Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:36 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 9:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:59 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote: When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to. Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants to admit that the brain is a classical system. The Brain is classical, I agree. Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought and memory are independent of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain already corresponded to who your mother is and to most of the rest of your history Yes, but which brain are you right now? Are you the Brent in universe X whose mother had green eyes, or the Brent in universe Y whose mother had brown eyes. By the time you remember, you will have resolved which Brent you are (and correspondingly which universe you are in) but then you've opened up new uncertainties, and new universes compatible with your existence: Are you in the universe where Brent's tooth brush is yellow, or the universe where it is red, or some other color? Until you stop and think, and this information enters your awareness (not your brain it is already in each of your brains in each of those universes), your conscious moment is compatible with Brents in various universes where your brush has varying colors. Of course when you make the determination you find a fully coherent and consistent history. Receipts for the tooth brush you bought, a picture of your mom on the wall, etc. But that assumes a dualism so that in the universe where my tooth brush is yellow (and that is encoded in my brain in that universe), my mind is not associated with that brain - it is some uncertain state. As I see it, it is no different than duplicating someone to both Washington and Moscow and then when they step outside of the teleporter box the sight of the capital building, or red square determines their position. Now assume you are duplicated in universe X and universe Y, in both of which which you have an identical mental state. However, in universe X you have a red car, and in universe Y you have a blue car. When this memory surfaces, you identify which universe you are in. Before the memory of the color of your car surfaced, your mental state was identical and it could be said that your consciousness supervened on both of them. But then when the yellowness or redness of my toothbrush enters my consciousness my mind splits into different universes (the many-minds interpretation of QM?). In that case there are many classical beings who call themselves Brent and have some memories in common. Why not distinguish them by their bodies/brains? Why think if the mind(s) as being indeterminate and flitting about just because they are not instantiating awareness of all that is in the brain? It follows from the ability to be able to resurrect a person at any time or any location by making an identical copy. 1. Nothing happens to you between now and the next minute (your consciousness continues through that time) 2. 30 seconds from now, you will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots will repair you perfectly such that you don't even notice (your consciousness continues) 3. You will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots repair you perfectly (only this time using different matter) you don't notice and your consciousness continues. 4. You will be blow to pieces but then recreated at another location in the exact configuration that you were before you were blown up (From your perspective your surroundings suddenly and inexplicably changed) 5. You are blown up and then two copies of you are created, one in your present location and another in a second location. You now cannot be sure which one you will be. For some short period of time you can be said to be both of them (until different sensory data is processed and the minds diverge). 6. You are not blown up, but a second duplicate of you is created elsewhere (as before, your mind can be said to inhabit both of them, until the mental state diverges) These are just the same basic examples from Bruno's UDA. Was there a particular step in the UDA that you disagreed with? Jason - excepting those instances where some quantum event was amplified sufficiently to create a superposition in your experience. I am not sure if this qualifies as a super position, or just comp indeterminacy. You're right - decoherence or similar would have to collapse the superposition. Brent Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On 9/21/2011 11:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:36 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 9:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:59 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote: When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to. Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants to admit that the brain is a classical system. The Brain is classical, I agree. Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought and memory are independent of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain already corresponded to who your mother is and to most of the rest of your history Yes, but which brain are you right now? Are you the Brent in universe X whose mother had green eyes, or the Brent in universe Y whose mother had brown eyes. By the time you remember, you will have resolved which Brent you are (and correspondingly which universe you are in) but then you've opened up new uncertainties, and new universes compatible with your existence: Are you in the universe where Brent's tooth brush is yellow, or the universe where it is red, or some other color? Until you stop and think, and this information enters your awareness (not your brain it is already in each of your brains in each of those universes), your conscious moment is compatible with Brents in various universes where your brush has varying colors. Of course when you make the determination you find a fully coherent and consistent history. Receipts for the tooth brush you bought, a picture of your mom on the wall, etc. But that assumes a dualism so that in the universe where my tooth brush is yellow (and that is encoded in my brain in that universe), my mind is not associated with that brain - it is some uncertain state. As I see it, it is no different than duplicating someone to both Washington and Moscow and then when they step outside of the teleporter box the sight of the capital building, or red square determines their position. Now assume you are duplicated in universe X and universe Y, in both of which which you have an identical mental state. However, in universe X you have a red car, and in universe Y you have a blue car. When this memory surfaces, you identify which universe you are in. Before the memory of the color of your car surfaced, your mental state was identical and it could be said that your consciousness supervened on both of them. But then when the yellowness or redness of my toothbrush enters my consciousness my mind splits into different universes (the many-minds interpretation of QM?). In that case there are many classical beings who call themselves Brent and have some memories in common. Why not distinguish them by their bodies/brains? Why think if the mind(s) as being indeterminate and flitting about just because they are not instantiating awareness of all that is in the brain? It follows from the ability to be able to resurrect a person at any time or any location by making an identical copy. 1. Nothing happens to you between now and the next minute (your consciousness continues through that time) 2. 30 seconds from now, you will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots will repair you perfectly such that you don't even notice (your consciousness continues) 3. You will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots repair you perfectly (only this time using different matter) you don't notice and your consciousness continues. 4. You will be blow to pieces but then recreated at another location in the exact configuration that you were before you were blown up (From your perspective your surroundings suddenly and inexplicably changed) 5. You are blown up and then two copies of you are created, one in your present location and another in a second location. You now cannot be sure which one you will be. This is the kind of statement I'm questioning. Who is you? There's an implicit assumption that you are conscious thoughts or observer moments, which are disembodied and so the question becomes which brain to they supervene on. But why should be reify you as these transient thoughts. Doesn't it make more sense to reify the body/brain. Sure it can be duplicated, but we know where the duplicates are and what's in them. For some short period of time you can be said to be both of them (until different
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On 9/22/2011 1:18 AM, Roger Granet wrote: Everyone, Hi. My comments on all of today's comments :) happy on this thread are below: o In regard to Jon's below comment: Pearce later concludes that if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net) properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive which needs explaining. Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why anything exists? I'm not real sure what you're trying to get at? I'm okay with not needing an explanation of why so called nothing is a starting point, but I think we need an explanation for why this so called nothing is actually something (aka, the empty set). That's what I was trying to do in my paper. I thought that trying to figure out why anything exists was our whole point? But, I'm probably misunderstanding something here? o In regard to Jon's point that: Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets supports the following idea of Roger's: the existent state that is what has been previously called absolute non-existence has the unique property of being able to reproduce itself. Perhaps you guys are saying the same thing just in different words. I would totally agree. My only concern with people saying that the process of getting the integers from nested empty sets can be used as a way for our universe to come into existence is that these people usually don't say what the mechanism is that's doing the nesting. One thing I like about my model is that it provides a mechanism for doing this nesting that's inherent in the property of the existent state that used to be called nothing. This mechanism being that if this first existent state is there, then there's the complete lack-of-all next to it. This complete lack-of-all next to it also completely defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent state. This process continues ad infinitum to create more and more existent states (aka, nested empty sets) that constitute the existence around us. [SPK] Hi Roger, First let me thank you for joining us in these discussions. new ideas are always a good thing as they provoke thought. I think that the idea of a plurality of possible positions, given some X, and a sequence of places where X could be next, given some initial location, are interchangeable, but it seems to me that any mechanism that would induce one nesting could be seen as generating the potential of many, and thus a plurality of possibilities, if the generator of the nestings is not seperate from the impulsive or dynamic aspect that is implicit in the transitions from some initial state into some successive state. Basically, if their is a reason to not remain eternally in one state then all possible sequences can be induced from this 'potential' to not remain fixed. (I am using the word induce as it is used in electronics, where some change induces some other.) o In regard to the idea that so called nothing contains all possibilities, I don't think this is right because: - Let's say you have some initial spherical state X and that nothing exists other than that state. There are no locations/positions other than that state X. Now, let's say that this state can create more identical, existent, spherical states all around it. We might think that there's an infinite number of possible locations/positions for these new states to be formed in around initial state X. But, this is incorrect because there are no locations/positions around the first state until /after/ these new states are created. Only once these new states are created are the new locations/positions created and only then can we say, after the fact and incorrectly, that these new states could have been created in any different position. So, I think the idea of saying that nothing has an infinite number of possibilities in it is incorrect because it's really our minds that our putting these possibilities into this so called nothing, after the fact. Since it is stipulated that the initial state is spherical and there is some notion that there exists reasons or mechanism that this initial state is not fixed and permanent, does this alone not at least suggest that there is a possibility or potential for new locations? I think that I basically agree with your point but my argument would run something like: Since there is nothing, nothing follows. The idea that Nothingness has an infinite or even an indefinite number of possibilities seems to to argued by inverting an already given monotonically increasing sequence and running it back to the initial state given the ordering implicit in the sequence. This is a bit of a cheat since it starts out with Something and subtracts back to a Nothing. It seems similar to a /*Post hoc ergo
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 11:00 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Sep 21, 2011, at 9:11 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 9:24 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 3:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com mailto:whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com mailto:jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry to jump in here.. The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's properties. In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition. Then the important question is whether humans had to write it down for it to exist. [SPK] Why is the question of whether some set of properties occur given some set of rules and the implementation of those rules by some process tied to the existence or non-existence of an object? Since when was it even a meaningful question? Is existence a property? No, it isnot! My point is that existence is independent of our implementing or discovering such properties. Mandelbrot didn't have to discover the definition of the Mandelbrot set for the set to have the properties it has. He only had to discover it for us to learn about some of its properties. If there is another Mathematical object, and one of its properties is that it contains self-reproducing patterns which behave intelligently and form civilizations, we need not find such objects nor simulate them for those intelligent agents to be. [SPK] And my point is that the *properties* cannot be said to be definite absent specification by equation, rule or equivalent. Existence is not contingent. Period. I agree existence is not contingent. But I go further and say the properties of those extant things is not contingent either. [SPK] Could you please explain to us how that claim is consistent with the mutual non-commutativity of canonical conjugate variables (aka properties) in QM? AFAIK, a wave function or state vector, absent the specification of a measurement basis must be considered to be in a state where all of its observable properties are in a state of linear superposition, this they are 'indefinite and thus it follow that they are indeed contingent on the specification of a basis. Where am I going wrong? This uncertainty of properties is an artifact of observation, more specifically Quantum Mechanics is a consequence of the observer's inability to self locate within an infinite structure. See: http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0001020 [SPK] I never quite understood how the non-commutativity of certain observables with respect to each other and the Pontryagin duality (manifesting as a Fourier transform for example) between discrete and compact spaces (inducing basis vectors) follows just from the inability to self locate. It seems to me that it is the introduction of the Hilbert space and its linear algebraic structure that induces the uncertainty. The inability to self-locate seems to just be consistent with the 'no preferred basis aspect. I would like to read Russell's comment on this. and http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1066 The objects in the individual branches have properties, it is only we observers who are uncertain of them. (We don't know which branch, or which one of us, we are in or are) [SPK] I did not notice anything new in this paper, by Aguirre et al, that Russell didn't cover in his paper. Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot found it? I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen or pencil and paper. Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts? [SPK]
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote: [SPK] Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' per-established harmony idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of harmony and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the pre-established aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of pre-established as Leibniz uses it. From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies. Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater. The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world. It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual. Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum. Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics. This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: bruno list
On 21 Sep 2011, at 23:26, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Sep 21, 2:08 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Sep 2011, at 04:58, Craig Weinberg wrote: I include comparison as a function of counting. Counting + the full first order logic is not enough for comparison. Counting + second order logic might be, but then second order logic is really set theory in disguise. Isn't it necessary to be able to tell the difference between one count and one count? In order for x, (x+x), (x+x+x) to exist there must be an implicit comparison between 1 and it's successor to establish succession, mustn't there? Otherwise it's just x, x, x. I have no clue on what you are trying to say. I'm saying that to assert that two is different from one is a comparison, and that the assertion of difference between predecessor and successor is the root essence of what counting is. Counting is nothing but a process of comparisons. This is unclear as long as you don't make your assumptions explicit. You can't really have one without the other. It depends on what you assume at the start. I have still no clue of what is your theory, except that strange, and alas familiar, skepticism on numbers and machine, which is conceptually very demanding since Gödel 1931. I think that's your own prejudice blinding you from seeing my ideas. Which prejudices? The prejudice of arithmetic supremacy. I have chosen arithmetic because it is well taught in school. I could use any universal (in the Post Turing Kleene Church comp sense) machine or theory. And this follows from mechanism. The doctor encoded your actual state in a finite device. You are the one talking like if you knew (how?) that some theory (mechanism) is false, without providing a refutation. What kind of refutation would you like? A proof that mechanism entails 0 = 1. Note a personal opinion according to which actual human machines are creepy. Mechanism is false as an explanation of consciousness Mechanism is not proposed as an explanation of consciousness, but as a survival technic. The explanation of consciousness just appear to be given by any UMs which self-introspect (but that is in the consequence of mechanism, not in the assumption). It reduces the mind-body problem to a mathematical body problem. because I think that consciousness arises from feeling which arises from sensation. Perception cannot be constructed out of logic but logic always can only arise out of perception. Right. But I use logic+arithmetic, and substituting logic+arithmetic for your logic makes your statement equivalent with non comp. So you beg the question. You are defending the insights of post Gödelian understanding but I have no bone to pick with those insights at all. I embrace what I understand of those kinds of ideas; incompleteness, autopoeisis, automation, simulation, etc. I just think that the progression of these ideas lead to the mirror image of consciousness rather than genuine sentience. Nothing wrong with that, and for developing intelligent servants, it's is exactly what we would want to use (otherwise they will most enslave us). We can even gain great insights into our own nature by understanding our similarities and differences to what I would call intelliform arithmetic, but in all of the fruits of this approach we have seen thus far, there is a distinct quality of aimless repetition, even if not unpleasantly so (http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ZZu5LQ56T18) Some of the musicality can be attributed to the sampled piano as well. When you use a fundamental unit which is driven more exclusively by digital mathematics, what we get I think sounds more like the native chirps and pulses of abiotic semiconductors (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Dh9EglZJvZs). I think that my reservations about machine sentience are not at all borne of skepticism but rather aesthetic supersensitivity. I can hear what the machine is, and what it is will not become what we are, but rather something slightly (but very significantly from our perspective at least) different. Who we? We humans, or maybe even we animals. Then it is trivial and has no bearing on mechanism. The machine you can hear are, I guess, the human made machine. I talk about all machines (devices determined by computable laws). All what I hear is human made machines are creepy, so I am not a machine, not even a natural one?. This is irrational, and non valid. I'm not saying that I'm not a machine, I'm just saying that I am also the opposite of a machine. This follows from mechanism. If 3-I is a machine, then, from my perspective, 1-I is not a machine. It's not based upon a presumed truth of creepy stereotypes, but the existence and coherence of those stereotypes supports the other observations which suggest a fundamental difference between machine logic and sentient feeling. Logic + arithmetic. The devil is
Re: Interesting paper on consciousness, computation and MWI
On 21 Sep 2011, at 12:41, Russell Standish wrote: On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 01:14:04PM -0400, Stephen P. King wrote: Exactly why are there not a continuum of OMs? It seems to me if we parametrize the cardinality of distinct OMs to *all possible* partitionings of the tangent spaces of physical systems (spaces wherein the Lagrangians and Hamiltonians exist) then we obtain at least the cardinality of the continuum. It is only if we assume some arbitrary coarse graining that we have a countable set of OMs. I do not assume an arbitrary coarse graining, but do think that each OM must contain a finite amount of information. This implies the set of OMs is countable. OK. But note that in this case you are using the notion of 3-OM (or computational state), not Bostrom notion of 1-OM (or my notion of first person state). The 3-OM are countable, but the 1-OMs are not. The problem with this argument is that all rational numbers, when expressed in base2, ultimately end in a repeating tail. In decimal notation, we write dots above the digits that repeat. Once the recurring tail has been reached, no further bits of information is required to specify the rational number. Another way of looking at it is that all rational numbers can be specified as two integers - a finite amount of information. I must dispute this claim because that reasoning in terms of 'two integer' encoding of rationals ignores the vast and even infinite apparatus required to decode the value of an arbitrary pair of 'specified by two integers' values. Both the human brain, and computers are capable of handling rational numbers exactly. Neither of these are infinite apparatuses. If you're using an arbitrary precision integer representation (eg the software GMP), the only limitation to storing the rational number (or decoding it, as you put it) is the amount of memory available on the computer. The amount of information needed to represent any rational number is finite (although may be arbitarily large, as is the case for any integer). Only real numbers, in general, require infinite information. Such numbers are known as uncomputable numbers. OK. This of course does not prevent a machine to discover and handle many non computable numbers. She can even generate them all, like in finite self-duplication experiences. The same applies to the notion of digital information. Sure, we can think that the observed universe can be represented by some finite collection of finite bit strings, but this is just the result of imposing an arbitrary upper and lower bound on the resolution of the recording/describing machinery. There is no ab initio reason why that particular upper/lower bound on resolution exists in the first place. It rather depends what we mean by universe. An observer moment, ISTM, is necessarily a finite information object. Moving from one observer moment to the next must involve a difference of at least one bit, in order for there to be an evolution in observer moments. A history, or linear sequence of observable moments, must therefore be a countable set of OMs, but this could be infinite. A collection of such histories would be a continuum. OK. And they define the structure of the 1-OMs. A world (or universe), in my view, is given by a bundle of histories satisfying a finite set of constraints. As such, an infinite amount of information in the histories is irrelevant (don't care bits). It might be for the 1-OM measure problem. Bruno But if you'd prefer to identify the world with a unique history, or even as something with independent existence outside of observation, then sure, it may contain an infinite amount of information. I notice this paper is an 02 arXiv paper, so rather old. It hasn't been through peer review AFAICT. There was a bit of a critique of it on Math Forum, but that degenerated pretty fast. Cheers Ideas are sometimes like vine or a single malt whiskey that must age before its bouquet is at its prime. Partly I was wondering how much effort to put into it. Unfortunately, it appears that the author's email addresses are no longer valid, as it would be very interesting to have him engage in our discussions. Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@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 . -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On 21 Sep 2011, at 20:51, meekerdb wrote: On 9/21/2011 9:20 AM, Jason Resch wrote: The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's properties. Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot found it? If we have to define something for it to exist, then what was this universe before there were conscious beings in it? To exist just means to occur in the ontology of some model. We have a model of enumeration, which we call the integers and a model of combining them, which we call arithmetic. In this model prime numbers exist because they satisfy the rules for the ontology. But this kind of exist is quite different from the way my chair exists and the way dinosaurs existed. Yes. Now assuming mechanism, we can understand that in fine we have to explain the appearance of the existence of chair and dinosaurs from the existence of the numbers. Whenever one is tempted to write exist he should first count to ten. Ten? I think eight is enough :) With mechanism the question is rather simple. You have the primitive existence. It is the usual existence of the numbers, or combinatores, java program etc. This does not need to be conceived in any material way, and should not be confused with any of their physical, or human minded instantiation. Then all other existence are epistemological. So you have 1) the existence of the number. Symbolically Ex(x = that number) like Ex(x = 0), Ex(x = s(0)), Ex(x = s(s(s0))), etc. 2) the seven+ notion of existences with the forms: BExB(x = that number with such or such property), and B being defined by Bp, Bp p, etc. Each hypostase defines its own notion of existence, completely defined in arithmetic or at the meta-level of arithmetic. For example, chairs exist in the sense: BDEx(BD(x = that number with such or such property). The BD, and its arithmetical property account of the appearance of the physical aspect (including the quantum, and the quale) of the chairs, up to now. 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: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On 22 Sep 2011, at 08:32, meekerdb wrote: On 9/21/2011 11:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:36 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 9:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:59 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote: When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to. Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants to admit that the brain is a classical system. The Brain is classical, I agree. Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought and memory are independent of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain already corresponded to who your mother is and to most of the rest of your history Yes, but which brain are you right now? Are you the Brent in universe X whose mother had green eyes, or the Brent in universe Y whose mother had brown eyes. By the time you remember, you will have resolved which Brent you are (and correspondingly which universe you are in) but then you've opened up new uncertainties, and new universes compatible with your existence: Are you in the universe where Brent's tooth brush is yellow, or the universe where it is red, or some other color? Until you stop and think, and this information enters your awareness (not your brain it is already in each of your brains in each of those universes), your conscious moment is compatible with Brents in various universes where your brush has varying colors. Of course when you make the determination you find a fully coherent and consistent history. Receipts for the tooth brush you bought, a picture of your mom on the wall, etc. But that assumes a dualism so that in the universe where my tooth brush is yellow (and that is encoded in my brain in that universe), my mind is not associated with that brain - it is some uncertain state. As I see it, it is no different than duplicating someone to both Washington and Moscow and then when they step outside of the teleporter box the sight of the capital building, or red square determines their position. Now assume you are duplicated in universe X and universe Y, in both of which which you have an identical mental state. However, in universe X you have a red car, and in universe Y you have a blue car. When this memory surfaces, you identify which universe you are in. Before the memory of the color of your car surfaced, your mental state was identical and it could be said that your consciousness supervened on both of them. But then when the yellowness or redness of my toothbrush enters my consciousness my mind splits into different universes (the many- minds interpretation of QM?). In that case there are many classical beings who call themselves Brent and have some memories in common. Why not distinguish them by their bodies/brains? Why think if the mind(s) as being indeterminate and flitting about just because they are not instantiating awareness of all that is in the brain? It follows from the ability to be able to resurrect a person at any time or any location by making an identical copy. 1. Nothing happens to you between now and the next minute (your consciousness continues through that time) 2. 30 seconds from now, you will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots will repair you perfectly such that you don't even notice (your consciousness continues) 3. You will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots repair you perfectly (only this time using different matter) you don't notice and your consciousness continues. 4. You will be blow to pieces but then recreated at another location in the exact configuration that you were before you were blown up (From your perspective your surroundings suddenly and inexplicably changed) 5. You are blown up and then two copies of you are created, one in your present location and another in a second location. You now cannot be sure which one you will be. This is the kind of statement I'm questioning. Who is you? There's an implicit assumption that you are conscious thoughts or observer moments, which are disembodied and so the question becomes which brain to they supervene on. But why should be reify you as these transient thoughts. Doesn't it make more sense to reify the body/brain. Sure it can be duplicated, but we know where the duplicates are and what's in them. For some short period of time you can be said to be both of them (until different sensory data is processed and the minds diverge). 6. You are not blown up, but a second duplicate of you is created elsewhere (as
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On 9/22/2011 10:02 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: I think what Bruno calls the 323 principle is questionable. Can I deduce from this that UDA1-7 is understood. This shows already that either the universe is little or physics is (already) a branch of computer science (even if there is a physical universe). It doesn't comport with QM. Bruno gets around this by noting that computationally a classical computer can emulate a quantum system. But I think that assumes an *isolated* quantum system. Why? Because the quantum entanglement is in principle unbounded and so it would take an infinite classical computer to emulate exactly. In practice we are always satisfied with good approximations. The Hilbert space has N dimensions representing the configurations we calculate. We don't include an N+1st dimension to include something else happens; but it is implicitly there. All real quantum systems big enough to be quasi-classical systems are impossible to isolate. But then you have to assume that your brain is some infinite quantum system (but then comp is false). Maybe not infinite but arbitrarily entangled with part of the universe which is finite but expanding. So I'm afraid this pushes the substitution level all the way down. Yes, I'm afraid that will be the case. I tend to look at that as a reductio; but I'm not sure where the error is. I think it is in not allowing that one need only *approximate* the function of the brain module the doctor replaces. But the idea of digital approximation is fuzzy. The digital computation itself has no fuzz. Brent If it's all the way down, then as Craig notes, there's really no difference between emulation and duplication. But then you are, like Craig, assuming that mechanism is false. This is my point, if we want primitive matter, comp is false. (or comp implies no primitive matter, or the falsity of physicalism). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ -- 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: Leibnizian ideas
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote: [SPK] Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' per-established harmony idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of harmony and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the pre-established aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of pre-established as Leibniz uses it. From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies. [SPK] Hi Jason! Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's result?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation... Craig does make a big deal about special properties but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality. While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such ideal things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details! My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the outside and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem. My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics) both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics. The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system. Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them. This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK... Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater. I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater. The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do
Re: Leibnizian ideas
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote: [SPK] Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' per-established harmony idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of harmony and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the pre-established aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of pre-established as Leibniz uses it. From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies. [SPK] Hi Jason! Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's result?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation... Both theories suggest that neither matter nor first person experience are what is commonly understood, but aside from that it seems little is in common. To me there is a big difference between saying first person experience is a dream inside of arithmetic compared to a an innate sense capability of substance (carbon atoms, electromagnetic fields, neurons, I am not sure which). Bruno's result is well-defined, refutable, does not reject the physical laws as currently understood, and does not make unfounded assertions, such as: only certain materials can experience red, no computer program can feel, think, understand, etc. Craig does make a big deal about special properties but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality. What is real though? In what level or context? Craig ignores the concept of different levels in his arguments and in our replies. When he says only carbon and oxygen can combust and produce *real* heat, and we tell him sim carbon and sim oxygen can produce *real* heat to the sim observer he expects that heat to appear also in the higher level universe conducting the simulation. What function of the brain cannot be determined with anything other than a carbon atom? If we can use the behavior of other systems to predict what a carbon would do then the carbon atom is dispensible to the functions and behavior of the brain. You can then argue that this results in a mindless automaton, but then you run into all the funny and absurd issues with philisophical zombies. While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such ideal things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details! Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence. And contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc. Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his responses ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing we say will convince him he is wrong. Only interviewing someone who has received a partial digital neural prosthesis can do that. My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the outside and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem. Do you agree that computers can be conscious? My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such
