Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 02 Aug 2012, at 00:27, RMahoney wrote: Bruno wrote: And my (older) definition asks for one more thing: it is that the subject know (is aware or is conscious) about that inability and that he can still make the decision. There is a reflexion on the possibilities. If not, all non sentient beings have trivially free will. This is pretty much what I was thinking... It appears we live in a cause and effect universe. Things do not happen without cause. There is a decision making process each concious being embodies that is governed by cause and effect, while the being cannot understand the process in it's entirety, so thinks they have some magic called free will. The being has a will, the being embodies the decision making mechanism, the being's mechanism makes a choice, even if the being decides to make a random choice, it is the being's choice. The being's very existence is made possible by cause and effect, and so it's decisions are governed likewise. The being emodies a will, it can be called a free will if you like, but it is not free from the cause effect process. Even though in a multiverse a cause can have multiple effects. I agree with you. Of course, I would add that the physical cause-and-effect universe we live in is a theological (or biological, psychological) pattern emerging from the laws of cause and effect of the numbers, which in this case are just the laws of addition and multiplication together with some logical inference rule, like the modus ponens. But this is another topic, and it is not really needed for an account of the free- will notion. But that's another issue. A being can embody a will, a free will as the being views it, but still be governed by a complex cause effect process. Absolutely. That is the compatibilist or mechanist idea of will or free will. The concepts are not really at odds with one another, as this being sees it. Yes. It comes from the fact that we cannot use the basic laws we supervene on to predict our behavior. We can do it trivially only, and in a non constructive way, as we cannot be sure which machine we are, and have to bet on some substitution level. No lawyer will ever justify the non responsibility, or the absence of (free)-will of an agent by invoking the fact that the murderer (say) was just obeying to the physical laws. That would be trivial, and the judge can condemn the murderer to any pain by invoking himself that he is just obeying to the physical laws. Plausibly true, but trivial, and non sensical as it makes everyone non responsible of anything, and this without without changing the verdict, and even making possible arbitrary one, and this leads to a form of person elimination akin to materialist eliminativism (à-la Churchland couple). 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: Physics and Tautology.
If this universe has zero net energy charge and angular momemtum, I see no problem being created via a chaotic inflation scenario. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/kRunZgoGxfoJ. 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: Physics and Tautology.
Hi Ronald, I have a severe problem with this entire thread! What exactly determines the particular properties, such as charge, angular momentum, mass, etc., of this universe? Why are we assuming that the choice of what went into the zero net sum is a prior definite and constrained. The question of the universe here is not so simple that it can be represented the same way that we can note that 1 - 1 = 0. Even in arithmetic model, we have to offer within our explanations what where the summands http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/summands#English that let to the sum of net zero. For example, 5 - 5 = 0, 4 - 4 = 0, etc. x - x = 0. What is x? We cannot assume without discussion what is x! It seems to me that this entire thread is infected with post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning and we should reconsider exactly what is being contemplated. I suggest reading of a good book on Cosmology, such as Principles of Physical Cosmology by Phillip James Edwin Peebles http://books.google.com/books/about/Principles_of_Physical_Cosmology.html?id=AmlEt6TJ6jAC, where one finds a very nice discussion of these issues of without the nonsense of logical fallacies. On 8/2/2012 2:49 PM, ronaldheld wrote: If this universe has zero net energy charge and angular momemtum, I see no problem being created via a chaotic inflation scenario. -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- 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 Unreality of Time
Alberto, I have one more question. On 31.07.2012 11:08 Alberto G. Corona said the following: Evgenii, great questions 2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following: ... Let us say that there is some conglomerate of atoms. When it computes and when not? From a black-box perspective, they compute when they are open to to the environment and they maintain its internal entropy. That may be the definition of life too. From inside, they must live in a predictable environment with smooth phisical laws where entrophy dangers and opportinities can be discovered to react appropriately I would suggest to consider a series as follows: A greath exercise, 1) A rock; A rock does not compute but it may be said that it maintain its internal order by generating a newtonian force equal and opposed to every force exerted against it. So it may be considered that perform a analogical computation. But a rock does not preserve and extend its information by reproduction. 2) A ballcock in the toilet; It is an analogical device with a detector (the piece thar floats) and an actuator (the piece that closes the flux of water) . Both are solidary. The computation is the most simple possible: upon a threshold the flux of water is interrupted. Could you please describe a bit more what the difference in computation do you see between a rock and a ballcock? A quote about the rock to this end: Take that rock over there. It doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The rock’s innards ‘see’ the entire universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run through. Evgenii http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/02/rock-and-information.html -- 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: Free will: a definition
I do not want to suggest a definition, but have a question concerning comp frame. When I improvise, often in Jazz or Rock context the free will question becomes fuzzy in this way: Sometimes you hit a point where all the patterns/formulas you've learned; i.e. the kind of stuff you can play in your sleep, all the pre-calculated, time-proven stuff, runs out... at which point you risk repeating yourself in redundancy. At this point, I am forced to take a risk and plunge into the icy waters of all things I haven't played yet. When it works, it feels like magic as instant composition; but even when it doesn't, which makes up the great majority of these situations, and a technical error results from forced decision, as Brent says, out of time constraint, you can ride the mistake. And on some occasions it can change the whole musical situation and take the band in a different direction: like we wanted to close after so many choruses, but we extend because somebody found that weird thing and riding it was pretty nice and it echoes into coda and ending, everybody quoting it. So from 1p perspective the technical error is not intended. Not a free decision and rather embarrassing, taken out of context. But this can reverse from point of view of the band/audience after the mistake has proven a fruitful input for some new groove. Then everybody agrees it was cool, and that we fully intended and meant that to happen in a that's what music is about kind of way. But then it can also be a random bullshit mistake; not fruitful at all. Strangely, even though I decide to take the plunge, I don't really feel like I'm in control of this. But if venue, band, audience is cool; I definitely control it more, than when a bunch of professors are evaluating me. So my question for weak comp frame: who/what else is in control when 1p makes a forced, time-constrained decision? On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:28 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Aug 2012, at 18:23, Brian Tenneson wrote: We may be overthinking things here. What's wrong with defining it as the capacity to make choices when more than one option is available? ... from the point of view of the knowing subject. I am OK with that definition. You have to add from the point of view of the subject to prevent the idea that a God, or the Physical Theory makes it like at some (low) level, only one option exists. Yet, it is not because some God or some Supermachine, or just your friends, can predict if you will drink tea or coffee that you will not exercise free will by choosing the option which satisfies you the most. Two options can be enough. Free will is the ability to choose between drinking tea or not drinking tea. Bruno On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:17 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 8/1/2012 5:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote: Yes - and rationality often does not help much. In such situations, it is often better to make a fast decision than a good one. Only irrational agents can make fast decisions. Almost all real decisions (even in chess) are time constrained. How can it be rational to wait too long for your decision to matter and irrational to make a quick decision on incomplete information, on incomplete analysis? From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people are using the term rational in the same way it is used in economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be the best thing to do. Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so. What meaning of 'rational' are you using? 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.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://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. 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
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The problem is I have no conception of free will and neither do you nor does anybody else, at least not a consistent coherent one that has any depth. This contradicts your own definition of free will that you already find much better. It is hard to follow you. That's because you aren't paying attention. I said the values of other definitions of free will were negative but mine was much more valuable, it has zero value. 2) Free Will is the inability to always predict ones actions even in a unchanging environment. My definition is basically your 2), and this since the beginning. And you can restate it as you don't know what the result of a calculation will be until you finish it ; unlike other free will definitions it's clear and isn't self contradictory, but it also isn't deep and it isn't useful so its value is zero, but zero is greater than -10 or -100. You do the same error as with theology and notions of Gods. You want them to be handled only by the crackpots. Crackpots should have a monopoly on crackpot ideas and theology and notions of God are crackpot ideas. Intelligence theories are not nearly as easy to come up with [as consciousness theories] but are far far easier to test, its simple to separate the good from the bad. It is actually very simple. I define a machine as intelligent, if it is not a stupid machine. I did not ask for a definition I asked for the Fundamental Theorem of Intelligence that explains how intelligence works and can be proven to be correct by making a dumb thing, like a collection of microchips, smart. Hard to come up with but simple to test, it would be the other way around if we were dreaming up new consciousness theories. 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: Physics and Tautology.
On 8/2/2012 12:18 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Hi Ronald, I have a severe problem with this entire thread! What exactly determines the particular properties, such as charge, angular momentum, mass, etc., of this universe? They are conserved quantities, so if they are zero now it follows that they were zero at the origin, which suggests the universe came from nothing. Why are we assuming that the choice of what went into the zero net sum is a prior definite and constrained. The question of the universe here is not so simple that it can be represented the same way that we can note that 1 - 1 = 0. Even in arithmetic model, we have to offer within our explanations what where the summands http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/summands#English that let to the sum of net zero. For example, 5 - 5 = 0, 4 - 4 = 0, etc. x - x = 0. What is x? We cannot assume without discussion what is x! Sure we can. That's the advantage of mathematics, x-x=0 regardless of what number is x. It seems to me that this entire thread is infected with post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning and we should reconsider exactly what is being contemplated. I suggest reading of a good book on Cosmology, such as Principles of Physical Cosmology by Phillip James Edwin Peebles http://books.google.com/books/about/Principles_of_Physical_Cosmology.html?id=AmlEt6TJ6jAC, where one finds a very nice discussion of these issues of without the nonsense of logical fallacies. There's no logical fallacy in noting that a universe that came from nothing should have zero net energy and other conserved quantities. Peebles book is pretty old, so it's not going to include knowledge of the CMB from WMAP and COBE or the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating or the holographic principle. I'd recommend Vic Stenger's The Comprehensible Cosmos, Sean Carroll's From Eternity to Here, or Alex Vilenkin's Many Worlds in One. Brent On 8/2/2012 2:49 PM, ronaldheld wrote: If this universe has zero net energy charge and angular momemtum, I see no problem being created via a chaotic inflation scenario. -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- 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.
Memories of Kurt Godel
I came across this today, which I thought others on this list might enjoy http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/08/01/memories-of-kurt-godel/ Among other things Godel mentions a belief in the illusion of time, compatibilist free will, Platonism, oneness of reality and mind. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Unreality of Time
Evgenn I have not much time this week. I just added a paragraph below. I will ask this with more detail later: 2012/8/2 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru Alberto, I have one more question. On 31.07.2012 11:08 Alberto G. Corona said the following: Evgenii, great questions 2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following: ... Let us say that there is some conglomerate of atoms. When it computes and when not? From a black-box perspective, they compute when they are open to to the environment and they maintain its internal entropy. That may be the definition of life too. From inside, they must live in a predictable environment with smooth phisical laws where entrophy dangers and opportinities can be discovered to react appropriately I would suggest to consider a series as follows: A greath exercise, 1) A rock; A rock does not compute but it may be said that it maintain its internal order by generating a newtonian force equal and opposed to every force exerted against it. So it may be considered that perform a analogical computation. But a rock does not preserve and extend its information by reproduction. 2) A ballcock in the toilet; It is an analogical device with a detector (the piece thar floats) and an actuator (the piece that closes the flux of water) . Both are solidary. The computation is the most simple possible: upon a threshold the flux of water is interrupted. Could you please describe a bit more what the difference in computation do you see between a rock and a ballcock? A quote about the rock to this end: Take that rock over there. It doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The rock’s innards ‘see’ the entire universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run through. Evgenii http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/02/**rock-and-information.htmlhttp://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/02/rock-and-information.html It could be said that even an elemental particle computes, because it interacts in defined ways with other particules. Matter then is a parallell computer with as much nodes as particles etc. But this is a paralelized version of the idea of the universe simulated by a computer program, with the variation that the computer is the whole universe itself. Life, thus would be a computation over a computation, because living beings compute at the macrostate level, using macrosciopical laws, not at the particule level. Byt I think that the idea of particle computing is wrong. the idea of a simulation trougn steps that represent a new state of every particle is wromg, whether the steps are caculated by a computer or the whole universe. Among other things because time is not a first class citizen in any cosmological theory. I think our observations, that is, life, determine a local time, but that´s all. I think that the best view of the particles according with the theory are trajectories in a static space-time within a manifold where nothing changes. This is the idea of the block universe. Computation at the level of particles is wrong from my point of view. And thus the idea of a computation in a rock does not .refer to the interactions between individual particles. From my point of view my description of a rock as a newtonian computer is just a intriguing curiosity for now. A ballcock perform some computation it generates good outcomes for the humans no matter if the flux of water is intense or slow and thus it may be considered as candidate to be a part of a living being. What living being? It may be part of what Dawkins call the extended genotype of the human being. like a car or any human invention. Then a rock have a similar function if this rock is part of a wall in a house, for example. -- 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.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@ **googlegroups.com everything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://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
Re: Free will: a definition
On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 01:24:59PM -0400, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.auwrote: Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be the best thing to do. I don't know what to make of that. If X is the best way to achieve a goal then X is the rational thing to do. The Monte Carlo Algorithm was invented soon after the end of the second world war specifically to model how a H-bomb worked, and it in effect flipped a coin millions of times. A thermonuclear fireball is far too complex to model from first principles so they generated random inputs for the position and momentum of particles and then performed deterministic calculations from them and then found the probability distribution. Without that the H-bomb would not exist. You can argue if building a H-bomb is a rational goal or not but it you want to figure out how to build one you've got to flip a coin many millions of times. John K Clark No, it is not the rational thing to do. A rational agent has infinite computing capacity and knowledge. A rational agent will know how to simulate an H-bomb exactly without resorting to random approximations. It may well be a boundedly rational thing to do, although I'm not sure this is even true. I haven't studied bounded rationality theory in great depth. Of course all this is shining light on the concept of rationality, which I personally think is rather suspect. Certainly, real people are not rational - they have to get on with their lives. -- 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.
Re: Free will: a definition
On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 09:17:00AM -0700, meekerdb wrote: From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people are using the term rational in the same way it is used in economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be the best thing to do. Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so. What meaning of 'rational' are you using? Brent The usual one from philosophy and economics theory. See eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality. Note partiularly the first sentence: In philosophy, rationality is the characteristic of any action, belief, or desire, that makes their choice a necessity. A rational agent is neither free, nor random. Somewhat unstated in that article is that rational agents have sufficient computing capacity to perform the reasoning necessary to determine the optimum choice - there is no flipping of coins to determine choices. In economics, it is also assumed that agents have perfect knowledge of the market. This would be public knowledge, of course, clairvoyance would be ruled out. Each agent knows what every other agent has done in the past, but not what they're planning to do next, for instance. I can see that in other fields, the concept of rationality with incomplete information is deployed, so I may have overstressed the complete information bit. But its all a load of rubbish anyway. Real agents cannot be rational - they must have bounded reasoning capability, and real time decision constraints. The leads to the conclusion that a certain amount of irrationality is a good thing. If you're interested, I can refer you to a nice little paper of mine looking at a traditional toy model from economics: http://www.arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0411006 Cheers -- 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.
Re: Free will: a definition
On 8/2/2012 3:38 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 01:24:59PM -0400, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Russell Standishli...@hpcoders.com.auwrote: Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be the best thing to do. I don't know what to make of that. If X is the best way to achieve a goal then X is the rational thing to do. The Monte Carlo Algorithm was invented soon after the end of the second world war specifically to model how a H-bomb worked, and it in effect flipped a coin millions of times. A thermonuclear fireball is far too complex to model from first principles so they generated random inputs for the position and momentum of particles and then performed deterministic calculations from them and then found the probability distribution. Without that the H-bomb would not exist. You can argue if building a H-bomb is a rational goal or not but it you want to figure out how to build one you've got to flip a coin many millions of times. John K Clark No, it is not the rational thing to do. A rational agent has infinite computing capacity and knowledge. A rational agent will know how to simulate an H-bomb exactly without resorting to random approximations. But that's impossible because (1) the quantum events he would simulate are inherently random and (2) he cannot know what information/energy will arrive from outside his past lightcone during the interval simulated. Such a concept of rationality can only be a useful approximations within a game such as chess. It may well be a boundedly rational thing to do, although I'm not sure this is even true. I haven't studied bounded rationality theory in great depth. Of course all this is shining light on the concept of rationality, which I personally think is rather suspect. Certainly, real people are not rational - they have to get on with their lives. I'd say they are rational, but that you have adopted an overly idealized defintion of 'rational'. But quite aside from quantum randomness, limited computational capacity, and signals from outside the past lightcone; people are 'irrational', or I would say 'extra-rational', because the values which they seek to satisfy are not and cannot be arrived at purely by ratiocination. These values are built-in by evolution, both biological and cultural. Rationality only serves to achieve a consilient subset of them. Brent Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. --- David Hume -- 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 Unreality of Time
Evgnii,. The question is that the mind is not the brain in the same way that Microsoft Word running in a computer ins not the computer. The intuitive notion of location of our self, our mind behind de eyes and thus inside the skull is not a mere derivation of the fact that the brain is located there, but it is different. It is a evolutionary adaptation, and a adaptation is a design, that is for good reasons our intuition in location of our self is in the head. But the fact that is is an adaptation and not something derived from the position of the brain is that the mind can be cheated to be located in a separated place. Wiht a camera and a monitor and glasses of virtual realtiy it is possible to cheat ourseves, and think that we are behind our bodies. We think thar our self is in the head because in this way we control better ourselves and we can react to inmediate dangers better.( That is why fighter pilots, that need heavy feedback and agile movements fly with their machines, while the spy and air to ground missions can be managed remotely) but the mind is not in the phisical space . Rather that that, in the kantian sense, space , the intuitive space, the euclidean space, seems to be the way the mind organize the objects of his perception. This space may be isomorphic with the space of the phisical world, but is not the same. Think for example of a program which simulate a 3D space with objects which receive feedback from the physical space trough a camera. Both spaces are siimlar, but the simulated space do not use phisical space. so when a person look at his hand, he is perceiving his hand, and by definition the hand he sees is in his mind. This hand is not in the phisical space, it is in the mental space. it is not in the phisical world. it is in the mental world. But there is a phisical hand. Is natural selection the designer that assures that his phisical hand is doing what is mental hand his doing, Except if it is an schizofrenic, is using allucinatory drugs or has some serious deficiency. It natural selection the designer that discard bad mental perceptions of reality. However, this does say nothing about the nature of the phisical world. The fact taht two persons see the same does not assure that the phisical world is that way. Both can be in a Matix world, where his sensory nervous terminations are conected to a computer simulation. And still both perceive space and objects. But this arangement can not evolve as a result of any natural process, 2012/7/31 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru Alberto, Thank you for your answers. I will make one comment now. I plan to read Schneider on molecular machines (thanks for the link) and then I may make more comments. On 31.07.2012 11:08 Alberto G. Corona said the following: Evgenii, great questions 2012/7/30 Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru On 30.07.2012 11:19 Alberto G. Corona said the following: ... The activity of the brain is the mind and the mind is a separate world that includes all that can be perceived. What is outside of the mind may just plain mathematics. What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. Observations happen in the mind. We can repeat and verify experiments because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind, and because our minds have similar architecture and experience, so we have the same language, interests, experimental machines, procedures, so, as Eric Voegelin said, we live in a shared social mind. I am not sure if I understand. How do you connect these two assumptions: What we call phisical world is in reality set of phenomenons perceived by the mind. because we live in the same mathematical reality outside of the mind Do you mean that the world outside of the mind is congruent with the perceived world by the mind? Yes. This is not magical, but a product of natural selection. Our mental world is made to support life, and life is the art of maintaining and reproducing our bodies, that live outside of the mind. A computer can simulate anythnig we want, but our brains are dedicated computers devoted full time to carefully examine the external reality that appear to our perception as phenomenons or else, we would not survive. Some irrealities can be accepted when they are in a trade-off with other more valuable knowledge, or the perception is too expensive. We do not see individual dangerous bacterias for example, but we avoid them by smell and taste and some visual clues, well before we noticed its existence. So when we have in front of our eyes an arrangement of atoms that has direct or indirect meaning for our purposes, we identifty and classify it according with his use: men, women, disgusting, pleasing, horses, experiments, countries..but also atoms, electrons and so on. And we proceed acordingly. None of these things exist outside of the mind, but what we are sure of is that outside there is
Re: Free will: a definition
On 8/2/2012 3:55 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 09:17:00AM -0700, meekerdb wrote: From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people are using the term rational in the same way it is used in economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be the best thing to do. Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so. What meaning of 'rational' are you using? Brent The usual one from philosophy and economics theory. See eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality. Note partiularly the first sentence: In philosophy, rationality is the characteristic of any action, belief, or desire, that makes their choice a necessity. Hmm. A mother sees her house is on fire and her child is inside. Since the child is more important to her than anything else, she dashes into the house to save her child. This is an example of rationality!? A rational agent is neither free, nor random. Somewhat unstated in that article is that rational agents have sufficient computing capacity to perform the reasoning necessary to determine the optimum choice - there is no flipping of coins to determine choices. In economics, it is also assumed that agents have perfect knowledge of the market. This would be public knowledge, of course, clairvoyance would be ruled out. Each agent knows what every other agent has done in the past, but not what they're planning to do next, for instance. But then to compete with other agents it may well be optimum to adopt a random policy and flip a coin. I can see that in other fields, Economics, as described above, is just a game like poker. But even in a game is may be best to do something random. the concept of rationality with incomplete information is deployed, so I may have overstressed the complete information bit. But its all a load of rubbish anyway. Real agents cannot be rational - they must have bounded reasoning capability, and real time decision constraints. The leads to the conclusion that a certain amount of irrationality is a good thing. If you're interested, I can refer you to a nice little paper of mine looking at a traditional toy model from economics: http://www.arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0411006 Interesting. I wrote a similar paper in 1984 as a critique of a U.S. Air Force proposal to have competing contractors produce the same product. 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: Free will: a definition
On Thu, Aug 02, 2012 at 04:46:07PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: But then to compete with other agents it may well be optimum to adopt a random policy and flip a coin. Of course. But rationality is not just about doing the optimal thing, its about knowing what is the optimal thing to do, and then doing it. One must add some caveats to this characterisation, of course - divine inspiration needs to be ruled out, for example. The knowledge must derived by logical reasoning from that available information, which is where the requirement for unlimited computational resources comes from. I do understand where you're coming from - everyday usage of the word rational is considerably looser than the technical meaning used in philosophy, economics, etc. Cheers -- 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.
Re: Physics and Tautology.
On 8/2/2012 5:06 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 8/2/2012 12:18 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Hi Ronald, I have a severe problem with this entire thread! What exactly determines the particular properties, such as charge, angular momentum, mass, etc., of this universe? They are conserved quantities, so if they are zero now it follows that they were zero at the origin, which suggests the universe came from nothing. Hi Brent, I think that that is the consensus opinion of the members of this list. Why are we assuming that the choice of what went into the zero net sum is a prior definite and constrained. The question of the universe here is not so simple that it can be represented the same way that we can note that 1 - 1 = 0. Even in arithmetic model, we have to offer within our explanations what where the summands http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/summands#English that let to the sum of net zero. For example, 5 - 5 = 0, 4 - 4 = 0, etc. x - x = 0. What is x? We cannot assume without discussion what is x! Sure we can. That's the advantage of mathematics, x-x=0 regardless of what number is x. But do you see my point? Anything and everything can be generated from zero in this way. The hard question is how is it that we only observe a tiny finite fragment of this infinity? It seems to me that this entire thread is infected with post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning and we should reconsider exactly what is being contemplated. I suggest reading of a good book on Cosmology, such as Principles of Physical Cosmology by Phillip James Edwin Peebles http://books.google.com/books/about/Principles_of_Physical_Cosmology.html?id=AmlEt6TJ6jAC, where one finds a very nice discussion of these issues of without the nonsense of logical fallacies. There's no logical fallacy in noting that a universe that came from nothing should have zero net energy and other conserved quantities. The fallacy is to assume that what is the case must always be the case. Peebles book is pretty old, so it's not going to include knowledge of the CMB from WMAP and COBE or the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating or the holographic principle. I'd recommend Vic Stenger's The Comprehensible Cosmos, Sean Carroll's From Eternity to Here, or Alex Vilenkin's Many Worlds in One. Nah. I like Pebbles because it is hard nose empiricism and openly so. No speculations unless labeled as such. Brent On 8/2/2012 2:49 PM, ronaldheld wrote: If this universe has zero net energy charge and angular momemtum, I see no problem being created via a chaotic inflation scenario. -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- 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. -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- 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: Memories of Kurt Godel
On 8/2/2012 5:26 PM, Jason Resch wrote: I came across this today, which I thought others on this list might enjoy http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/08/01/memories-of-kurt-godel/ Among other things Godel mentions a belief in the illusion of time, compatibilist free will, Platonism, oneness of reality and mind. Jason Rudy! I love that guy! -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- 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 Unreality of Time
On 8/2/2012 4:43 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: We think thar our self is in the head because in this way we control better ourselves and we can react to inmediate dangers better.( That is why fighter pilots, that need heavy feedback and agile movements fly with their machines, while the spy and air to ground missions can be managed remotely) That's why fighter pilots *don't* fly with their missiles. The missiles can turn sharper and react faster. The reason fighter pilots fly with their planes is that the procurement system is run by ex-fighter pilots and pilots like to have airplanes to fly in. 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.
