physicalism or more
> generally "the physical supervenience thesis", according to which
> consciousness supervenes on the physical activity of the brain.
>

Bruno, I am on the fence as to whether or not Alice is a Zombie.  The
argument for her not being conscious is related to the non causal effect of
information in this scenario.  A string of 1's and 0's which is simply
defined out of nowhere, in my opinion cannot contain conscious observers,
even if it could be considered to encode brain states conscious observers or
a universe with conscious observers.  To have meaningful information there
must be relations between objects, such as the flow of information in the
succession of states in a Turing machine.  In the case of Alice, the
information coming from the cosmic rays is meaningless, and might as well
have occurred in isolation.  If all of Alice's logic gates had been spread
over a field, and made to fire in the same way due to cosmic rays and if all
logic gates remained otherwise disconnected from each other, would anyone
consider this field of logic gates be conscious?

I have an idea that consciousness is related to hierarchies of information,
at the lowest levels of neural activity, simple computations of small
amounts of information combine information into a result, and then these
higher level results are passed up to higher levels of processing, etc.  For
example the red/green/blue data from the eyes are combined into single
pixels, these pixels are combined into an field of colors, this field of
colors is then processed by object classification sections of the brain.  So
my argument that Alice might not be conscious would be related to the
skipping of steps through the injection of information which is "empty" (not
having been computed from lower level sets of information and hence not
actually conveying any information).

Jason

) I do not believe is

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Re: MGA 1

[Gordon Tsai]

Bruno:
 
   I'm intested to see the second part. Thanks!

--- On Wed, 11/19/08, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

From: Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: MGA 1
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 3:59 AM


Le 19-nov.-08, à 07:13, Russell Standish a écrit :


> I think Alice was indeed not a zombie,


I think you are right.
COMP + MAT implies Alice (in this setting) is not a zombie.



> and that her consciousness
> supervened on the physical activity stimulating her output gates (the
> cosmic explosion that produced the "happy rays"). Are you
suggesting
> that she was a zombie?


Not at all.   (Not yet ...).



>
> I can see the connection with Tim Maudlin's argument, but in his case,
> the machinery known as Olympia is too simple to be conscious (being
> nothing more than a recording - simpler than most automata anyway),
> and the machinery known as Klara was in fact stationary, leading to a
> rather absurd proposition that consciousness would depend on a
> difference in an inactive machine.
>
> In your case, the cosmic explosion is far from inactive,



This makes the movie graph argument immune against the first half of 
Barnes objection. But let us not anticipate on the sequel.





> and if a star
> blew up in just such a way that its cosmic rays produced identical
> behaviour to Alice taking her exam (consciously), I have no problems
> in considering her consciousness as having supervened on the cosmic
> rays travelling from that star for that instant. It is no different to
> the proverbial tornado ripping through one of IBM's junk yards and
> miraculously assembling a conscious computer by chance.


Does everyone accept, like Russell,  that, assuming COMP and MAT, Alice 
is not a zombie? I mean, is there someone who object? Remember we are 
proving implication/ MAT+MECH => . We never try to argue 
about that  per se. Eventually we hope to prove MAT+MECH =>

false, that is NOT(MAT & MECH) which is equivalent to MAT implies NOT 
MECH, MECH => NOT MAT, etc.

(by MAT i mean materialism, or naturalism, or physicalism or more 
generally "the physical supervenience thesis", according to which 
consciousness supervenes on the physical activity of the brain.

If no one objects, I will present MGA 2 (soon).




>
> Of course you know my opinion that the whole argument changes once you
> consider the thought experiment taking place in a multiverse.


We will see (let us go step by step for not confusing the audience). 
Thanks for answering.


Bruno Marchal


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/






  
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Re: MGA 1

[Telmo Menezes]

Bruno,

> If no one objects, I will present MGA 2 (soon).

I also agree completely and am curious to see where this is going.
Please continue!

Cheers,
Telmo Menezes.

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Re: QTI & euthanasia (brouillon)

[m.a.]

*So you're saying that a "physics extracted from mechanism" which (let's 
assume) refutes mechanism, leads inescapably to a mathematical structure 
in logic-space which actually  constitutes the "physical" universe.  And 
thus we can justify and explain the physical laws without any reference 
to matter. Is that it or are their other implications?


*
Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Hi m.a.
>
>
>  if mechanism is true, then the "physical universe" appears to be the 
> border of the universal machine "ignorance". The cosmos is the tip of 
> the iceberg. And the laws of physics are really something which 
> evolved, yet not in a space time, but in a logical space gluing the 
> possible machine "dreams". I am not saying this is true, only that it 
> is a consequence of the seemingly innocent (for some naturalist) 
> mechanist hypothesis.
>
>  It gives a way to justify the why and how of physical laws, and this 
> from mechanism, and this without making the (ad hoc) assumption of a 
> physical universe. And if you do the math, you get a physics extracted 
> from mechanism, and you can use it to confirm mechanism or to refute it.
>
> You can take the reasoning train which is currently passing. Mainly 
> the MGA can be understood by patient layman having some notion of 
> digital machine.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 
>
>
>
>
> >

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Re: MGA 1

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 19-nov.-08, à 07:13, Russell Standish a écrit :


> I think Alice was indeed not a zombie,


I think you are right.
COMP + MAT implies Alice (in this setting) is not a zombie.



> and that her consciousness
> supervened on the physical activity stimulating her output gates (the
> cosmic explosion that produced the "happy rays"). Are you suggesting
> that she was a zombie?


Not at all.   (Not yet ...).



>
> I can see the connection with Tim Maudlin's argument, but in his case,
> the machinery known as Olympia is too simple to be conscious (being
> nothing more than a recording - simpler than most automata anyway),
> and the machinery known as Klara was in fact stationary, leading to a
> rather absurd proposition that consciousness would depend on a
> difference in an inactive machine.
>
> In your case, the cosmic explosion is far from inactive,



This makes the movie graph argument immune against the first half of 
Barnes objection. But let us not anticipate on the sequel.





> and if a star
> blew up in just such a way that its cosmic rays produced identical
> behaviour to Alice taking her exam (consciously), I have no problems
> in considering her consciousness as having supervened on the cosmic
> rays travelling from that star for that instant. It is no different to
> the proverbial tornado ripping through one of IBM's junk yards and
> miraculously assembling a conscious computer by chance.


Does everyone accept, like Russell,  that, assuming COMP and MAT, Alice 
is not a zombie? I mean, is there someone who object? Remember we are 
proving implication/ MAT+MECH => . We never try to argue 
about that  per se. Eventually we hope to prove MAT+MECH => 
false, that is NOT(MAT & MECH) which is equivalent to MAT implies NOT 
MECH, MECH => NOT MAT, etc.

(by MAT i mean materialism, or naturalism, or physicalism or more 
generally "the physical supervenience thesis", according to which 
consciousness supervenes on the physical activity of the brain.

If no one objects, I will present MGA 2 (soon).




>
> Of course you know my opinion that the whole argument changes once you
> consider the thought experiment taking place in a multiverse.


We will see (let us go step by step for not confusing the audience). 
Thanks for answering.


Bruno Marchal


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: Little exercise

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 18-nov.-08, à 18:31, A. Wolf a écrit :

>
>> i am not sure I understand. Are you thinking that the hero is in its
>> own simulation?
>
> No.  The tape isn't a standard Turing tape because it's infinitely 
> long.  :)

?


> That's why someone can't perform the calculation stepwise in the way 
> that it
> is described, even given infinite time.


He could dovetail. (The standard way to emulate parallelism in a linear 
way).

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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