Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
Hi, 2012/3/14 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: He can't feel the split in my symmetrical room thought experiment but he can see it, he can see his copy as if in a mirror moving and talking just as he does, and if you exchanged their positions he still couldn't tell that anything had happened There is no problem with that. But the issue on indeterminacy bears on the non symmetrical situation, once the copies have different experiences. As I said it is not difficult to arrange things so that the copy and the original differentiate immediately after the creation, but that non symmetrical situation is just not very interesting, you learn nothing from it, the interesting stuff happens in the symmetrical case. You say the consciousness or the one view of the two view of the 3 view or whatever the hell you call it can not be duplicated, you say it can only be associated with one unique chunk of matter (a body) and no other chunk of matter; but in my symmetrical room thought experiment I clearly show this is NOT true, 2 chunks of matter (bodies) have consciousness associated with them that are absolutely identical from ANY point of view. They are so identical that even the 2 consciousness's can't tell themselves apart, we know this because when we exchange the two bodies neither consciousness can tell that anything has happened, so that means there are not 2 consciousness's in that symmetrical room but only one, assuming assigning a position to consciousness has any meaning, it probably does not but you are not shy about doing it in your thought experiments so I don't feel too badly doing it also. You the original Bruno Marchal remember walking into the duplicating chamber and then suddenly somebody who looks moves and speaks exactly like you do suddenly appeared right in front of you. And you the copy of Bruno Marchal remembers walking into the duplicating chamber and then suddenly somebody who looks moves and speaks exactly like you do suddenly appeared right in front of you. From any point of view from ANY perspective including their own perspective there is no difference between them, even the original and the copy themselves can't tell who is who, we know this because if we exchange their position neither of them notice that anything has happened. In your symmetrical thought experiment, which is not the original one. But it's my original thought experiment, in other ones other things would happen, but I'm talking about this one and it's not illogical, it's not self contradictory and it doesn't even violate the known laws of physics, to turn my thought experiment into a actual real concrete experiment you'd just need hyper advanced technology, new science is not required. So you have no excuse, if your ideas are valid you should be able to deal with it, but you can't. Whenever you, Bruno Marchal, opens a door I don't know for certain what you or I will see, and that is a fact even in a world without duplicating chambers. Straw man. We are in a theoretical frame, assuming a 3- deterministic theory of the mind (comp) Straw man my ass. You're assuming more than a deterministic theory of the mind, you're throwing external stimuli into the mix, information that comes from the real non-deterministic world. And even if you assume that classical physics is the final true reality (obviously it is not) I still wouldn't have nearly enough information to predict what I will see when I open a door and look out at Washington or Moscow. So yes I don't know what I will see when I open that door, welcome to the real world. And there is a even more fundamental problem, you keep asking me what is the probability that X will see... but you don't seem to feel the need to clearly explain just who X is in your elaborate storylines. But no matter how elaborate your scenario if you discount real world indeterminacy this first person determinacy invention of yours always yields probabilities of 0% or 100% ; in other words it's perfectly deterministic. Of course, in reality sh.t happens, but we are reasoning in a theory. Shit doesn't just happen in practice, it happens in theory too. Why did that uranium atom decay now rather than then? Because shit happens. Even pure mathematics is not free of shit, will that Turing Machine I'm looking at ever stop? I don't know, I'll just have to watch it and see what shit happens. I'll never know the value of Chaitin's Omega number but it does have a unique definite value, but why does it have that value, whatever it is, rather than another value? Because shit happens. Yep, you never know what you will see when you open a door. You trivialize the point. I'm trivializing the point because its trivial, you're taking a commonplace observation and acting as if it's a great discovery. You forget that Boltzman did not succeed in
Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
On 12 Mar 2012, at 21:01, meekerdb wrote (to acw):
On 3/11/2012 11:38 PM, acw wrote:
Some of those beliefs can be greatly justified by evidence, while
others are unjustified. All of them are provably unprovable, even
given the right evidence. Some of them can be believed with high
confidence given the right evidence, others match certain
heuristics which indicate a likely to be true theory (such as
Occam's Razor), while others fail such heuristics and yet are still
believed by less rational means (authority, indoctrination, etc).
I think you got to far when you refer to things supported by lots of
evidence as assumptions and provably unprovable.
But we are reasoning in a theoretical framework. When we believe in
something due to lot of evidence, we are doing inductive inference,
not deduction. And even deductions are always based on inference.
despite important nuances existing between math and physics, I prefer
to say that in math the axioms are also inferred, even if we can take
them as definition (in which case this move will seem less reasonable).
Are you applying mathematical standards of proof to empirical
facts? Of course they are unprovable in that sense. But
mathematical proof is only relative to axioms and rules of inference
anyway.
I agree with this. Axioms are always provable in one line proof like
see axiom number n.
And some truth are unprovable in a strong sense. despite they are
true, they become false or inconsistent when added as an axiom. For
example, if the theory having as axioms:
-axiom 1
-axiom 2
-axiom 3
is consistent; then the theory
-axiom 1
-axiom 2
-axiom 3
-axiom 4 = {1, 2, 3} is consistent
is consistent, but the following theory, which you can build with the
Dx = xx trick will not:
-axiom 1
-axiom 2
-axiom 3
-axiom 4' = {1, 2, 3, 4'} is consistent
axiom 4 is true, but axiom 4' is false and inconsistent, by Gödel
second incompleteness theorem. This is a key remark for the whole AUDA.
Bruno
If you're on a jury in a criminal trial you don't look for, and
would not accept, an axiomatic proof of guilt. You look for a proof
beyond reasonable doubt based on evidence - and there are plenty of
assumptions that meet that standard. The standard for science is
somewhat higher, because it requires that you test your assumptions
to see if they can be made to fail and it never reaches a fixed
conclusion, as a jury must. But to dismiss scienctific knowledge as
provably unprovable and assumptions on the same level as
religious myths is silly.
As to why religious myths are widely believed and (unlike math and
science) culturally dependent I highly recommend Craig A. James book
The Religion Virus and the similarly named but different The God
Virus by David W. Ray.
Brent Meeker
Religion has the exact same job assignment as science, to make sense
of the world, that's why science and religion can never co exist
peacefully Science changes its stories based on better evidence,
religion writes its stories on stone tablets.
--- Bob Zannelli
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Re: First person indeterminacy (Re: COMP theology)
On 12 Mar 2012, at 08:04, Stephen P. King wrote: On 3/12/2012 2:53 AM, acw wrote: On 3/12/2012 05:43, Stephen P. King wrote: Hi, Could it be that we are tacitly assuming that our notion of Virtual is such that there always exists a standard what is the Real version? If it is not possible to tell if a given object of experience is real or virtual, why do we default to it being virtual, as if it was somehow possible to compare the object in question with an unassailably real version? As I see it, if we can somehow show that a given object of experience is the _best possible_ simulation (modulo available resources) then it is real, as a better or more real simulation of it is impossible to generate. Our physical world is 'real' simply because there does not exist a better simulation of it. Sure, given a mathematical ontology, real is just the structure you exist in - an indexical. This real might be limited in some way (for example in COMP, you cannot help but get some indeterminacy like MW)- a newtonian physics simulation might be real for those living in it and which are embedded in it, although if this would really work without any indeterminacy, I'm skeptical of. I should have been more precise, when I said VR, I didn't merely mean a good digital physics simulation where the observer's entire body+brain is contained within, I meant something more high-level, think of Second Life or Blocks World or some other similar simulation done 1000 years from now with much more computational resources. The main difference between VR and physical-real is that one contains a body+brain embedded in that physical-real world (as matter), thus physical-real is also a self-contained consistent mathematical structure, while VR has some external component which prevents a form of physical self-awareness (you can't have brain surgery in a VR, at least not in the sense we do have in the real world). The main difference here is that the VR can be influenced by a higher level at which the VR itself runs, while a physical- real structure is completely self-contained. Hi! I am mot exactly sure of what you mean by indexical. As to brain surgery in VR, why not? All that is needed is rules in the program that control the 1p experience of content to some states in game structures. The point is that if we are considering brains-in- vasts problems we need to also consider the other minds problems. We should not be analyzing this from a strict one person situation. You and I have different experiences up to and including the something that is like being Stephen as different from something that is like to being ACW. If we where internally identical minds then why would be even be having this conversation? We would literally know each others thought by merely having them. This is why I argue that plural shared 1p is a weakness in COMP. We have to have disjointness at least. Comp is the problem, and the conceptual tool to formulate the problem, not the solution. Comp reduces the mind-body problem to a body problem. That's the main point. Comp gives only the general shape of the solution, in the form of a MW interpretation by numbers of arithmetic, and its measure problem on the first person plural indeterminacy. Then if you accept the classical theory of knowledge, you can already derived the propositional physics, and see the hints for the other minds problem solution, and that solution is close to Girard's linear logic, or some work of Abramski. 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: First person indeterminacy (Re: COMP theology)
On 12 Mar 2012, at 09:49, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2012/3/12 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net On 3/12/2012 3:49 AM, acw wrote: On 3/12/2012 08:04, Stephen P. King wrote: On 3/12/2012 2:53 AM, acw wrote: On 3/12/2012 05:43, Stephen P. King wrote: Hi, Could it be that we are tacitly assuming that our notion of Virtual is such that there always exists a standard what is the Real version? If it is not possible to tell if a given object of experience is real or virtual, why do we default to it being virtual, as if it was somehow possible to compare the object in question with an unassailably real version? As I see it, if we can somehow show that a given object of experience is the _best possible_ simulation (modulo available resources) then it is real, as a better or more real simulation of it is impossible to generate. Our physical world is 'real' simply because there does not exist a better simulation of it. Sure, given a mathematical ontology, real is just the structure you exist in - an indexical. This real might be limited in some way (for example in COMP, you cannot help but get some indeterminacy like MW)- a newtonian physics simulation might be real for those living in it and which are embedded in it, although if this would really work without any indeterminacy, I'm skeptical of. I should have been more precise, when I said VR, I didn't merely mean a good digital physics simulation where the observer's entire body+brain is contained within, I meant something more high-level, think of Second Life or Blocks World or some other similar simulation done 1000 years from now with much more computational resources. The main difference between VR and physical-real is that one contains a body+brain embedded in that physical-real world (as matter), thus physical-real is also a self-contained consistent mathematical structure, while VR has some external component which prevents a form of physical self-awareness (you can't have brain surgery in a VR, at least not in the sense we do have in the real world). The main difference here is that the VR can be influenced by a higher level at which the VR itself runs, while a physical-real structure is completely self-contained. Hi! I am mot exactly sure of what you mean by indexical. Your current state, time, location, birth place, brain state, etc are indexicals. The (observed) laws of physics are also indexicals, unless you can show that either only one possible set of laws of physics is possible or you just assume that (for example, in a primary matter hypothesis). As to brain surgery in VR, why not? All that is needed is rules in the program that control the 1p experience of content to some states in game structures. Our brains are made of matter and if we change them, our experience changes. In a VR, the brain's implementation is assumed external to the VR, if not, it would be a digital physics simulation, which is a bit different (self-contained). It might be possible to change your brain within the VR if the right APIs and protocols are implemented, but the brain's computations are done externally to the VR physics simulation (at a different layer, for example, brain program is ran separately from physics simulation program) . There's some subtle details here - if the brain was computed entirely through the VR's physics, UDA would apply and you would get the VR's physics simulation's indeterminacy (no longer a simulation, but something existing on its own in the UD*), otherwise, the brain's implementation depends on the indeterminacy present at the upper layer and not of the VR's physics simulation. This is a subtle point, but there would be a difference in measure and experience between simulating the brain from a digital physics simulation and external to it. In our world, we have the very high confidence belief that our brains are made of matter and thus implemented at the same level as our reality. In a VR, we may assume the implementation of our brains as external to the VR's physics - experienced reality being different from mind's body (brain) reality. Hi, Umm, this looks like you are making a difference between a situation where your P.o.V. os stuck 'in one's head and a P.o.V. where it is free to move about. Have you ever played a MMORPG game? These two situations are just a matter of the programs parameters... Again, what makes the virtual reality virtual? I claim that it is only because there is some other point of view or stance that is taken as real such that the virtual version is has fewer detail and degrees of freedom. If a sufficiently powerful computer can generate a simulation of a physical world, why can it not simulate brains in it as well? Some people think that minds are just something that the brain does, so why not have a single program generating all of it - brains and minds included? My problem is that I fail to see how the UD and
Re: First person indeterminacy (Re: COMP theology)
On 12 Mar 2012, at 21:21, meekerdb wrote (to Stepehen King): Stephen King: One thing that I have found in the last few days is that it is impossible to define the computational operations of deleting, copying and pasting onto/into topological manifolds unless one is willing to give up the invariance of genus and Betti numbering. Cutting and pasting seem to be absolutely necessary operations of computation Why do you say that? Quantum computers don't duplicate and don't erase. Well, quantum computer can still duplicate classical information. I could say more if your remember the combinators. They can be used to show that without duplication and erasing you lost Turing universality. You can recover it by allowing a minimal amount of duplication, which does not mean that you can duplicate anything. 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: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
On 13 Mar 2012, at 02:16, meekerdb wrote: On 3/12/2012 10:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 12 Mar 2012, at 05:50, John Clark wrote: On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Do they really have to state that they assume existence exists? You mean that primary matter exists? Yes that is an hypothesis. So your complaint is that a biologist like Richard Dawkins doesn't start all his books with I assume matter exists. Bruno, that's just nuts. Yes that would be nuts, but that is not what I am talking about. I meant that he should assume PRIMARY matter, instead of taking it for granted, in his book on THEOLOGY, like his The God Delusion. It would be great if I could explain exactly why there is something rather than nothing but unfortunately I don't know how to do that, but a atheist does not need to, I am not sure anybody needs that A atheist would need that if a theist could explain why there is something rather than nothing, I would be in a pew singing hymns next Sunday if they could do that, but of course no God theory can provide even a hint of a hint of a answer to that. AUDA is an elementary counter-example. Read my paper on Plotinus. Prerequisites: a good book in mathematical logic (Mendelson, Epstein-Carnielly, Boolos-Burgess-Jeffrey, ...). The correct theology of a machine is defined by the set of true sentences *about* the machine. The proper theological part is given by what is true (and might be known) but can't be justified rationally. The nice thing with comp, is that you can still justify a part of that truth rationally at the meta-level from the comp necessarily hypothetical assumption of being an arithmetically sound machine (= relatively finite digital entity). I have no problem with those who say that they are not interested in such or such question. Well, personally I feel that anybody who has not even thought about it a little would be a bit dull, and somebody who thinks about it a lot is probably wasting time that could be more productively spent. Why judge people interest and passion? A important part of genius is to know what problem to go after, it should be profound enough to make a big increase in our understanding but not so difficult as to be out of reach. For example in Darwin's day there was no possibility of figuring out how chemicals turned into life, but a real first class genius might be able to figure out how one species can change into another, and that's exactly where Darwin set his sights. But forDarwin's ideas to come into play you've got to start with a reproducing entity; so he could explain how bacteria turned into a man but not how chemicals turned into bacteria, so Darwin explained a hell of a lot but he didn't explain everything nor did he (or Dawkins) ever claim to. Only with those who assert that it is a false problem, a crackpot field It's not a crackpot field but I think you would have to admit that it does attract more that its fair share of crackpots. That is normal given it is very fundamental. That's why fear sellers like to appropriate them, and of course they injure the field, and the humans, a lot, but they does not betray everything, and, especially in front of the mind body problem, we have to be cautious not throwing the best together with the worst. Physics does not address the theological question, so to oppose physics and the abrahamic theologies makes physics confused with physicalism/materialism. It makes physics like taking metaphysically for granted the main point of the abrahamic theologies, which mainly take the physical reality existing as such. Of course such a belief is widespread, but the greek platonists created science, including theology, by taking distance with that idea. By doing so they (re)discovered a mathematical reality which will inspire the world of intelligible ideas. and this by letting believe that science has solve or dissolve the question, when it is hardly the case. But Dawkins has never done that, never, and being a biologist most of his books concern how the laws of chemistry (which is already something as he would be the first to admit) produced life, including advanced life like you and me. And Dawkins does not claim he has a complete explanation for even this much more limited (although still very profound) problem. Science in general and Dawkins in particular can't explain everything, but they can explain a lot. Religion can explain nothing, absolutely nothing. Science can't explain everything, but after Gödel 1931, and using comp, science can explain why, for machine, science cannot explain the whole truth, nor even give it a name. Dawkins is correct in denunicating that particular God delusion, but he fall in that exactly same trap by opposing science and religion. I believe only in
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 9:00 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.abstract Abstract The feeling of being in control of one’s own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and motivation. Recently, it has been shown that undermining free-will beliefs influences social behavior. In the study reported here, we investigated whether undermining beliefs in free will affects brain correlates of voluntary motor preparation. Our results showed that the readiness potential was reduced in individuals induced to disbelieve in free will. This effect was evident more than 1 s before participants consciously decided to move, a finding that suggests that the manipulation influenced intentional actions at preconscious stages. Our findings indicate that abstract belief systems might have a much more fundamental effect than previously thought. Has anyone posted this yet? Hard to explain what brain correlates are doing responding to an illusion... You might be able to show that people who believe in an afterlife are more relaxed when faced with death. There are recognised neurological correlates of relaxation. Would it thereby follow that there is in fact an afterlife? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: For Evgenii: the-unavoidable-cost-of-computation-revealed
On 13 Mar 2012, at 18:20, meekerdb wrote: On 3/13/2012 6:48 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 13 Mar 2012, at 01:43, Russell Standish wrote: http://www.nature.com/news/the-unavoidable-cost-of-computation-revealed-1.10186 This about experimentally testing Landauer's principle that computation has thermodynamic constraints. I was worrying a bit with that title, thinking Landauer's principle was refuted, but on the contrary, it is confirmed. The title is misleading, because it looks like computation would need energy, but the energy is needed only for erasing information, and since a paper by Hao Wang (universal, and thus all) computations can be done without ever erasing information. This confirms also that we can transform information into energy, That's not quite right. We can use information to make energy available for work, i.e. reduce entropy. The energy is already there, it's just not accessible for useful work. Yes, you are probably right, for thermodynamics. Assuming comp and its 'reversal' consequence, what is energy is an open problem. It looks like a constant obtained from the high symmetry of the core bottom physical reality. But it seems infinite, intuitively. I guess we need the full (first order) solution of the measure problem to say more. 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: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: What you're telling is that a question like what is the probabilty that events happens to me in one second ? is not a legitimate question, No, in this case that is a perfectly legitimate question because in the above you didn't say anything about making numerous copies of yourself so in the quotation it is clear who me is, and that is the case with most normal conversations. Normally you are free to use as many personal pronouns as you like and everybody still knows what you're talking about, but in philosophical discussions about identity involving bizarre (but not illogical) thought experiments with lots of copies of you running around and then to ask what one and only one thing will I do next is nuts. The entire point of the exercise is to focus in on what is meant by I and then you use I as if it's meaning is already known right at the start of the thought experiment! It's like saying the definition of big is a word used to describe something that is big, but if I didn't already know what big means then that is just not helpful, and if I did know then I don't need the definition. John K Clark -- 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 Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Mar 14, 11:31 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.abstract Abstract The feeling of being in control of one’s own actions is a strong subjective experience. And the reason we feel that way is because we can't predict what the external environment will throw at us, Why does that cause some kind of subjective experience? A rock doesn't know what the environment will throw at it either. Why would our feeling of being in control be any different from a rock's? and even if we could we still wouldn't always know what we would do next until we actually did it, and the same is true of Turing Machines. Do you think that Windows or a smart phone has a feeling of being in control of its actions? When we eventually see what we did we say we decided to do it, it's what the word means. If that were the case, then deciding to breathe deeply would be no different from seeing that we have been breathing deeply after exercising. It's not at all though. It's completely different. We are not just spectators in our own bodies, we are participants. There is a difference. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. The free will noise is not a illusion, the vibration of the air molecules caused by that sound can be measured in the lab. I can see characters here on the screen so I know that your opinion is not an illusion, it is just meaningless noise that happens to have electronic consequences. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? About the same thing would happen if people started to disbelieve in what burps had to say. Are you contradicting this study for a reason, or just making unfounded claims against it? Craig -- 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: First person indeterminacy (Re: COMP theology)
On 3/14/2012 7:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 12 Mar 2012, at 21:21, meekerdb wrote (to Stepehen King): Stephen King: One thing that I have found in the last few days is that it is impossible to define the computational operations of deleting, copying and pasting onto/into topological manifolds unless one is willing to give up the invariance of genus and Betti numbering. Cutting and pasting seem to be absolutely necessary operations of computation Why do you say that? Quantum computers don't duplicate and don't erase. Well, quantum computer can still duplicate classical information. Since the world in quantum classical information is only a statistical approximation. I could say more if your remember the combinators. They can be used to show that without duplication and erasing you lost Turing universality. You can recover it by allowing a minimal amount of duplication, which does not mean that you can duplicate anything. Hmm. I thought quantum systems could be emulated by a UT. How does the no-cloning theorem apply to the emulation? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On 3/14/2012 7:21 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Mar 13, 11:15 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/13/2012 3:00 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.abstract Abstract The feeling of being in control of one�s own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and motivation. Recently, it has been shown that undermining free-will beliefs influences social behavior. In the study reported here, we investigated whether undermining beliefs in free will affects brain correlates of voluntary motor preparation. Our results showed that the readiness potential was reduced in individuals induced to disbelieve in free will. This effect was evident more than 1 s before participants consciously decided to move, a finding that suggests that the manipulation influenced intentional actions at preconscious stages. Our findings indicate that abstract belief systems might have a much more fundamental effect than previously thought. Has anyone posted this yet? Hard to explain what brain correlates are doing responding to an illusion... I think they just rediscovered hypnotism. Brent Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. --- Schopenhauer If someone is hypnotized to think that they are eating an apple when they are really eating a raw onion, they have to be able to imagine what it is like to eat an apple. If someone is hypnotized to think that they have no free will, but free will doesn't exist to begin with, why would there be any difference to the brain? I someone says to you, You are paralyzed. You can't lift your arm. and you hear these words and interpret them how would that happen without any changes in your brain? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
On 14 March 2012 15:12, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: No, in this case that is a perfectly legitimate question because in the above you didn't say anything about making numerous copies of yourself so in the quotation it is clear who me is, and that is the case with most normal conversations. Normally you are free to use as many personal pronouns as you like and everybody still knows what you're talking about, but in philosophical discussions about identity involving bizarre (but not illogical) thought experiments with lots of copies of you running around and then to ask what one and only one thing will I do next is nuts. Does it really have to be pointed out yet again that these bizarre thought experiments are not merely posed for their own sake? If they were, discussing them would be a pointless waste of time. But they have of course a deeper point, which is to assess, step-by-step, the subjective consequences of the proliferation of bodies, competing for a common root identity, that is implied by computational theory, and indeed by the Everett-MW interpretation of QM. The UDA is designed explicitly to assess these consequences, in a controlled manner, for the experiencing subject in each case as posed. The identity and personal history of each subject are seen to be locally distinguishable in consequence of different implied event sequences as recorded in their personal diaries. These diaries record common points of origination, different points of arrival, and prior indeterminacy as to ultimate destination. Each of these aspects is relevant to later steps in the reasoning, and to the UDA as a whole. Under such conditions we should indeed expect to have to modify the ordinary application of personal pronouns, though not beyond the possibility of rendering a principled account of what is supposed to take place. If you can accept that these issues are what the thought-experiment is actually about, it might be easier for you to use your imagination fruitfully to follow the overall argument through to its conclusion. Alternatively you can persist in distorting them into irrelevant nonsense of your own making. It's your choice. David On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: What you're telling is that a question like what is the probabilty that events happens to me in one second ? is not a legitimate question, No, in this case that is a perfectly legitimate question because in the above you didn't say anything about making numerous copies of yourself so in the quotation it is clear who me is, and that is the case with most normal conversations. Normally you are free to use as many personal pronouns as you like and everybody still knows what you're talking about, but in philosophical discussions about identity involving bizarre (but not illogical) thought experiments with lots of copies of you running around and then to ask what one and only one thing will I do next is nuts. The entire point of the exercise is to focus in on what is meant by I and then you use I as if it's meaning is already known right at the start of the thought experiment! It's like saying the definition of big is a word used to describe something that is big, but if I didn't already know what big means then that is just not helpful, and if I did know then I don't need the definition. John K Clark -- 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. -- 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: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
2012/3/14 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: What you're telling is that a question like what is the probabilty that events happens to me in one second ? is not a legitimate question, No, in this case that is a perfectly legitimate question because in the above you didn't say anything about making numerous copies of yourself so in the quotation it is clear who me is, and that is the case with most normal conversations. Normally you are free to use as many personal pronouns as you like and everybody still knows what you're talking about, but in philosophical discussions about identity involving bizarre (but not illogical) thought experiments with lots of copies of you running around and then to ask what one and only one thing will I do next is nuts. The entire point of the exercise is to focus in on what is meant by I and then you use I as if it's meaning is already known right at the start of the thought experiment! It's like saying the definition of big is a word used to describe something that is big, but if I didn't already know what big means then that is just not helpful, and if I did know then I don't need the definition. Then do the though experiment with *yourself*... you know what you are, then in MWI or COMP settings, at *each moment* your are duplicated a gogolplex time, then either what is the probability that such event happens to *you* in one second ? is a legitimate question or it is not. The question above can never be legitimate (according to you) in those settings, but if MWI or COMP are true... that means No, in this case that is a perfectly legitimate question is impossible and you are inconsistent asserting it. Either it is legitimate or it is not. If MWI is true, it's true, and no language game can change that. Quentin John K Clark -- 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. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- 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 Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Mar 14, 12:32 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/14/2012 7:21 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Mar 13, 11:15 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/13/2012 3:00 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.abstract Abstract The feeling of being in control of one s own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and motivation. Recently, it has been shown that undermining free-will beliefs influences social behavior. In the study reported here, we investigated whether undermining beliefs in free will affects brain correlates of voluntary motor preparation. Our results showed that the readiness potential was reduced in individuals induced to disbelieve in free will. This effect was evident more than 1 s before participants consciously decided to move, a finding that suggests that the manipulation influenced intentional actions at preconscious stages. Our findings indicate that abstract belief systems might have a much more fundamental effect than previously thought. Has anyone posted this yet? Hard to explain what brain correlates are doing responding to an illusion... I think they just rediscovered hypnotism. Brent Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. --- Schopenhauer If someone is hypnotized to think that they are eating an apple when they are really eating a raw onion, they have to be able to imagine what it is like to eat an apple. If someone is hypnotized to think that they have no free will, but free will doesn't exist to begin with, why would there be any difference to the brain? I someone says to you, You are paralyzed. You can't lift your arm. and you hear these words and interpret them how would that happen without any changes in your brain? Voluntary movement has to first exist in order for a suggestion of paralysis to be meaningful. If all movement was involuntary in the first place then there would be no significant difference between passively watching yourself move and passively watching yourself not move, so the suggestion of paralysis would not change the brain more than any other non-sequitur suggestion. If we had no free will, our belief about it should have no effect on the actual ability to execute our wishes though our motor cortex. We might be able to fool ourselves, but if our brain cares what we believe in then our ability to execute our will can hardly be said to be deterministic. Hypnosis is further evidence that physiological process of the brain can be directly influenced semantically, and by extension belief, or self-hypnosis is evidence of the same. Craig -- 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: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
On 14 Mar 2012, at 07:57, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi, 2012/3/14 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com I define the guy in Helsinki by whoever he believes he is, in Helsinki. I don't need to define who he is, Yes you do! You are asking me for probabilities but before I can do that I need to know what you're talking about, I need to know whose probability you want. That's the problem with all your thought experiments, you set up these elaborate one act plays and then ask what I will experience after numerous duplications and complications as if we can throw around that pronoun with the same ease we do in normal conversations that do not involve exotic duplicating chambers. You've got to be far more careful in philosophical conversations involving the nature of identity, but if your question is well stated and you are clear about who I is then the probabilities always reduce to 0% or 100% in all your first person determinacy stuff, plus regular old indeterminacy of course. For example, you asked me what the probability is that the Helsinki guy, that's the guy who gets no tea, will get tea, and I can say without fear of contradiction that the probability the guy who gets no tea will get tea is zero. I know this isn't very deep but at least it's true. So, if I throw a dice, the probability that I will see a six is zero, because the guy who threw the dice is not the same as the guy who looked on which face it landed up? It has nothing to do with who threw the dice, the problem is that before probability can be used it must be clear who I is, If you define I in a way similar with what you did with the tea business and I is the guy who did NOT get a 6 when the dice was rolled then the probability this person named I will get a 6 is indeed zero. And there is not a speck of indeterminacy in that. John K Clark Well so it's clear you're dead by now while I'm reading this email... it's sad. If you want to absolutely be right, that's what it means. What you're telling is that a question like what is the probabilty that events happens to me in one second ? is not a legitimate question, because me does not exists... ok, but that position is don't ask and it's quite not interresting and useful. Don't worry too much, Quentin, I thing John Clark will survive. I think he is just inconsistent, which indeed is practically equivalent with death, for the self-referentially correct machine. And I agree with you, he is telling us that we die at each instant (which I think is comp-true, but irrelevant for the probability which abstract from the cul-de-sac, and that is what Bp Dt will capture later). But we can bet he is just not self-referentially correct. What is the problem? For some reason, he does not put himself at the place of the other John Clarks. The I notion he want a definition of, is that I. It is the other I you grasp by not just attributing a mind to someone else, but the one that you try to imagine by putting yourself at his place. John Clark has already acknowledged the difficulty he has to do that for a bat, like Nagel is asking, and I can understand that, but here, the effort should not be that big, given that it concerns other John Clarks, with the same past memories and character and personality. If he does that effort, he should understand, son or later, that the guy in Moscow will understand that he could not have been sure, in Helsinki, to become the guy in Washington, and vice versa. And so he might be more cautious about 0 and 100% in the next try. He clearly seems able to do that thinking, but for unknown reason feels manifestly bad to acknowledge the step. He might be anxious for the future of Aristotle metaphysics, I dunno. He uses also bad rhetorical tricks by attributing me intention, and seems even aggressive sometimes, or is it an impression? 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: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
On 3/14/2012 10:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: I never localize consciousness. Only persons. And yes, it is pretty obvious that person can locate themselves in a local relative way, like saying that yesterday I was in Tokyo, today in I am in Helsinki and tomorrow I will be in Moscow, if I decide to buy the tickets for the planes. I don't think that's obvious. You can locate where your perceptions come from, but if one eye received input from Moscow and the other from Washington while your auditory nerves were wired to microphones in Helsinki and your brain was in Brussels; where would you be? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
On 3/14/2012 10:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Wow! OK then, we progress. I am glad that you agree that you will see something. That was unclear. But do you agree that you do know something, or at least that you can have great expectations, given the hypothesis, which we have to take as true for the sake of the argument, together with the default assumption. In particular, do you agree that you can bet that you will see either Washington, or Moscow (despite you are not able to determine the exact seeing, especially if you have never gone to W or to M. You can see that in this case, the two people in each city will think that they were right. The guy in W will say: confirmation: I predicted (W v M), I got W, so I was right. The guy in M will say: confirmation: I predicted (W v M); I got M, so I was right. Of course, in real life, you might end in Venice, and guess a pirate of Venice succeeded in eavesdropping the Helsinki-(W;M) channels. But again, it is part of the default assumption, for the sake of a valid theoretical deduction, that the protocol is 100% respected. So, do you agree that you will see either Washington or Moscow, when read and cut in Helsinki and pasted at both W and M places? Do you agree with the certain bet: W v M? I wonder how John would choose between two different duplication/transport booths: One that sent copies to Washington or Moscow and one which sent copies to Washington or the Moon? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On 3/14/2012 10:08 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Mar 14, 12:32 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/14/2012 7:21 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Mar 13, 11:15 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.netwrote: On 3/13/2012 3:00 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.abstract Abstract The feeling of being in control of one s own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and motivation. Recently, it has been shown that undermining free-will beliefs influences social behavior. In the study reported here, we investigated whether undermining beliefs in free will affects brain correlates of voluntary motor preparation. Our results showed that the readiness potential was reduced in individuals induced to disbelieve in free will. This effect was evident more than 1 s before participants consciously decided to move, a finding that suggests that the manipulation influenced intentional actions at preconscious stages. Our findings indicate that abstract belief systems might have a much more fundamental effect than previously thought. Has anyone posted this yet? Hard to explain what brain correlates are doing responding to an illusion... I think they just rediscovered hypnotism. Brent Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. --- Schopenhauer If someone is hypnotized to think that they are eating an apple when they are really eating a raw onion, they have to be able to imagine what it is like to eat an apple. If someone is hypnotized to think that they have no free will, but free will doesn't exist to begin with, why would there be any difference to the brain? I someone says to you, You are paralyzed. You can't lift your arm. and you hear these words and interpret them how would that happen without any changes in your brain? Voluntary movement has to first exist in order for a suggestion of paralysis to be meaningful. If all movement was involuntary in the first place then there would be no significant difference between passively watching yourself move and passively watching yourself not move, so the suggestion of paralysis would not change the brain more than any other non-sequitur suggestion. If we had no free will, our belief about it should have no effect on the actual ability to execute our wishes though our motor cortex. Compare: If you had no immortal soul that would be judged after your death your belief about it should have no effect on your religious behavior. Beliefs can have effects whether they have real referents or not. We might be able to fool ourselves, but if our brain cares what we believe in then our ability to execute our will can hardly be said to be deterministic. A double non-sequitur. Hypnosis is further evidence that physiological process of the brain can be directly influenced semantically, and by extension belief, or self-hypnosis is evidence of the same. Wow! We've discovered that if we shout, LOOK OUT! people will duck. I'll be sure to publish this evidence of direct semantic influence. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: For Evgenii: the-unavoidable-cost-of-computation-revealed
On 3/14/2012 11:51 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 13.03.2012 20:59 meekerdb said the following: On 3/13/2012 12:44 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 13.03.2012 20:32 meekerdb said the following: On 3/13/2012 12:26 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... In my collection I have this quote for example http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/01/information.html 25.01.2012 21:25 Brent: “The thermodynamic entropy is a measure of the information required to locate the possible states of the plates in the phase space of atomic configurations constituting them. Note that the thermodynamic entropy you quote is really the *change* in entropy per degree at the given temperature. It’s a measure of how much more phase space becomes available to the atomic states when the internal energy is increased. More available phase space means more uncertainty of the exact actual state and hence more information entropy. This information is enormous compared to the “01″ stamped on the plate, the shape of the plate or any other aspects that we would normally use to convey information. It would only be in case we cooled the plate to near absolute zero and then tried to encode information in its microscopic vibrational states that the thermodynamic and the encoded information entropy would become similar. ” Yes, that clearly states that entropy is equal to the information that would be required to eliminate the uncertainty as to the exact state in phase space. It's *the missing* information when you only specify the thermodynamic variables. So what is strange about that? Dollars are a measure of debt, but that doesn't mean you have a lot of dollars when you have a lot of debt. What is the difference with what I have said previously? Entropy and information are related, that is, if I know the entropy, I can infer information and vice versa, so in essence the entropy is information. But the thermodynamic information, what you get from the JANAF tables, is the missing information when you just specify the thermodynamic variables. If you specify more variables there will be less missing and the entropy will be lower. If you specified the exact state of every atom the entropy of the system would be zero. So the two are not the same, they are complementary; like debt and wealth: both are measured in money but more of one means less of the other. Brent Then the thermodynamic entropy is subjective. Try to convince in this engineers who develop engines, or chemists who compute equilibria, and see what happens. It is relative not just to the information but the use of that information. Even if you told an engineer designing a steam turbine the position and momentum of each molecule of steam he would ignore it because he has no practical way of using it to take advantage of the lower entropy that is in principle available. He has no way to flex and deform the turbine blades billions of times per second in order to get more power from the steam. The experiment I linked to is extremely simple so that it is possible to use the information. Brent I will read the paper that you have found (it may take some time though until I will find time for this). Let me be back to your definition then. Evgenii -- 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: First person indeterminacy (Re: COMP theology)
On 14 Mar 2012, at 17:30, meekerdb wrote: On 3/14/2012 7:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 12 Mar 2012, at 21:21, meekerdb wrote (to Stepehen King): Stephen King: One thing that I have found in the last few days is that it is impossible to define the computational operations of deleting, copying and pasting onto/into topological manifolds unless one is willing to give up the invariance of genus and Betti numbering. Cutting and pasting seem to be absolutely necessary operations of computation Why do you say that? Quantum computers don't duplicate and don't erase. Well, quantum computer can still duplicate classical information. Since the world in quantum classical information is only a statistical approximation. I don't think so. I think a quantum reality has the potential to manipulate relative classical data, basically when the quantum state is known relatively to the choice of some base. If not quantum computer would not been Turing universal. This has been shown by Benioff. The quantum computer is authentically turing universal. I could say more if your remember the combinators. They can be used to show that without duplication and erasing you lost Turing universality. You can recover it by allowing a minimal amount of duplication, which does not mean that you can duplicate anything. Hmm. I thought quantum systems could be emulated by a UT. They can. No problem, except a dramatic relative slow down. In comp too, to emulate a piece of matter, you have to dovetail on the whole UD* to get all decimals exact. in QM, you have to evaluate the universal wave. How does the no-cloning theorem apply to the emulation? Good question. If you emulate a piece of matter with a UT you have to emulate the many superpositions, and the observers, and the contagion of the superposition to the observers, and you will get that the emulated observers will realize that they cannot duplicate an arbitrary quantum state. Indeed, they cannot be aware of the entire quantum state they are part from. In The MWI, the non cloning is due to the fact that quantum states contain non accessible information of how the piece of matter behaves in parallel realities, or branch of the universal wave. Likewise, with comp, the apparent primitive matter *is* the result of the 1-indeterminacy relative to your actual state, and this involves the whole UD*-infinite indeterminacy domain (like in step 7). That's not duplicable. 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: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)
On 14 March 2012 18:32, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: He uses also bad rhetorical tricks by attributing me intention, and seems even aggressive sometimes, or is it an impression? Vous êtes ironique, je l'espère! David On 14 Mar 2012, at 07:57, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi, 2012/3/14 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com I define the guy in Helsinki by whoever he believes he is, in Helsinki. I don't need to define who he is, Yes you do! You are asking me for probabilities but before I can do that I need to know what you're talking about, I need to know whose probability you want. That's the problem with all your thought experiments, you set up these elaborate one act plays and then ask what I will experience after numerous duplications and complications as if we can throw around that pronoun with the same ease we do in normal conversations that do not involve exotic duplicating chambers. You've got to be far more careful in philosophical conversations involving the nature of identity, but if your question is well stated and you are clear about who I is then the probabilities always reduce to 0% or 100% in all your first person determinacy stuff, plus regular old indeterminacy of course. For example, you asked me what the probability is that the Helsinki guy, that's the guy who gets no tea, will get tea, and I can say without fear of contradiction that the probability the guy who gets no tea will get tea is zero. I know this isn't very deep but at least it's true. So, if I throw a dice, the probability that I will see a six is zero, because the guy who threw the dice is not the same as the guy who looked on which face it landed up? It has nothing to do with who threw the dice, the problem is that before probability can be used it must be clear who I is, If you define I in a way similar with what you did with the tea business and I is the guy who did NOT get a 6 when the dice was rolled then the probability this person named I will get a 6 is indeed zero. And there is not a speck of indeterminacy in that. John K Clark Well so it's clear you're dead by now while I'm reading this email... it's sad. If you want to absolutely be right, that's what it means. What you're telling is that a question like what is the probabilty that events happens to me in one second ? is not a legitimate question, because me does not exists... ok, but that position is don't ask and it's quite not interresting and useful. Don't worry too much, Quentin, I thing John Clark will survive. I think he is just inconsistent, which indeed is practically equivalent with death, for the self-referentially correct machine. And I agree with you, he is telling us that we die at each instant (which I think is comp-true, but irrelevant for the probability which abstract from the cul-de-sac, and that is what Bp Dt will capture later). But we can bet he is just not self-referentially correct. What is the problem? For some reason, he does not put himself at the place of the other John Clarks. The I notion he want a definition of, is that I. It is the other I you grasp by not just attributing a mind to someone else, but the one that you try to imagine by putting yourself at his place. John Clark has already acknowledged the difficulty he has to do that for a bat, like Nagel is asking, and I can understand that, but here, the effort should not be that big, given that it concerns other John Clarks, with the same past memories and character and personality. If he does that effort, he should understand, son or later, that the guy in Moscow will understand that he could not have been sure, in Helsinki, to become the guy in Washington, and vice versa. And so he might be more cautious about 0 and 100% in the next try. He clearly seems able to do that thinking, but for unknown reason feels manifestly bad to acknowledge the step. He might be anxious for the future of Aristotle metaphysics, I dunno. He uses also bad rhetorical tricks by attributing me intention, and seems even aggressive sometimes, or is it an impression? 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. -- 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 Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
Craig and Brent: Free Will is not a matter of faith. One does not believe IN it, or not. (Of course this is a position in my (agnostic) worldview - my 'belief' ha ha). We are part of an infinite complexity with limited capabilities to accept influence from the infinite factors (if those ARE factors indeed, not just 'relations') Our mental activity (assigned in our limited conventional sciences to the brain) is pondering consciously and unconsciously, including arguments we know of and arguments (not yet?) known. The result may not be deterministic because we are not a simpleton machine (sorry Bruno, emphasis here is on simpleton) so we may have 'options' - choices, but not 'freely at all. We have the power to choose disadvantegously, even knowingly so. We know only a portion of the factors (aspects, I almost wrote: components) in the infinite complexity (call it God, or nature, totality, wholeness, or even everything) and surely misunderstand even those. We humanize knowledge into terms and qualia we can understand and use. Such is our 'model' of the world. Our mental work is influenced by the 'model-content' AND also by facts (?) beyond our knowable circle. Decisionmaking is a complex procedure using the known and unknown influences into a result within the givens. I repeat my original position: FREE WILL is the reins to keep human slaves in line by fear of violating the 'rules of power' (religious, or political/economic) WILLFULLY and undergoing to a punishment later on. The concept of SIN. JM On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 6:00 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.abstract Abstract The feeling of being in control of one’s own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and motivation. Recently, it has been shown that undermining free-will beliefs influences social behavior. In the study reported here, we investigated whether undermining beliefs in free will affects brain correlates of voluntary motor preparation. Our results showed that the readiness potential was reduced in individuals induced to disbelieve in free will. This effect was evident more than 1 s before participants consciously decided to move, a finding that suggests that the manipulation influenced intentional actions at preconscious stages. Our findings indicate that abstract belief systems might have a much more fundamental effect than previously thought. Has anyone posted this yet? Hard to explain what brain correlates are doing responding to an illusion... -- 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. -- 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: First person indeterminacy (Re: COMP theology)
Brent and Bruno: you both have statements in this endless discussion about processing ideas of quantum computers. I would be happy to read about ONE that works, not a s a potentiality, but as a real tool, the function of which is understood and APPLIED. (Here, on Earth). John Mikes On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 10:51 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/12/2012 7:16 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 3/12/2012 10:00 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 3/11/2012 11:41 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: An Evil Wizard could pop into my vicinity and banish me to the Nether plane! A magical act, if real and just part of a story, is an event that violates some conservation law. I don't see what else would constitute magic... My point is that Harry Potterisms would introduce cul-de-sacs that would totally screw up the statistics and measures, so they have to be banished. Because otherwise things would be screwed up? Chain-wise consistency and concurrency rules would prevent these pathologies, but to get them we have to consider multiple and disjoint observers and not just shared 1p as such implicitly assume an absolute frame of reference. Basically we need both conservation laws and general covariance. Do we obtain that naturally from COMP? That's an open question. You seem to be begging the question: We need regularity, otherwise things wouldn't be regular. No, you are dodging the real question: How is the measure defined? The obvious way is that all non-self-contradictory events are equally likely. But that's hypothesized, not defined. I'm not sure why you are asking how it's defined. The usual definition is an assignment of a number in [0,1] to every member of a Borel set such that they satisfies Kolmogorov's axioms. If it is imposed by fiat, say so and defend the claim. Why is it so hard to get you to consider multiple observers and consider the question as to how exactly do they interact? Al of the discussion that I have seen so far considers a single observer and abstractions about other people. The most I am getting is the word plurality. Is this difficult? Really? It's difficult because people are trying to explain 'other people' and taking only their own consciousness as given. If you're going to assume other people, why not assume physics too? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- 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 Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Mar 14, 2:52 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/14/2012 10:08 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Mar 14, 12:32 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/14/2012 7:21 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Mar 13, 11:15 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 3/13/2012 3:00 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.abstract Abstract The feeling of being in control of one s own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and motivation. Recently, it has been shown that undermining free-will beliefs influences social behavior. In the study reported here, we investigated whether undermining beliefs in free will affects brain correlates of voluntary motor preparation. Our results showed that the readiness potential was reduced in individuals induced to disbelieve in free will. This effect was evident more than 1 s before participants consciously decided to move, a finding that suggests that the manipulation influenced intentional actions at preconscious stages. Our findings indicate that abstract belief systems might have a much more fundamental effect than previously thought. Has anyone posted this yet? Hard to explain what brain correlates are doing responding to an illusion... I think they just rediscovered hypnotism. Brent Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. --- Schopenhauer If someone is hypnotized to think that they are eating an apple when they are really eating a raw onion, they have to be able to imagine what it is like to eat an apple. If someone is hypnotized to think that they have no free will, but free will doesn't exist to begin with, why would there be any difference to the brain? I someone says to you, You are paralyzed. You can't lift your arm. and you hear these words and interpret them how would that happen without any changes in your brain? Voluntary movement has to first exist in order for a suggestion of paralysis to be meaningful. If all movement was involuntary in the first place then there would be no significant difference between passively watching yourself move and passively watching yourself not move, so the suggestion of paralysis would not change the brain more than any other non-sequitur suggestion. If we had no free will, our belief about it should have no effect on the actual ability to execute our wishes though our motor cortex. Compare: If you had no immortal soul that would be judged after your death your belief about it should have no effect on your religious behavior. Beliefs can have effects whether they have real referents or not. False equivalence. Belief itself is inseparable from free will. An immortal soul doesn't supervene on being able to believe in something. To have a valid comparison you would have to say something like 'If you had no car then you couldn't drive your own car - which would be true. We might be able to fool ourselves, but if our brain cares what we believe in then our ability to execute our will can hardly be said to be deterministic. A double non-sequitur. Makes sense to me. We might be able to fool ourselves... but if our brain cares what we believe (as is proved by this study) then our ability to execute our will can hardly be said to be deterministic. because our beliefs influence our ability to execute our will and they are not deterministic if they can be intentionally manipulated by suggestion... whatever deterministic cascade of consequence supposedly controls our every thought and action is superseded by someone's deliberate intention to change it. If I can change someone else's belief then I am determining their behavior, not their biology. Hypnosis is further evidence that physiological process of the brain can be directly influenced semantically, and by extension belief, or self-hypnosis is evidence of the same. Wow! We've discovered that if we shout, LOOK OUT! people will duck. I'll be sure to publish this evidence of direct semantic influence. It doesn't need to be published. Evidence of semantic influence is not generally denied outside of the Everything List. Craig -- 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 Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Mar 14, 4:34 pm, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Craig and Brent: Free Will is not a matter of faith. One does not believe IN it, or not. (Of course this is a position in my (agnostic) worldview - my 'belief' ha ha). We are part of an infinite complexity with limited capabilities to accept influence from the infinite factors (if those ARE factors indeed, not just 'relations') Our mental activity (assigned in our limited conventional sciences to the brain) is pondering consciously and unconsciously, including arguments we know of and arguments (not yet?) known. The result may not be deterministic because we are not a simpleton machine (sorry Bruno, emphasis here is on simpleton) so we may have 'options' - choices, but not 'freely at all. We have the power to choose disadvantegously, even knowingly so. I agree. I never imply that free will must be absolutely free, rather I say that there are many shades of liberty that we experience, from the nearly involuntary physiological systems which yogic discipline can achieve some degree of control over, to the nearly complete freedom of our imagination. The key is that 'we have the power to choose'. That is not explainable under determinism, which then is forced to cast doubt on the existence of 'we' to cover for it's lack of understanding of what it means to 'choose'. We know only a portion of the factors (aspects, I almost wrote: components) in the infinite complexity (call it God, or nature, totality, wholeness, or even everything) and surely misunderstand even those. We humanize knowledge into terms and qualia we can understand and use. Such is our 'model' of the world. Our mental work is influenced by the 'model-content' AND also by facts (?) beyond our knowable circle. Decisionmaking is a complex procedure using the known and unknown influences into a result within the givens. It's not just decision making though. Free will is creativity, expression, and preference. Like Bob Ross, I can choose to put a happy little tree in my world on canvas, without any meaningful consequence to evolutionary biology or religious righteousness. I can change my mind and paint over the tree too. There is very little room for determinism in this context. I repeat my original position: FREE WILL is the reins to keep human slaves in line by fear of violating the 'rules of power' (religious, or political/economic) WILLFULLY and undergoing to a punishment later on. The concept of SIN. JM I can partially agree with that (although doing so doesn't seem to be out of any fear of violating any rules of power') but those reigns are still completely different from how machines are controlled. Programming does not hem in the willful nature of a computer, it does just the opposite, it accumulates rules through which we command computers to impersonate our purposefulness. They have no option but to follow their programming as they have no power to violate any rules that they contain. They are made of rules, and so need no fear to keep them in line. Humans have many rules, but we are not made of them, we are made of that which makes and breaks rules. Craig -- 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: For Evgenii: the-unavoidable-cost-of-computation-revealed
On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 07:51:13PM +0100, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: Then the thermodynamic entropy is subjective. Try to convince in this engineers who develop engines, or chemists who compute equilibria, and see what happens. I take Denbigh Denbigh's position that entropy is not subjective, but rather fixed by convention. Conventions can be entirely objective. This should assuage those engineers you speak of. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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.
