Re: COMP refutation GAME OVER
On 13 Jul 2011, at 20:21, meekerdb wrote: On 7/13/2011 3:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 13 Jul 2011, at 10:28, Kim Jones wrote: What does the pronoun its refer to in this sentence? The UD or the universe? How can something be the result of a process going through it? It has to exist already before anything can go through it. Doesn't it? Could either Quentin or Bruno please render this thought in French, please? I will understand it better. Thanks. I cannot even think in french! Really, I have been asked to write a paper in french, for a book, and I realize that I am so used to write on this in english that I have to think a lot to find french expressions to convey the thought. The its is neither the UD, nor the universe, but the observer (you). The observable part of the universe that the observer is observing here and now is determined by the collection of computations (in the UD) going through the state of the observer here and now. It is the 3-state of the observer here and now. Just imagine that there is somewhere a DU running in the universe. Then take into account the first person indeterminacy and its invariance for huge computation delays, its invariance for the real/ virtual change, well, all the first person invariance described in the first six steps of the UD Argument. You can see, then, that, whatever experience you are doing in your present, your subjective future is determined by the infinity of computations made by that UD and which go through the computational state of your mind during the experiences. OK? Bruno OK - I think. The indeterminacy arises because among the computations that the UD is performing there are many realizations of universes in which you have the same mental state. Universes, or pieces of universes, and/or just dreams, etc. OK But the continuations of those computations are not identical since they are in different universes. OK. But it seems that this requires some way of identifying what part of a universe is you. How are you picked out? By point of view (in the general sense of local interaction)? Yes. The picking out is made by the first person point of view. There is no third person ways to make the picking out, but the observer himself will do it from his first person point of view. He will feel to be the one who has survived. This will require indeed a local interaction. If my consciousness supervenes only on the couple ME+MILKY-WAY, I will survive in the infinity many UD-emulations of the couples ME +MILKY-WAY (done at the right level or below). I will obviously not be conscious in the extensions where I do not survive. So, quasi- tautologically, I will be picked out on the domain of continuations where I do survive. Note: this introduces a first person non-cul-de-sac form of immortality, which is the reason why it is handled by the Bp Dt hypostase. The Dt assures the existence of at least one extension, as we know it exist in the UD*. It is necessary given that G, which represents the believed machine's logic of belief, does not prove Bp - Dt (but G* proves it, G* represents the true machine's logic of belief). Of course, biologists provide clues that the level is possibly high (neurons, glial cells, chemical brain product concentration), but strictly speaking we cannot prove that a level of substitution is correct. We have to trust or to distrust the doctor, and the doctor has to be honest in saying that he is just guessing, and that the operation is risky. 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: COMP refutation GAME OVER
On 11 Jul 2011, at 19:56, meekerdb wrote: On 7/10/2011 8:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: You confuse perhaps with Schmidhuber's position, or some digital physicist (DP). But as I have explained many times here that this position does not work. Computationalism or digital mechanism (DM) is the idea that I am a machine, and by the first person indeterminacy, and the way the laws of physics have to emerge from computations, the physical universe (nor the fundamental reality) cannot be described entirely by a computation. On the contrary it is a sum on an infinity of computations. If the universe is a computation, then I am computable, but then it cannot be a computation (by what I say above, it is not obvious). So with comp, or without comp, the physical universe is not a computation. With comp, the laws of nature are not computable, or have strong non computable components. DM - ~DP DP - DM, So DP - ~DP, so ~DP. Bruno This confuses me. When you say the universe is not computable, you mean it is not the process of computing a function. But you think it is generated by a UD. Right? In other words, you are saying what a UD does is *not* a computation. I think you are forgetting to take into account the first person indeterminacy. Your probable next first person state in indeterminate, and the domain of indetermination is all the third person states equivalent (in the third person doctor sense) with the state of your current body (at the right level or below) generated infinitely often by the UD. The physical laws have to be retrieved from that indeterminacy on that domain, and there is no reason why your statistical experience or physical reality is computable. The UD does (an infinite) computation, but the universe results from an internal and relative statistics on all computations. It remains possible that somehow a computation wins the game, but if that is the case that has to be justify from the statistics on all the computation, and strictly speaking this is rather unplausible. Instead of the UD, take the simpler case of the iterated WM self- duplication. Let us fix the iteration to 1000. In this case, you can see easily that what you can expect is not computable at all. All 2^1000 histories will be generated, and the computable are rare. The UD makes dummy similar iteration with all states, so you can guess that physics arise from a subtle mixture of computability and randomness. I think that Bennett depth plays also a role, the self- referential constraints play a role. But it predicts that some randomness is at play in the stabilization/normalisation of the deep computational histories. You don't need step 8 to understand this. Just imagine the physical universe big enough to run a UD. In one instant your futures is determined by an infinity of computations. This shows already that physicists use implicitly an induction principle, by assuming the inexistence of other instantiations of couple you, the observed electron other that the one under their consideration. But the UD guarantied (unlike Boltzmann brain) an infinity of them. 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: Bruno's blasphemy.
Evgenii, Why don't you make a course for dummies about this? (For example in Second Life) Because in the second life, the students already know that they are in a virtual reality :) It looks more difficult to explain this with first life inquirers. But is it, really? Got the feeling that those who don't understand are those who don't study, or don't make the necessary work. Psychological contingent reasons? (I think on UDA, not on AUDA, which needs a one year course in mathematical logic/computer science). But your suggestion is pleasing and fun, and who knows, I might think about it. That will not cure my computer addiction, though :( Bruno On 11.07.2011 16:01 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 11 Jul 2011, at 14:33, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 10.07.2011 17:32 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 10 Jul 2011, at 15:20, Craig Weinberg wrote: ... Let's take the color yellow for example. If you build a brain out of ideal ping pong balls, or digital molecular emulations, does it perceive yellow from 580nm oscillations of electromagnetism automatically, or does it see yellow when it's own emulated units are vibrating on the functionally proportionate scale to itself? Does the ping pong ball brain see it's own patterns of collisions as yellow or does yellow = electromagnetic ~580nm and nothing else. At what point does the yellow come in? Where did it come from? Were there other options? Can there ever be new colors? From where? What is the minimum mechanical arrangement required to experience yellow? Any mechanical arrangement defining a self-referentially correct machine automatically leads the mechanical arrangement to distinguish third person point of view and first person points of view. The machine already have a theory of qualia, with an explanation of why qualia and quanta seems different. Bruno, Could you please make a reference to a good text for dummies about that statement? (But please not in French) I am afraid the only text which explains this in simple way is my sane04 paper(*). It is in the second part (the interview of the machine), and it uses Smullyan popular explanation of the logic of self-reference (G) from his Forever Undecided popular book. Popular attempts to explain Gödel's theorem are often incorrect, and the whole matter is very delicate. Philosophers, like Lucas, or physicists, like Penrose, illustrate that it is hard to explain Gödel's result to non logicians. I'm afraid the time has not yet come for popular explanation of machine's theology. Let me try a short attempt. By Gödel's theorem we know that for any machine, the set of true propositions about the machine is bigger than the set of the propositions provable by the machine. Now, Gödel already knew that a machine can prove that very fact about herself, and so can be aware of its own limitations. Such a machine is forced to discover a vast range of true proposition about her that she cannot prove, and such a machine can study the logic to which such propositions are obeying. Then, it is a technical fact that such logics (of the non provable, yet discoverable propositions) obeys some theories of qualia which have been proposed in the literature (by J.L. Bell, for example). So the machine which introspects itself (the mystical machine) is bounded to discover the gap between the provable and truth (the G-G* gap), but also the difference between all the points of view (third person = provable, first person = provable-and-true, observable with probability 1 = provable-and-consistent, feelable = provable-and-consistent-and-true, etc.). When the machine studies the logic of those propositions, she rediscovers more or less a picture of reality akin to the mystical rationalists (like Plato, Plotinus, but also Nagasena, and many others). If you are familiar with the logic G, I might be able to explain more. If not, read Smullyan's book, perhaps. All this is new material, and, premature popular version can be misleading. Elementary logic is just not yet well enough known. In fact, the UDA *is* the human-popular version of all this. The AUDA is the proper machine's technical version. If you read the sane04(*) paper, feel free to ask for any precisions. Best, Bruno (*) http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html 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 . 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,
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 13 Jul 2011, at 01:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: Not sure what you mean in either sentence. A plastic flower behaves differently than a biological plant. Sure. But they have not the same function. They both decorate a vase. How do we know when we build a chip that it's performing the same function that a neuron performs and not just what we think it performs, especially considering that neurology produces qualitative phenomena which cannot be detected at all outside of our personal experience. Maybe the brain is a haunted house built of prehistoric stones under layers of medieval catacombs and the chip is a brand new suburban tract home made to look like a grand old mansion but it's made of drywall and stucco and ghosts aren't interested. Because all known laws of nature, even their approximations, which can still function at some high level, are Turing emulable. But consciousness isn't observable in nature, outside of our own interiority. Is yellow Turing emulable? The experience of seeing yellow might be, although its stability will needs the global structure of all computations. If you believe the contrary, you need to speculate on an unknown physics. By computers I mean universal machine, and this is a mathematical notion. I don't know, man. I think computers are just gigantic electronic abacuses. They don't feel anything, but you can arrange their beads into patterns which act as a vessel for us to feel, see, know, think, etc. Neither computer nor brain can think. Persons think. And a computer has nothing to do with electronic, or anything physical. It is more an information pattern which can emulate all computable pattern evolution. It has been discovered in math. It exists by virtue of elementary arithmetic. We can implement it in the physical reality, but this shows only that physical reality is at least Turing universal. That's a bad note! What is the first 5th % that you don't understand? Each sentence is a struggle for me. I could go through each one if you want: I will first present a non constructive argument showing that the mechanist hypothesis in cognitive science gives enough constraints to decide what a physical reality can possibly consist in. This is the abstract. The paper explains its meaning. I read that as I will first present a theoretical argument showing that the hypothesis of consciousness arising from purely mechanical interactions in the brain is sufficient to support a physical reality. Not to support. To derive. I mean physics is a branch of machine's theology. Right away I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'm guessing that you mean the mechanics of the brain look like physical reality to us. I mean physics is not the fundamental branch. You have to study the proof, not to speculate on a theorem. Which I would have agreed with a couple years ago, but my hypothesis now makes more sense to me, that the exterior mechanism and interior experience are related in a dynamic continuum topology in which they diverge sharply at one end and are indistinguishable in another. That's unclear. Read just the UDA. The first seven steps gives the picture. Of course, you have to be able to reason with an hypothesis, keeping it all along in the reasoning. I'm trying, but it's not working. I think each step would have to be condensed into two sentences. No, they are related to arithmetical relations and set of arithmetical relations. Maybe that's the issue. I can't really parse math. I had to take Algebra 2 twice and never took another math class again. If the universe is made of math The point is that the universe is not made of anything. Neither physical primitive stuff, nor mathematical stuff. You have to study the argument to make sense of this. So you have to accept the comp hypothesis at least for the sake of the argument. I would have a hard time explaining that. Why is math hard for some people if we are made of math? Well, I could ask you why physics is hard if we obey to the laws of physics. this is a non sequitur. Also, we are not made of math. math is not a stuffy thing. It is just a collection of true fact about immaterial beings. Why is math something we don't learn until long after we understand words, colors, facial expressions, etc? Because we are not supposed to understand how we work. The understanding of facial expression asks for many complex mathematical operations done unconsciously. We learn to use our brain well before even knowing we have a brain. God create the natural numbers, all the rest is created by the natural numbers. Numbers create things? Why? Relatively to universal number, number do many things. we know now that their doing escape any complete theories. We know now why numbers have unbounded behavior complexity. It seems to me that you can already intuit this when looking at the Mandelbrot set, where a
Re: RE: bruno list
You're misunderstanding what I meant by internal, I wasn't talking about subjective interiority (qualia), but *only* about the physical processes in the spatial interior of the cell. I am trying to first concentrate on external behavioral issues that don't involve qualia at all, to see whether your disagreement with Chalmers' argument is because you disagree with the basic starting premise that it would be possible to replace neurons by artificial substitutes which would not alter the *behavior* of surrounding neurons (or of the person as a whole), only after assuming this does Chalmers go on to speculate about what would happen to qualia as neurons were gradually replaced in this way. Remember this paragraph from my last post: In my model, physical processes are just the exterior, like clothing of the qualia (perceivable experiences). There is no such thing as external behavior that doesn't involve qualia, that's my point. It's all one thing - sensorimotive perception of relativistic electromagnetism. I think that in the best case scenario, what happens when you virtualize your brain with a non-biological neuron emulation is that you gradually lose consciousness but the remaining consciousness has more and more technology at it's disposal. You can't remember your own name but when asked, there would be a meaningless word that comes to mind for no reason. To me, the only question is how virtual is virtual. If you emulate the biology, that's a completely different scenario than running a logical program on a chip. Logic doesn't ooze serotonin. Are you suggesting that even if the molecules given off by foreign cells were no different at all from those given off by my own cells, my cells would nevertheless somehow be able to nonlocally sense that the DNA in the nuclei of these cells was foreign? It's not about whether other cells would sense the imposter neuron, it's about how much of an imposter the neuron is. If acts like a real cell in every physical way, if another organism can kill it and eat it and metabolize it completely then you pretty much have a cell. Whatever cannot be metabolized in that way is what potentially detracts from the ability to sustain consciousness. It's not your cells that need to sense DNA, it's the question of whether a brain composed entirely of, or significantly of cells lacking DNA would be conscious in the same way as a person. Well, it's not clear to me that you understand the implications of physical reductionism based on your rejection of my comments about physical processes in one volume only being affected via signals coming across the boundary. Unless the issue is that you accept physical reductionism, but reject the idea that we can treat all interactions as being local ones (and again I would point out that while entanglement may involve a type of nonlocal interaction--though this isn't totally clear, many-worlds advocates say they can explain entanglement phenomena in a local way--because of decoherence, it probably isn't important for understanding how different neurons interact with one another). It's not clear that you are understanding that my model of physics is not the same as yours. Imagine an ideal glove that is white on the outside and on the inside it feels like latex. As you move your hand in the glove you feel all sorts of things on the inside. Textures, shapes. etc. From the outside you see different patterns appearing on it. When you clench your fist, you can see right through the glove to your hand, but when you do, your hand goes completely numb and you can't feel the glove. What you are telling me is that if you make a glove that looks exactly like this crazy glove, if it satisfies all glove like properties such that it makes these crazy designs on the outside, that it must be having the same effect on the inside. My position is that no, not unless it is close enough to the real clove physically that it produces the same effects on the inside, which you cannot know unless you are wearing the glove. And is that because you reject the idea that in any volume of space, physical processes outside that volume can only be affected by processes in its interior via particles (or other local signals) crossing the boundary of that volume? No, it's because the qualia possible in inorganic systems is limited to inorganic qualia. Think of consciousness as DNA. Can you make DNA out of string? You could make a really amazing model of it out of string, but it's not going to do what DNA does. You are saying, well what if I make DNA out of something that acts just like DNA? I'm asking, like what? If it acts like DNA in every way, then it isn't an emulation, it's just DNA by another name. I don't know what you mean by functionally equivalent though, are you using that phrase to suggest some sort of similarity in the actual molecules and physical structure of what's inside the boundary? I'm
Re: bruno list
You're misunderstanding what I meant by internal, I wasn't talking about subjective interiority (qualia), but *only* about the physical processes in the spatial interior of the cell. I am trying to first concentrate on external behavioral issues that don't involve qualia at all, to see whether your disagreement with Chalmers' argument is because you disagree with the basic starting premise that it would be possible to replace neurons by artificial substitutes which would not alter the *behavior* of surrounding neurons (or of the person as a whole), only after assuming this does Chalmers go on to speculate about what would happen to qualia as neurons were gradually replaced in this way. Remember this paragraph from my last post: In my model, physical processes are just the exterior, like clothing of the qualia (perceivable experiences). There is no such thing as external behavior that doesn't involve qualia, that's my point. It's all one thing - sensorimotive perception of relativistic electromagnetism. I think that in the best case scenario, what happens when you virtualize your brain with a non-biological neuron emulation is that you gradually lose consciousness but the remaining consciousness has more and more technology at it's disposal. You can't remember your own name but when asked, there would be a meaningless word that comes to mind for no reason. To me, the only question is how virtual is virtual. If you emulate the biology, that's a completely different scenario than running a logical program on a chip. Logic doesn't ooze serotonin. Are you suggesting that even if the molecules given off by foreign cells were no different at all from those given off by my own cells, my cells would nevertheless somehow be able to nonlocally sense that the DNA in the nuclei of these cells was foreign? It's not about whether other cells would sense the imposter neuron, it's about how much of an imposter the neuron is. If acts like a real cell in every physical way, if another organism can kill it and eat it and metabolize it completely then you pretty much have a cell. Whatever cannot be metabolized in that way is what potentially detracts from the ability to sustain consciousness. It's not your cells that need to sense DNA, it's the question of whether a brain composed entirely of, or significantly of cells lacking DNA would be conscious in the same way as a person. Well, it's not clear to me that you understand the implications of physical reductionism based on your rejection of my comments about physical processes in one volume only being affected via signals coming across the boundary. Unless the issue is that you accept physical reductionism, but reject the idea that we can treat all interactions as being local ones (and again I would point out that while entanglement may involve a type of nonlocal interaction--though this isn't totally clear, many-worlds advocates say they can explain entanglement phenomena in a local way--because of decoherence, it probably isn't important for understanding how different neurons interact with one another). It's not clear that you are understanding that my model of physics is not the same as yours. Imagine an ideal glove that is white on the outside and on the inside it feels like latex. As you move your hand in the glove you feel all sorts of things on the inside. Textures, shapes. etc. From the outside you see different patterns appearing on it. When you clench your fist, you can see right through the glove to your hand, but when you do, your hand goes completely numb and you can't feel the glove. What you are telling me is that if you make a glove that looks exactly like this crazy glove, if it satisfies all glove like properties such that it makes these crazy designs on the outside, that it must be having the same effect on the inside. My position is that no, not unless it is close enough to the real clove physically that it produces the same effects on the inside, which you cannot know unless you are wearing the glove. And is that because you reject the idea that in any volume of space, physical processes outside that volume can only be affected by processes in its interior via particles (or other local signals) crossing the boundary of that volume? No, it's because the qualia possible in inorganic systems is limited to inorganic qualia. Think of consciousness as DNA. Can you make DNA out of string? You could make a really amazing model of it out of string, but it's not going to do what DNA does. You are saying, well what if I make DNA out of something that acts just like DNA? I'm asking, like what? If it acts like DNA in every way, then it isn't an emulation, it's just DNA by another name. I don't know what you mean by functionally equivalent though, are you using that phrase to suggest some sort of similarity in the actual molecules and physical structure of what's inside the boundary? I'm using that phrase because you are. I'm just saying that what the cell
Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out
Hi Terren
Apology for commenting your post with some delay.
On 06 Jul 2011, at 19:54, Terren Suydam wrote:
Hey Bruno,
Thanks for your comments... I'm a little clearer now on your stance on
consciousness and intelligence, I think. I have a few more questions
and concerns.
Regarding consciousness, my biggest concern is that you're not really
explaining consciousness, so much as describing it.
Yes. That is true. I think computationalism can explain consciousness,
except for a remaining gap, but that it can explain why such gap is
unavoidable. So in a sense I do think that comp explains as completely
as possible consciousness. I will try to convey this in my further
commenting below. It does not really describe it, though, because the
explanation rule all description for it. See below.
To be sure, the
mathematical/logical framework you elucidate that captures aspects of
1st/3rd person distinctions is remarkable, and as far as I know, the
first legitimate attempt to do so. But if we're talking TOE, then an
explanation of consciousness is required.
Right. But note that the notion of fist person experience already
involved consciousness, and that we are assuming comp, which at the
start assume that consciousness makes sense. The explanation per se
comes when we have understand that physics emerge from numbers, and
this in the double way imposed by the logic of self-reference. All
logics (well, not all, really) are splitted into two parts: the
provable and the non provable (by the machine into consideration).
Using the descriptor Bp to signify a machine M's ability to prove p is
fine. But it does not explain how it proves p.
It proves p in the formal sense of the logician. Bp suppose a
translation of all p, of the modal language, in formula of arithmetic.
Then Bp is the translation of beweisbar('p'), that is provable(gödel
number of p). If the machine, for example, is a theorem prover for
Peano Arithmetic, provable' is a purely arithmetical predicate. It is
define entirely in term of zero (0), the successor function (s), and
addition + multiplication, to gether with some part of classical
logic. It is not obvious at all this can been done, but it is well
known by logicians, and indeed that is done by Gödel in his
fundamental incompleteness 1931 paper.
Ditto for the
induction axioms;
Those are simply the scheme of axioms:
[P(0) and for all n (P(n) - P(s(n)))] - for all n P(n)
You cannot prove that [for all n and m, n+m = m+n] without it.
Of course, such a machine talk only on numbers, so to define
provability *in* the language of the machine, you have to represent
the formula and the finite piece of proofs by numbers (like we have to
represent by strings in some language to communicate them);
Löbian machines are mere descriptions, absent
explanations of how a machine could be constructed that would have the
ability to perform those operations.
Those are very simple (for a computer scientist). I give this as
exercise to the most patient of my students.
Taking the biological as an
example, it is self-evident that we humans can talk about and evaluate
our beliefs. But until we have an explanation for *how* we do that at
some level below the psychological, we're still just dealing with
descriptions, not explanations. Taking the abstract step towards
logical frameworks helps in terms of precision, for sure. But as soon
as you invoke descriptors like Bp there's an element of and then the
magic happens.
The machine lives in Platonia, so I give her as much time as they need.
Let me give a simple example. The machine can prove/believe the
arithmetical laws, because those are axioms. They are sort of initial
instinctive belief.
axiom 1: x+0 = x
axiom 2: x + s(y) = s(x + y)
Just from that the machine can prove that 1+1 = 2 (that is, the
addition of the successor of 0 with the successor of zero gives the
successor of the successor of 0:
indeed:
s(0) + s(0) = s(s(0) + 0) by axiom 2 (with x replaced by s(0) by
the logical substitution rule: the machine can do that)
but s(0) + 0 = s(0), by axiom 1 (again, it is easy to give to the
machine the ability to match a formula with an axiom)
so s(0) + s(0) = s(s(0)), by replacing s(0) + 0 with s(0) in the
preceding line.
Amazingly enough, with just the mutiplication axiom:
axiom 3: x * 0 = 0
axiom 4: x * s(y) = (x * y) + x
you add already prove all the sigma_1 sentences, that is, the one
having the shape it exists n such that P(n), P(n) being decidable/
recursive. This is call sigma_1 completeness, and is equivalent with
Turing-universality. That is certainly amazing, but a bit of logic +
addition and multiplication gives already Turing universality.
This means also that the machine, without induction, is already a
universal dovetailer (once asked to dovetail on all what she can
prove). But such a machine is not Löbian: it still needs the
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
The experience of seeing yellow might be, although its stability will needs the global structure of all computations. If you believe the contrary, you need to speculate on an unknown physics. I don't consider it an unknown physics, just a physics that doesn't disqualify 1p phenomena. I don't get why yellow is any less stable than a number. Neither computer nor brain can think. Persons think. And a computer has nothing to do with electronic, or anything physical. I get what you're saying, but you could put a drug in your brain that affects your thinking, and your thinking can be affected by chemistry in your brain that you cannot control with your thoughts. In my sensorimotive electromagnetism schema, everything physical has an experiential aspect and vice versa. It is more an information pattern which can emulate all computable pattern evolution. It has been discovered in math. It exists by virtue of elementary arithmetic. We can implement it in the physical reality, but this shows only that physical reality is at least Turing universal. It sounds like what you're suggesting is that numbers exist independently of physical matter, whereas I would say that numbers insist through the experiences within physical matter. The point is that the universe is not made of anything. Neither physical primitive stuff, nor mathematical stuff. You have to study the argument to make sense of this. So you have to accept the comp hypothesis at least for the sake of the argument. Hmm. If the universe isn't made of anything than your point isn't made of anything either. I don't get it. Also, we are not made of math. math is not a stuffy thing. It is just a collection of true fact about immaterial beings. Have you read any numerology? Relatively to universal number, number do many things. we know now that their doing escape any complete theories. We know now why numbers have unbounded behavior complexity. It seems to me that you can already intuit this when looking at the Mandelbrot set, where a very simple mathematical operation defines a montruously complex object. The complexity is in the eye of the perceiver. Your human visual sense is what unites the Mandelbrot set into a fractal pattern. There is no independent 'pattern' there unless what you are made of can relate to it as a coherent whole rather than a million unrelated pixels as your video card sees it, or maybe as a nondescript moving blur as a gopher might see it. I cannot be satisfied with this, because it put what I want to explain (mind and matter) in the starting premises. Then I show that comp leads to a precise (and mathematical) reformulation of the mind-body problem. Are you more interested in satisfying your premise, or discovering a true model of the cosmos? You're not saying that Mickey Mouse has mass and velocity though, right? I don't get it. It depends on the context. Mickey Mouse is a fiction. as such it has a mass, relatively to its fictive world. That world is not complex enough to attribute meaning to physical attribute, nor mental one, so that your question does not make much sense. How does Mickey Mouse have mass? Whoever is drawing the cartoon can make the universe he is in be whatever they want. It doesn't have to have pseudophysical laws like gravity. He can just teleport around a Mandelbrot set. Craig On Jul 13, 5:43 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 13 Jul 2011, at 01:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: Not sure what you mean in either sentence. A plastic flower behaves differently than a biological plant. Sure. But they have not the same function. They both decorate a vase. How do we know when we build a chip that it's performing the same function that a neuron performs and not just what we think it performs, especially considering that neurology produces qualitative phenomena which cannot be detected at all outside of our personal experience. Maybe the brain is a haunted house built of prehistoric stones under layers of medieval catacombs and the chip is a brand new suburban tract home made to look like a grand old mansion but it's made of drywall and stucco and ghosts aren't interested. Because all known laws of nature, even their approximations, which can still function at some high level, are Turing emulable. But consciousness isn't observable in nature, outside of our own interiority. Is yellow Turing emulable? The experience of seeing yellow might be, although its stability will needs the global structure of all computations. If you believe the contrary, you need to speculate on an unknown physics. By computers I mean universal machine, and this is a mathematical notion. I don't know, man. I think computers are just gigantic electronic abacuses. They don't feel anything, but you can arrange their beads into patterns which act as a vessel for us to feel, see, know, think, etc. Neither computer nor brain can think. Persons think. And a
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
What is a person? What can a person be but the continuos response of a wet chemical neural network to exogenous and endogenous inputs. The response will be modified by changes in the networks chemical environment, and now we learn by strong external pulsed magnetic fields. In a series of very relevant experiments, with readily reproduced results, subjecting certain brain regions to a pulsed magnetic field, changes the brains notions of ethics/morality, while the field is applied. When the field is turned off, the brain returns to it's previous perceptions of the world. The technique, Transcutaneous Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) was first developed as a noninvasive treatment for depression, being much less disruptive than ECT. Then researchers asked, can we modify the functioning of healthy brains - possibly even improve functions such as memory ? Participants in this exchange might enjoy a subscription to Nature: Neuroscience. It's not an easy read, but interesting. Lanny On Jul 14, 2011, at 3:42 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: The experience of seeing yellow might be, although its stability will needs the global structure of all computations. If you believe the contrary, you need to speculate on an unknown physics. I don't consider it an unknown physics, just a physics that doesn't disqualify 1p phenomena. I don't get why yellow is any less stable than a number. Neither computer nor brain can think. Persons think. And a computer has nothing to do with electronic, or anything physical. I get what you're saying, but you could put a drug in your brain that affects your thinking, and your thinking can be affected by chemistry in your brain that you cannot control with your thoughts. In my sensorimotive electromagnetism schema, everything physical has an experiential aspect and vice versa. It is more an information pattern which can emulate all computable pattern evolution. It has been discovered in math. It exists by virtue of elementary arithmetic. We can implement it in the physical reality, but this shows only that physical reality is at least Turing universal. It sounds like what you're suggesting is that numbers exist independently of physical matter, whereas I would say that numbers insist through the experiences within physical matter. The point is that the universe is not made of anything. Neither physical primitive stuff, nor mathematical stuff. You have to study the argument to make sense of this. So you have to accept the comp hypothesis at least for the sake of the argument. Hmm. If the universe isn't made of anything than your point isn't made of anything either. I don't get it. Also, we are not made of math. math is not a stuffy thing. It is just a collection of true fact about immaterial beings. Have you read any numerology? Relatively to universal number, number do many things. we know now that their doing escape any complete theories. We know now why numbers have unbounded behavior complexity. It seems to me that you can already intuit this when looking at the Mandelbrot set, where a very simple mathematical operation defines a montruously complex object. The complexity is in the eye of the perceiver. Your human visual sense is what unites the Mandelbrot set into a fractal pattern. There is no independent 'pattern' there unless what you are made of can relate to it as a coherent whole rather than a million unrelated pixels as your video card sees it, or maybe as a nondescript moving blur as a gopher might see it. I cannot be satisfied with this, because it put what I want to explain (mind and matter) in the starting premises. Then I show that comp leads to a precise (and mathematical) reformulation of the mind-body problem. Are you more interested in satisfying your premise, or discovering a true model of the cosmos? You're not saying that Mickey Mouse has mass and velocity though, right? I don't get it. It depends on the context. Mickey Mouse is a fiction. as such it has a mass, relatively to its fictive world. That world is not complex enough to attribute meaning to physical attribute, nor mental one, so that your question does not make much sense. How does Mickey Mouse have mass? Whoever is drawing the cartoon can make the universe he is in be whatever they want. It doesn't have to have pseudophysical laws like gravity. He can just teleport around a Mandelbrot set. Craig On Jul 13, 5:43 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 13 Jul 2011, at 01:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: Not sure what you mean in either sentence. A plastic flower behaves differently than a biological plant. Sure. But they have not the same function. They both decorate a vase. How do we know when we build a chip that it's performing the same function that a neuron performs and not just what we think it performs, especially considering that neurology produces qualitative
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
But a person also makes changes to their chemical network by exercising their will out of purely semantic conscious intent, having no biochemical rationale or specific neurogeographical constraint. You don't have to get from one part of your brain to another part to think about something else, 'you' are already are at both places. I think that the neural network and its sensorimotive content (perception) are two ends of a single involuted topolology. I'm a big fan of TMS. I wish there were a lot more research being done with it. (I thought it was Transcranial?). On Jul 14, 7:28 pm, L.W. Sterritt lannysterr...@comcast.net wrote: What is a person? What can a person be but the continuos response of a wet chemical neural network to exogenous and endogenous inputs. The response will be modified by changes in the networks chemical environment, and now we learn by strong external pulsed magnetic fields. In a series of very relevant experiments, with readily reproduced results, subjecting certain brain regions to a pulsed magnetic field, changes the brains notions of ethics/morality, while the field is applied. When the field is turned off, the brain returns to it's previous perceptions of the world. The technique, Transcutaneous Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) was first developed as a noninvasive treatment for depression, being much less disruptive than ECT. Then researchers asked, can we modify the functioning of healthy brains - possibly even improve functions such as memory ? Participants in this exchange might enjoy a subscription to Nature: Neuroscience. It's not an easy read, but interesting. Lanny On Jul 14, 2011, at 3:42 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: The experience of seeing yellow might be, although its stability will needs the global structure of all computations. If you believe the contrary, you need to speculate on an unknown physics. I don't consider it an unknown physics, just a physics that doesn't disqualify 1p phenomena. I don't get why yellow is any less stable than a number. Neither computer nor brain can think. Persons think. And a computer has nothing to do with electronic, or anything physical. I get what you're saying, but you could put a drug in your brain that affects your thinking, and your thinking can be affected by chemistry in your brain that you cannot control with your thoughts. In my sensorimotive electromagnetism schema, everything physical has an experiential aspect and vice versa. It is more an information pattern which can emulate all computable pattern evolution. It has been discovered in math. It exists by virtue of elementary arithmetic. We can implement it in the physical reality, but this shows only that physical reality is at least Turing universal. It sounds like what you're suggesting is that numbers exist independently of physical matter, whereas I would say that numbers insist through the experiences within physical matter. The point is that the universe is not made of anything. Neither physical primitive stuff, nor mathematical stuff. You have to study the argument to make sense of this. So you have to accept the comp hypothesis at least for the sake of the argument. Hmm. If the universe isn't made of anything than your point isn't made of anything either. I don't get it. Also, we are not made of math. math is not a stuffy thing. It is just a collection of true fact about immaterial beings. Have you read any numerology? Relatively to universal number, number do many things. we know now that their doing escape any complete theories. We know now why numbers have unbounded behavior complexity. It seems to me that you can already intuit this when looking at the Mandelbrot set, where a very simple mathematical operation defines a montruously complex object. The complexity is in the eye of the perceiver. Your human visual sense is what unites the Mandelbrot set into a fractal pattern. There is no independent 'pattern' there unless what you are made of can relate to it as a coherent whole rather than a million unrelated pixels as your video card sees it, or maybe as a nondescript moving blur as a gopher might see it. I cannot be satisfied with this, because it put what I want to explain (mind and matter) in the starting premises. Then I show that comp leads to a precise (and mathematical) reformulation of the mind-body problem. Are you more interested in satisfying your premise, or discovering a true model of the cosmos? You're not saying that Mickey Mouse has mass and velocity though, right? I don't get it. It depends on the context. Mickey Mouse is a fiction. as such it has a mass, relatively to its fictive world. That world is not complex enough to attribute meaning to physical attribute, nor mental one, so that your question does not make much sense. How does Mickey Mouse have mass? Whoever is drawing
