Re: A Possible Mathematical Structure for Physics
On 17 Aug 2009, at 16:23, ronaldheld wrote: arxiv.org:0908.2063v1 Any comments? Very cute little paper. I think the author would have found gravity waves, and thus space- time, by extending its approach to the Octonions (I intuit this since my reading of Kaufman book on knots and physics). Of course, despite apparent mathematicalism, this is still physics, and the computationalist mind body problem is not addressed. I have independent reason that such an octonionic physical theory is basically right, but to show this with respect to the comp hyp, it is nessary to derive such a theory from the intelligible hypostases, that is from the correct variant of the provability logic. I can come back on this when more is said on the intelligible hypostases). 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 17 Aug 2009, at 19:28, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 11:17, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 11:11, 1Z wrote: Without Platonism, there is no UD since it is not observable within physical space. So the UDA is based on Plat., not the other way round. Are you saying that without platonism, the square root of 2 does not exist? Yes, the square root of two has no ontological existence. All what matters with comp is that things like the square root of 2 has a notion of existence independent of me. Prime number does not exist? Yes, prime numbers have no ontological existence I guess you make a material ontological commitment. One of my goal is to explain, notably with the comp hyp, that a term like matter has no referent. This would explain why physicist never use such ontological commitment explicitly. To say that matter exists simply is a non rational act of the type don't ask. UDA makes just this precise by reudcing the mind body problem to a body problem. That mathematical existence is a meaningless notion? Sense but no refence. Mathematical statements have truth values but do not refere to anything outside the formal system. Then they have no truth value. What you say is formalism, and this has been explicitly refuted by mathematical logicians. We know, mainly by the work of Gödel that the truth about numbers extends what can be justified in ANY effective formal systems (and non effective one are not really formal). But I know that there are still some formalists in the neighborhood, and that is why I make explicit the assumption of arithmetical realism. It is the assumption that the structure (N, +, x) is well defined, despite we can't define it effectively. Mathematics would be a physical illusion? A referentless formal game, distinguished from fiction only by its rigour and generality You evacuate the whole approach of semantics by Tarski and Quine. I will not insist on this because I will explain with some detail why Church thesis necessitate arithmetical realism, and why this leads directly to the incompleteness and the discovery that arithmetical truth cannot be captured by any effective formal system. The formalist position in math is no more tenable. But physics use mathematics, would that not make physics illusory or circular? No, because it uses mathematics empirically. The same language that can be used to write fiction can be used to write history. The difference is in how it used. not in the langauge itself I don't see any difference in the use of analytical tools in physics and in number theory. The distribution of the prime numbers is objective, and this is the only type of independent objectivity needed in the reasoning. Nothing more. It's a perfectly consistent assumption. THere is no disproof of materialism that doesn't beg the quesiton by assuming immaterialism Well, I do believe in the natural numbers, and I do believe in their immateriality (the number seven is not made of quantum field, or waves, or particle). Then you are a Platonist, and you argument is based on Platonism. I believe that the truth of arithmetical statement having the shape ExP(x) is independent of me, and you and the physical universe (if that exists). You can call that Platonism, if you want, but this is not obviously anti-physicalist. Non-physicalism is the conclusion of a reasoning (UDA). Given that Plato's conception of reality is closer to the conclusion, I prefer to use the expression Arithmetical realism for this (banal) assumption, and Platonism or non-physicalism for the conclusion. But that is only a vocabulary problem. So either you tell me that you don't believe in the number seven, or that you have a theory in which the number seven is explained in materialist term, without assuming numbers in that theory. The latter. Show it. I know an attempt toward science without number by Hartree Field (wrong spelling?), but I found it poorly convincing. Most physicists accept the objectivity of numbers. Even more so with the attempt to marry GR and QM. This leads to major difficulties, even before approaching the consciousness problem. Such as? Explaining number with physical notions, and explaining, even partially, physical notions with the use numbers. That is just a repetition of the claim that there are problems. You have not in the least explained what the problems are. UDA is such an explanation. AUDA gives a constructive path toward a solution. You arguments here are based on the idea that primary matter needs to be given a purely mathematical expression. That in turn is based on an assumption of Platonism. If Platonism is false and materialism true, one would *expect* mathematical explanation to run out at some point. Your difficulty is a *prediction* of materialism , and therefore a successfor materailism
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 02:47, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/18 Jesse Mazer wrote: AFAICS the assumption of primary matter 'solves' the white rabbit problem by making it circular: i.e. assuming that primary matter exists entails restricting the theory to just those mathematics and parameters capable of predicting what is observed; since white rabbits are not in fact observed, it follows that no successful mathematics of primary matter has any business predicting them. This is not to say that such circularity is necessarily vicious; its proponents no doubt see it as virtuously parsimonious. Nonetheless, one of the chief arguments for the pluralistic alternatives is that - by not applying a priori mathematical or parametric restrictions - they may thereby be less arbitrary. This of course leaves them with the problem of the white rabbits to solve by other means. David Yes. It pretty well comes to a trade-off between cotingency and saving appearances. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 01:53, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Peter Jones wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. But then it seems like you're really just talking about consciousness and qualia--of all the mathematically possible universes containing possible self-aware observers, only in some (or one) are these possible observers actually real in the sense of having qualia (and there qualia being influenced by other, possibly nonconsious elements of the mathematical universe they are a part of). No.. I don't need the hypothesis that WR universes are there but unobserved. There's no need to have a middleman called primary matter, such that only some (or one) mathematical possible universes are actually instantianted in primary matter, and only those instantiated in primary matter give rise to qualia. There is no absolute need, but there are advantages. For instance, the many-wolder might have to admit the existence of zombie universes -- universes that containt *apparent* intelligent lige that is nonetheless unconscious-- in order to account for the non-obseration of WR universes. If you *are* going to add unobservable middlemen like this, I don't concede that PM is unobservable. What exists is material, what is immaterial does not exist. There is therefore a large set of facts about matter. Moreover, the many-worlders extra universes *have* to be unobservable one way or the other, since they are not observed! there's no real logical justification for having only one--you could say only some mathematically possible universes are instantiated in primary asfgh, and only some of those give rise to qwertyuiop, and only the ones with quertyuiop can give rise to zxcvbn, and only ones with zxcvbn can give rise to qualia and consciousness. Single-universe thinking is a different game from everythingism. It is not about explaining everything from logical first priciples. It accepts contingency as the price paid for parsimony. Pasimony and lack of arbitrariness are *both* explanatory desiderata, so there is no black-and-white sense in which Everythingism wins. In that case you might as well call it primary ectoplasm or primary asdfgh. You might as well call 2 the successor of 0. All symbols are arbitrary. My point was just that I think it's *misleading* to use the word matter which already has all sorts of intuitive associations for us, when really you're talking about something utterly mysterious whose properties are completely divorced from our experiences, more like Kant's noumena which were supposed to be things-in-themselves separate from all phenomenal properties (including quantitative ones). I don't accept that characterisation of PM. (BTW, phenomenal properties could be accounted for as non-mathematical attributes of PM) And are you making any explicit assumption about the relation between this primary matter and qualia/first-person experience? If not, then I don't see why it wouldn't be logically possible to have a universe with primary matter but no qualia (all living beings would be zombies), or qualia but no primary matter (and if you admit this possibility, then why shouldn't we believe this is exactly the type of universe we live in?) The second possibility is ruled out because it predicts White Rabbits. I don't agree, there's no reason you couldn't postulate a measure Yes there is: you have to justify from first principles and not just postulate it. The problem is that if all possible maths exists, all possible measures exist... you can't pick out one as being, for some contingent reason the measure on the set of mathematical possibilities which determined the likelihood they would actually be
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 00:41, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/17 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Yep. I have no problem with any of that Really? Let's see then. The paraphrase condition means, for example, that instead of adopting a statement like unicorns have one horn as a true statement about reality and thus being forced to accept the existence of unicorns, you could instead paraphrase this in terms of what images and concepts are in people's mind when they use the word unicorn; and if you're an eliminative materialist who wants to avoid accepting mental images and concepts as a basic element of your ontology, it might seem plausible that you could *in principle* paraphrase all statements about human concepts using statements about physical processes in human brains, although we may lack the understanding to do that now. I presume that one could substitute 'computation' for 'unicorn' in the above passage? If so, the human concept that it is 'computation' that gives rise to consciousness could be paraphrased using statements about physical processes in human brains. So what may we now suppose gives such processes this particular power? Presumably not their 'computational' nature - because now nous n'avons pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là (which I'm sure you will recall was precisely the point I originally made). That's completely back to front. Standard computaitonalism regards computation as a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. It doesn't exist at the fundamental level like quarks, and it isn't non-existent like unicorns. It is a higher-level existent, like horses. Standard computationalism is *not* Bruno's claims about immaterial self-standing computations dreaming they are butterflies or whatever. That magnificent edifice is very much of his own making. He may call it comp but don't be fooled. It seems to me that what one can recover from this is simply the hypothesis that certain brain processes give rise to consciousness in virtue of their being precisely the processes that they are - no more, no less. Am I still missing something? It's prima facie possible for physicalism to be true and computationalism false. That is to say that the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computaitonal processes. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:41, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. QM mechanics solves mathematically the white rabbit problem. I do agree with this, but to say it does this by invoking primitive matter does not follow. On the contrary QM amplitude makes primitive matter still more hard to figure out. Primitive matter is, up to now, a metaphysical notion. Darwinian evolution can justify why we take seriously the consistency of our neighborhood, and why we extrapolate that consistency, but physicists does not, in their theories, ever postulate *primitive* matter. We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. Are you defending Bohm's Quantum Mechanics? The wave without particles still act physically, indeed they have to do that for the quantum disappearance of the white rabbits. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 01:43, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/17 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I am trying to persuade Bruno that his argument has an implict assumption of Platonism that should be made explicit. An assumption of Platonism as a non-observable background might be justifiiable in the way you suggest, but it does need to be made explicit. Yes, this is why I felt it might help the discussion to make the possibility of such an assumption explicit in this way. Bruno's theory may well be falsifiable. But then it is hardly a disproof of materialism as it stands. Agreed - not as a knockdown blow - although as you know his argument is that materialism is incompatible with the computational theory of mind; and of course I've also been arguing for this, although my alternative (i.e. a theory, rather than an intuition) wouldn't necessarily be the same as his. I think the core of the problem is a tendency to mentally conjure platonia as a pure figment; I am not sure what you mean by that. Anti-Platonic philsoophies of maths, such as formalism, are considered positons supported by arguments, not vague intuitions. Yes, I don't dispute that. But aside from this, perhaps one could say that we tend to assume that ideas about 'platonias' have sense but no reference. I don't see why However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point One should perhaps recall that the appeal to number as a causal principle (to use the logic of 'paraphrase') can't be met by any merely human concept of number. IOW for reality to emerge from number, whatever the putative referents of human number terminology may be, they must at some level be uniquely cashable in terms of RITSIAR. I would have hoped that was obvious. this will not do; nor is it presumably what Plato had in mind. Rather, platonia might be reconceived in terms of the preconditions of the observable and real; its theoretical entities must - ultimately - be cashable for what is RITSIAR, both 'materially' and 'mentally'. On this basis, some such intuition of an 'immaterial' (pre-material?) - but inescapably real - precursory state could be seen as theoretically inevitable, whether one subsequently adopts a materialist or a comp interpretative stance. I don;t see why it is necessay at all, let alone why it was inevitable. You were earlier comparing it to a hypothetical background ontology. How did it jump form (falsifiable) hypotheiss to necessary and inevitable truth? It didn't. I was just suggesting that embracing some more 'agnostic' ?!?!?! background schema of this kind might actually be helpful in appreciating the scope and limits of explanation. For example, just how far down the explanatory hierarchy do we have to go before it starts making less and less sense to insist on characterising the explanatory entities as 'material'? It hasn't happened yet. Are superstrings material? Is quantum foam material? Are whatever-are-conceived-as-the-pre-conditions for their appearance in the scheme of things material? What is surely at issue is not their 'essential' materiality but their properties as appealed to by theory (i.e. the ones to which we would resort by paraphrase). Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. Perhaps our ultimate explanatory entities need be conceived as no more 'material' than necessary for us to depend on them as plausible pre-cursors of the more obviously material; but of course, no less so either. While I've got you here, as it were - I don't see why this wouldn't apply equally to the mental: IOW our explanatory entities need be conceived as no more 'mental' than necessary for us to depend on them as plausible precursors of the more obviously mental; but no less so either. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:44, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 18:51, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Jesse Mazer wrote: Does Bruno assume arithmetic is really real or just a really good model, and can the difference be known? I don't think Bruno believes there is anything else for arithemeic *to* model. Artithmetical theories model (in the physicists sense) the standard model (in the logician sense) of arithmetic. But you are right. Arithmetical truth is what our theories try to model, always imperfectly, and necessarily so, as we know since Gödel. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:48, Flammarion wrote: What do you mean by ontological existence? Real in the Sense that I am Real. What does that mean? Do you mean real in the sense that 1-I is real? or do you mean real in the sense that 3-I is real? The 1-I reality (my consciousness) is undoubtable, and incommunicable in any 3-ways. The 3-I reality (my body, identity card, ...) is doubtable (I could be dreaming) and communicable in 3-ways, yet always with interrogation mark. This makes a big difference. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 09:12, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 19:28, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 11:17, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 11:11, 1Z wrote: Without Platonism, there is no UD since it is not observable within physical space. So the UDA is based on Plat., not the other way round. Are you saying that without platonism, the square root of 2 does not exist? Yes, the square root of two has no ontological existence. All what matters with comp is that things like the square root of 2 has a notion of existence independent of me. that's what I meant. Prime number does not exist? Yes, prime numbers have no ontological existence I guess you make a material ontological commitment. One of my goal is to explain, notably with the comp hyp, that a term like matter has no referent. One of my goals is to explain that you cannot convince me tha matter doesn't exist without first convincing me that numbers do. You may be able to eliminate matter in favour of numbers, but that doesn;'t stop me douing the converse. This would explain why physicist never use such ontological commitment explicitly. Physicists write reams about matter. To say that matter exists simply is a non rational act of the type don't ask. UDA makes just this precise by reudcing the mind body problem to a body problem. The UDA doesn't even start without Platonism That mathematical existence is a meaningless notion? Sense but no refence. Mathematical statements have truth values but do not refere to anything outside the formal system. Then they have no truth value. That statement requires some justification What you say is formalism, and this has been explicitly refuted by mathematical logicians. False. From previous conversations, you conflate fomalism with Hilbert's programme. I am not referring to the claim that there is a mechanical proof-porcedure for any theorem, I am referring to the claim that mathematics is a non-referential formal game. Note that Platonism vs. Formalism is an open quesiton in philosophy. We know, mainly by the work of Gödel that the truth about numbers extends what can be justified in ANY effective formal systems (and non effective one are not really formal). Irrelevant. Platonism vs. Formalism is a debate about *existence* not about truth. But I know that there are still some formalists in the neighborhood, and that is why I make explicit the assumption of arithmetical realism. It is the assumption that the structure (N, +, x) is well defined, despite we can't define it effectively. Mathematics would be a physical illusion? A referentless formal game, distinguished from fiction only by its rigour and generality You evacuate the whole approach of semantics by Tarski and Quine. Maybe. Evidently I prefer Frege I will not insist on this because I will explain with some detail why Church thesis necessitate arithmetical realism, and why this leads directly to the incompleteness and the discovery that arithmetical truth cannot be captured by any effective formal system. The formalist position in math is no more tenable. But physics use mathematics, would that not make physics illusory or circular? No, because it uses mathematics empirically. The same language that can be used to write fiction can be used to write history. The difference is in how it used. not in the langauge itself I don't see any difference in the use of analytical tools in physics and in number theory. I've done both and I do. The distribution of the prime numbers is objective, and this is the only type of independent objectivity needed in the reasoning. Nothing more. Truths about prime numbers are objective truths,. That says nothing about existence. It's a perfectly consistent assumption. THere is no disproof of materialism that doesn't beg the quesiton by assuming immaterialism Well, I do believe in the natural numbers, and I do believe in their immateriality (the number seven is not made of quantum field, or waves, or particle). Then you are a Platonist, and you argument is based on Platonism. I believe that the truth of arithmetical statement having the shape ExP(x) is independent of me, and you and the physical universe (if that exists). To get a claim of existence out of that claim of truth, you have to take the exists to have a single uniform meaning in all contexts,. This, we formalists dispute. You can call that Platonism, if you want, but this is not obviously anti-physicalist. Show me where these numbers are phsycially, then Non-physicalism is the conclusion of a reasoning (UDA). Unfortunately, it is also the assumption Given that Plato's conception of reality is closer to the conclusion, I prefer to use the expression Arithmetical realism for this (banal) assumption, and Platonism or
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:37:02 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 01:53, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Peter Jones wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. But then it seems like you're really just talking about consciousness and qualia--of all the mathematically possible universes containing possible self-aware observers, only in some (or one) are these possible observers actually real in the sense of having qualia (and there qualia being influenced by other, possibly nonconsious elements of the mathematical universe they are a part of). No.. I don't need the hypothesis that WR universes are there but unobserved. What does are there mean? It seems to be a synonym for physical existence, but my whole point here is that the notion of physical existence doesn't even seem well-defined, if this discussion is going to get anywhere you need to actually address this argument head on rather than just continue to talk as though terms like exists and are there have a transparent meaning. The only kinds of existence that seem meaningful to me are the type of Quinean existence I discussed earlier, and existence in the sense of conscious experience which is something we all know firsthand. Can you explain what physical existence is supposed to denote if it is not either of these? There's no need to have a middleman called primary matter, such that only some (or one) mathematical possible universes are actually instantianted in primary matter, and only those instantiated in primary matter give rise to qualia. There is no absolute need, but there are advantages. For instance, the many-wolder might have to admit the existence of zombie universes -- universes that containt *apparent* intelligent lige that is nonetheless unconscious-- in order to account for the non-obseration of WR universes. If you *are* going to add unobservable middlemen like this, I don't concede that PM is unobservable. What exists is material, what is immaterial does not exist. There is therefore a large set of facts about matter. Moreover, the many-worlders extra universes *have* to be unobservable one way or the other, since they are not observed! Who said anything about many worlds? Again, we are free to believe in a type of single-universe scenario, let's call it scenario A, where only a single one of the mathematical universes which exist in the Quinean sense (and it seems you cannot deny that all mathematical structures do 'exist' in this sense, since you agree there are objective mathematical truths) also exist in the giving-rise-to-conscious-experience sense. You want to add a third notion of physical existence, so your single-universe scenario, which we can call scenario B, says that only one of the mathematical universes which exist in the Quinean sense also exists in the physical sense (i.e. there is actual 'prime matter' whose behavior maps perfectly to that unique mathematical description), and presumably you believe that only a universe which exists in the physical sense can exist in the giving-rise-to-conscious-experience sense. But all observations that conscious observers would make about the world in scenario B would also be observed in scenario A (assuming that the same mathematical universe that is granted physical existence in scenario B is the one that's granted conscious existence in scenario A). In both scenarios physical objects would be identified based on the qualia associated with them (color, visual shape, tactile hardness, etc.), and based on the fact that they behaved in certain predictable
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point What does real mean? Once again it seems to be a synonym for existence, but you aren't defining what notion of existence you're talking about, you speak as though it has a single transparent meaning which coincides with your own notion of physical existence. On the contrary, I think most modern analytic philosophers would interpret mathematical Platonism to mean *only* that mathematical structures exist in the Quinean sense, i.e. that there are truths about them that cannot be paraphrased into truths about the physical world (whatever that is). I don't think any additional notion of existence is normally implied by the term mathematical Platonism (and many philosophers might not even acknowledge that there are any well-defined notions of of 'existence' besides the Quinean one) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 10:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:48, Flammarion wrote: What do you mean by ontological existence? Real in the Sense that I am Real. What does that mean? Do you mean real in the sense that 1-I is real? or do you mean real in the sense that 3-I is real? The 1-I reality (my consciousness) is undoubtable, and incommunicable in any 3-ways. The 3-I reality (my body, identity card, ...) is doubtable (I could be dreaming) and communicable in 3-ways, yet always with interrogation mark. This makes a big difference. It's an epistemological difference. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 10:51, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point What does real mean? ITSIAR Once again it seems to be a synonym for existence, but you aren't defining what notion of existence you're talking about, you speak as though it has a single transparent meaning which coincides with your own notion of physical existence. There is a basic meaning to existence, the Johnsonion one. On the contrary, I think most modern analytic philosophers would interpret mathematical Platonism to mean *only* that mathematical structures exist in the Quinean sense, i.e. that there are truths about them that cannot be paraphrased into truths about the physical world (whatever that is). I don't think any additional notion of existence is normally implied by the term mathematical Platonism (and many philosophers might not even acknowledge that there are any well-defined notions of of 'existence' besides the Quinean one) It is absolutely clear from the above that if they are a) existent and b) not physcially accountable then they are c) immaterically existent. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 16 Aug, 16:34, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 14 Aug 2009, at 14:34, 1Z wrote: On 14 Aug, 09:48, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: You are dismissing the first person indeterminacy. A stuffy TM can run a computation. But if a consciousness is attached to that computation, it is automatically attached to an infinity of immaterial and relative computations as well, There's your Platonism. Not mine. The one which follows from the comp assumption, if UDA is valid. If nothing immaterial exists (NB nothing, I don't make exceptions for just a few pixies or juse a few numbers) there is nothiign for a cosnc. to attach itself to except a propbably small, probabuily singular set of stuiffy brains and computers. I can understand how easy for a materialist it is, to conceive at first sight, that numbers and mathematical objects are convenient fiction realized as space-time material configuration, perhaps of brains. But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. This leads to major difficulties, i dont; see why. THe neural underpinnings of the concept horse are probably more complex than the concept horse. If you folow that reasonng through consistently, Plato's heaven is going to be densely populated and the brain will have no woro to do at all even before approaching the consciousness problem. mathematical stucture+matter gives you more to tackle the consciousness problem with than mathematical structure alone This shows that a purely physicalist explanation of numbers could lead to difficulties. But the same for a description of any piece of material things, by just that token. By what token? You think there is some complex undepiining to quarks? So, I am not sure that physicist can be said to have solved the matter problem either, and some physicists are already open, independently of comp, to the idea that physical objects are relative mathematical (immaterial) objects. Which of course are no material. Wheeler, Tegmark, for example. But then with comp, you are yourself an immaterial object, of the kind person, like the lobian machine. You own a body, or you borrow it to your neighborhood, and you as an immaterial pattern can become stable only by being multiplied in infinities of coherent similar histories, which eventually the physicists begin to talk about (multiverse). I tend to believe in many immaterial things. Some are absolutely real (I think) like the natural numbers. Some may be seen as absolutely real, or just as useful fiction: it changes nothing. I can't take a ride on pagasus. and I can;t be computed by a convenient fiction This is the case for the negative number, the rational, a large part of the algebraic and topological, and analytical. Some are both absolutely real, and physically real, they live in platonia, and then can come back on earth: they have a relatively concrete existence. For example, the games of chess, the computers, the animals, and the persons. But the concreteness is relative, the 'I' coupled with the chessboard is an abstract couple following normality conditions (that QM provides, but comp not yet). Some could have an even more trivial sense of absolute existence, and a case could be made they don't exist, even in Platonia, like the unicorns, perhaps, and the squared circles (hopefully). Each branch of math has its own notion of existence, and with comp, we have a lot choice, for the ontic part, but usually I take arithmetical existence, if only because this is taught in school, and its enough to justified the existence of the universal numbers, and either they dreams (if yes doctor) or at least their discourse on their dreams (if you say no the doctor and decide to qualify those machines are inexistent zombies). Platonism is not taught in schools. You are conflatin existence with truth There is a sense to say those universal machines do not exist, but it happens that they don't have the cognitive abilities to know that, and for them, in-existence does not make sense. And for a mathematicans, they exists in a very strong sense, which is that, by accepting Church Thesis, they can prove the existence of universal digital (mathematical) machine from 0, succession, addition and multiplication. Both amoebas colony (human cells), and engineers are implementing some of them everyday in our neighborhood, as we can guess. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. Your argument should be non UD accessible, and thus non Turing emulable. If you feel being primitively material, just say no to the doctor. 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: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:01:51 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 10:51, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point What does real mean? ITSIAR Don't know what that stands for--I think I've seen that abbreviation before in some other recent posts, but there have been a lot of posts I've missed over the last few weeks so maybe it was defined in one of the ones I didn't read. Anyway, could you explain? Once again it seems to be a synonym for existence, but you aren't defining what notion of existence you're talking about, you speak as though it has a single transparent meaning which coincides with your own notion of physical existence. There is a basic meaning to existence, the Johnsonion one. Of course Johnson's refutation of Berkeley's idealism was not a very philosophical one, it was either humorous or anti-intellectual, depending on how seriously he intended it. Any philosopher could tell you that Johnson would have exactly the same experience of feeling the rock against his boot in a lawlike idealist universe, like the scenario A I offered in the post before the one you are responding to here. On the contrary, I think most modern analytic philosophers would interpret mathematical Platonism to mean *only* that mathematical structures exist in the Quinean sense, i.e. that there are truths about them that cannot be paraphrased into truths about the physical world (whatever that is). I don't think any additional notion of existence is normally implied by the term mathematical Platonism (and many philosophers might not even acknowledge that there are any well-defined notions of of 'existence' besides the Quinean one) It is absolutely clear from the above that if they are a) existent and b) not physcially accountable then they are c) immaterically existent. What do you mean by physically accountable? Are you referring to the notion that mathematical truths cannot be paraphrased as physical truths (assuming that what we call the physical world is itself not just a part of Platonia)? If so, then yes, I'd say according to the Quinean definition of existence, numbers exist but not as part of the physical world. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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-go for the penrose-hameroff proposal
Actually Tegmark already proposed a similar no go theorem. BTW, it is weird people that continue to talk about the Penrose- Hameroff argument. Hameroff is OK with the idea that a brain could be a machine (of the quantum kind). Penrose is not OK, with that idea. Penrose, in his book and papers, makes a proposition that brain are not machine, not even quantum machine, i.e. that brain are really not turing emulable. It is the only example of non-comp position made by a scientist. I recall, with Quentin recently, that quantum computer are Turing-emulable (albeit very slowly). Bruno On 18 Aug 2009, at 13:33, Mirek Dobsicek wrote: Somebody might be interested in .. PHYSICAL REVIEW E 80, 021912 2009 Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated objective-reduction proposal for human consciousness is not biologically feasible From the abstract: Penrose and Hameroff have argued that the conventional models of a brain function based on neural networks alone cannot account for human consciousness, claiming that quantum-computation elements are also required. Specifically, in their Orchestrated Objective Reduction Orch OR model R. Penrose and S. R. Hameroff, J. Conscious. Stud. 2, 99 1995 , it is postulated that microtubules act as quantum processing units, with individual tubulin dimers forming the computational elements. This model requires that the tubulin is able to switch between alternative conformational states in a coherent manner, and that this process be rapid on the physiological time scale. Here, the biological feasibility of the Orch OR proposal is examined in light of recent experimental studies on microtubule assembly and dynamics. It is shown that the tubulins do not possess essential properties required for the Orch OR proposal, as originally proposed, to hold. Further, we consider also recent progress in the understanding of the long-lived coherent motions in biological systems, a feature critical to Orch OR, and show that no reformation of the proposal based on known physical paradigms could lead to quantum computing within microtubules. Hence, the Orch OR model is not a feasible explanation of the origin of consciousness. --- Mirek 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: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:32:18 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 12:00, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:01:51 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 10:51, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point What does real mean? ITSIAR Don't know what that stands for--I think I've seen that abbreviation before in some other recent posts, but there have been a lot of posts I've missed over the last few weeks so maybe it was defined in one of the ones I didn't read. Anyway, could you explain? In The Sense I Am Real And what sense is that? You are obviously real in the Quinean sense, and Platonists would say numbers are real in this sense too, but you are also real in the sense of having conscious experiences, and perhaps in the sense of being physically real (although as always I have doubts about whether this is meaningful as distinct from the other two senses), I think most mathematical Platonists would *not* say numbers are real in these senses. Once again it seems to be a synonym for existence, but you aren't defining what notion of existence you're talking about, you speak as though it has a single transparent meaning which coincides with your own notion of physical existence. There is a basic meaning to existence, the Johnsonion one. Of course Johnson's refutation of Berkeley's idealism was not a very philosophical one, it was either humorous or anti-intellectual, depending on how seriously he intended it. It was not very apriori or theoretical. But then it is perverse to ignore the fact that we do in fact exist. Why struggle for defintions when the brute fact stare yo in the face? Any philosopher could tell you that Johnson would have exactly the same experience of feeling the rock against his boot in a lawlike idealist universe, like the scenario A I offered in the post before the one you are responding to here. The he would exist in an idealist universe. He would still exist. Sure, but Johnson's kicking the rock was specifically meant to refute idealism, so I thought that's what you were referring to. My whole argument with you has been that it's sufficient to posit the Quinean existence of mathematical universes + the existence of conscious experience in at least one of these mathematical universes, that there is no need to posit any additional notion called physical existence that's distinct from both mathematical existence in the Quinean sense and existence in the sense of having real conscious experiences. It would help if you'd address my comments about scenario A vs. scenario B in that earlier post. On the contrary, I think most modern analytic philosophers would interpret mathematical Platonism to mean *only* that mathematical structures exist in the Quinean sense, i.e. that there are truths about them that cannot be paraphrased into truths about the physical world (whatever that is). I don't think any additional notion of existence is normally implied by the term mathematical Platonism (and many philosophers might not even acknowledge that there are any well-defined notions of of 'existence' besides the Quinean one) It is absolutely clear from the above that if they are a) existent and b) not physcially accountable then they are c) immaterically existent. What do you mean by physically accountable? What you mean: that there are truths about them that can be paraphrased into truths about the physical world Are you referring to the notion that mathematical truths cannot be paraphrased as physical truths (assuming that what we call the physical world is itself not just a part of Platonia)? If so, then yes, I'd say according to the Quinean definition of existence, numbers exist but not as part of the physical world. Mathematical truths are relationships between concepts, and concepts are neural acitivity. So the paraphrase can be made. Wait, so do you believe there is no objective truth about mathematical statements that humans haven't specifically figured out in their brains? For example, do you think there's an objective truth about the googolplexth digit of pi? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group,
Re: A Possible Mathematical Structure for Physics
Bruno: I have heard of Octonians but have not used them. I do not know anything about intelligible hypostases . Ronald On Aug 18, 2:58 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 16:23, ronaldheld wrote: arxiv.org:0908.2063v1 Any comments? Very cute little paper. I think the author would have found gravity waves, and thus space- time, by extending its approach to the Octonions (I intuit this since my reading of Kaufman book on knots and physics). Of course, despite apparent mathematicalism, this is still physics, and the computationalist mind body problem is not addressed. I have independent reason that such an octonionic physical theory is basically right, but to show this with respect to the comp hyp, it is nessary to derive such a theory from the intelligible hypostases, that is from the correct variant of the provability logic. I can come back on this when more is said on the intelligible hypostases). 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 11:59, Flammarion wrote: On 18 Aug, 10:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:48, Flammarion wrote: What do you mean by ontological existence? Real in the Sense that I am Real. What does that mean? Do you mean real in the sense that 1-I is real? or do you mean real in the sense that 3-I is real? The 1-I reality (my consciousness) is undoubtable, and incommunicable in any 3-ways. The 3-I reality (my body, identity card, ...) is doubtable (I could be dreaming) and communicable in 3-ways, yet always with interrogation mark. This makes a big difference. It's an epistemological difference. This does not answer the question: Do you mean real in the sense that 1-I is real? or do you mean real in the sense that 3-I is real? 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 12:14, Flammarion wrote: Each branch of math has its own notion of existence, and with comp, we have a lot choice, for the ontic part, but usually I take arithmetical existence, if only because this is taught in school, and its enough to justified the existence of the universal numbers, and either they dreams (if yes doctor) or at least their discourse on their dreams (if you say no the doctor and decide to qualify those machines are inexistent zombies). Platonism is not taught in schools. You are conflatin existence with truth Platonism is not taught in schools, I agree. But I have never said that. I am not conflating existence with truth, I am conflating mathematical existence with truth of existential arithmetical statements. mathematical stucture+matter gives you more to tackle the consciousness problem with than mathematical structure alone The mind-body problem comes from the fact that we have not yet find how to attach consciousness to matter. At least with comp, after UDA, we know why. No. it is equivalent to the conjunction of that stament with and the mathematicians Ex is a claim of ontological existence. You are the one making that addition. So, again, show where in the reasoning I would use that addition. If you really believe that the number 7 has no existence at all, then the UDA reasoning does not go through, at last! Read or reread the SANE paper, I explicitly assume Arithmetical Realism. This is hardly new. I really don't follow you. UDA is an argument showing that comp (yes doctor + CT) = non physicalism. (CT = Church thesis) A weaker version of CT is provably equivalent with Ex(x = universal number). It makes no sense without AR. 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: A Possible Mathematical Structure for Physics
Ronald,
On 18 Aug 2009, at 14:14, ronaldheld wrote:
I have heard of Octonians but have not used them.
I do not know anything about intelligible hypostases
Have you heard about Gödel's provability (beweisbar) predicate bew(x)?
If you have, define con(x) by ~bew ('~x') (carefully taking into
account the Gödel numbering). Con is for contingent, or consistent.
Then the logic of the intelligible matter hypostases are given by the
predicate Bew(x) Con(x)
(The sensible, non intelligible, hypostases, cannot be defined by a
predicate, and some detour in Modal logic is necessary, but for each
arithmetical propositions p, you can define them by Bp Dp p. (Dp
is ~B ~p, Bp is bew('p'))
Note that Bp Dp p is obviously equivalent to p, for any correct
machine, but no correct machine can see that equivalence, and this is
a consequence of incompleteness).
You can read my Plotinus paper for more, if interested.
You can also read Plotinus II, 4: On Matter. Plotinus took Aristotle
not quite Platonist theory of matter, and recasted it in
his (neo)Platonist doctrine.
Basically, matter, for Aristotle---Plotinus is what is indeterminate.
If fits well with comp where matter is the indeterminate computations
which exist below the comp substitution level (by step 7).
I have not really the time to say much more for now, and this is in
AUDA, and it is better to get UDA straight before. I think.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: Emulation and Stuff
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 19:28, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 11:17, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 11:11, 1Z wrote: Without Platonism, there is no UD since it is not observable within physical space. So the UDA is based on Plat., not the other way round. Are you saying that without platonism, the square root of 2 does not exist? Yes, the square root of two has no ontological existence. All what matters with comp is that things like the square root of 2 has a notion of existence independent of me. Prime number does not exist? Yes, prime numbers have no ontological existence I guess you make a material ontological commitment. One of my goal is to explain, notably with the comp hyp, that a term like matter has no referent. This would explain why physicist never use such ontological commitment explicitly. To say that matter exists simply is a non rational act of the type don't ask. UDA makes just this precise by reudcing the mind body problem to a body problem. That mathematical existence is a meaningless notion? Sense but no refence. Mathematical statements have truth values but do not refere to anything outside the formal system. Then they have no truth value. What you say is formalism, and this has been explicitly refuted by mathematical logicians. We know, mainly by the work of Gödel that the truth about numbers extends what can be justified in ANY effective formal systems (and non effective one are not really formal). But I know that there are still some formalists in the neighborhood, and that is why I make explicit the assumption of arithmetical realism. It is the assumption that the structure (N, +, x) is well defined, despite we can't define it effectively. Mathematics would be a physical illusion? A referentless formal game, distinguished from fiction only by its rigour and generality You evacuate the whole approach of semantics by Tarski and Quine. I will not insist on this because I will explain with some detail why Church thesis necessitate arithmetical realism, and why this leads directly to the incompleteness and the discovery that arithmetical truth cannot be captured by any effective formal system. The formalist position in math is no more tenable. But physics use mathematics, would that not make physics illusory or circular? No, because it uses mathematics empirically. The same language that can be used to write fiction can be used to write history. The difference is in how it used. not in the langauge itself I don't see any difference in the use of analytical tools in physics and in number theory. The distribution of the prime numbers is objective, and this is the only type of independent objectivity needed in the reasoning. Nothing more. It's a perfectly consistent assumption. THere is no disproof of materialism that doesn't beg the quesiton by assuming immaterialism Well, I do believe in the natural numbers, and I do believe in their immateriality (the number seven is not made of quantum field, or waves, or particle). Then you are a Platonist, and you argument is based on Platonism. I believe that the truth of arithmetical statement having the shape ExP(x) is independent of me, and you and the physical universe (if that exists). You can call that Platonism, if you want, but this is not obviously anti-physicalist. Non-physicalism is the conclusion of a reasoning (UDA). Given that Plato's conception of reality is closer to the conclusion, I prefer to use the expression Arithmetical realism for this (banal) assumption, and Platonism or non-physicalism for the conclusion. But that is only a vocabulary problem. So either you tell me that you don't believe in the number seven, or that you have a theory in which the number seven is explained in materialist term, without assuming numbers in that theory. The latter. Show it. I know an attempt toward science without number by Hartree Field (wrong spelling?), but I found it poorly convincing. Most physicists accept the objectivity of numbers. Even more so with the attempt to marry GR and QM. This leads to major difficulties, even before approaching the consciousness problem. Such as? Explaining number with physical notions, and explaining, even partially, physical notions with the use numbers. That is just a repetition of the claim that there are problems. You have not in the least explained what the problems are. UDA is such an explanation. AUDA gives a constructive path toward a solution. You arguments here are based on the idea that primary matter needs to be given a purely mathematical expression. That in turn is based on an assumption of Platonism. If Platonism is false and materialism true, one would *expect* mathematical explanation to run out at some point. Your
Re: Emulation and Stuff
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:41, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. QM mechanics solves mathematically the white rabbit problem. I do agree with this, but to say it does this by invoking primitive matter does not follow. On the contrary QM amplitude makes primitive matter still more hard to figure out. Primitive matter is, up to now, a metaphysical notion. Darwinian evolution can justify why we take seriously the consistency of our neighborhood, and why we extrapolate that consistency, but physicists does not, in their theories, ever postulate *primitive* matter. Not explicitly, but physicists generally accept that some things happen and others don't; not only in QM but in symmetry breaking. Brent We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. Are you defending Bohm's Quantum Mechanics? The wave without particles still act physically, indeed they have to do that for the quantum disappearance of the white rabbits. 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: Emulation and Stuff
Jesse Mazer wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:37:02 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 01:53, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Peter Jones wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. But then it seems like you're really just talking about consciousness and qualia--of all the mathematically possible universes containing possible self-aware observers, only in some (or one) are these possible observers actually real in the sense of having qualia (and there qualia being influenced by other, possibly nonconsious elements of the mathematical universe they are a part of). No.. I don't need the hypothesis that WR universes are there but unobserved. What does are there mean? It seems to be a synonym for physical existence, but my whole point here is that the notion of physical existence doesn't even seem well-defined, if this discussion is going to get anywhere you need to actually address this argument head on rather than just continue to talk as though terms like exists and are there have a transparent meaning. The only kinds of existence that seem meaningful to me are the type of Quinean existence I discussed earlier, and existence in the sense of conscious experience which is something we all know firsthand. Can you explain what physical existence is supposed to denote if it is not either of these? There's no need to have a middleman called primary matter, such that only some (or one) mathematical possible universes are actually instantianted in primary matter, and only those instantiated in primary matter give rise to qualia. There is no absolute need, but there are advantages. For instance, the many-wolder might have to admit the existence of zombie universes -- universes that containt *apparent* intelligent lige that is nonetheless unconscious-- in order to account for the non-obseration of WR universes. If you *are* going to add unobservable middlemen like this, I don't concede that PM is unobservable. What exists is material, what is immaterial does not exist. There is therefore a large set of facts about matter. Moreover, the many-worlders extra universes *have* to be unobservable one way or the other, since they are not observed! Who said anything about many worlds? Again, we are free to believe in a type of single-universe scenario, let's call it scenario A, where only a single one of the mathematical universes which exist in the Quinean sense (and it seems you cannot deny that all mathematical structures do 'exist' in this sense, since you agree there are objective mathematical truths) also exist in the giving-rise-to-conscious-experience sense. You want to add a third notion of physical existence, so your single-universe scenario, which we can call scenario B, says that only one of the mathematical universes which exist in the Quinean sense also exists in the physical sense (i.e. there is actual 'prime matter' whose behavior maps perfectly to that unique mathematical description), and presumably you believe that only a universe which exists in the physical sense can exist in the giving-rise-to-conscious-experience sense. But all observations that conscious observers would make about the world in scenario B would also be observed in scenario A (assuming that the same mathematical universe that is granted physical existence in scenario B is the one that's granted conscious existence in scenario A). In both scenarios physical objects would be identified based on the qualia associated with them
Re: no-go for the penrose-hameroff proposal
Mirek Dobsicek wrote: Somebody might be interested in .. PHYSICAL REVIEW E 80, 021912 2009 Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated objective-reduction proposal for human consciousness is not biologically feasible It has long been noted that microtubles are ubiquitous in the cells of other organs, not just in the brain. It is sometimes said that males think with an organ other than the brain, but this is generally metaphorical. Brent From the abstract: Penrose and Hameroff have argued that the conventional models of a brain function based on neural networks alone cannot account for human consciousness, claiming that quantum-computation elements are also required. Specifically, in their Orchestrated Objective Reduction Orch OR model R. Penrose and S. R. Hameroff, J. Conscious. Stud. 2, 99 1995 , it is postulated that microtubules act as quantum processing units, with individual tubulin dimers forming the computational elements. This model requires that the tubulin is able to switch between alternative conformational states in a coherent manner, and that this process be rapid on the physiological time scale. Here, the biological feasibility of the Orch OR proposal is examined in light of recent experimental studies on microtubule assembly and dynamics. It is shown that the tubulins do not possess essential properties required for the Orch OR proposal, as originally proposed, to hold. Further, we consider also recent progress in the understanding of the long-lived coherent motions in biological systems, a feature critical to Orch OR, and show that no reformation of the proposal based on known physical paradigms could lead to quantum computing within microtubules. Hence, the Orch OR model is not a feasible explanation of the origin of consciousness. --- Mirek --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 19:17, Brent Meeker wrote: Some posts ago, you seem to accept arithmetical realism, so I am no more sure of your position. I may have assented to the *truth* of some propositions... but truth is not existence. At least, the claim that truth=existence is extraordinary and metaphysical... Mathematical existence = truth of existential mathematical statement. The number seven exists independently of me, is equivalent with the statement that the truth of the mathematical statement Ex(x = s(s(s(s(s(s(s(0 is true independently of me. The above of course is a set of tokens symbolizing a set of cardinality eight. Er, actually it symbolizes the number seven (it is a detail, but set theory will never been formalized in my posts, except much later, for giving another example of Lobian machine). The fact that it symbolizes something depends on humans interpreting it. I would have used the usual humans notation 7. So I was referring to any interpretative machine (computer, universal number) which agrees on the usual first order axiom of arithmetic, talking in first order language, together with the supplementary symbols s, 0, x and +. We fix the notation, and, in the case of such machine we fix the semantic by the usual mathematical structure (N,+,x). This seems similar to the MGA and the idea that a rock computes every function. I have already criticized this. Once sup-comp is accepted, the computation exists in arithmetic and are given by well defined relations among numbers, entirely defined with the language above, and they have the usual interpretation in (N,+,x). But those relation will define complex UD-like relationships describing relative observers in relative environment/universal machine, like Brent deciding to send a mail, for example. Those internal interpretation will exist in a sense which is not dependent of the choice of any interpretation or even representation, once you assume the usual truth of the arithmetical relations. In comp, like in QM, a rock compute only in the sense that it is made of infinities of computations. Without comp, I have no clue of what a rock is, except that QM seems to agree on the fact that it is made of infinities of computations. They depend on being interpreted in some context or environment. Right. The interpreter are given by the universal numbers, or universal machine. This is a bit tricky to define shortly, and I postpone it in the seven step series (but I am a bit buzy), so that more can uderstand. In the third person way: a computation is always defined relatively to another universal number, or directly in term of number addition and multiplication. From the first person perspective we can only bet on the most probable universal number, among an infinity of them. I'm happy to abstract them from their environment to get a manageable model. But once the model is a number that the doctor will send on Mars, where a reconstitution device has been build, you have to abstract yourself from the environment, for awhile. Saying yes doctor *is* a big theological step. Nobody should ever force you. The ethic of comp is the right to say no to the doctor. I'm not so comfortable to say that that abstraction doesn't need the environment and is what is really real. Yeah ... I am sorry. But let us not be driven by wishful thinking, and if comp survives UDA, there is a sense in which matter becomes much more solid and stable. Observable environment emerge statistically from infinities of non temporal and non spatial computations/number relations. Including (universal) environment does not help, because the UD generates them all (with their many variants), except some infinite diagonal garden of Eden which are evacuated through the comp hyp. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 11:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). If you are not reifying anything. then there is nothing, hen there is no UD. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. It's not a contradiction of materialism. If there are no immaterial PJ's, nothing is believed by them at all. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. Your argument should be non UD accessible, and thus non Turing emulable. No, it just has to be right. The fact that a simulated me *would8 be wrong doesn't mean the real me *is* wrong. If you feel being primitively material, just say no to the doctor. Why can't I just get a guarantee that he will re-incarnate me materially? Even if matter doesn't exist, I won't lose out. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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-go for the penrose-hameroff proposal
On Tue, 2009-08-18 at 11:09 -0700, Brent Meeker wrote: It has long been noted that microtubles are ubiquitous in the cells of other organs, not just in the brain. While I find the Penrose/Hameroff proposal very unconvincing for other reasons, this is not one of them. There are many shared organelles that are in both neuronal and non-neuronal cell bodies. It is a matter of organizing them for use one way or another. The voltage-gated sodium ion channel pore used for propagating an event potential down an axon is also present in cells outside the nervous system, yet the brain is able to use them to effect (dare I say?) computation. So it is at least plausible that microtubules, though ubiquitous throughout the body, have been recruited and honed by evolution to operate in the fashion proposed by Penrose/Hameroff in the nervous system. Personally, I think their whole agenda is misguided, an example of brains are mysterious, quantum mechanics is mysterious, therefore, brains operate using quantum mechanics. The mystery of quantum mechanics largely disappears with no-collapse and decoherence anyway. Johnathan Corgan --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/18 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: The paraphrase condition means, for example, that instead of adopting a statement like unicorns have one horn as a true statement about reality and thus being forced to accept the existence of unicorns, you could instead paraphrase this in terms of what images and concepts are in people's mind when they use the word unicorn; and if you're an eliminative materialist who wants to avoid accepting mental images and concepts as a basic element of your ontology, it might seem plausible that you could *in principle* paraphrase all statements about human concepts using statements about physical processes in human brains, although we may lack the understanding to do that now. I presume that one could substitute 'computation' for 'unicorn' in the above passage? If so, the human concept that it is 'computation' that gives rise to consciousness could be paraphrased using statements about physical processes in human brains. So what may we now suppose gives such processes this particular power? Presumably not their 'computational' nature - because now nous n'avons pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là (which I'm sure you will recall was precisely the point I originally made). That's completely back to front. Standard computaitonalism regards computation as a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. It doesn't exist at the fundamental level like quarks, and it isn't non-existent like unicorns. It is a higher-level existent, like horses. I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* (my original point) after such reduction to primary physical processes. So why should 'computation' escape this fate? How would you respond if I said the brain is conscious because it is 'alive'? Would 'life' elude the paraphrased reduction to physical process? BTW, let's be clear: I'm not saying that physicalism is false (although IMO it is at least incomplete). I'm merely pointing out one of its consequences. It's prima facie possible for physicalism to be true and computationalism false. That is to say that the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computaitonal processes. Yes, of course, this is precisely my point, for heaven's sake. Here's the proposal, in your own words: assuming physicalism the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computational processes. Physicalist theory of mind urgently required. QED David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 15:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 12:14, Flammarion wrote: Each branch of math has its own notion of existence, and with comp, we have a lot choice, for the ontic part, but usually I take arithmetical existence, if only because this is taught in school, and its enough to justified the existence of the universal numbers, and either they dreams (if yes doctor) or at least their discourse on their dreams (if you say no the doctor and decide to qualify those machines are inexistent zombies). Platonism is not taught in schools. You are conflatin existence with truth Platonism is not taught in schools, I agree. But I have never said that. I am not conflating existence with truth, I am conflating mathematical existence with truth of existential arithmetical statements. You have to be doing more than that, because you cannot agree with me that mathematical existence is no existence at all. mathematical stucture+matter gives you more to tackle the consciousness problem with than mathematical structure alone The mind-body problem comes from the fact that we have not yet find how to attach consciousness to matter. No, it comes from no being able to attach *phenomenal* consciousness to mathematical structures. There is no problem attaching *cognition* to matter at all. If the matter of your brain is disrupted, so are your though processes. At least with comp, after UDA, we know why. No. it is equivalent to the conjunction of that stament with and the mathematicians Ex is a claim of ontological existence. You are the one making that addition. So, again, show where in the reasoning I would use that addition. Where you want me to be running on a UD. I cannot be running on a merely conceptual UD any more than I can be a character in fiction. If you really believe that the number 7 has no existence at all, then the UDA reasoning does not go through, at last! Read or reread the SANE paper, I explicitly assume Arithmetical Realism. Then you are explicitly *not* assuming standard computaitonalism This is hardly new. I really don't follow you. UDA is an argument showing that comp (yes doctor + CT) = non physicalism. (CT = Church thesis) The sane paper says Classical Digital mechanism, or Classical Computationalism, or just comp, is the conjunction of the following three sub- hypotheses: You mentioned two. The third is AR/Platonism A weaker version of CT is provably equivalent with Ex(x = universal number). It makes no sense without AR. All mathematics makes sense without Platonism. You are conflating truth and existence again. Ex(x = universal number) can be true without x being RITSIAR 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: Emulation and Stuff - The Ross Model of our Universe
Some of you may be interested in my model of our Universe in which I propose that the fundamental building blocks of our Universe are tronnies each of which is one-half of nothing, with no mass and no volume and a charge of +e or -e. I have attached a copy of the first portion of my latest patent application disclosing my model which was filed a few months ago. The portion attached includes the lead-in portion, the Background and the Summary. If anyone is interested in the rest of the patent application, he or she should let me know. It will soon be published by the patent office at uspto.gov. Several earlier applications are listed in the first paragraph of the attached. These can now be down-loaded from the patent office website. Search for tronnies. John R. Ross V.P. Intellectual Property Trex Enterprises Corp. Office No. (858) 646-5488 Fax No. (858) 646-5500 -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Flammarion Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 1:43 PM To: Everything List Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff On 18 Aug, 11:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). If you are not reifying anything. then there is nothing, hen there is no UD. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. It's not a contradiction of materialism. If there are no immaterial PJ's, nothing is believed by them at all. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. Your argument should be non UD accessible, and thus non Turing emulable. No, it just has to be right. The fact that a simulated me *would8 be wrong doesn't mean the real me *is* wrong. If you feel being primitively material, just say no to the doctor. Why can't I just get a guarantee that he will re-incarnate me materially? Even if matter doesn't exist, I won't lose out. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~--- Background and Summary Pat. Ap. Ross Model.docx Description: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 22:43, Flammarion wrote: On 18 Aug, 11:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). If you are not reifying anything. then there is nothing, hen there is no UD. I think you have a magical conception of reality. I don't need to reify number to believe in them. I just need to play with them. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Plotinus says that too! Me too. With church thesis this is can be made more precise in term of not- computable or not-provable, or some relativizations. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. In arithmetic, that happens all the time. More below. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. It's not a contradiction of materialism. If there are no immaterial PJ's, nothing is believed by them at all. Once you say yes to the doctor, there are immaterial Peter Jones. All your doppelganger emulating you, and being emulated at your level of substitution and below relatively occuring in the proof of the Sigma_1 sentences of Robinson Arithmetic. (The arithmetical version of the UD). So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. You underestimate the dumbness of the DU, or sigma_1 arithmetic. It contains the emulation of all the quantum states of the milky way, with correct approximation of its neighborhood. It is hard to recognize Peter Jones or Bruno Marchal from the huge relation and huge numbers involved, in some emulations, but it is easy to prove there exists, from the information the doctor got when scanning your brain. In computations enough similar than our own most probable current one, it is a theorem that those entities have such or such beliefs, and behave in such and such ways, developing such and such discourses. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Standard comp says nothing about Plato's Platonism, but once you take the digitalness seriously enough, and CT, it is just standard computer science. See conscience mécanisme appendices for snapshot of a running mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be implemented materially , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations too. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then your reasoning has to be false too. The only way to prevent this
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 00:20, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Note that I have never said that matter does not exist. I have no doubt it exists. I am just saying that matter cannot be primitive, assuming comp. Matter is more or less the border of the ignorance of universal machines (to be short). There is a fundamental physics which capture the invariant for all possible universal machine observation, and the rest is geography-history. Assuming comp the consistent- contingent obeys laws. AFAICS the essence of Bruno's dispute with Peter consists in: 1) ***If you accept the computational theory of mind (CTM)*** then matter can no longer be primitive to your explanations of appearances of any kind, mental or physical. 2) ***If you assert that matter is primitive to your explanation of appearances of any kind, mental or physical (PM)*** it is illegitimate to appeal to CTM. Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? David 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: Emulation and Stuff
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 22:43, Flammarion wrote: On 18 Aug, 11:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). If you are not reifying anything. then there is nothing, hen there is no UD. I think you have a magical conception of reality. I don't need to reify number to believe in them. I just need to play with them. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Plotinus says that too! Me too. With church thesis this is can be made more precise in term of not- computable or not-provable, or some relativizations. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. In arithmetic, that happens all the time. More below. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. It's not a contradiction of materialism. If there are no immaterial PJ's, nothing is believed by them at all. Once you say yes to the doctor, there are immaterial Peter Jones. All your doppelganger emulating you, and being emulated at your level of substitution and below relatively occuring in the proof of the Sigma_1 sentences of Robinson Arithmetic. (The arithmetical version of the UD). So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. You underestimate the dumbness of the DU, or sigma_1 arithmetic. It contains the emulation of all the quantum states of the milky way, with correct approximation of its neighborhood. It is hard to recognize Peter Jones or Bruno Marchal from the huge relation and huge numbers involved, in some emulations, but it is easy to prove there exists, from the information the doctor got when scanning your brain. In computations enough similar than our own most probable current one, it is a theorem that those entities have such or such beliefs, and behave in such and such ways, developing such and such discourses. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Standard comp says nothing about Plato's Platonism, but once you take the digitalness seriously enough, and CT, it is just standard computer science. See conscience mécanisme appendices for snapshot of a running mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be implemented materially , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations too. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then
Re: Emulation and Stuff
David Nyman wrote: On 19 Aug, 00:20, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Note that I have never said that matter does not exist. I have no doubt it exists. I am just saying that matter cannot be primitive, assuming comp. Matter is more or less the border of the ignorance of universal machines (to be short). There is a fundamental physics which capture the invariant for all possible universal machine observation, and the rest is geography-history. Assuming comp the consistent- contingent obeys laws. AFAICS the essence of Bruno's dispute with Peter consists in: 1) ***If you accept the computational theory of mind (CTM)*** then matter can no longer be primitive to your explanations of appearances of any kind, mental or physical. 2) ***If you assert that matter is primitive to your explanation of appearances of any kind, mental or physical (PM)*** it is illegitimate to appeal to CTM. Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? David I think you are right that the MGA is at the crux. But I don't know whether to regard it as proving that computation need not be physically instantiated or as a reductio against the yes doctor hypothesis. Saying yes to the doctor seems very straightforward when you just think about the doctor replacing physical elements of your brain with functionally similar elements made of silicon or straw or whatever. But then I reflect that I, with my new head full of straw, must still interact with the world. So I have not been reduced to computation unless the part of the world I interact with is also replaced by computational elements (I think this problem is swept under the rug with the phrase at the appropriate level of substitution). So suppose the doctor also emulates all the world that I will ever interact with. Now it is not so clear that such an emulation is computable, but suppose it is. Now my consciousness is entirely emulation - but it is also entirely in another, emulated, world. In that world it is physically instantiated. So it has not been shown that the emulation can be uninstantiated mathematics. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 01:31, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: It seems that your argument uses MGA to conclude that no physical instantaion is needed so Turing-emulable=Turing-emulated. It seems that all you can conclude is one cannot *know* that they have a correct argument showing they are material. But this is already well known from brain in a vat thought experiments. I thought that MGA was an argument contra the compatibility of the computational theory of mind and a primitive matter ontology (i.e. CTM + PM = false), explicitly on the *starting* assumption of CTM. That is, starting from CTM, MGA says you can't *have* a correct argument showing you are material. Alternatively, if you don't begin with CTM, you're not forced to resort to arithmetical or any other type of mathematical realism. Isn't that about the size of it? David or that you just don't know if you are in the UD or not. At this stage. Then with step-8, you know, relatively to the comp act of faith, that you are already there. If you say yes to the doctor, you can bet, from computer science that you are already in the (N,x,+) matrix. Your argument should be non UD accessible, and thus non Turing emulable. No, it just has to be right. The fact that a simulated me *would8 be wrong doesn't mean the real me *is* wrong. But if you are correct in your reasoning, the simulated you has to be correct to. It is the same reasoning. Or you have a special sense making you know that you are the real one, but either that special sense is Turing emulable and your doppelganger inherit them, or it is not Turing emulable, and you better should say no to the doctor, because you would loose that sense. Or it is a relation to the rest of the world and you can say yes so long as the doctor maintains your relations to the rest of the world - i.e. physically instantiates your emulation. Brent If you feel being primitively material, just say no to the doctor. Why can't I just get a guarantee that he will re-incarnate me materially? He will try. Even if matter doesn't exist, I won't lose out. Note that I have never said that matter does not exist. I have no doubt it exists. I am just saying that matter cannot be primitive, assuming comp. Matter is more or less the border of the ignorance of universal machines (to be short). There is a fundamental physics which capture the invariant for all possible universal machine observation, and the rest is geography-history. Assuming comp the consistent- contingent obeys laws. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 01:31, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: It seems that your argument uses MGA to conclude that no physical instantaion is needed so Turing-emulable=Turing-emulated. It seems that all you can conclude is one cannot *know* that they have a correct argument showing they are material. But this is already well known from brain in a vat thought experiments. I thought that MGA was an argument contra the compatibility of the computational theory of mind and a primitive matter ontology (i.e. CTM + PM = false), explicitly on the *starting* assumption of CTM. That is, starting from CTM, MGA says you can't *have* a correct argument showing you are material. Alternatively, if you don't begin with CTM, you're not forced to resort to arithmetical or any other type of mathematical realism. Isn't that about the size of it? David or that you just don't know if you are in the UD or not. At this stage. Then with step-8, you know, relatively to the comp act of faith, that you are already there. If you say yes to the doctor, you can bet, from computer science that you are already in the (N,x,+) matrix. Your argument should be non UD accessible, and thus non Turing emulable. No, it just has to be right. The fact that a simulated me *would8 be wrong doesn't mean the real me *is* wrong. But if you are correct in your reasoning, the simulated you has to be correct to. It is the same reasoning. Or you have a special sense making you know that you are the real one, but either that special sense is Turing emulable and your doppelganger inherit them, or it is not Turing emulable, and you better should say no to the doctor, because you would loose that sense. Or it is a relation to the rest of the world and you can say yes so long as the doctor maintains your relations to the rest of the world - i.e. physically instantiates your emulation. Brent If you feel being primitively material, just say no to the doctor. Why can't I just get a guarantee that he will re-incarnate me materially? He will try. Even if matter doesn't exist, I won't lose out. Note that I have never said that matter does not exist. I have no doubt it exists. I am just saying that matter cannot be primitive, assuming comp. Matter is more or less the border of the ignorance of universal machines (to be short). There is a fundamental physics which capture the invariant for all possible universal machine observation, and the rest is geography-history. Assuming comp the consistent- contingent obeys laws. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 01:51, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: I think you are right that the MGA is at the crux. But I don't know whether to regard it as proving that computation need not be physically instantiated or as a reductio against the yes doctor hypothesis. Saying yes to the doctor seems very straightforward when you just think about the doctor replacing physical elements of your brain with functionally similar elements made of silicon or straw or whatever. But then I reflect that I, with my new head full of straw, must still interact with the world. So I have not been reduced to computation unless the part of the world I interact with is also replaced by computational elements (I think this problem is swept under the rug with the phrase at the appropriate level of substitution). So suppose the doctor also emulates all the world that I will ever interact with. Now it is not so clear that such an emulation is computable, but suppose it is. Now my consciousness is entirely emulation - but it is also entirely in another, emulated, world. In that world it is physically instantiated. So it has not been shown that the emulation can be uninstantiated mathematics. Our last two posts crossed in the ether! Yes, I've wondered about the possible reductio element in yes doctor - like it's sometimes forgotten that Schrödinger's poor old tabby was originally proposed as a reductio against the Copenhagenists. But I'm not sure I agree that computation need not be physically instantiated is strong enough - MGA is more dismissive of PM than that (Bruno sometimes says that appeals to PM are 'spurious' with respect to CTM). I think that the strong entailment of MGA is CTM + PM = false, and that yes doctor is a promissory note against some future theory of substitution (with the caveat that it won't be complete). David Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
OFF LIST Re: Emulation and Stuff - The Ross Model of our Universe
Hi, Can you please send a .PDF or a .DOC I can't read .DOCX and I can't upgrade my PC to read ituni rules... :-( regards Colin Hales --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: OFF LIST Re: Emulation and Stuff - The Ross Model of our Universe
Colin Hales wrote: Hi, Can you please send a .PDF or a .DOC I can't read .DOCX and I can't upgrade my PC to read ituni rules... :-( regards Colin Hales Download OpenOffice. It's free. It'll read .doc and .docx files and it will save in .doc and .pdf (but it won't import .pdf). Brent The first time Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck will be when they make vacuum cleaners. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
