Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 21, 11:31 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: We could say that a state A access to a state B if there is a universal machine (a universal number relation) transforming A into B. This works at the ontological level, or for the third person point of view. But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account *all* computations going from A to B, and thus you have to take into account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A into B. Most of them are indiscernible by you because they differ below your substitution level. So, going back to some of your other posts about transmitting a copy of a person from Brussels to Moscow. What is it that is transmitted? Information, right? So for that to be a plausible scenario we have to say that a person at a particular instant in time can be fully described by some set of data. It would seem to me that their conscious state at that instant must be recoverable from that set of data. The only question is, what conditions must be met for them to experience this state, which is completely described by the data set? I don't see any obvious reason why anything additional is needed. What does computation really add to this? You say that computation is crucial for this experience to take place. But why would this be so? Why couldn't we just say that your various types of mathematical logic can describe various types of correlations, categories, patterns, and relationships between informational states, but don't actually contribute anything to conscious experience? Conscious experience is with the information. Not with the computations that describe the relations between various informational states. But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account *all* computations going from A to B I don't see how probability enters into it. A and B are both fully contained conscious states. Both will be realized, because both platonically exist as possible sets of information. State B may have a memory of State A. State A may have an expectation (or premonition) of State B. But that is the only link between the two. Otherwise the exist independenty. So Brian Greene had a good passage somewhat addressing this in his last book. He's actually talking about the block universe idea, but still applicable I think: In this way of thinking, events, regardless of when they happen from any particular perspective, just are. They all exist. They eternally occupy their particular point in spacetime. This is no flow. If you were having a great time at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, 1999, you still are, since that is just one immutable location in spacetime. The flowing sensation from one moment to the next arises from our conscious recognition of change in our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Each moment in spacetime - each time slice - is like one of the still frames in a film. It exists whether or not some projector light illuminates it. To the you who is in any such moment, it is the now, it is the moment you experience at that moment. And it always will be. Moreover, within each individual slice, your thoughts and memories are sufficiently rich to yield a sense that time has continuously flowed to that moment. This feeling, this sensation that time is flowing, doesn't require previous moments - previous frames - to be sequentially illuminated. On your earlier post: The physical has to emerge from the statistical probability interference among all computations, going through my (current) states that are indiscernible from my point of view. Why such interference takes the form of wave interference is still a (technical) open problem. In my view, I just happen to be inhabit a perceptual universe that is fairly orderly and follows laws of cause and effect. However, there are other conscious observers (including other versions of me) who inhabit perceptual universes that are much more chaotic and nonsensical. But everything that can be consciously experienced is experienced, because there exists information (platonically) that describes a mind (human, animal, or other) having that experience. I say that because it seems to me that this information could (theoretically) be produced by a computer simulation of such a mind, which would presumably be conscious. So add platonism to that, and there you go! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
Re: Consciousness is information?
2009/4/22 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The question was whether information was enough, or whether something else is needed for consciousness. I think that sequence is needed, which we experience as the passage of time. When you speak of computations going from A to B do you suppose that this provides the sequence? In other words are the states of consciousness necessarily computed in the same order as they are experienced or is the order something intrinsic to the information in the states (i.e. like Stathis'es observer moments which can be shuffled into any order without changing the experience they instantiate). Say a machine is in two separate parts M1 and M2, and the information on M1 in state A is written to a punchcard, walked over to M2, loaded, and M2 goes into state B. Then what you are suggesting is that this sequence could give rise to a few moments of consciousness, since A and B are causally connected; whereas if M1 and M2 simply went into the same respective states A and B at random, this would not give rise to the same consciousness, since the states would not have the right causal connection. Right? But then you could come up with variations on this experiment where the transfer of information doesn't happen in as straightforward a manner. For example, what if the operator who walks over the punchcard gets it mixed up in a filing cabinet full of all the possible punchcards variations, and either (a) loads one of the cards into M2 because he gets a special vibe about it and it happens to be the right one, or (b) loads all of the punchcards into M2 in turn so as to be sure that the right one is among them? Would the machine be conscious if the operator loads the right card knowingly, but not if he is just lucky, and not if he is ignorant but systematic? If so, how could the computation know about the psychological state of the operator? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly wrote: On Apr 21, 11:31 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: We could say that a state A access to a state B if there is a universal machine (a universal number relation) transforming A into B. This works at the ontological level, or for the third person point of view. But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account *all* computations going from A to B, and thus you have to take into account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A into B. Most of them are indiscernible by you because they differ below your substitution level. So, going back to some of your other posts about transmitting a copy of a person from Brussels to Moscow. What is it that is transmitted? Information, right? So for that to be a plausible scenario we have to say that a person at a particular instant in time can be fully described by some set of data. It would seem to me that their conscious state at that instant must be recoverable from that set of data. The only question is, what conditions must be met for them to experience this state, which is completely described by the data set? I don't see any obvious reason why anything additional is needed. What does computation really add to this? You say that computation is crucial for this experience to take place. But why would this be so? Why couldn't we just say that your various types of mathematical logic can describe various types of correlations, categories, patterns, and relationships between informational states, but don't actually contribute anything to conscious experience? Conscious experience is with the information. Not with the computations that describe the relations between various informational states. But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account *all* computations going from A to B I don't see how probability enters into it. A and B are both fully contained conscious states. Here you are assuming the point in question - whether the states are, by themselves, conscious. If they are then it would imply that a record, written on paper or a CD, of the state information transmitted in Bruno's thought experiment would also be conscious. Even further, if you identify information as a Platonic form, then it doesn't even need a physical instantiation. The conscious state will simply exist like the number two exists. Both will be realized, because both platonically exist as possible sets of information. State B may have a memory of State A. State A may have an expectation (or premonition) of State B. But that is the only link between the two. Otherwise the exist independenty. So Brian Greene had a good passage somewhat addressing this in his last book. He's actually talking about the block universe idea, but still applicable I think: In this way of thinking, events, regardless of when they happen from any particular perspective, just are. They all exist. They eternally occupy their particular point in spacetime. This is no flow. But Greene is assuming a real-line topology, so a sequence of consciousness is connected. If you were having a great time at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, 1999, you still are, since that is just one immutable location in spacetime. The flowing sensation from one moment to the next arises from our conscious recognition of change in our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Each moment in spacetime - each time slice - is like one of the still frames in a film. Again, that is part of the question. Is the universe digital. It exists whether or not some projector light illuminates it. To the you who is in any such moment, it is the now, it is the moment you experience at that moment. And it always will be. Moreover, within each individual slice, your thoughts and memories are sufficiently rich to yield a sense that time has continuously flowed to that moment. This is what I find dubious. It is certainly true is a sense if an individual slice is thick enough, but it seems to me to be false in the limit of thin slices - and if the slice cannot be arbitrarily thin, a point in time, then the question remains as to what is the dimension along which it is thick. Brent This feeling, this sensation that time is flowing, doesn't require previous moments - previous frames - to be sequentially illuminated. On your earlier post: The physical has to emerge from the statistical probability interference among all computations, going through my (current) states that are indiscernible from my point of view. Why such interference takes the form of wave interference is still a (technical) open problem. In my view, I just happen to be inhabit a perceptual universe that is fairly orderly and follows laws of cause and
Re: Consciousness is information?
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/4/22 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The question was whether information was enough, or whether something else is needed for consciousness. I think that sequence is needed, which we experience as the passage of time. When you speak of computations going from A to B do you suppose that this provides the sequence? In other words are the states of consciousness necessarily computed in the same order as they are experienced or is the order something intrinsic to the information in the states (i.e. like Stathis'es observer moments which can be shuffled into any order without changing the experience they instantiate). Say a machine is in two separate parts M1 and M2, and the information on M1 in state A is written to a punchcard, walked over to M2, loaded, and M2 goes into state B. Then what you are suggesting is that this sequence could give rise to a few moments of consciousness, since A and B are causally connected; whereas if M1 and M2 simply went into the same respective states A and B at random, this would not give rise to the same consciousness, since the states would not have the right causal connection. Right? Maybe. But I'm questioning more than the lack of causal connection. I'm questioning the idea that a static thing like a state can be conscious. That consciousness goes through a set of states, each one being an instant, is an inference we make in analogy with how we would write a program simulating a mind. I'm saying I suspect something essential is missing when we digitize it in this way. Note that this does not mean I'd say No to Burno's doctor - because the doctor is proposing to replace part of my brain with a mechanism that instantiates a process - not just discrete states. Brent But then you could come up with variations on this experiment where the transfer of information doesn't happen in as straightforward a manner. For example, what if the operator who walks over the punchcard gets it mixed up in a filing cabinet full of all the possible punchcards variations, and either (a) loads one of the cards into M2 because he gets a special vibe about it and it happens to be the right one, or (b) loads all of the punchcards into M2 in turn so as to be sure that the right one is among them? Would the machine be conscious if the operator loads the right card knowingly, but not if he is just lucky, and not if he is ignorant but systematic? If so, how could the computation know about the psychological state of the operator? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 22 Apr 2009, at 08:55, Kelly wrote: On Apr 21, 11:31 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: We could say that a state A access to a state B if there is a universal machine (a universal number relation) transforming A into B. This works at the ontological level, or for the third person point of view. But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account *all* computations going from A to B, and thus you have to take into account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A into B. Most of them are indiscernible by you because they differ below your substitution level. So, going back to some of your other posts about transmitting a copy of a person from Brussels to Moscow. What is it that is transmitted? Information, right? OK. So for that to be a plausible scenario we have to say that a person at a particular instant in time can be fully described by some set of data. Not fully. I agree with Brent that you need an interpreter to make that person manifest herself in front of you. A bit like a CD, you will need a player to get the music. Now, any (immaterial, simple) Turing universal system will do, so I take the simplest one, the one that we learn at school: elementary arithmetic. (On some other planet they learn the combinators at school, and in the long run it could be better, but fundamentally it does not matter). It would seem to me that their conscious state at that instant must be recoverable from that set of data. The only question is, what conditions must be met for them to experience this state, which is completely described by the data set? But from the first person perspective I need, and elementary arithmetic provides, an infinity of universal histories going through my current states. It is not just information, it is information relative to possible computations. I don't see any obvious reason why anything additional is needed. What does computation really add to this? It adds the relative interpretation of that information. Information, which you identify with some bit strings is just a number, it is just an encoding of a person, not the person. Consciousness is the state of mind of a person who believes in a reality. This makes sense only relatively to probable universal histories. You say that computation is crucial for this experience to take place. But why would this be so? Why couldn't we just say that your various types of mathematical logic can describe various types of correlations, categories, patterns, and relationships between informational states, but don't actually contribute anything to conscious experience? Remember I assume the computationalist hypothesis. This means I will accept to be encoded in an information string, but only under the promise it will be decoded relatively to probable computational histories I can bet on, having an idea of my current first person state. Conscious experience is with the information. Conscious experience is more the content, or the interpretation of that information, made by a person or by a universal machine. If the doctor makes a copy of your brain, and then codes it into a bit string, and then put the bit string in the fridge, in our probable history, well in that case you will not survive, in our local probable history. Not with the computations that describe the relations between various informational states. If you say yes to a doctor for a digital brain, you will ask for a brain which functions relatively to our probable computational history. No? But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account *all* computations going from A to B I don't see how probability enters into it. A and B are both fully contained conscious states. Both will be realized, because both platonically exist as possible sets of information. State B may have a memory of State A. State A may have an expectation (or premonition) of State B. But that is the only link between the two. The UD generates an infinity of computations going from A to B. Probabilities, credibilities, plausibilities, provabilities will all emerge unavoidably. Otherwise the exist independenty. I don't see any sense in which the term computational state makes sense independently of a least one computation. But from inside we have to take care on the infinity of computation, including those with the dovetailing-on-the-reals noisy background. (From inside we cannot distinguish the many finite initial segment of those reals with the reals themselves.) So Brian Greene had a good passage somewhat addressing this in his last book. He's actually talking about the block universe idea, but still applicable I think: In this way of thinking, events, regardless
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 21 Apr 2009, at 20:33, Brent Meeker wrote: I understand that the UD computes all different histories so they are interleaved. But each particular computation consists of an ordered set of states. These states can belong to more than one sequence of conscious experience. But the question is whether the order of the states in the computation is always the same as their order in any sequence of conscious experience in which they appear? For example, if there is a computation of states A, B, and C then is that a possible sequence in consciousness? In general there will be another, different computation that computes the states in the order A, C, B, so is that too a possible sequence in consciousness? Or is the experienced sequence in consciousness the same - determined by some intrinsic to the states? The experienced sequence will be the same, I think. I would even guess that it will correspond to the sequence in most singular low grained computations going through those states (if our substitution level is not too low...) , but things get trickier with A, B, C very close, I expect. Remember that if the Mandelbrot set is creative (in the snes of Post), or universal (in the sense of Turing) then all your 3-states of mind (future, present, past, and elsewhere) are densely distributed on the its border. Subjective time is an internal construct, and with comp, physical time is probably a first person plural construct (we share our physical histories). I have still a residual doubt that a quantum computer makes sense mathematically, but if that exists, then there exist a reversible universal dovetailing. I don't understand that remark. Universal dovetailing is a completely abstract mathematical construct. It exists in Platonia. So how can the existence of a reversible (i.e. information preserving) UD depend on quantum computers? Oh? It is just that I can use the quantum UD to provide an example. But you are really correct, and if there is any reversible universal machine, then I can build a reversible universal dovetailing. I could use billiard ball or Wand never effacing machine. The difficulty is that I can executed it only from a point in an infinite past. I have the same difficulty with running reversibly a program computing all decimals of the square root of 2, or even just counting . When will I start? I have to consider a non well founded set of type ... 6 5 4 3 2 1 0. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
John, On 21 Apr 2009, at 21:30, John Mikes wrote: Bruno, you made my day when you wrote: SOMEHOW - in: ...The machine has to be runned or executed relatively to a universal machine. You need the Peano or Robinson axiom to define such states and sequences of states. You can shuffled them if you want, and somehow the UD does shuffle them by its dovetailing procedure, but this will not change the arithmetical facts that those states belong or not too such or such computational histories * First: my vocablary sais about 'axiom' the reverse of how it is used, it is our artifact invented in order to facilitate the application of our theories IOW: explanations for the phenomena so poorly understood (if anyway). So it is MADE up for exactly the purpose what we evidence by it. Second: UD shuffles 'them' by the ominous 'somehow', (no idea: how?) By dovetailing. I say somehow, to say literally in some fashion those who knows what the UD is can work by themselves as exercise, because I am lazy right now and it will make the post too much longer, also. but it has to be done for the result we invented as a 'must be'. Absolutely. And it does it, all by himself in the realm of numbers + addition + multiplication. Third: the 'computational history' snapshots have to come together (I am not referring to the sequence, rather to the combination between 'earlier' and 'later' snapshots into a continuum from a discontinuum. That marvel bugs science for at least 250 years since chemical thinking started. A sequence of pictures is no history. We agree on this. See my post to Kelly. From outside, the links are given by universal (or not) programs. From inside, it is linked to the most probable histories + interference between the undistinguishable one. QM without collapse confirms this, admittedly startling, view. * Then again: you wrote: ...The world you are observing is a sort of mean of all those computations, from your point of view. But the running of the UD is just a picturesque way to describe an infinite set of arithmetical relations... I am not sure about the mean since we are not capable of even noticing 'all of them', not to evaluate the totality for a 'mean' - in my not arithmetic vocabulary: a median meaning of them all (nonsense). By accepting Church thesis, we accept Gödel's Miracle. We can define, inside, the universal-outside. WE cannot compute the correct inside mean, but it has to be partially computable for a physical worlds to exists. So we can bet on reasonable approximations. The real comp physics will be unusable in practice, but will explain in theory (and thus prevent its elimination) the presence of subject. Your words may be a flowery (math that is) expression of 'viewing the totality in its entirety' which is just as impossible (for us, today) as to realize your 'infinite set of arithmetical relations'. If I leave out the 'arithmetical' (or substitute it by my meaningfulness) then we came together in 'viewing the totality' in our indiviual wording-ways. Relations is the punctum salience, it is a loose enough term to cover whatever is beyond our present comprehension. No I really use relation in the usual math sense. For exemple a binary relation on N can be seen as a subset of NXN. It is just an association, a set of couples or triples, etc. When relations look differently (maybe by just our observation from a different aspect?) we translate it into physical terms like change, movement, reaction, process or else, not realizing that WE look at it from different connotations. You are far to quick here. But there is something like that. Use to that our coordinates (space and time) in the limited view we can muster (I call it: model) and we arrived at causality of the conventional sciences (and common sense thinking as well). That is what I hope for. Indeed it is our personal (mini)-solipsistic perceived reality of OUR world washed into some common pattern (partially!) by comp or math or else. The advantage of the present approach is that it presupposes only the yes doctor and Church thesis, all the rest emerges from, well not OUR (the human) prejudices/dreams, but OUR (the universal machine) prejudices/dreams. By the maze of such covering umbrella we believe in adjusted thinking. * Please do not conclude any denial from my part against the 'somehow' topics, the process-function-change manipulations (unknown, as I said), it is only reference to my ignorance directed in my agnosticism towards made-up explanations of any cultural era (and changing fast). No problem, Best, 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
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 21, 2:33 pm, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: These states can belong to more than one sequence of conscious experience. But the question is whether the order of the states in the computation is always the same as their order in any sequence of conscious experience in which they appear? For example, if there is a computation of states A, B, and C then is that a possible sequence in consciousness? In general there will be another, different computation that computes the states in the order A, C, B, so is that too a possible sequence in consciousness? Hypothetical situation, assuming an objectively existing physical universe. All of the particles in the universe kick into reverse and start going backwards. For some reason every particle in the universe instantaneously reverses course. And also space begins contracting instead of expanding. Everything in the universe hits a rubberwall and bounces back 180 degrees. So now instead of expanding, everything is on an exact rewind mode, and we're headed back to the Big Bang. The laws of physics work the same in both directions...if you solve them forward in time, you can take your answers, reverse the equations and get your starting values, right? With the possible exception of kaon decay, but we'll leave that aside for now. This is what they always go on about with the arrow of time. The laws of physics work the same forwards and backwards in time. It's not impossible for an egg to unscramble, it's just very very very very very unlikely. But if it did so, no laws of physics would be broken. And, in fact, if you wait long enough, it will eventually happen. Okay, so everything has reversed direction. The actual reversal process is, of course, impossible. But after everything reverses, everything just plays out by the normal laws of physics. Only that one instant of reversal breaks the laws of physics. External time is still moving forward, in the same direction as before. We didn't reverse time. We just reversed the direction of every particle. So, now photons and neutrinos no longer shoot away from the sun - instead now they shoot towards the sun, which when the photons and the neutrinos and gamma rays hit helium atoms, the helium atoms split back into individual hydrogen atoms, and absorb some energy in the process. Again, no physical laws are broken, and time is moving forward. Now, back on earth, everything is playing out in reverse as well. You breath in carbon dioxide and absorb heat from your surroundings and use the heat to break the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen. You exhale the oxygen, and you turn the carbon into sugars, which you eventually return to your digestive track where it's reconstituted into food, which you regurgitate onto your fork and place it back onto your plate. Okay. So, still no physical laws broken. Entropy is decreasing, but that's not impossible, just very unlikely under normal conditions. Now. Your brain is also working backwards. But exactly backwards from before. Every thought that you had yesterday, you will have again tomorrow, in reverse. You will unthink it. My question is, what would you experience in this case? What would it be like to live in this universe where external time is still going forward, but where all particles are retracing their steps precisely? The laws of phsyics are still working exactly as before, but because all particle trajectories were perfectly reversed, everything is rolling back towards the big bang. In my opinion, we wouldn't notice any difference. We would not experience the universe moving in reverse, we would still experience it moving forward exactly as we do now...we would still see the universe as expanding even though it was contracting, we would still see the sun giving off light and energy even though it was absorbing both. In other words, we would still see a universe with increasing entropy even though we actually would live in a universe with decreasing entropy. And why would that be the case? Because our mental states determine what is the past for us and what is the future. There is no external arrow of time. The arrow of time is internal. The past is the past because we remember it and because the neurons of our brains tell us that it has already happened to us. The future is the future because it's unknown, and because the neurons of our brains tell us that it will happen to us soon. If there is an external arrow of time, it is irrelevant, because as this thought experiment shows it doesn't affect the way we perceive time. Our internal mental state at any given instant determines what is the future and what is the past for us. In fact, you could run the universe forwards and backwards as many times as you wanted like this. We would never notice anything. We would always percieve increasing entropy. For us, time would always move forward, never backwards. My point being, as always, that our experience of reality is always entirely
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly wrote: On Apr 21, 2:33 pm, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: These states can belong to more than one sequence of conscious experience. But the question is whether the order of the states in the computation is always the same as their order in any sequence of conscious experience in which they appear? For example, if there is a computation of states A, B, and C then is that a possible sequence in consciousness? In general there will be another, different computation that computes the states in the order A, C, B, so is that too a possible sequence in consciousness? Hypothetical situation, assuming an objectively existing physical universe. All of the particles in the universe kick into reverse and start going backwards. For some reason every particle in the universe instantaneously reverses course. And also space begins contracting instead of expanding. Everything in the universe hits a rubberwall and bounces back 180 degrees. So now instead of expanding, everything is on an exact rewind mode, and we're headed back to the Big Bang. The laws of physics work the same in both directions...if you solve them forward in time, you can take your answers, reverse the equations and get your starting values, right? With the possible exception of kaon decay, but we'll leave that aside for now. This is what they always go on about with the arrow of time. The laws of physics work the same forwards and backwards in time. It's not impossible for an egg to unscramble, it's just very very very very very unlikely. But if it did so, no laws of physics would be broken. And, in fact, if you wait long enough, it will eventually happen. Okay, so everything has reversed direction. The actual reversal process is, of course, impossible. But after everything reverses, everything just plays out by the normal laws of physics. Only that one instant of reversal breaks the laws of physics. External time is still moving forward, in the same direction as before. We didn't reverse time. We just reversed the direction of every particle. So, now photons and neutrinos no longer shoot away from the sun - instead now they shoot towards the sun, which when the photons and the neutrinos and gamma rays hit helium atoms, the helium atoms split back into individual hydrogen atoms, and absorb some energy in the process. Again, no physical laws are broken, and time is moving forward. Now, back on earth, everything is playing out in reverse as well. You breath in carbon dioxide and absorb heat from your surroundings and use the heat to break the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen. You exhale the oxygen, and you turn the carbon into sugars, which you eventually return to your digestive track where it's reconstituted into food, which you regurgitate onto your fork and place it back onto your plate. Okay. So, still no physical laws broken. Entropy is decreasing, but that's not impossible, just very unlikely under normal conditions. Now. Your brain is also working backwards. But exactly backwards from before. Every thought that you had yesterday, you will have again tomorrow, in reverse. You will unthink it. My question is, what would you experience in this case? What would it be like to live in this universe where external time is still going forward, but where all particles are retracing their steps precisely? The laws of phsyics are still working exactly as before, but because all particle trajectories were perfectly reversed, everything is rolling back towards the big bang. In my opinion, we wouldn't notice any difference. We would not experience the universe moving in reverse, we would still experience it moving forward exactly as we do now...we would still see the universe as expanding even though it was contracting, we would still see the sun giving off light and energy even though it was absorbing both. In other words, we would still see a universe with increasing entropy even though we actually would live in a universe with decreasing entropy. And why would that be the case? Because our mental states determine what is the past for us and what is the future. There is no external arrow of time. The arrow of time is internal. The past is the past because we remember it and because the neurons of our brains tell us that it has already happened to us. The future is the future because it's unknown, and because the neurons of our brains tell us that it will happen to us soon. If there is an external arrow of time, it is irrelevant, because as this thought experiment shows it doesn't affect the way we perceive time. Our internal mental state at any given instant determines what is the future and what is the past for us. I was with you up to that last sentence. Forward or backward, we just experience increasing entropy as increasing time, but that doesn't warrant the conclusion that no process is required and an instant within
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 1:55 AM, Kelly harmon...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 21, 11:31 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: We could say that a state A access to a state B if there is a universal machine (a universal number relation) transforming A into B. This works at the ontological level, or for the third person point of view. But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account *all* computations going from A to B, and thus you have to take into account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A into B. Most of them are indiscernible by you because they differ below your substitution level. So, going back to some of your other posts about transmitting a copy of a person from Brussels to Moscow. What is it that is transmitted? Information, right? So for that to be a plausible scenario we have to say that a person at a particular instant in time can be fully described by some set of data. It would seem to me that their conscious state at that instant must be recoverable from that set of data. The only question is, what conditions must be met for them to experience this state, which is completely described by the data set? I don't see any obvious reason why anything additional is needed. What does computation really add to this? I think I agree with this, that consciousness is created by the information associated with a brain state, however I think two things are missing: The first is that I don't think there is enough information within a single Plank time or other snapshot of the brain to constitute consciousness. As you mention below, under the view of block time, the brain, and all other things are four-dimensional objects. Therefore the total information composing a moment of conscious may be spread across some non-zero segment of time. The second problem is immediately related to the first. Lets assume that there is consciousness within a 10 second time period, so we make a recording of someone's brain states across 10 seconds and store it in some suitable binary file. The question is: Are there any logical connections between successive states when stored in this file? I would think not. When the brain state is embedded in block time, the laws of physics serve as a suitable interpreter which connect the information spread out over four-dimensions, but without computer software running the stored brain state, there is no interpreter for the information when it is just sitting on the disk. I think this is the reason some of us feel a need to have information computed as opposed to it simply existing. Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
