Re: COMP is empty(?)
While the comments made here make interesting and amusing reading the underlying rationale of COMP as an attempt to resolve the mind-body problem which worried earlier philosophers is, in my view fatally flawed. Here are some of the main reasons: 1. There is no longer a mind-body problem. Objective current understandings of physics, chemistry and biology easily dispel the mystical notions previously associated with consciousness. As long as we take care to avoid the trap of introspection with its attendant self-referential recursive loops we can now see that this feature, which happens to be greatly hypertrophied in our species, is merely an extension and enhancement of the navigational facility seen in most animals. The degree of sophistication being a result natural selection to permit optimal interaction of the organism with its environment. Which in our case, of course is extraordinarily high. 2. The language of mathematics has evolved to handle more efficiently the relatively simple situations not requiring the high levels of abstraction found in the natural languages. The latter are, for the most part, more appropriate for complex disciplines such as chemistry and particularly biology. A tree, for instance, or a cell, defies mathematical description. Only for the simpler aspects of these disciplines does mathematics play a minor (but nevertheless valuable part) as an adjunct. For this reason, mathematics would not be a good contender for the solution of the mind-body problem even if it still had any significance. 3. Even in those areas where mathematics is most valuable we must bear in mind that, like all languages, it is capable of generating fictions. Most importantly, of the multitudinous mathematical models that can be envisaged, only a small subset correspond to empirical reality. For example, any number of dimensions can be handled within mathematics yet only the three of space and one of time have, as yet, been observed. Science has found no straight lines or points in our universe. It is the failure to recognize these inherent limitations which, to me, appear to inspire much of the contention in the above discussions of this topic. A treatment of consciousness and related issues is provided within the context of a broad evolutionary model which extends beyond biology in: The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us? (free download in e-book formats from the Unusual Perspectives website) -- 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 is empty(?)
Hi Peter, On 18 Oct 2011, at 13:00, Peter Kinnon wrote: While the comments made here make interesting and amusing reading the underlying rationale of COMP as an attempt to resolve the mind-body problem which worried earlier philosophers is, in my view fatally flawed. Here are some of the main reasons: 1. There is no longer a mind-body problem. Objective current understandings of physics, chemistry and biology easily dispel the mystical notions previously associated with consciousness. The problem is already here. I suggest you read my paper here: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html It shows that mechanism is incompatible with weak form of materialism and physicalism. It provides a new precise reformulation of the mind- body problem in the form of a pure body problem in arithmetic (or in any first order logical specification of a universal machine). In a nutshell, universal machine cannot distinguish physical reality (if that makes sense) from virtual reality nor, it is the key point, from arithmetical reality. Their subjective continuations has to be given by an average of some sort on *all* computations foing through their actual state, and existing in the additive and multiplicative structure of the numbers. So, even if locally, you could dispel the mind-body problem with current physics, you cannot do that to solve the problem before you justify the physical laws from that relative measure on the computations. Then computer science and mathematical logic can already provide quickly the propositional logic of the observable events, and up to now, QM confirms comp, so that comp seems to be confirmed in its weirdest consequences (which is that we are multiplied into infinities of computations 'all the time'). The propositional logic of the observable extracted from comp already justify statistical interference of the computations, and a linear symmetrical bottom for physics. Better than that, the splitting of those logics into a provable and true part (by and on the machine respectively) gives a solid hint on how we can distinguish the quanta (sharable by universal machines) and the qualia (irreducibly NON sharable and private). As long as we take care to avoid the trap of introspection with its attendant self-referential recursive loops we can now see that this feature, which happens to be greatly hypertrophied in our species, If you avoid introspection, you avoid the very nature of consciousness and qualia. is merely an extension and enhancement of the navigational facility seen in most animals. I am OK with this. The degree of sophistication being a result natural selection to permit optimal interaction of the organism with its environment. Which in our case, of course is extraordinarily high. That does not explain the nature of the qualia. A priori such explanations explain only complex third person describable phenomena, not the inner qualia. yet, the logic above does explains the qualia, gives them a role, and give a role to consciousness (self-speeding up relatively to other universal machines). 2. The language of mathematics has evolved to handle more efficiently the relatively simple situations not requiring the high levels of abstraction found in the natural languages. The latter are, for the most part, more appropriate for complex disciplines such as chemistry and particularly biology. A tree, for instance, or a cell, defies mathematical description. Only for the simpler aspects of these disciplines does mathematics play a minor (but nevertheless valuable part) as an adjunct. For this reason, mathematics would not be a good contender for the solution of the mind-body problem even if it still had any significance. I insist, if a mechanist explanation can work, then the price of the mind-body solution is an explanation of physics, from the non physical. No need of magical soul, programs and numbers are enough, but we have to explain the origin of the appearance of the physical laws from this. 3. Even in those areas where mathematics is most valuable we must bear in mind that, like all languages, it is capable of generating fictions. You confuse the arithmetical reality, with the theories exploring it, and you confuse the theories with the languages which can be used to express those theories. To say that math is language is conventionalism, and this has been abandoned, because it is refuted by facts, notably that arithmetical truth is beyond the reach of any possible theory. Mechanism is often use in a reductionist way by materialist, but when you look at the detail mechanism defeats all possible reductionism of our conception of number and machine. Most importantly, of the multitudinous mathematical models that can be envisaged, only a small subset correspond to empirical reality. Sure. Note that what you call models is called
Re: The Overlords Gambit
Craig Weinberg wrote: Here’s a little thought experiment about free will. Let’s say that there exists a technology which will allow us to completely control another person’s neurology. What if two people use this technology to control each other? If one person started before the other, then they could effectively ‘disarm’ the others control over them preemptively, but what if they both began at the exact same time? Would one ‘win’ control over the other somehow? Would either of them even be able to try to win? How would they know if they were controlling the other or being controlled to think they are controlling the other? Complete control over anything is simply impossible. Control is just a feeling and not fundamental. The closest one can get to controlling the brain is to make it dysfunctional. It's a bit boring, but the most realistic answer is that both would fall unconscious, as that is the only result of exerting excessive control over a brain. It's the same result as if you try to totally control an ecosystem, or an economy. It'll destroy the natural order, as control is not a fundamental ordering principle. It seems like you think of control or will as something fundamental, and I don't see any reason to assume that it is. Honestly I that we think that we have free, independent will is just the arrogance of our ego that feels it has to have a fundamentally special place in the universe. That is not to say that we are predetermined by a material universe, rather control is just a phenomenon arising in consciousness like all other phenomena eg feelings and perceptions. benjayk -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/The-Overlords-Gambit-tp32662974p32674925.html Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- 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: The Overlords Gambit
On Oct 18, 10:00 am, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Craig Weinberg wrote: Here’s a little thought experiment about free will. Let’s say that there exists a technology which will allow us to completely control another person’s neurology. What if two people use this technology to control each other? If one person started before the other, then they could effectively ‘disarm’ the others control over them preemptively, but what if they both began at the exact same time? Would one ‘win’ control over the other somehow? Would either of them even be able to try to win? How would they know if they were controlling the other or being controlled to think they are controlling the other? Complete control over anything is simply impossible. Control is just a feeling and not fundamental. It depends what you mean by complete control. If I choose to hit the letter m on my keyboard, am I not controlling the keyboard to the extent that it is controllable? The closest one can get to controlling the brain is to make it dysfunctional. It's a bit boring, but the most realistic answer is that both would fall unconscious, as that is the only result of exerting excessive control over a brain. It's the same result as if you try to totally control an ecosystem, or an economy. It'll destroy the natural order, as control is not a fundamental ordering principle. I generally agree. The thought experiment is to make people consider the fallacy of exclusively bottom up processing. I don't think that you could actually control a brain, I'm just saying that if you could, how do you get around the fact that it violates the assumption that only neurons can control the brain. If my neurons control a machine that control another person's neurons, then what happens? How does either the master or slave know if they are controlling or being controlled? The point was to show that bottom up exclusivity fails, and that we must consider that our ordinary intuition of bi- directional, high-low processing interdependence may indeed be valid. It seems like you think of control or will as something fundamental, and I don't see any reason to assume that it is. That's a reasonable objection. If it's not fundamental, what is it composed of, and why is there an appearance of anything other than whatever that is? Honestly I that we think that we have free, independent will is just the arrogance of our ego that feels it has to have a fundamentally special place in the universe. I used to think that too, but now I see that it's every bit as much of an egotistical arrogance to De-anthropomorphize ourselves. It's an inverted, passive aggressive egotism to perpetually look to other processes above and below our native level of individual cohesion to give credit or blame, while all the while hiding invisibly behind the voyeur's curtain. To think that we have no free will is to think that we cannot think one way or another that we have free will. It's circular, self-negating reasoning. I think that I don't really think, because I think that I can explain that it's not necessary for thinking to happen at all. Doesn't really make sense if you step out of the system and observer your thinking, opinionated, controlling self pronouncing that it controls nothing, thinks for no reason, and has opinions for...for what again? What is an opinion doing in a cosmos which has no free will? Literally. What does an opinion do? Why are you here talking to me? What is making controlling you to do this more than you yourself? Should I imagine that my neurons care what I think? That is not to say that we are predetermined by a material universe, rather control is just a phenomenon arising in consciousness like all other phenomena eg feelings and perceptions. Sure, but that's all that it needs to be. As long as we get the sensory feedback that we expect from our motives, then we might as well have free will. It just seems violate parsimony unnecessarily. Why does it make sense for consciousness to be completely dominated by the experience of control in a universe where that would be utterly meaningless? How would such an illusion even work in the sense of how does a feeling of will get invented in the first place? If you keep throwing dice long enough they will start hallucinating that they are an organism with a conscious will? Why? How? It's totally nuts and explains nothing. Once we understand that will is sort of a subjective fisheye view which radiates evanescent waves of influence over the entire band of micocosmic and macrocosmic phenomena, as well as being influenced by the same, we can see that free will doesn't have to be completely explained away nor does it have to be seen as a truly independent phenomena. It get's kind of meta, because the degree to which free will feels free is partially contingent upon your feelings about it - your courage and independence. If you don't want free will, you don't have to have
Re: The Overlords Gambit
On 16 Oct 2011, at 20:50, Craig Weinberg wrote: Here’s a little thought experiment about free will. Let’s say that there exists a technology which will allow us to completely control another person’s neurology. What if two people use this technology to control each other? If one person started before the other, then they could effectively ‘disarm’ the others control over them preemptively, but what if they both began at the exact same time? Would one ‘win’ control over the other somehow? Would either of them even be able to try to win? How would they know if they were controlling the other or being controlled to think they are controlling the other? I think that what might happen is that where their wills conflict they cancel each other out, and where they overlap they would be amplified. The result is that the two people would become conjoined as a single organism. That might be exactly how neurons hash it out in the brain, molecules do it in a cell, atoms do it in a molecule. Add ‘If you can’t beat em, join em’ to the list of sensorimotive primitives, along with flux and flow, and perspective relationships. All experience is a manifestation of perspective. What we see is neither solipsistic simulation nor direct observation but rather the direct and actual experience of what we can make sense of from the perspective of what we are and how we participate in that relation. Our perception is the net overlap of all of the sense experience of our subordinate and supervening perspectives - whatever contentions and contradictions are resolved by joining them. A simple machine is too dumb to control itself. A complex machine is too complex to control itself. A complex machine can sometimes, luckily, design and control for a time simple machines. Simple machines can grow and multiply, and get more complex. And no machine can control that, in the long run. Deep machines like us, plausibly, cannot even be controlled by more complex machine (or by force and coercion). All what more complex machine can do, is to copy us, and emulate us with a sped-up universal machine, but all they will get are fuzzy trees of possibilities highly dependent on tiny parameters. Mind evolution is more complex than climate evolution. 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: The Overlords Gambit
Craig Weinberg wrote: On Oct 18, 10:00 am, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Craig Weinberg wrote: Here’s a little thought experiment about free will. Let’s say that there exists a technology which will allow us to completely control another person’s neurology. What if two people use this technology to control each other? If one person started before the other, then they could effectively ‘disarm’ the others control over them preemptively, but what if they both began at the exact same time? Would one ‘win’ control over the other somehow? Would either of them even be able to try to win? How would they know if they were controlling the other or being controlled to think they are controlling the other? Complete control over anything is simply impossible. Control is just a feeling and not fundamental. It depends what you mean by complete control. If I choose to hit the letter m on my keyboard, am I not controlling the keyboard to the extent that it is controllable? You can control everything to the extent that it is controllable for you, obviously. But you can't have control over the individual constituents of the keyboard all at the same time in the exact way you want it. For the keyboard, you don't need to, but the brain has no lever which you can use to make it do what you want, because, contrary to the keyboard, it has not been designed for that task - it is a holistic system, if you control a part of it (sticking a electrode into you brain for example), it still won't do what you want it to, as a whole. So to control it, you'd have to do it on a broad scale and a fundamental level. But we can't do that, and if someone could, the brain would just be a puppet steered by a puppeter and as such it wouldn't be a brain as working system, but rather a mass of flesh that is being manipulated. Craig Weinberg wrote: The closest one can get to controlling the brain is to make it dysfunctional. It's a bit boring, but the most realistic answer is that both would fall unconscious, as that is the only result of exerting excessive control over a brain. It's the same result as if you try to totally control an ecosystem, or an economy. It'll destroy the natural order, as control is not a fundamental ordering principle. I generally agree. The thought experiment is to make people consider the fallacy of exclusively bottom up processing. I don't think that you could actually control a brain, I'm just saying that if you could, how do you get around the fact that it violates the assumption that only neurons can control the brain. I don't think that many people would claim that. You probably mean that the neurons control your behaviour, but I don't think many people believe that, either. Materialist would rather claim that the neurons are the physical cause for behaviour, and consciousness arises as a phenomenon alongside. I don't see how this is any problem with regards to control, it just is a claim of magic (mind coming out of non-mind, with no mechanism how this could happen) that is not even directly subjectively validated (like the magic of consciousness that we can directly witness). Craig Weinberg wrote: The point was to show that bottom up exclusivity fails, and that we must consider that our ordinary intuition of bi- directional, high-low processing interdependence may indeed be valid. Yes, I guessed that this was your point, but I am not sure that your thought experiment helps it. Neurons making thought is quite meaingless from the start, I don't see how it is affected by what controls what. Craig Weinberg wrote: It seems like you think of control or will as something fundamental, and I don't see any reason to assume that it is. That's a reasonable objection. If it's not fundamental, what is it composed of, and why is there an appearance of anything other than whatever that is? It is not composed of anything (I am not a reductionist). Rather it arises like other feelings/perceptions, for example being hungry (it is just more essential to our identity). The reason for its appearance is simply as a feedback mechanism, it shows us that we are the source of the actions, which bring attention to our actions (which is obviously quite useful). As such it is not more fundamental than other such mechanism (like pain, which shows us something is wrong in our body). Also, in a state of enlightenment, the feeling of being in control vanishes (together with the ego that is supposed to be the controller), and people still function normally, which shows that it can't be that fundamental. It is an artifact of seeing yourself as a person, seperate from your environment, and intervening in it. Actually it is quite a crude tool, as many times we feel to be in control when the main cause lies in something else (like gambling), and often we don't feel in control of essential interventions into our environment (like reflexes). Craig Weinberg wrote:
Re: The Overlords Gambit
On Oct 18, 3:15 pm, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Complete control over anything is simply impossible. Control is just a feeling and not fundamental. It depends what you mean by complete control. If I choose to hit the letter m on my keyboard, am I not controlling the keyboard to the extent that it is controllable? You can control everything to the extent that it is controllable for you, obviously. But you can't have control over the individual constituents of the keyboard all at the same time in the exact way you want it. Not sure what you mean. The keyboard registers each keystroke that I intend. What more is there to control? For the keyboard, you don't need to, but the brain has no lever which you can use to make it do what you want, because, contrary to the keyboard, it has not been designed for that task - it is a holistic system, if you control a part of it (sticking a electrode into you brain for example), it still won't do what you want it to, as a whole. I agree that whatever you seek to control may have unintended consequences that would have to control with a second order of control, and so on, but the brain has millions of levers to make it do what you want. Pharmacology, political science, neuroscience, advertising, law enforcement, etc have identified many reliable methods of controlling the brain, either directly or indirectly. So to control it, you'd have to do it on a broad scale and a fundamental level. But we can't do that, and if someone could, the brain would just be a puppet steered by a puppeter and as such it wouldn't be a brain as working system, but rather a mass of flesh that is being manipulated. Right, that's what my Overlords Gambit is about. What are the mechanics of manipulation and what happens when they themselves are manipulated? Craig Weinberg wrote: The closest one can get to controlling the brain is to make it dysfunctional. It's a bit boring, but the most realistic answer is that both would fall unconscious, as that is the only result of exerting excessive control over a brain. It's the same result as if you try to totally control an ecosystem, or an economy. It'll destroy the natural order, as control is not a fundamental ordering principle. I generally agree. The thought experiment is to make people consider the fallacy of exclusively bottom up processing. I don't think that you could actually control a brain, I'm just saying that if you could, how do you get around the fact that it violates the assumption that only neurons can control the brain. I don't think that many people would claim that. You probably mean that the neurons control your behaviour, Controlling your behavior begins with controlling your brain. The people I have been debating with here do claim that neurons alone control brain as a whole, while I maintain that control is shared from the top down as well. The psyche can voluntarily control entire regions of the brain, and does so routinely. The neurons which make up the brain reflect that voluntary will rather than assemble an illusion of will through the mechanics of their biology. but I don't think many people believe that, either. Materialist would rather claim that the neurons are the physical cause for behaviour, and consciousness arises as a phenomenon alongside. Not the people I've talked to. They mostly all consider consciousness an epiphenomenon or emergent property of neurological function. I don't see how this is any problem with regards to control, it just is a claim of magic (mind coming out of non-mind, with no mechanism how this could happen) that is not even directly subjectively validated (like the magic of consciousness that we can directly witness). Some people argue that will is an illusion caused by neurological function. I'm showing that the neurological function can also be made into an epiphenomenon of conscious control. It has to be bi- directional. The point was to show that bottom up exclusivity fails, and that we must consider that our ordinary intuition of bi- directional, high-low processing interdependence may indeed be valid. Yes, I guessed that this was your point, but I am not sure that your thought experiment helps it. Neurons making thought is quite meaingless from the start, I don't see how it is affected by what controls what. It's not about thought per-se, it's just the idea of supervenience doesn't stand up to this thought experiment. If the brain is nothing but predictable, controllable, emulable functions, then what happens when we turn that control on itself? What happens when we, as the deterministic puppets of our neurology, control someone else's neurology. Whose puppet do they become then? It seems like you think of control or will as something fundamental, and I don't see any reason to assume that it is. That's a reasonable objection. If it's not fundamental, what is it
Re: Blindsight crushes absent qualia?
On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: The speech centres must, through a relay of neurons, receive information from the visual centres if the subject is to make any statement about what he sees. What makes you think that's the case? That's a blatant fallacy, isn't it? The windshield wipers must, through a relay of mechanical parts, receive music from the from the radio station Visual centers don't talk, and speech centers don't see. People see and talk. When you speak about what you see the information carried in the light that comes into your pupils must somehow get to the motor neurons controlling your vocal cords. How do you think this happens? If the visual centres are artificial, but producing the same neural outputs to the rest of the brain, They probably won't though. They can't because they don't feel the appropriate qualia to repspond to events in the same way over time. It depends how close they are to natural neurons, maybe even the neurons which are genetically specific to that individual. then the rest of the brain will respond as if vision is normal: If there is some part of the natural visual centers there, they may very well be able to use the artificial ones as a substitute - like a cane, but you can't use a cane as a substitute for your whole arm. the subject will say everything looks normal, he will grasp things normally with his hands, he will paint or write poetry about what he sees normally. His motor cortex cannot be aware that the visual cortex has changed, since the only awareness of the outside world the motor cortex can have must come through the surrounding tissue. I understand how you are thinking about it, but I think that would make sense if there were a such thing as functional equivalence of qualia, but qualia has no function. There is no way to know if you can make something that feels just like a neuron unless it is in fact a natural neuron. Since we know absolutely that we have experiences which cannot be observed directly in the tissue of the brain, there is no sense in imagining that replicating what we observe in the brain will not be missing crucial capacities which we can't anticipate. Even replacing simpler organs with actual human organs have a risk of rejection. Why would the brain, which is presumably infinitely more sensitive than a kidney, have no problem with a completely theoretical and unrealizably futuristic artificial device? We assume that the artificial device reproduces the pattern of neural firing and nothing else. Do you think that is *impossible*? Why? Sure, it might be impossible. Because the pattern is context dependent. If you have a bunch of separate heart cells, they will all beat regularly but not synchronized. So you make an artificial heart cell that beats regularly at the same interval as any of the other heart cells. When you put all of the separate heart cells in a dish together, they all will synchronize - except the artificial ones. If you were to put enough artificial heart cells in a living heart, you would cause an arrhythmia and kill the person who is using that heart to live. Cadrdiac myocytes in culture can synchronise their beating through direct contact. Artificial myocytes, if they were to replicate this behaviour, would have to be sensitive to the action potential of the natural myocytes. In general, any observable behaviour of the biological system that you want to replicate can be replicated by some technology. Qualia are not observable and it is an open question whether they can be replicated, so we assume that they can't and consider the consequences. The consequences are that a person's qualia might change but, because the inputs to the motor neurons controlling speech are the same, he would declare that nothing has changed. Neurons are orders of magnitude more interconnected than that. The idea that there is a fixed 'pattern of neural firing' which can be derived from a single neuron in isolation that can be extrapolated out to the brain as a whole is just factually incorrect. It's not some exotic wackiness that I dreamed up, it's actually not at all the way that the brain, or any living organism works. Neurons aren't just miniature brains, and brains aren't just a pile of neurons. It's like assuming that if you make a mannequin that acts like a nomadic hunter gatherer, you should have no trouble repopulating New York, London, and Hong Kong with a large group of them. I keep repeating that there is no pattern of neural firing to replicate. Whether a biological neuron fires or not depends on its present state and its inputs. A neuron that would fire if the temperature is 37 degrees and the extracellular potassium concentration is 5 mM might not fire if the temperature is 39 degrees and the potassium concentration 6 mM. The model of the neuron has to incorporate knowledge about how the neuron is
