Re: Victor Korotkikh
Bruno: Can you explain your Physics statement in more detail, which I can understand? Ronald On May 13, 11:30 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Thanks Russell, I will take a look. At first sight he makes the same error with numbers that Wolfram makes with cellular automata. Those are still mathematical form of physicalism, incompatible with the mechanist thesis in the cognitive science. Of course we converge toward rather similar (recursively isomorphic or weakened) ontologies. But they seems to believe they can recover some physics from that, where, saying yes to the surgeon requires to abandon that very idea. Physics, like in Plato and Plotinus, is not a mathematical structure among others, it is a mathematical structure which relate all mathematical structures in a precise way. Physics is somehow much more fundamental than being a thing completely describable by a set of mechanical laws. Pu in another way, such theories are unaware of the mind-body problem and still use an identity relation between a mind and a implementation of a program which UDA forces to abandon, to be frank. This does not mean those works are uninteresting of course, and they may play some role in the unravelling of the Minds and Bodies problems. Sure. Bruno On 13 May 2009, at 01:15, russell standish wrote: Hi Bruno, Have you come across Victor Korotkikh's stuff? He's got a recent article out in Complexity: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121426751/abstract?CRETRY=... (Complexity, 14, 40-46) It basically explores the organisational properties of the integers, prime numbers etc. Which is kind of interesting in a pure mathematical way, but he then uses this to model real complex systems, emergent properties and so on. If you can't get the above paper, here is a much earlier one that is not behind a paywall: http://www.complexity.org.au/ci/vol03/victor2/ I've met him a few times over the years - he's based in Townsville, about 2000km north of here. He's an intense Russian who's presentation is almost impenetrable - but there are people I respect who consider him a genius. It struck me this morning how similar in many ways his programme is to yours. I suppose you both share a strong neo-platonic viewpoint for starters. Cheers -- ---- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---- http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
No MWI
read Aixiv.org:0905.0624v1 (quant-ph) and see if you agree with it Ronald --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?
Stathis, I agree halfway with you and expected something (maybe more). Do you mean the others are zombies? not ME (you, etc. 1st pers). I take it one step further, the fun (I agree) includes a satisfaction that here is a bunch of really smart guys and I can tell them something in their profession they may respond to - even if I am outside of their learned profession - which is not so 'practical'. Mental narcissism? * Somebody made an 'expert' list, collecting opinions for open concepts in a statistical evaluation of what the majority of experts think. Of course I objected: scientific identification is NO democratic voting matter, if 100 so called 'experts' voice an opinion I may still represent the right one in a single-vote different position. Thanks for your input John M On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/5/13 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com: Bruno, merci pour le nom Jean Cocteau. J'ai voulu montrer que je semble vivant. I told my young bride of 61 years (originally economist, but follows all the plaisantries I speculate on) about the assumptions you guys speculate on and connect to assumptions of assumptions, Torgny the zombie, Stephen Leibnitz' Monads, you numbers, others Q-immortality/suicide and partial teleportation at the level of highest science - and she asked - (because she believes in her love that I am into all that, - understanding): What do you guys hope to achieve by all this speculation? I replied: it's getting late, let's go to sleep. Well??? (I believe this is the most meaningful word in English) Mainly it's just fun; but it's also profoundly important from a practical point of view if, for example, other people are zombies or we are all immortal (in a non-living-dead sort of way), no? -- 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: 3-PoV from 1 PoV?
Hi Stephen, On 13 May 2009, at 22:20, Stephen Paul King wrote: Hi Bruno, I see the goal that you have, as best I can understand your writtings and discussions. I salute your valiant efforts. The ideas that I have expressed so far, such as those in this exchange, are merely the misgivings and thoughts that I have based on my long study of philosophy, I can claim no certification nor degree. I am merely an amateur. You are welcome. I still do not understand how it is conscivable to obtain a property that is not implicit as a primitive from an assumption that is its contrary. I can not obtain free energy from any machine and I can not obtain change from any static structure. While it is true that one can agrue that the property of saltiness can not be found in the properties of Clorine nor Sodium, this does not invalidate the question of origin because we can show that there is a similarity of kind and mere difference in degree between saltiness and chemical make up. Change and Staticness are categorically different in kind. You are right, you cannot obtain change from staticness. I don't think I am pretending that. This proplem is not unique to many monists attempts. The eliminatists, such as D.C. Dennett and other to refuse the existense of consciousness as a mere epiphenomena or illusion tells us nothing about the unavoidability, modulo Salvia for example, of qualia. Eliminativism is dangerous. It is insulting. It is like saying you are a zombie. Even Thorgny recognize that this is not too kind to tell to others. By relagating the notion of implementation, to Robinson Arithmatic, etc., one only moves the problem further away from the focus of how even the appearence of change, dynamics, etc. obtain. The basic idea that you propose, while wonderfully sophisticated and nuanced, is in essense no different from that of Bishop Berkeley or Plato; it simply does not answer the basic question: Where does the appearence of change obtain from primitives that by definition do not allow for its existence? Because you can define in arithmetic, using only addition and multiplication symbols, and logic, the notion of computation, or of pieces of computation, like you can define provability (by PA, by ZF, or by any effective theory) already in the very weak (yet Turing universal) Robinson Arithmetic. You can entirely define in arithmetic statements of the kind The machine x on input y has not yet stop after z steps. The notion of time used here through the notion of computational steps can be deined entirely from the notion of natural numbers successor (which can be taken as primitive or defined through addition and multiplication). If you prefer, I could tell you that in arithmetic we have a very notion of time: the natural number sequence. Then we can define in arithmetic the notion of computation, and the notion of next step for a computation made by such or such machine. And from that, we can explain how the subjective appearance of physical times and spaces occur. UDA explains why we have to proceed that way, and AUDA explains how we can do, and actually, it has been done concretely. Of course the extraction of physics is technically demanding. I should test on new machine the quantum tautologies (and some people are trying recently to do so, we will see). Up to now quantum mechanics confirms the comp self-referential statistics. You should keep in mind that, due to incompleteness, from the point of view of the machine, although Bp, Bp p, Bp Dp, Bp Dp p, all define the same extensional provability notion (G* knows that), they differ intensionally for the machine, and, for the machine they obeys quite different logic. The incompleteness nuances forces the arithmetical reality to *appear* very differently from inside. The Theatetical knower Bp p, for example, gives a knowledge operator, and can be used to explain why machine can know many things, but also why they can not define knowledge, why the first person knower has really no name, etc. The logic of Bp Dp p gives a logic of qualia, or perceptive fields, etc. Don't hesitate to ask question. Normally UDA is much simpler to understand than AUDA. I will reexplain the step seven to Kim, soon or later. Bruno Time is an illusion, but the illusion of time is not an illusion. It is a theorem that all self-referentially correct machines are confronted with such an illusion, and they make precise discourses about them. UDA forbids to take such arithmetical machine as mere zombie, or you have to abandon the comp hypothesis. 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: No MWI
The following link shows convincingly that what one gains by accepting MWI is far greater than what one loses (an answer to the born probabilities) http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/if-many-worlds.html The only law in all of quantum mechanics that is non-linear, non-unitary, non-differentiable and discontinuous. It would prevent physics from evolving locally, with each piece only looking at its immediate neighbors. Your 'collapse' would be the only fundamental phenomenon in all of physics with a preferred basis and a preferred space of simultaneity. Collapse would be the only phenomenon in all of physics that violates CPT symmetry, Liouville's Theorem, and Special Relativity. In your original version, collapse would also have been the only phenomenon in all of physics that was inherently mental. Have I left anything out? Jason On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 7:06 AM, ronaldheld ronaldh...@gmail.com wrote: read Aixiv.org:0905.0624v1 (quant-ph) and see if you agree with it Ronald --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Victor Korotkikh
Ronald, On 14 May 2009, at 13:19, Ronald (ronaldheld) wrote: Can you explain your Physics statement in more detail, which I can understand? UDA *is* the detailed explanation of that physics statement. So it would be simpler if you could tell me at which step you have a problem of understanding, or an objection, or something. You can search UDA in the archives for older or more recent versions, or read my SANE2004 paper: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html In a nutshell, the idea is the following. If we are machine we are duplicable. If we distinguish the first person by their personal memories, sufficiently introspective machine can deduce that they cannot predict with certainty they personal future in either self- duplicating experience, or in many-identical-states preparation like a concrete universal dovetailer would do all the time. So, if you are concretely in front of a concrete universal dovetailer, with the guaranty it will never stop (in some steady universe à-la Hoyle for example), you are in a high state of first person indeterminacy, given that the universal dovetailer will execute all the computations going through your actual state. Sometimes I have to remind the step 5 for helping the understanding here. In that state, from a first person perspective you don't know in which computational history you belong, but you can believe (as far as you are willing to believe in comp) that there are infinitely many of them. If you agree to identify an history by its infinite steps, or if you accept the Y = II principle (that if a story bifurcate, Y , you multiply their similar comp-past, so Y gives II), then you can understand that the cardinal (number) of your histories going through you actual state is 2^aleph_zero. It is a continuum. Of course you can first person distinguish only a enumerable quotient of it, and even just a finite part of that enumeration. Stable consciousness need deep stories (very long yet redundant stories, it is deep in Bennett sense) and a notion of linear multiplication of independent stories. Now the laws of arithmetic provides exactly this, and so you can, with OCCAM just jump to AUDA, but you have to study one or two book of mathematical logic and computer science before. (the best are Epstein Carnielli, or Boolos, Burgess and Jeffrey). Or, much easier, but not so easy, meditate on the eighth step of UDA, which shows that form their first point of view universal machine cannot distinguish real from virtual, but they cannot distinguish real from arithmetical either, so that the arithmetical realm defines the intrinsic first person indeterminacy of any universal machine. Actually the eighth step shows that comp falsifies the usual mind/physical-machine identity thesis, but it does not falsify a weaker mind/many-mathematical machines thesis. If interested I suggest you study UDA in Sane2004, and ask any questions, or find a flaw etc. (or wait for a more recent version I have yet to put on my page) Thanks for the reference to Kent's paper (it illustrates very well the knotty problems you get into when you keep Everett, materialism and the identity thesis, but I have read it only diagonally just now). Hope this helped a bit. Bruno On May 13, 11:30 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Thanks Russell, I will take a look. At first sight he makes the same error with numbers that Wolfram makes with cellular automata. Those are still mathematical form of physicalism, incompatible with the mechanist thesis in the cognitive science. Of course we converge toward rather similar (recursively isomorphic or weakened) ontologies. But they seems to believe they can recover some physics from that, where, saying yes to the surgeon requires to abandon that very idea. Physics, like in Plato and Plotinus, is not a mathematical structure among others, it is a mathematical structure which relate all mathematical structures in a precise way. Physics is somehow much more fundamental than being a thing completely describable by a set of mechanical laws. Pu in another way, such theories are unaware of the mind-body problem and still use an identity relation between a mind and a implementation of a program which UDA forces to abandon, to be frank. This does not mean those works are uninteresting of course, and they may play some role in the unravelling of the Minds and Bodies problems. Sure. Bruno On 13 May 2009, at 01:15, russell standish wrote: Hi Bruno, Have you come across Victor Korotkikh's stuff? He's got a recent article out in Complexity: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121426751/abstract?CRETRY= ... (Complexity, 14, 40-46) It basically explores the organisational properties of the integers, prime numbers etc. Which is kind of interesting in a pure mathematical way, but he
Re: Victor Korotkikh
Bruno Marchal wrote: Ronald, On 14 May 2009, at 13:19, Ronald (ronaldheld) wrote: Can you explain your Physics statement in more detail, which I can understand? UDA *is* the detailed explanation of that physics statement. So it would be simpler if you could tell me at which step you have a problem of understanding, or an objection, or something. You can search UDA in the archives for older or more recent versions, or read my SANE2004 paper: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html In a nutshell, the idea is the following. If we are machine we are duplicable. If we distinguish the first person by their personal memories, sufficiently introspective machine can deduce that they cannot predict with certainty they personal future in either self- duplicating experience, or in many-identical-states preparation like a concrete universal dovetailer would do all the time. So, if you are concretely in front of a concrete universal dovetailer, with the guaranty it will never stop (in some steady universe à-la Hoyle for example), you are in a high state of first person indeterminacy, given that the universal dovetailer will execute all the computations going through your actual state. I'm not sure how to understand your state. Is it a finite piece of the state of computation? In that case it seems it would be revisited arbitrarily many times and in different orders relative to other states. Sometimes I have to remind the step 5 for helping the understanding here. In that state, from a first person perspective you don't know in which computational history you belong, Is history meant in the sense of a thread in the completed infinite computation, or does it mean just the past part of the thread going back to the beginning of the UD? Brent but you can believe (as far as you are willing to believe in comp) that there are infinitely many of them. If you agree to identify an history by its infinite steps, or if you accept the Y = II principle (that if a story bifurcate, Y , you multiply their similar comp-past, so Y gives II), then you can understand that the cardinal (number) of your histories going through you actual state is 2^aleph_zero. It is a continuum. Of course you can first person distinguish only a enumerable quotient of it, and even just a finite part of that enumeration. Stable consciousness need deep stories (very long yet redundant stories, it is deep in Bennett sense) and a notion of linear multiplication of independent stories. Now the laws of arithmetic provides exactly this, and so you can, with OCCAM just jump to AUDA, but you have to study one or two book of mathematical logic and computer science before. (the best are Epstein Carnielli, or Boolos, Burgess and Jeffrey). Or, much easier, but not so easy, meditate on the eighth step of UDA, which shows that form their first point of view universal machine cannot distinguish real from virtual, but they cannot distinguish real from arithmetical either, so that the arithmetical realm defines the intrinsic first person indeterminacy of any universal machine. Actually the eighth step shows that comp falsifies the usual mind/physical-machine identity thesis, but it does not falsify a weaker mind/many-mathematical machines thesis. If interested I suggest you study UDA in Sane2004, and ask any questions, or find a flaw etc. (or wait for a more recent version I have yet to put on my page) Thanks for the reference to Kent's paper (it illustrates very well the knotty problems you get into when you keep Everett, materialism and the identity thesis, but I have read it only diagonally just now). Hope this helped a bit. Bruno --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: No MWI
Hi, When I read quantum mechanics and listen to those invested in the many places the mathematics leads, What strikes me is the extent to which the starting point is mathematics. That is, the entire discussion is couched as if the mathematics is defining what there is, rather than a mere describing what is there. I can see that the form of the mathematics projects a multitude of possibilities. But those invested in the business seem to operate under the assumption - an extra belief - about the relationship of the mathematics to reality. It imbues the discussion. At least that is how it appears to me. Consider the pragmatics of it. I, scientist X, am in a position of adopting 2 possible mindsets: Position 1 1a) The mathematics of quantum mechanics is very accurately predictive of observed phenomena 1b) Reality literally IS the mathematics of quantum mechanics (and by extension all the multitudinous alternative realities actually exist). Therefor to discuss mathematical constructs is to speak literally of reality. My ability to mentally manipulate mathematics therefore makes me a powerful lord of reality and puts me in a position of great authority and clarity. Position 2 2a) The mathematics of quantum mechanics is very accurately predictive of observed phenomena 2b) Reality is not the mathematics of (a). Reality is constructed of something that merely appears/behaves quantum-mechanically to an observer made of whatever it is, within a universe made of it. The mathematics of this something is not the mathematics of kind (a). Note 1a) = 2a) 1b) and 2b) they are totally different. The (a) is completely consistent with either (b). Yet we have religious zeal surrounding (1b) I hope that you can see the subtlety of the distinction between position 1 and position 2. As a thinking person in the logical position of wondering what position to adopt, position 1 is *completely unjustified*. The parsimonious position is one in which the universe is made of something other than 1b maths, and then to find a method of describing ways in which position 1 might seem apparent to an observer made of whatever the universe is actually made of.. The nice thing about position 2 is that I have room for *doubt* in 2b which does not exist in 1b. In position 2 I have: (i) laws of nature that are the describing system (predictive of phenomena in the usual ways) (ii) behaviours of a doubtable 'stuff' relating in doubtable ways to produce an observer able to to (i) In position 1 there is no doubt of kind (ii). That doubt is replaced by religious adherence to an unfounded implicit belief which imbues the discourse. At the same time position 1 completely fails to explain an observer of the kind able to do 1a. In my ponderings on this I am coming to the conclusion that the very nature of the discourse and training self-selects for people who's mental skills in abstract symbol manipulation make Position 1 a dominating tendency. Aggregates of position 1 thinkers - such as the everything list and 'fabric of reality' act like small cults. There is some kind of psychological payback involved in position 1 which selects for people susceptible to religiosity of kind 1b. Once you have a couple of generations of these folk who are so disconnected from the reality of themselves as embedded, situated agents/observers... that position 2, which involves an admission of permanent ignorance of some kind, and thereby demoting the physicist from the prime source of authority over reality, is marginalised and eventually more or less invisible. It is not that MWI is true/false it's that confinement to the discourse of MWI alone is justified only on religious grounds of the kind I have delineated. You can be quite predictive and at the same time not actually be discussing reality at all - and you'll never realise it. I.E. Position 2 could be right and all the MWI predictions can still be right. Yet position 1 behaviour stops you from finding position 2 ... and problems unsolved because they are only solvable by position 2 remain unsolved merely because of 1b religiosity. Can anyone else here see this cultural schism operating? regards Colin Hales Jason Resch wrote: The following link shows convincingly that what one gains by accepting MWI is far greater than what one loses (an answer to the born probabilities) http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/if-many-worlds.html The only law in all of quantum mechanics that is non-linear, non-unitary, non-differentiable and discontinuous. It would prevent physics from evolving locally, with each piece only looking at its immediate neighbors. Your 'collapse' would be the only fundamental phenomenon in all of physics with a preferred basis and a preferred space of simultaneity. Collapse would be the only phenomenon in all of physics that violates CPT symmetry, Liouville's Theorem, and Special Relativity. In your original version,
Re: No MWI
Colin Hales wrote: Hi, When I read quantum mechanics and listen to those invested in the many places the mathematics leads, What strikes me is the extent to which the starting point is mathematics. That is, the entire discussion is couched as if the mathematics is defining what there is, rather than a mere describing what is there. I can see that the form of the mathematics projects a multitude of possibilities. But those invested in the business seem to operate under the assumption - an extra belief - about the relationship of the mathematics to reality. It imbues the discussion. At least that is how it appears to me. Consider the pragmatics of it. I, scientist X, am in a position of adopting 2 possible mindsets: Position 1 1a) The mathematics of quantum mechanics is very accurately predictive of observed phenomena 1b) Reality literally IS the mathematics of quantum mechanics (and by extension all the multitudinous alternative realities actually exist). Therefor to discuss mathematical constructs is to speak literally of reality. My ability to mentally manipulate mathematics therefore makes me a powerful lord of reality and puts me in a position of great authority and clarity. I don't know many physicist who takes this position. I guess Max Tegmark would be one. But most physicists seem to take the math as descriptive. It is more often mathematicians who are Platonists; not I think because of ego, but because mathematics seems to be discovered rather than invented. Position 2 2a) The mathematics of quantum mechanics is very accurately predictive of observed phenomena 2b) Reality is not the mathematics of (a). Reality is constructed of something that merely appears/behaves quantum-mechanically to an observer made of whatever it is, within a universe made of it. The mathematics of this something is not the mathematics of kind (a). What about the mathematics is as complete a description as we have of whatever underlying reality there may be. So we might as well, provisionally, identify it with the real. Brent Note 1a) = 2a) 1b) and 2b) they are totally different. The (a) is completely consistent with either (b). Yet we have religious zeal surrounding (1b) I hope that you can see the subtlety of the distinction between position 1 and position 2. As a thinking person in the logical position of wondering what position to adopt, position 1 is *completely unjustified*. The parsimonious position is one in which the universe is made of something other than 1b maths, and then to find a method of describing ways in which position 1 might seem apparent to an observer made of whatever the universe is actually made of.. The nice thing about position 2 is that I have room for *doubt* in 2b which does not exist in 1b. In position 2 I have: (i) laws of nature that are the describing system (predictive of phenomena in the usual ways) (ii) behaviours of a doubtable 'stuff' relating in doubtable ways to produce an observer able to to (i) In position 1 there is no doubt of kind (ii). That doubt is replaced by religious adherence to an unfounded implicit belief which imbues the discourse. At the same time position 1 completely fails to explain an observer of the kind able to do 1a. In my ponderings on this I am coming to the conclusion that the very nature of the discourse and training self-selects for people who's mental skills in abstract symbol manipulation make Position 1 a dominating tendency. Aggregates of position 1 thinkers - such as the everything list and 'fabric of reality' act like small cults. There is some kind of psychological payback involved in position 1 which selects for people susceptible to religiosity of kind 1b. Once you have a couple of generations of these folk who are so disconnected from the reality of themselves as embedded, situated agents/observers... that position 2, which involves an admission of permanent ignorance of some kind, and thereby demoting the physicist from the prime source of authority over reality, is marginalised and eventually more or less invisible. It is not that MWI is true/false it's that confinement to the discourse of MWI alone is justified only on religious grounds of the kind I have delineated. You can be quite predictive and at the same time not actually be discussing reality at all - and you'll never realise it. I.E. Position 2 could be right and all the MWI predictions can still be right. Yet position 1 behaviour stops you from finding position 2 ... and problems unsolved because they are only solvable by position 2 remain unsolved merely because of 1b religiosity. Can anyone else here see this cultural schism operating? regards Colin Hales Jason Resch wrote: The following link shows convincingly that what one gains by accepting MWI is far greater than what one loses (an answer to the
Re: Victor Korotkikh
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 05:30:57PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: Thanks Russell, I will take a look. At first sight he makes the same error with numbers that Wolfram makes with cellular automata. I think this sums up my feeling too. Although, I'm not sure we're talking about the same error :) I guess my interest in pointing it out to you was whether some interesting structure could be extracted from it when put into the framework of the AUDA. Since you point out that Robinson arithmetic is universal, might not Korotkikh's integer relationships also be a reflection of the same universality. I kind of dismissed this stuff as a curiosity when I first heard about it 13 years ago, but I've grown intellectually since then (having being exposed to your ideas amongst others :). BTW - I'm still enjoying Secret of the Amoeba, which I haven't finished yet. Its a shame it wasn't published - its some of your best stuff! Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: No MWI
Brent Meeker wrote: Colin Hales wrote: Hi, When I read quantum mechanics and listen to those invested in the many places the mathematics leads, What strikes me is the extent to which the starting point is mathematics. That is, the entire discussion is couched as if the mathematics is defining what there is, rather than a mere describing what is there. I can see that the form of the mathematics projects a multitude of possibilities. But those invested in the business seem to operate under the assumption - an extra belief - about the relationship of the mathematics to reality. It imbues the discussion. At least that is how it appears to me. Consider the pragmatics of it. I, scientist X, am in a position of adopting 2 possible mindsets: Position 1 1a) The mathematics of quantum mechanics is very accurately predictive of observed phenomena 1b) Reality literally IS the mathematics of quantum mechanics (and by extension all the multitudinous alternative realities actually exist). Therefor to discuss mathematical constructs is to speak literally of reality. My ability to mentally manipulate mathematics therefore makes me a powerful lord of reality and puts me in a position of great authority and clarity. I don't know many physicist who takes this position. I guess Max Tegmark would be one. But most physicists seem to take the math as descriptive. It is more often mathematicians who are Platonists; not I think because of ego, but because mathematics seems to be discovered rather than invented. I know that most physicists would, when asked, likely deny that their mathematics has been taken as real. It's more that their behaviour is 'as if' they have, because position2 has not been adopted and there . Position 2 2a) The mathematics of quantum mechanics is very accurately predictive of observed phenomena 2b) Reality is not the mathematics of (a). Reality is constructed of something that merely appears/behaves quantum-mechanically to an observer made of whatever it is, within a universe made of it. The mathematics of this something is not the mathematics of kind (a). What about the mathematics is as complete a description as we have of whatever underlying reality there may be. So we might as well, provisionally, identify it with the real. Brent It's not complete and it has 1 chronic abject failure: to explain scientists (scientific observation). The position 1a 'laws of nature' presuppose the scientist and scientific observation in the sense that they merely 'organise appearances' in a scientist - the scientist is built into the laws and the explanation as to why there are any 'appearances' at all (as delivered in brain material) goes unexplained... thrown away in the act of objectivity. If there's a perfectly servicable alternative (position 2), and a chromic problem in cognitive science, the more reasonable (in terms of doubt management) position 2 might be thought to be deserving more attention Hmmm. Just in case there's a misunderstanding of position 2, here's their contrast rather more pointedly: Position 1 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves when we look. 1b Reality is literally made of the mathematics 1a. (I act as if this were the case) Position 2 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves when we look. 1b There's a *separate* mathematics of an underlying reality which operates to produce an observer who sees the reality behaving as per 1a maths. 1c There's the actual underlying reality, which is doubted (not claimed) to 'be' 1b or 1a. Position 2 is justified because when you simulate 2b it on a computer you can see, operating inside it, what constitutes the observation system of the scientist) ... it produces a scientist with a scientific observation system. That observation system reveals the natural world to be behaving 'as-if' math 1a was driving it, when in reality it is not. Thus the chronic problem is of position 1 behaviour is solved. Instead of many extra worlds... you only need 1. ... all the while MWI remains just as predictive. == I understand your position on the matter, but I wonder as to the psychology of it in general. Let's posit position 2 as the real epistemic option for scientists inside a natural world. Lets say the 'hard problem' of explaining scientists is solved by position 2 work in the year 2050 when simulation can handle 40 orders of magnitude of detailLet's say in 2075 a historian is characterising the mindset of 20th century physics. What they describe is an entire century of unjustified self-deception promulgated by a kind of systemic practical religious behaviour which is denied, by the physicists/mathematicians, in *omission*. That is, their tacit subscription to position 1 is affirmed by a failure to act according to position 2 when the
Re: Consciousness is information?
2009/5/15 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com: Stathis, I agree halfway with you and expected something (maybe more). Do you mean the others are zombies? not ME (you, etc. 1st pers). I don't think others are zombies, but it is interesting nevertheless to consider the possibility. I take it one step further, the fun (I agree) includes a satisfaction that here is a bunch of really smart guys and I can tell them something in their profession they may respond to - even if I am outside of their learned profession - which is not so 'practical'. Mental narcissism? Yes, on some mailing lists people try to score points and show how smart they are but on this one, that doesn't seem to happen so much. Somebody made an 'expert' list, collecting opinions for open concepts in a statistical evaluation of what the majority of experts think. Of course I objected: scientific identification is NO democratic voting matter, if 100 so called 'experts' voice an opinion I may still represent the right one in a single-vote different position. That's true, but scientific consensus must count for *something*. If I have no idea about a subject it is more likely I will get the right answer from an expert than from a random person. But of course, experts cannot always be right, and historically many things that scientists have believed even unanimously have turned out to be wrong. -- 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: No MWI
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Colin Hales c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au wrote: My ability to mentally manipulate mathematics therefore makes me a powerful lord of reality and puts me in a position of great authority and clarity. Aren't people who are good at math already pretty much in this position? Engineering, phsyics, chemistry, finance, etc., all require some aptitude with math. If you have significant mathematical ability, then you should be in a very good position in the modern world, all other things being equal. Whether reality IS math, or is just described by math...being good at math is a major bonus either way. If reality IS math...I'm not sure how much extra this really buys you over reality just being describable by math. So I think your god complex explanation is off. Yet we have religious zeal surrounding (1b) What is the difference between religious zeal and just regular zeal? How do you tell the difference? Is any sign of zeal automatically tagged as religious? Or only certain kinds of zeal? It is not that MWI is true/false it's that confinement to the discourse of MWI alone is justified only on religious grounds of the kind I have delineated. I think you overestimate people's devotion to MWI. I myself only occasionally pray to it. On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Colin Hales c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au wrote: Hi, When I read quantum mechanics and listen to those invested in the many places the mathematics leads, What strikes me is the extent to which the starting point is mathematics. That is, the entire discussion is couched as if the mathematics is defining what there is, rather than a mere describing what is there. I can see that the form of the mathematics projects a multitude of possibilities. But those invested in the business seem to operate under the assumption - an extra belief - about the relationship of the mathematics to reality. It imbues the discussion. At least that is how it appears to me. Consider the pragmatics of it. I, scientist X, am in a position of adopting 2 possible mindsets: Position 1 1a) The mathematics of quantum mechanics is very accurately predictive of observed phenomena 1b) Reality literally IS the mathematics of quantum mechanics (and by extension all the multitudinous alternative realities actually exist). Therefor to discuss mathematical constructs is to speak literally of reality. My ability to mentally manipulate mathematics therefore makes me a powerful lord of reality and puts me in a position of great authority and clarity. Position 2 2a) The mathematics of quantum mechanics is very accurately predictive of observed phenomena 2b) Reality is not the mathematics of (a). Reality is constructed of something that merely appears/behaves quantum-mechanically to an observer made of whatever it is, within a universe made of it. The mathematics of this something is not the mathematics of kind (a). Note 1a) = 2a) 1b) and 2b) they are totally different. The (a) is completely consistent with either (b). Yet we have religious zeal surrounding (1b) I hope that you can see the subtlety of the distinction between position 1 and position 2. As a thinking person in the logical position of wondering what position to adopt, position 1 is *completely unjustified*. The parsimonious position is one in which the universe is made of something other than 1b maths, and then to find a method of describing ways in which position 1 might seem apparent to an observer made of whatever the universe is actually made of.. The nice thing about position 2 is that I have room for *doubt* in 2b which does not exist in 1b. In position 2 I have: (i) laws of nature that are the describing system (predictive of phenomena in the usual ways) (ii) behaviours of a doubtable 'stuff' relating in doubtable ways to produce an observer able to to (i) In position 1 there is no doubt of kind (ii). That doubt is replaced by religious adherence to an unfounded implicit belief which imbues the discourse. At the same time position 1 completely fails to explain an observer of the kind able to do 1a. In my ponderings on this I am coming to the conclusion that the very nature of the discourse and training self-selects for people who's mental skills in abstract symbol manipulation make Position 1 a dominating tendency. Aggregates of position 1 thinkers - such as the everything list and 'fabric of reality' act like small cults. There is some kind of psychological payback involved in position 1 which selects for people susceptible to religiosity of kind 1b. Once you have a couple of generations of these folk who are so disconnected from the reality of themselves as embedded, situated agents/observers... that position 2, which involves an admission of permanent ignorance of some kind, and thereby demoting the physicist from the prime source of authority over reality, is marginalised and eventually more
RE: Consciousness is information?
Hi Bruno, I meant to reply to this earlier: From: marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 14:45:13 +0200 On 30 Apr 2009, at 18:29, Jesse Mazer wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 29 Apr 2009, at 23:30, Jesse Mazer wrote: But I'm not convinced that the basic Olympia machine he describes doesn't already have a complex causal structure--the causal structure would be in the way different troughs influence each other via the pipe system he describes, noting the motion of the armature. But Maudlin succeed in showing that in its particular running history, *that* causal structure is physically inert. Or it has mysterious influence not related to the computation. Maudlin only showed that *if* you define causal structure in terms of counterfactuals, then the machinery that ensures the proper counterfactuals might be physically inert. But if you reread my post at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg16244.html you can see that I was trying to come up with a definition of the causal structure of a set of events that did *not* depend on counterfactuals...look at these two paragraphs from that post, particular the first sentence of the first paragraph and the last sentence of the second paragraph: It seems to me that there might be ways of defining causal structure which don't depend on counterfactuals, though. One idea I had is that for any system which changes state in a lawlike way over time, all facts about events in the system's history can be represented as a collection of propositions, and then causal structure might be understood in terms of logical relations between propositions, given knowledge of the laws governing the system. As an example, if the system was a cellular automaton, one might have a collection of propositions like cell 156 is colored black at time-step 36, and if you know the rules for how the cells are updated on each time-step, then knowing some subsets of propositions would allow you to deduce others (for example, if you have a set of propositions that tell you the states of all the cells surrounding cell 71 at time-step 106, in most cellular automata that would allow you to figure out the state of cell 71 at the subsequent time-step 107). If the laws of physics in our universe are deterministic than you should in principle be able to represent all facts about the state of the universe at all times as a giant (probably infinite) set of propositions as well, and given knowledge of the laws, knowing certain subsets of these propositions would allow you to deduce others. Causal structure could then be defined in terms of what logical relations hold between the propositions, given knowledge of the laws governing the system. Perhaps in one system you might find a set of four propositions A, B, C, D such that if you know the system's laws, you can see that AB imply C, and D implies A, but no other proposition or group of propositions in this set of four are sufficient to deduce any of the others in this set. Then in another system you might find a set of four propositions X, Y, Z and W such that WZ imply Y, and X implies W, but those are the only deductions you can make from within this set. In this case you can say these two different sets of four propositions represent instantiations of the same causal structure, since if you map W to A, Z to B, Y to C, and D to X then you can see an isomorphism in the logical relations. That's obviously a very simple causal structure involving only 4 events, but one might define much more complex causal structures and then check if there was any subset of events in a system's history that matched that structure. And the propositions could be restricted to ones concerning events that actually did occur in the system's history, with no counterfactual propositions about what would have happened if the system's initial state had been different. For a Turing machine running a particular program the propositions might be things like at time-step 35 the Turing machine's read/write head moved to memory cell #82 and at time-step 35 the Turing machine had internal state S3 and at time-step 35 memory cell #82 held the digit 1. I'm not sure whether the general rules for how the Turing machine's internal state changes from one step to the next should also be included among the propositions, my guess is you'd probably need to do so in order to ensure that different computations had different causal structures according to the type of definition above...so, you might have a proposition expressing a rule like if the Turing machine is in internal state S3 and its read/write head detects the digit 1, it changes the digit in that cell to a 0 and moves 2 cells to the left, also changing its internal state to S5. Then this set of four propositions would be sufficient to deduce some other propositions about the
Re: No MWI
On May 14, 4:45 pm, Colin Hales c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au wrote: At the same time position 1 completely fails to explain an observer of the kind able to do 1a. I would say that position 2 fails to explain the observer too, you have to actually explain the observer to claim that a position explains the observer. But position 2 at least provides the topology to allow doubt, so that there is room for an observer to be explained in the future. ... Yet position 1 behaviour stops you from finding position 2 ... and problems unsolved because they are only solvable by position 2 remain unsolved merely because of 1b religiosity. If what you mean by religiosity is the disallowance of doubt, then yes by definition position 1 has religiosity and position 2 does not. I agree that disallowance of doubt is not a good thing to have. I think you said that physicists would also agree, but that they don't practice that way. I think it's just a matter of frame of mind. In math we do that a lot, where we suppose that something is true and see where it leads. I guess in physics the supposing just lasts longer. And the supposing in physics is in the form of math. What other form could supposing in physics possibly take? It seems that anything you suppose true you can put in the form of a mathematics statement. I think it all boils down to the fact that we have to keep remembering that we were just supposing, and be able to step back out of it and suppose something else. I think that's where having lots of people it an advantage, some people are the really dedicated logical inference one step at a time see where the supposition leads, do many experiments, etc. Other people are the broad brush outside of the box thinkers that think up lots of different possibilites. Hmmm. Just in case there's a misunderstanding of position 2, here's their contrast rather more pointedly: Position 1 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves when we look. 1b Reality is literally made of the mathematics 1a. (I act as if this were the case) Position 2 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves when we look. 1b There's a *separate* mathematics of an underlying reality which operates to produce an observer who sees the reality behaving as per 1a maths. 1c There's the actual underlying reality, which is doubted (not claimed) to 'be' 1b or 1a. I think that your first description of position 2 seemed to necessitate some kind of basic matter that things are made of. But I think your second description of position 2 (above, by the way, 2a, 2b, 2c typo above) doesn't necessarily require that. In face your 2c above says that the underlying reality is doubted to be 1b or 1a. I think that your doubt and underlying reality could all be placed in 2b instead and you could get rid of 2c. I think that Bruno's G might correspond to 2a and G* might correspond to 2b, and viola, comp! Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: No MWI
On May 14, 9:47 pm, daddycay...@msn.com wrote: On May 14, 4:45 pm, Colin Hales c.ha...@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au wrote: At the same time position 1 completely fails to explain an observer of the kind able to do 1a. I would say that position 2 fails to explain the observer too, you have to actually explain the observer to claim that a position explains the observer. But position 2 at least provides the topology to allow doubt, so that there is room for an observer to be explained in the future. ... Yet position 1 behaviour stops you from finding position 2 ... and problems unsolved because they are only solvable by position 2 remain unsolved merely because of 1b religiosity. If what you mean by religiosity is the disallowance of doubt, then yes by definition position 1 has religiosity and position 2 does not. I agree that disallowance of doubt is not a good thing to have. I think you said that physicists would also agree, but that they don't practice that way. I think it's just a matter of frame of mind. In math we do that a lot, where we suppose that something is true and see where it leads. I guess in physics the supposing just lasts longer. And the supposing in physics is in the form of math. What other form could supposing in physics possibly take? It seems that anything you suppose true you can put in the form of a mathematics statement. I think it all boils down to the fact that we have to keep remembering that we were just supposing, and be able to step back out of it and suppose something else. I think that's where having lots of people it an advantage, some people are the really dedicated logical inference one step at a time see where the supposition leads, do many experiments, etc. Other people are the broad brush outside of the box thinkers that think up lots of different possibilites. Hmmm. Just in case there's a misunderstanding of position 2, here's their contrast rather more pointedly: Position 1 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves when we look. 1b Reality is literally made of the mathematics 1a. (I act as if this were the case) Position 2 1a There's a mathematics which describes how the natural world behaves when we look. 1b There's a *separate* mathematics of an underlying reality which operates to produce an observer who sees the reality behaving as per 1a maths. 1c There's the actual underlying reality, which is doubted (not claimed) to 'be' 1b or 1a. I think that your first description of position 2 seemed to necessitate some kind of basic matter that things are made of. But I think your second description of position 2 (above, by the way, 2a, 2b, 2c typo above) doesn't necessarily require that. In face your 2c above says that the underlying reality is doubted to be 1b or 1a. I think that your doubt and underlying reality could all be placed in 2b instead and you could get rid of 2c. I think that Bruno's G might correspond to 2a and G* might correspond to 2b, and viola, comp! Tom i.e. in the case where you put the doubt and underlying reality into 2b, then G* could correspond to 2b. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
