date:20120219



On 20 Feb 2012, at 05:20, 1Z wrote:




On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb  wrote:
Comp says that any UM's
experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right?


Computaionalism or Bruno's comp?



We have already discussed this. Comp, as I use it, is a much weaker  
hypothesis than most forms of CTM, given that comp allows the  
substitution level to be arbitrarily low, and is based on the notion  
of generalized brain. So comp's logical consequences are automatically  
lifted on all forms of CTM, which presuppose some high subst. level.


Now comp makes almost all (not any) UMs' physics identical.

Computationalism is just epistemologically incompatible with  
materialism (weak materialism). We could say that comp makes the  
notion of primitive matter supernatural.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Quantum Computing breakthrough

2012-02-19 Thread Kim Jones

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/nanotransistor-breakthrough-to-offer-billion-times-faster-computer-20120220-1thqk.html

Kim Jones

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Re: The free will function



On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
> On Feb 19, 10:59 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 20, 3:35 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 19, 8:36 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
> > > > On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > > > > On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, 
> > > > > > > > but I would
> > > > > > > > like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many 
> > > > > > > > Worlds
> > > > > > > > Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every 
> > > > > > > > quantum state in
> > > > > > > > every particle interaction is realized in one parallel 
> > > > > > > > world/universe or
> > > > > > > > another, then there is no need for a god.
>
> > > > > > > Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with 
> > > > > > > all
> > > > > > > kinds of Gods.
>
> > > > > > QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
> > > > > > universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?
>
> > > > > Why would Gods be supernatural?
>
> > > > Why would bachelors be married?
>
> > > That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that
> > > the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from
> > > being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology.
> > > It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in
> > > MWI.
>
> > I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological
> > control means "god" or "supernaural">
>
> You don't have to agree, but if you are being honest you would have to
> admit that it's irrational. If I can stop your universe, make changes
> to your mind, your memory, your environment, the laws of your universe
> and then start it back up, how does that not make me your God?

You are natural. You can fire a horse through the air usign a giant
catapuilt, but I don't have to agree it's Pegasus.

> > > > > If comp is true, then when we create
> > > > > AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
> > > > > their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
> > > > > them other than Gods?
>
> > > > But we are natural so they would be wrong.
>
> > > They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though.
>
> > So? Is appearance reality?
>
> That is what comp says.

Bruno;s theory or the Computational Theory of Mind.

>The simulation is reality as far as the
> simulatees are concerned.

And if they are wrong, it still isn't the
real reality. You seem to be arguing
appearance=reality on the premise that
opinion=truth.

> Appearances may not reflect the truest level
> of the simulation, but appearances all reflect some believable
> representation of the simulation's function.

Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions
still aren't reality


> > > It doesn't
> > > matter who you call 'natural'.
>
> > It matters a great deal what you call anything.
>
> It would if the word natural had some relevant meaning, but even in
> food labeling, that term is notoriously vague. Natural means anything
> that exists. Natural plastic comes from natural petrochemicals.

If you know yourself to be natural, you cannot regard
your creations as supernatural. The denizens of a sim
might regard their programmer as God, but he knows better.


> > "Did  say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean
> > poisonous".
>
> Poisonous is a term with a more literal meaning. 'Natural' has no
> place in MWI, comp, or the anthropic principle. I'm surprised that you
> would use it. I thought most people here were on board with comp's
> view that silicon machines could be no less natural as conscious
> agents than living organisms.

What we are arguing about is the supernatural. You
do not rescue the supernatural by rendering the natural
meaningless.

> > > Now who is arguing a special case for
> > > natively evolved consciousness?
>
> > I don't know. Who?
>
> You.

No, you have misunderstood.

> > > > "The Goa'uld are false gods!" -- Stargate, passim.
>
> > > If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene
> > > and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to
> > > me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them.
>
> > "To me"= appearance =/= reality
>
> No. To me = my reality.
 The causes and conditions upon which my
> existence supervenes. If my programmer can make a Bengal tiger appear
> or disappear in my living room, then he is God in reality.

No he isn;t, because reality is where the sim is running and there
he is just a programmer.

>This is
> what comp says.

What do you mean by "comp".

>
> > > > >Computationalism says that we have no way of
> > > > > knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
> > > > > classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
>
> > > > > In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
> > > > > to be superna

Re: The free will function

On Feb 19, 10:59 pm, 1Z  wrote:
> On Feb 20, 3:35 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 19, 8:36 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > > > On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
> > > > > > > It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, 
> > > > > > > but I would
> > > > > > > like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
> > > > > > > Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum 
> > > > > > > state in
> > > > > > > every particle interaction is realized in one parallel 
> > > > > > > world/universe or
> > > > > > > another, then there is no need for a god.
>
> > > > > > Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
> > > > > > kinds of Gods.
>
> > > > > QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
> > > > > universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?
>
> > > > Why would Gods be supernatural?
>
> > > Why would bachelors be married?
>
> > That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that
> > the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from
> > being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology.
> > It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in
> > MWI.
>
> I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological
> control means "god" or "supernaural">

You don't have to agree, but if you are being honest you would have to
admit that it's irrational. If I can stop your universe, make changes
to your mind, your memory, your environment, the laws of your universe
and then start it back up, how does that not make me your God?

>
> > > > If comp is true, then when we create
> > > > AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
> > > > their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
> > > > them other than Gods?
>
> > > But we are natural so they would be wrong.
>
> > They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though.
>
> So? Is appearance reality?

That is what comp says. The simulation is reality as far as the
simulatees are concerned. Appearances may not reflect the truest level
of the simulation, but appearances all reflect some believable
representation of the simulation's function.

>
> > It doesn't
> > matter who you call 'natural'.
>
> It matters a great deal what you call anything.

It would if the word natural had some relevant meaning, but even in
food labeling, that term is notoriously vague. Natural means anything
that exists. Natural plastic comes from natural petrochemicals.

>
> "Did  say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean
> poisonous".

Poisonous is a term with a more literal meaning. 'Natural' has no
place in MWI, comp, or the anthropic principle. I'm surprised that you
would use it. I thought most people here were on board with comp's
view that silicon machines could be no less natural as conscious
agents than living organisms.

>
> > Now who is arguing a special case for
> > natively evolved consciousness?
>
> I don't know. Who?

You.

>
> > > "The Goa'uld are false gods!" -- Stargate, passim.
>
> > If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene
> > and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to
> > me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them.
>
> "To me"= appearance =/= reality

No. To me = my reality. The causes and conditions upon which my
existence supervenes. If my programmer can make a Bengal tiger appear
or disappear in my living room, then he is God in reality. This is
what comp says.

>
> > > >Computationalism says that we have no way of
> > > > knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
> > > > classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
>
> > > > In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
> > > > to be supernatural?
>
> > > There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses.
>
> > If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control
> > the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be
> > supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us.
>
> So? I never said that could no be apparently omnopotent
> control of a VM. I said it doesn't fit the defintition
> of supernatural.

That's why I say in MWI + Comp + Anthropic principle, there would
inevitably be an infinite number of universes in which simulations
exist with citizens to whom God is real and natural. There would also
be infinite MWI UM sub-universes where God is supernatural, sub-
universes where Gods are aliens, pirates, beercans, Pokemon, etc.

>
> > As
> > long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level
> > MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their
> > programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an
> > emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not?
>
> Th

Re: The free will function

2012-02-19 Thread acw


On 2/20/2012 03:35, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene
> and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to
> me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them.
>
I think you might be misunderstanding COMP. In COMP, your 1p is mostly 
identified with some true arithmetical sentences, some such sentences 
may talk about some particular physics being implemented by some UMs. If 
someone else runs an UM which partially computes your local physics 
(it's provably impossible to do so for the entire history tree of some 
observer), then they are merely observing some computation, sort of like 
looking into a window to your "universe". If they chose to intervene, 
they would be "entangling" the computations of a copy-of-you with their 
own, however the chance of being in such a computation becomes 
astronomically lower. COMP makes being in an universe/simulation 
controlled by interventionist "gods" a very low probability event. Also, 
the longer the simulation + arbitrary changes keep going on, the lower 
the chance that you won't just end up in a version where nobody is 
changing your computations (what's simpler? "program A ran by UM" or 
"program A ran by UM ran by UM2 ran by ..."). There is however one way 
for such a "god" (a better term I heard used for such a being would be a 
"Matrix Lord") to make his actions more likely to be experienced by you: 
simulate 'you'(as copied from his earlier digital physics simulation) in 
his own world. Also, COMP makes pure digital physics less likely 
locally, and false globally.
Also, if said "Matrix Lord" decided to kill himself in his level of 
reality, he might have some unusual continuations over which he has no 
control over, same would be for the observer within his simulation. COMP 
makes any interventionist "god"'s interventions very less likely to be 
experienced and in the limit, an observer will always escape such control.


The main idea is to look at all possible consistent continuations within 
the UD, not just at what's possible within some local digital physics.


Also, if there is nothing "supernatural" that can be experienced by an 
observer with a computable body: it's all somewhere in the UD, which 
itself is in arithmetic. However, if the observer's body is not 
computable, things are weirder, but that's non-COMP.

>>
>>> Computationalism says that we have no way of
>>> knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
>>> classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
>>
>>> In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
>>> to be supernatural?
>>
>> There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses.
>
> If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control
> the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be
> supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us. As
> long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level
> MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their
> programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an
> emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not? They become
> the second class citizens that I am criticized for suggesting.
>
Controlling the content of the tape means that the UM no longer runs 
that one particular program that it was running, but something else 
entangled with your own computations (so UM0 becomes UM1 running 
modified UM0). Omnipotence is non-sense if it claims to change the 
consequences of the Church-Turing Thesis. CTT is either false or true, 
it can't be changed on a whim.


Also, consciousness isn't associated with the physical state of the 
tape: MGA shows that it's not the case. It's associated with abstract 
computations which may also be contained in a physical body, although 
the notion of the physical itself becomes rather abstract.


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Re: The free will function



On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
> On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb  wrote:
>  Comp says that any UM's
> experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right?
>
Computaionalism or Bruno's comp?

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Re: The free will function

On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb  wrote:

>
> > What you suggest in saying that no event can be known to be
> > supernatural is the same as saying that all video games would have to
> > have the same basic rules.
>
> No all MWI have the same basic rules.  MWI is an interpretation of quantum 
> mechanics,
> which supplies the basic rules.

But who says that we live in a primitive MWI universe and not a UM-WMI
simulation with simulated quantum mechanics? Comp says that any UM's
experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right?

>
> > It's an arbitrary deus ex machina to plug
> > the hole in the two theories, which, if both were true, clearly make
> > the certain epistemology of primitive physics in any universe by it's
> > inhabitants inaccessible.
>
> > The only way out of it that I can see is to acknowledge that it is
> > possible for 'sense' to transcend logic
>
> "Transcend logic" means what?  Logic is just the consistency of a set of 
> propositions
> under an inference rule.  Perception is some else entirely.

Consistency, sets, propositions, inference, and rules all supervene
upon sense. Sense includes logic, conscious perception, implicit
presumptions, etc. It means that sense must, on some level see through
comp to a primitive universal realism or else Gods can exist.

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > and therefore at least
> > indirectly access a level of primitive truth through physics, which is
> > exactly what multisense realism predicts. This corresponds to our
> > ordinary experience of implicit 'seems like' epistemology which makes
> > our perceptions specular participation in a real human world rather
> > than a solipsistic simulation.
>
> >>> Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
> >>> quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
> >>> appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.
> >> And you could be a simulation of a brain in a vat that has just fluctuated 
> >> into existence
> >> as a Boltzmann brain.  This is different from a universe in a  multiverse.
> > Yes, but I'm saying that through comp, we cannot know that we are in a
> > universe at all. We could be programs in someone else's universe, and
> > our arithmetic and logic the meaningless hallucinations of a brain
> > simulation that makes us feel our logic makes sense by stimulating the
> > corresponding regions of our brains with the appropriate virtual
> > chemistry.
>
> >>   It is also
> >> cognitively unstable; i.e. there is no way to act as if it's true.
> > In a comp simulation, there is no truth, only internal consistency,
> > which could be easily simulated by disabling the ability to detect
> > continuity errors.
>
> In a simulation there's no need for internal consistency either.  Which is 
> why there's no
> way to act as if it's true...so it's epistemologically and practically 
> irrelevant.

I didn't say there was a need for internal consistency. I said that
internal consistency is the closest epistemology possible to truth
within a comp simulation.

Craig

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Re: The free will function



On Feb 20, 3:35 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
> On Feb 19, 8:36 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
> > > > > > It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but 
> > > > > > I would
> > > > > > like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
> > > > > > Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum 
> > > > > > state in
> > > > > > every particle interaction is realized in one parallel 
> > > > > > world/universe or
> > > > > > another, then there is no need for a god.
>
> > > > > Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
> > > > > kinds of Gods.
>
> > > > QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
> > > > universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?
>
> > > Why would Gods be supernatural?
>
> > Why would bachelors be married?
>
> That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that
> the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from
> being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology.
> It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in
> MWI.

I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological
control means "god" or "supernaural">

> > > If comp is true, then when we create
> > > AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
> > > their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
> > > them other than Gods?
>
> > But we are natural so they would be wrong.
>
> They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though.

So? Is appearance reality?

> It doesn't
> matter who you call 'natural'.

It matters a great deal what you call anything.

"Did  say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean
poisonous".

> Now who is arguing a special case for
> natively evolved consciousness?


I don't know. Who?

> > "The Goa'uld are false gods!" -- Stargate, passim.
>
> If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene
> and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to
> me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them.

"To me"= appearance =/= reality

> > >Computationalism says that we have no way of
> > > knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
> > > classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
>
> > > In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
> > > to be supernatural?
>
> > There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses.
>
> If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control
> the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be
> supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us.

So? I never said that could no be apparently omnopotent
control of a VM. I said it doesn't fit the defintition
of supernatural.

> As
> long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level
> MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their
> programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an
> emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not?

There is a conceptual distinction between the natural and the
supernatural in MWI and computaitonl multiverses, and
such that the extension of the concept "superntatural"
could likely be empty.

>They become
> the second class citizens that I am criticized for suggesting.
>
>
>
> > > Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
> > > quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
> > > appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.
> > Appearance =/= reality.
>
> I agree, but comp does not. In comp, reality is only deep appearance.

Oh good grief. In comp, reality is the lab where the simulation  is
running.

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Re: The free will function

2012-02-19 Thread meekerdb


On 2/19/2012 7:16 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Feb 19, 8:29 pm, meekerdb  wrote:

On 2/19/2012 5:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:










On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Zwrote:

It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would
like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in
every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or
another, then there is no need for a god.

Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
kinds of Gods.

QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?

Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create
AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
them other than Gods? Computationalism says that we have no way of
knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
to be supernatural?

In MWI the infinite universes all still the same physics and so the same 
statistics.  No
event can be *known* to be supernatural; but a very improbable event is still 
very improbable.

Improbable is meaningless with the anthropic principle. The set of MWI
universes with Gods would have the same physics and statistics as the
rest of the MWI universes, but within these MWIGs the UMs which the
Gods have learned to build and program would have the physics of the
Gods' choosing since the UMs are actually living in a nested virtual
universe.

What you suggest in saying that no event can be known to be
supernatural is the same as saying that all video games would have to
have the same basic rules.


No all MWI have the same basic rules.  MWI is an interpretation of quantum mechanics, 
which supplies the basic rules.



It's an arbitrary deus ex machina to plug
the hole in the two theories, which, if both were true, clearly make
the certain epistemology of primitive physics in any universe by it's
inhabitants inaccessible.

The only way out of it that I can see is to acknowledge that it is
possible for 'sense' to transcend logic


"Transcend logic" means what?  Logic is just the consistency of a set of propositions 
under an inference rule.  Perception is some else entirely.



and therefore at least
indirectly access a level of primitive truth through physics, which is
exactly what multisense realism predicts. This corresponds to our
ordinary experience of implicit 'seems like' epistemology which makes
our perceptions specular participation in a real human world rather
than a solipsistic simulation.


Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.

And you could be a simulation of a brain in a vat that has just fluctuated into 
existence
as a Boltzmann brain.  This is different from a universe in a  multiverse.

Yes, but I'm saying that through comp, we cannot know that we are in a
universe at all. We could be programs in someone else's universe, and
our arithmetic and logic the meaningless hallucinations of a brain
simulation that makes us feel our logic makes sense by stimulating the
corresponding regions of our brains with the appropriate virtual
chemistry.


  It is also
cognitively unstable; i.e. there is no way to act as if it's true.

In a comp simulation, there is no truth, only internal consistency,
which could be easily simulated by disabling the ability to detect
continuity errors.


In a simulation there's no need for internal consistency either.  Which is why there's no 
way to act as if it's true...so it's epistemologically and practically irrelevant.


Brent



Craig



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Re: The free will function

On Feb 19, 8:36 pm, 1Z  wrote:
> On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
> > > > > It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I 
> > > > > would
> > > > > like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
> > > > > Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum 
> > > > > state in
> > > > > every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe 
> > > > > or
> > > > > another, then there is no need for a god.
>
> > > > Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
> > > > kinds of Gods.
>
> > > QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
> > > universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?
>
> > Why would Gods be supernatural?
>
> Why would bachelors be married?

That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that
the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from
being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology.
It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in
MWI.

>
> > If comp is true, then when we create
> > AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
> > their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
> > them other than Gods?
>
> But we are natural so they would be wrong.

They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. It doesn't
matter who you call 'natural'. Now who is arguing a special case for
natively evolved consciousness?

>
> "The Goa'uld are false gods!" -- Stargate, passim.

If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene
and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to
me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them.

>
> >Computationalism says that we have no way of
> > knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
> > classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
>
> > In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
> > to be supernatural?
>
> There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses.

If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control
the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be
supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us. As
long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level
MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their
programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an
emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not? They become
the second class citizens that I am criticized for suggesting.

>
> > Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
> > quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
> > appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.

> Appearance =/= reality.

I agree, but comp does not. In comp, reality is only deep appearance.

Craig

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Re: The free will function

On Feb 19, 8:29 pm, meekerdb  wrote:
> On 2/19/2012 5:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
>  It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I 
>  would
>  like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
>  Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state 
>  in
>  every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or
>  another, then there is no need for a god.
> >>> Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
> >>> kinds of Gods.
>
> >> QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
> >> universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?
> > Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create
> > AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
> > their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
> > them other than Gods? Computationalism says that we have no way of
> > knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
> > classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
>
> > In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
> > to be supernatural?
>
> In MWI the infinite universes all still the same physics and so the same 
> statistics.  No
> event can be *known* to be supernatural; but a very improbable event is still 
> very improbable.

Improbable is meaningless with the anthropic principle. The set of MWI
universes with Gods would have the same physics and statistics as the
rest of the MWI universes, but within these MWIGs the UMs which the
Gods have learned to build and program would have the physics of the
Gods' choosing since the UMs are actually living in a nested virtual
universe.

What you suggest in saying that no event can be known to be
supernatural is the same as saying that all video games would have to
have the same basic rules. It's an arbitrary deus ex machina to plug
the hole in the two theories, which, if both were true, clearly make
the certain epistemology of primitive physics in any universe by it's
inhabitants inaccessible.

The only way out of it that I can see is to acknowledge that it is
possible for 'sense' to transcend logic and therefore at least
indirectly access a level of primitive truth through physics, which is
exactly what multisense realism predicts. This corresponds to our
ordinary experience of implicit 'seems like' epistemology which makes
our perceptions specular participation in a real human world rather
than a solipsistic simulation.

>
> > Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
> > quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
> > appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.
>
> And you could be a simulation of a brain in a vat that has just fluctuated 
> into existence
> as a Boltzmann brain.  This is different from a universe in a  multiverse.

Yes, but I'm saying that through comp, we cannot know that we are in a
universe at all. We could be programs in someone else's universe, and
our arithmetic and logic the meaningless hallucinations of a brain
simulation that makes us feel our logic makes sense by stimulating the
corresponding regions of our brains with the appropriate virtual
chemistry.

> It is also
> cognitively unstable; i.e. there is no way to act as if it's true.

In a comp simulation, there is no truth, only internal consistency,
which could be easily simulated by disabling the ability to detect
continuity errors.

Craig

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Re: The free will function



On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
> On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z  wrote:
>
> > > > It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I 
> > > > would
> > > > like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
> > > > Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state 
> > > > in
> > > > every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or
> > > > another, then there is no need for a god.
>
> > > Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
> > > kinds of Gods.
>
> > QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
> > universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?
>
> Why would Gods be supernatural?

Why would bachelors be married?

> If comp is true, then when we create
> AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
> their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
> them other than Gods?

But we are natural so they would be wrong.

"The Goa'uld are false gods!" -- Stargate, passim.

>Computationalism says that we have no way of
> knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
> classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
>
> In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
> to be supernatural?

There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses.

> Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
> quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
> appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.
>
> Craig

Appearance =/= reality.

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Re: The free will function

2012-02-19 Thread meekerdb

On 2/19/2012 5:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z wrote:

It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would
like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in
every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or
another, then there is no need for a god.

Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
kinds of Gods.

QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?

Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create
AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
them other than Gods? Computationalism says that we have no way of
knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.

In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
to be supernatural?

In MWI the infinite universes all still the same physics and so the same statistics. No
event can be *known* to be supernatural; but a very improbable event is still very improbable.

Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.

And you could be a simulation of a brain in a vat that has just fluctuated into existence
as a Boltzmann brain. This is different from a universe in a multiverse. It is also
cognitively unstable; i.e. there is no way to act as if it's true.

Brent

Craig

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Re: The free will function

On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z  wrote:

> > > It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would
> > > like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
> > > Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in
> > > every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or
> > > another, then there is no need for a god.
>

> > Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
> > kinds of Gods.

>
>
> QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
> universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification?

Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create
AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram
their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to
them other than Gods? Computationalism says that we have no way of
knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.

In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
to be supernatural? Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.

Craig

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Re: The free will function

On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z  wrote:
> On Feb 19, 4:52 pm, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > On Feb 18, 5:36 pm, Richard Ruquist  wrote:
>
> > > It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would
> > > like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
> > > Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in
> > > every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or
> > > another, then there is no need for a god.
>
> > Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
> > kinds of Gods.
>
> > Craig
>
> QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
> universe. Are you
>
> familiar with Tegmark's classification?

Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create
AI beings which we have power over to stop, start, and reprogram them
as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other
than Gods? Comp says that we have no way of knowing that has not
happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands
that this is inevitable.

In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
to be supernatural. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual
quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who
appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to.

Craig

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Re: COMP theology

On 19 Feb 2012, at 06:16, John Clark wrote:

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 5:53 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

> That solipsism. I don't see why you believe that people have to  
believe in comp to avoid solipsism.

Everybody, when not arguing philosophy on the internet, believes  
that physical actions effect consciousness and consciousness effects  
physical actions.

When you work on the mind body problem, you cannot take any of those  
expressions for granted.
It would just mean that you are not interested, or perhaps aware of,  
the mind body problem.

In particular it is important to conceive that comp might be false. As  
a scientist, we cannot know that. And then there is the problem of the  
level of substitution, where two different form of computationalism  
can be quite opposed (very high level versus very low level).

Everybody also believes that a specific sort of physical action,  
intelligent behavior, indicates consciousness. If you accept those 2  
things, and everybody this side of a loony bin not only accepts it  
they use it every hour of their waking life, then the Turing Test  
and everything else you call "comp" can be derived from that. By the  
way, I
say "waking life" because when people are sleeping they do not  
behave intelligently so I assume they are not conscious.

Intelligent behavior and consciousness might be related, but should  
not be equated, because those are different things.
Note that the theory of dreams by Maury, asserting that we are  
conscious of the dream at the recollection we do when awaken has been  
debunked by the work of Jouvet, Laberge, Dement, and that it is  
generally accepted that we are conscious during the dreams. The same  
for some comatose state. That shows that consciousness can be  
independent of macro-behavior. And for the micro-behavior it will  
depend on the choice of a substitution level.

Actually I argue that comp, when taken seriously enough, has to reduce  
physics to the 'theology of numbers', like biochemistry can be said to  
have been reduced to quantum mechanics. It makes comp refutable, by  
comparing the physics derived from machine's theology with the physics  
inferred from empirical observations.

Sentences about machines can be arithmetized (Gödel, Feferman,  
Löb, ... Solovay).
Machines' theology is just the true sentences. Machine can prove a  
part, intuit a part, observe a part and infer a part of it.

> I find comp much more plausible than non-comp. I don't want at all  
defend non-comp, but my point is logical: we don't know, and  
probably cannot know, that comp is true, so it might be false.

I agree with that. Except for pure mathematics you can not know  
anything without doubt. I think.

I would say except for pure arithmetic. Beyond arithmetic you can  
already doubt.

> It is not logically impossible that we are alpha-machines, with  
alpha strictly bigger than omega.

If so then it is very odd indeed that we can not even deal with  
large but FINITE integers very well; even the smallest computer can  
operate with them far far better than we can.

It is a very good argument of plausibility of mechanism. One problem  
with this is that we can define what we means by finite, without using  
some prealable inuition of what is is. This is no problem for applying  
comp and numbers, but it is a problem for the mind-body problem, and  
it forces us to assume some axioms of arithmetic explicitly.

> if we are alpha-machine, we will not survive an omega-substitution.

It's also very odd that the real numbers were not intuitively  
obvious to everybody but instead were only discovered a few hundred  
years ago.

The real numbers are not that simple. They have properties which can  
depend on the theory used to handle them. They have simple topologies  
and logic, and are very useful, but there is not unanimity of what  
they are, and if they exist, or how. Classical math and intuitionist  
math diverge seriously on them. Comp clarify this by making their  
existence necessary in the epistemology and mandatory in the ontology.
For my comp purpose, we can identify real numbers, subsets of N, or  
the set of total functions from N to N or or to {0, 1}.

Those are very big sets, which ontology and nature is debatable.

It's even stranger that non-computable numbers were only discovered  
by Turing in the 1930's

Emil Post discovered them in 1922. Others were close.

and we are not one bit better at actually pointing to one (even  
though nearly all real numbers are non computable) than digital  
computers.

We can point to many "non computable real number", called non  
computable function in "modern" computability theory.
The function sending i on 0 if phi_i(i) converges and i on 1 if  
phi_i(i) does not converge is not computable, for any enumeration  
phi_i of the partial computable functions. There are many others, and  
they are organized into complexity classes, or degree of insol

Re: The thermodynamics of computation

2012-02-19 Thread Russell Standish

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 11:21:01AM -0500, John Clark wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 5:32 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi  wrote:
> 
> >
> > > If one well defines a thought experiment with the Maxwell's demon, then
> > it is quite clear that such thing does not exist. Why then to spend on it
> > so much time?
> 
> 
> Maxwell's demon is possible in classical physics and it was not clear that
> quantum mechanics made it impossible until 1929 when Leo Szilard proved
> that to be the case. And understanding just why it can not exist aids in
> understanding the relationship between energy information entropy and
> reversibility. Maxwell's demon was the starting point for Rolf Landauer's
> discovery in 1960 that erasing information always requires energy and
> increases entropy because it's thermodynamically irreversible.
> 

Good answer John. Does anyone want to pick on Evgeni's comments about
Chris Adami's book?

It weird, because Chris's book gives some of the bext examples of the
application of statistical physics to artificial life. In particular,
his observation that mutation should play an analogous role to
temperature in an evolutionary process, and that several evolutionary
regimes exist as mutation is varied, corresponding to phase
transitions in materials.

This phenomena I have observed in my own evolutionary
experiments. Plus, it appears to be correlated to Mark Bedau's
evolutionary classes.

This is the paper I usually refer to, although his ideas have evolved
somewhat since 1998:

M. A. Bedau, E. Snyder, N. H. Packard. 1998. A Classification of
Long-Term Evolutionary Dynamics. In C. Adami, R. Belew, H. Kitano, and
C. Taylor, eds., Artificial Life VI, pp. 228-237. Cambridge: MIT
Press. Also published as Working Paper No.98-03-025, Santa Fe
Institute, Santa Fe, NM.

http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/alife6.pdf

-- 

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Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
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Re: The free will function



On Feb 19, 4:52 pm, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
> On Feb 18, 5:36 pm, Richard Ruquist  wrote:
>
> > It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would
> > like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
> > Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in
> > every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or
> > another, then there is no need for a god.
>
> Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
> kinds of Gods.
>
> Craig

QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any
universe. Are you

familiar with Tegmark's classification?

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Re: The free will function

On Feb 18, 5:36 pm, Richard Ruquist  wrote:
> It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would
> like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds
> Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in
> every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or
> another, then there is no need for a god.

Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all
kinds of Gods.

Craig

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Re: The thermodynamics of computation

2012-02-19 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi


On 19.02.2012 17:21 John Clark said the following:

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 5:32 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi
wrote:




If one well defines a thought experiment with the Maxwell's
demon, then

it is quite clear that such thing does not exist. Why then to spend
on it so much time?



Maxwell's demon is possible in classical physics and it was not clear


I am not sure I understand what do you mean. How Maxwell's demon is 
possible in classical physics? I personally would say that Maxwell's 
demon could work just within a brain of some crazy scientist.


Evgenii


that quantum mechanics made it impossible until 1929 when Leo Szilard
proved that to be the case. And understanding just why it can not
exist aids in understanding the relationship between energy
information entropy and reversibility. Maxwell's demon was the
starting point for Rolf Landauer's discovery in 1960 that erasing
information always requires energy and increases entropy because it's
thermodynamically irreversible.

The bottom line is that Maxwell's demon would work if it had
information on when to open and close its shutter, if it had that
information it could decrease the pressure on one side of a tank
filled with gas and increase it on the other without expending
appreciable energy and use that pressure difference to do work.
However the stumbling block is the information, it would take more
energy to obtain that information than you'd get from that work.
Actually by pure chance Maxwell's demon can work, but only very very
rarely and only for a very very short time.

John K Clark **


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Re: The free will function

On Feb 18, 1:35 pm, John Clark  wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012  Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > > It's not trying to explain how God did it though, it gets around that by
> > collapsing all whats and hows into a single overarching Who and Why.
>
> Exactly, religion takes everything we don't understand and puts it into a
> box, it then writes "God" on a label and sticks it on the box and decrees
> that the problem is now solved. This is progress?

I didn't say it was progress. I'm explaining the symmetry of
anthropomorphism and mechanemorphism as incomplete cosmologies rooted
in natural cognitive bias, not arguing for one over the other.
Progress is transcending the bias, or understanding how its modulation
is a tool.

> If the physicists at CERN
> announced that all life including human life was created by the Klogknee
> Field but didn't even attempt to explain how it had done this miraculous
> thing would you be satisfied? I wouldn't be.

They will name it the Higgs instead, and then you will be satisfied. I
would be too, because I assume they know what they are doing, not
because it has been proved to me in some kind of logically satisfying
way.

>
> When Charles Darwin wrote his book in 1859 he didn't just say Evolution is
> the key to understanding life he explained how, he explained how it could
> lead to the origin of species; and that's why he was the greatest scientist
> who ever lived and that is the difference between science and religion.

Species = life. Nothing in the Origin of Species pertains to anything
outside of biology. I don't know what your opinion of the greatness of
Darwin is supposed to add. Darwin was great, as was Newton, Descartes,
Bacon, Einstein, etc. All of them stood on the shoulders of earlier
giants of natural philosophy, theology, and religion. Science is the
flowering of religion, not the antidote.

>
> > The mechanemorphic model is certainly a tremendous improvement over the
> > anthropmorphic but it is still half wrong. [...] The biggest problem for me
> > with the God idea is that it is arbitrarily humanoid.
>
> I don't dislike the God theory because of anthropomorphism, although I'm
> not a big fan of long white beards myself I feel than any being should have
> a right to facial hair if He fancies that sort of thing. The reason I
> dislike the God theory is that it explains absolutely nothing.

God isn't a theory, it is a character in a story. It does not address
explanation, it specifically makes explanation irrelevant in favor of
identification with the miraculous. It make be the case that this
particular story winds up freeing up resources in the wandering,
wondering primitive mind, allowing focus on political organization and
unleashing crusading energies into the culture. Religion is a
political technology. It is a weapon as powerful and useful as early
flint knapped knives. We have better knives now, and more advanced
tools and weapons, but they all share the original DNA of religion;
applied storytelling - sensemaking.

Like it or not, religion is the universal dynamo which generates
civilization. Science is a product of civilization. No paleolithic
Charles Darwin would have stood a chance to convince a bunch of
illiterates to build a laboratory or a school. Popular support
requires passionate subjective identification. Sex, horror, torture,
supernatural characters, etc. This is who we are. Not logical
machines.

>
> > > If we were to take the worldview of mechanism literally, we would have
> > no idea who we were, nor would we care.
>
> I don't know what this means.

It means that if we literally believe that all we are is molecular
processes, then there could be no reason to prefer any one set of
processes or outcomes over another. There would be no difference
between one opinion and another or one person and another. We would be
empty puppets of circumstance, completely alienated from ourselves,
other people, and nature.

>
> > I don't see that it would be a problem for God to make physics
>
> Great, so how did He do it? I'm all ears!

Let there be Physics!

>
> > I can make a castle out of sand, so God can make a universe out of physics
>
> I don't know about you but I can explain how I made a castle out of sand,
> so why can't God do what I can.

I don't think that you can explain how 'you' can do anything in the
first place. How do you fire your neurons to move your hand to scoop
the sand?

> If' you're puzzled how something as
> marvelous and complex as X came to be and someone tells you that Y made it
> but cannot even begin to explain how it did so and also cannot explain how
> Y came to be in the first place then that "explanation" has not really
> rendered you any the wiser. It's often said that science can't explain
> everything and that's true, but religion can't explain ANYTHING.

You misunderstand the purpose of religion. It isn't supposed to
explain anything, it is supposed to unify human beings to a common
sense and motive for political purposes. Y

Re: The thermodynamics of computation

2012-02-19 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 5:32 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi  wrote:

>
> > If one well defines a thought experiment with the Maxwell's demon, then
> it is quite clear that such thing does not exist. Why then to spend on it
> so much time?


Maxwell's demon is possible in classical physics and it was not clear that
quantum mechanics made it impossible until 1929 when Leo Szilard proved
that to be the case. And understanding just why it can not exist aids in
understanding the relationship between energy information entropy and
reversibility. Maxwell's demon was the starting point for Rolf Landauer's
discovery in 1960 that erasing information always requires energy and
increases entropy because it's thermodynamically irreversible.

The bottom line is that Maxwell's demon would work if it had information on
when to open and close its shutter, if it had that information it could
decrease the pressure on one side of a tank filled with gas and increase it
on the other without expending appreciable energy and use that pressure
difference to do work. However the stumbling block is the information, it
would take more energy to obtain that information than you'd get from that
work. Actually by pure chance Maxwell's demon can work, but only very very
rarely and only for a very very short time.

  John K Clark
**








>
>
>
>>> 3) Reversible chemical reactions and reversible thermodynamic
>>> processes
>>>
>>> I think that the author misuses the term reversible in a sense
>>> that the word has completely different meaning in thermodynamics
>>> and in chemistry. In thermodynamics, the reversible process implies
>>> that the entropy of the system and surrounding does not change
>>> (the entropy of the Universe remains constant). In chemistry, a
>>> term reversible reaction means we have two reactions (forward and
>>> backward) running in parallel. Thereafter, by playing with
>>> conditions we could transform A to B and then B back to A.
>>> However, when a reversible chemical reaction takes place it is
>>> impossible to implement it as a reversible thermodynamic process.
>>> Hence a reversible chemical reaction is not thermodynamically
>>> reversible.
>>>
>>>
>> A reversible computation has the same meaning of reversible as in
>> thermodynamics. Change of entropy is zero. Information is conserved.
>> Reversible computations can never erase memory locations, for
>> instance, or implement assignment.
>>
>
> It is hard to say for sure what the author meant. Let me first quote him.
>
> p. 912(8) "It is well known that all chemical reaction are in principle
> reversible: the same Brownian motion that accomplishes the forward reaction
> also sometimes brings product molecules together, pushes them backward
> through the transition state, and lets them emerge as reactant molecules."
>
> p. 934(30) "As indicated before, the synthesis of RNA by RNA polymerase is
> a logically reversible copying operations, and under appropriate
> (nonphysiological) conditions, it could be carried out at an energy cost of
> less than kT per nucleotide."
>
> My understanding was that in the first quote reversible has the meaning
> from chemistry. Let us consider for example a reaction
>
> A = B
>
> with the forward reaction rate of 1000 and the backward reaction rate of
> 1. Then we can imagine two different initial states
>
> 1) C(A) = 1, C(B) = 0
> 2) C(A) = 0, C(B) = 1
>
> The equilibrium state will be the same, but we reach it from different
> sides. In both cases however the process will be thermodynamically
> irreversible.
>
> My point was that one word has different meanings and it would be good to
> understand what has been meant.
>
>
>  4) Algorithmic entropy
>>>
>>> I have missed the point on the connection between the algorithmic
>>> entropy and thermodynamic entropy. Here would be good to be back
>>> to the Jason's example from about his work on secure pseudo-random
>>> number generators
>>>
>>> http://csrc.nist.gov/**publications/nistpubs/800-90A/**SP800-90A.pdf
>>>
>>> What a thermodynamic system should be considered at all here?
>>>
>>> In my view, the algorithm is independent of implementation
>>> details. It seems that this is one of the points at this list when
>>> people claim that it could be possible to make a conscious robot.
>>> Yet, how then the thermodynamic entropy could be connected with
>>> the algorithmic entropy?
>>>
>>
>> That seems like a non-sequitur. Could you expand on your thinking
>> please?
>>
>
> I have read once more the section 6 "Algorithmic entropy and
> thermodynamics" (p. 936 (30)) from the paper. I should confess that I do
> not know exactly what the author meant with the algorithmic entropy. My
> reading was
>
> algorithmic entropy == entropy of an algorithm
>
> and I have considered and will stick to this meaning.
>
> In my understanding, when we consider an algorithm, this is a pure IT
> construct, that does not depend whether I will implement

Re: The free will function


John,

On 18 Feb 2012, at 22:54, John Mikes wrote:


A bit from 'outside the box':
the 'religious' ideas emerged from the 'awe' how very ancient apes  
looked at the world. It went through innumerable changes to reach a  
tribe with writing skills and the Bible was established saving  
positive attitudes of the Super Naturals (whatever THEY were) as  
'Good Lord' FOR ME. (Some polytheistics also included vile  
characteristics, but never mind that). In Mono (or almost mono) it  
is MY GOD who I ask to destroy MY enemies - and HeSheIt does it.
My enemy, however asks (the same?) God to destroy ME and HIS GOOD  
LORD does just that.
Over the past 5000+ years the 5000+th version of such Scriptures  
still attracts faithful.
Surprisingly well educated and reasonably smart people still take  
such hearsay for basic knowledge.



YES. The reason is probably that we are still under 1500 years of  
making the field taboo.
(it is normal, for making it taboo permits easily the control of  
majorities by minorities. It makes social sense).




As we got smarter,


That's what *we* think. I'm not sure of that. (But that's another  
topic). We do accumulate discoveries and tools, though.




the main questions concentrated on Creation and Teleology. With all  
the mental training we underwent  we still have no better image than  
the bearded old man in a white nightgown?


Fairy tales for adults.




I propose a different image:
The World (Everything) is an Infinite Complexity.


I would prefer, with Plotinus, Utter Simplicity.

I can argue that comp just gives that. God is arithmetical truth, and  
that is really the Pythagorean Simplicity. It is almost magically  
simple, for the concept can be understood by everyone (except perhaps  
philosophers).


Yet, it rejoins your idea of Infinite Complexity, because this is how  
the simple arithmetical truth can only appear from the point of view  
of the number or machine living inside it.




Never mind how it occurred, it is WAY beyond our mental capabilities  
even to imagine it.


Right. (Well I can't know that, but it is meta-right, which I will  
define by "implied by comp").


I will use the prefix "meta-" to mean "implied by the comp hypothesis".



Some features transpired into human minds (=mental functions we  
apply by our tool - the brain) and Homo rounded it up continually  
into a MODEL of the TOTAL, explaining ALL questionable features from  
WITHIN it.


And then you have the bombs. The universal numbers, which makes  
arithmetical truth beyond the grasp of our (machine) theories. We meta- 
discover that we, the machines, can only scratch the surface of even  
"just" arithmetical truth. Creative bombs, not destructive bombs, but  
they put mess by adding complexity by their attempts to understand.
It will still take time before the humans stop trying to name the ONE.  
Indeed.





The 'Infinite Complexity' includes more and we have no access to the  
'beyond our model' features, nor how they (their relations?) may be  
'organized', - BUT there is an easy way: we imagine it in OUR ways,  
i.e. anthropocentrically as 'processing topics'. (They may be  
completely different, relations of aspects, or even descriptions  
beyond our present vocabulary.)


The irrationalists do this, or anyone pretending to know the truth.




Such 'imaging' (?) makes the debate about 'name' or 'idea' of 'G-O- 
D' baseless and superfluous.


The comp GOD, that is arithmetical truth, is not nameable by the  
machine, and it is a key feature of their theology.


The comp theology is consistent by remaining scientific. It does not  
assert any truth, but consequences of a very strong hypothesis: comp.






There are some idioms in the discussion I don't care about:
'Random' - if such exists, we have no physical (or other observed)  
order to establish.


Comp implies first person randomness, by the many embedding of the  
iterated self-duplications in arithmetic, more easily seen in the UD  
(The tiny Sigma_1 part of arithmetic).



'Evolution': every change occurs within the feasibility of the  
'givens' - some survive, some don't.


This is relative, it might be that some survive here, some survive  
else where. We don't know, but comp, like QM, are everything-type of  
theories, with the indexical actualisation of all possibilities  
(relative arithmetical consistencies), so it favors the idea that "not  
surviving"  might not be a realist first person option. Despite the  
third person appearances, which makes indeed making believe to some  
machine that they evolve.




Occasional snapshots of our science don't even detect the completely  
unsuccessful.
'Free Will': cousin of 'random', we, as products of the Infinite  
Complexity have circumstances to live within and cannot even  
'decide' outside the givens. Some such decisions are conscious, some  
are not.

Etc.
I really enjoyed the dicussion


Me to :)

Best,

Bruno




John Mikes
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 1:35 PM, John Cla

Re: COMP theology

2012-02-19 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi


On 19.02.2012 15:52 Bruno Marchal said the following:
...

Both Cantor and Gödel used the word theology

...

Could you please cite these works?

By the way, recently I have listened to the course Theorien der Wahrheit 
(Theories of truth) by Prof Hoenen. Among other works he has discussed 
Logische Untersuchungen (Logical Investigations) by Gottlob Frege and 
his famous das dritte Reich (the third Reich, no doubt has nothing to do 
with Hitler).


The theology as such has been mentioned as well, as Prof Hoenen has paid 
a lot of attention to Anselm von Canterbury, Über die Wahrheit (On 
Truth). Prof Hoenen has shown that many other works has been influenced 
(directly or indirectly) by Anselm.


The list of considered texts in the course is here

http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/01/theorien-der-wahrheit.html

Evgenii


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Everythingness Perturbed: Function, Experience, and Context

Since every organism produces itself from a single dividing cell, it
can be said that there is a single history which unites that body back
to the cellular level. Atoms do not literally reproduce by themselves
so that a machine that is assembled has a no single history to unite
it.

This becomes more relevant if we suppose that experience arises as a
collected and collective unity of sequence, a many-to-one of
integrated participation which is not literal and quantitative, but
figurative, qualitative, and iconic. It is meaning and world.

A machine is an abstraction which takes physical history for granted.
When executed in a material assembly, there is no literal
reproduction, only separate parts brought together unintentionally
(from the point of view of the parts) to imitate the function of a
specialized organic form.

I think that where comp/functionalist assumptions fail is in the
misunderstanding of meaning and world as discrete analytic behaviors
rather than continuous synthetic wholes. We can see them as wholes
because we are unified beings who can see even cartoon characters and
puppets as wholes, but that does not mean that there is any continuous
awareness that unifies the parts of the machine. To compensate for
this, we generally have to build in a monotonously recursive device,
like a clock, pump, or wheel to provide an imitation of continuous
flow. This should not be confused with the continuous flow which
arises organically in a living body. An organic flow is not a clock to
which separate parts are mechanically attached, but a collective
rhythm which is synchronized from within the shared motive of the
reproduced cell. This is can be seen clearly in the behavior of heart
cells as they congregate physically and experientially. Look at what
it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgw19KMcWw4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPHyXOrFQxs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAe3cabBLaM

See the difference?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tHgnYo7IwY

The cells are pushing a private negentropic agenda, while the clock
has no agenda at all. You can see it. It is one dimensional tension in
a material like metal or winding down one tick at a time, or an
electronic response from a semiconductor material. Neither materials
have any native motivation or momentum, they must be wound up or
plugged in, wired or bolted together. It is a back door imitation of
an organism, artificially integrated to use borrowed power to generate
the effect of continuous running.

Consciousness has mechanical aspects as well, and indeed the content
of our minds can be said to be running as well, but the difference is
that the mind runs on it's own momentum. More importantly the mind can
be quieted so that deeper, unconscious experiences can rise to
conscious awareness. These experiences do not seem to arise out of the
rapidity of mental syntax as functionalism assumes, but out of deep
metaphorical interiority which presents spontaneously and unbidden
with insight and prescience rather than deterministically or randomly.

This can be explained by understanding the continuity of psychological
experience as the entirety of time being scratched or perturbed by the
collective experience of a subset of time. The entity is made of time
(really meanings, characters, and worlds...stories. Time is an
analytical abstraction that has to do more with objects, space, and
density). This may seem mystical or esoteric at first, but I think
that is because profound truth about subjectivity must by definition
evoke the charms of self fetish. Oriental floridity. Super-signifying
Hermeticism. Pageantry. It is who we are and why we are, as
distinguished from what and how we are (bodies, cells, cities,
planets...Occidental austerity. A-signifying quanta. Physical
engineering).

Experienced history then, under multisense realism, is crucial. We are
the polar opposite of a tabula rasa. The interiority of the stem cell
is not a blank coin to be struck with a cellular role, but a 'Once
upon a time' from which a spectrum of cellular characters and
capacities can be diffracted. This is meaning. This is learning,
understanding, loving, and growing (also hating, killing, forgetting
and half remembering, making things up, creating etc.)

If experience were mechanical, then a clone could be conditioned with
the identical experiences and an identical person would be created. If
since strong computationalism is does not ground identity in material
at all, we would have to say that a cloned body (machine + program)
with cloned experience (runtime) would actually be the same person.

If instead we see experience as a unique and idiosyncratic subset of
the totality of experience, there can be no Boys from Brazil strategy
- no designer identities. Besides nature, nurture, and random
variation, there may be a semantic momentum which opens up a flow of
identity like a pinata of experienced history being hit with a series
of blows: conception, birth, childhood, etc. It i

Re: COMP theology