The Plant Teachers
Graham Hancock's experiences with Ayahuasca Of course some will immediately denounce this post as irrelevant to the search for a TOE. But, recall that CONSCIOUSNESS is the ultimate final frontier in science and that voyagers in consciousness-altering substances have a perspective to contribute here. This blog I find to be one of the more convincingly serious and thought-provoking essays on the use of DMT that I have yet encountered. In many ways, the experience of Ayahuasca seems to dovetail with the experience of Salvia Divinorum, as I'm sure Bruno will agree. I have tried neither, but would leap at the opportunity were it to present itself to me. Fascinating, Captain, fascinating. Kim Jones. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:04 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.comwrote: I'm not claiming that intelligence == mind. Do you believe that your fellow human beings have minds? If so why? Yes (weakly). You believe that only weakly?! Do you really think there is a 49% chance that you are the only conscious being in the universe? I don't know how to assign a probability to that. I guess I believe it's in ]0.5, 1] because I would bet on it, but that's all I can say. I say weakly because the only thing I have to back this belief is an heuristic, which I find to be a weaker form of approximating the truth than mathematical proof or experimental confirmation. By the way, I don't believe other people have minds when they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead because when they are in those states they don't behave very intelligently. But that is because you believe that intelligence == mind. I don't. Certain experiences that you can do on yourself might make you doubt that belief, but I don't know of any way to convince you except suggesting that you do those experiences. Occam's razor. If I'm the only human being with a mind, then, for some mysterious reason, there are two types of human beings: me (with a mind) and the others (zombies). So heuristically I'm inclined to believe that all human beings have a mind, OK, but if you also believe in Darwin's theory of Evolution then you must also believe that consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence because Evolution can't directly see consciousness any better than we can and so cannot select for it, and yet you and probably other people are conscious. Thus you must also believe that if a computer is intelligent then it is conscious. Then you must also believe that intelligence == mind. You are begging the question. You're assuming, to begin with, that intelligence == mind and then you claim to prove that intelligence == mind. By the way, for evolution to generate consciousness there has to exist a gradient to climb. Unless the evolutionary process just stumbles into consciousness, but in that case it is not a valid theory of it's origin. So you are implicitly assuming that there is some measure of consciousness, where you can say that entity A is more conscious than entity B. What would that even mean? My cat seems conscious to me (but I can't know for sure). Is he less conscious than me? Well I know stuff that he doesn't, but he also knows stuff that I don't -- for example he knows how it feels to be a cat. although I know I will never be able to prove it. I agree on that point. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 1:02 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: Hi Stathis, The simulation of our 'self' that our brain generates *is* good enough to fool oneself! I speculate that schizophrenia and autism are caused by failures of the self-simulation system... The former is a failure where multiple self-simulations are generated and no stability on their convergent occurs and the latter is where the self-simulation fails altogether. Mind version of autism, such as Aspergers syndrome are where bad simulations occur and/or the self-simulation fails to update properly. That's an interesting idea, but schizophrenia is where the the connections between functional subsystems in the brain is disrupted, so that you get perceptions, beliefs, emotions occurring without the normal chain of causation, while autism is where the concept of other minds is disrupted. I think the self-image is present but distorted. If we consider that the Libet experiments show that we are making decisions without knowing it, and Blindsight shows that we are able to see without being conscious of it, then there is no reason why we should suddenly trust our own reporting of what we think that we know about the sense of interacting with a living person. A true Turing test would require a face-to-face interaction, so that none of our natural sensory capabilities would be blocked as they would with just a text or video interaction. That's the situation that is assumed in the idea of a philosophical zombie: you interact with the being face to face. If at the end of several days' interaction (or however long you think you need) you are completely convinced that it is conscious, does that mean it is conscious? As I see things, the only coherent concept of a zombie is what we see in the autistic case. Such is 'conscious' with no self-image/self-awareness, thus it has no ability to report on its 1p content. I think of autistic people as differently conscious, not unconscious. Incidentally, there is a movement among higher functioning autistic people whereby they resent being labelled as disabled, but assert that their way of thinking is just as valid and intrinsically worthwhile as that of the neurotypicals. I think that it is important to remember that in theory, logically, consciousness cannot exist. It is only through our own undeniable experience of consciousness that we feel the need to justify it with logic - but so far we have only projected the religious miracles of the past into a science fiction future. If it was up to logic alone, there could not, and would not every be a such thing as experience. You could as well say that logically there's no reason for anything to exist, but it does. How about that! Does this not tell us that we must start, in our musing about existence with the postulate that something exists? Perhaps, but there are other ways to look at it. A primary mathematical/Platonic universe necessarily rather than contingently exists. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: That's just because the simulation of a person isn't good enough. The question is what if the simulation *is* good enough to completely fool you. Fooling me is meaningless. I think that you think therefore you are fails to account for the subjective thinker in the first place. If someone kills you, but they then find a nifty way to use your cadaver as a ventriloquist's dummy, does it matter if it fools someone into thinking that you are still alive? You have said that you can just sense the consciousness of other minds but you have contradicted that, or at least admitted that the sensing faculty can be fooled. If you have no sure test for consciousness that means you might see it where it isn't present or miss it where it is present. So your friend might be unconscious despite your feeling that he is, and your computer might be conscious despite your feeling that it is not. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
2013/2/7 Platonist Guitar Cowboy multiplecit...@gmail.com On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.comwrote: 2013/2/6 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. A religion is just a cult with good PR. It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point, What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought the recognition. And all that you can consider 'established' have sought adherents. But legitimacy?? I'm not sure how that world can be attached to religion. In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case. I'm curious. How do they get recognized? Do they have to apply, They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think). Sorry to be frank, but if this is serious (I miss some joke), then it is naive: the mechanism that serves to monitor and regulate the founding of religions in Western Europe, is the same judicial tool to control and finally repress religious groups- by seemingly integrating them. The moment any of these groups moves to do things like: Well they have to conform to the laws (same as in the USA)... So no sects are not illegal in belgium, they can't be declared illegal as long as they conform to the laws like anywhere else on earth. And as I said, scientology *is not* illegal in belgium and it is *in practice* not in theory. No if you rant about the laws it's a totally different subject and you should not conflate the two. Regards, Quentin - change conceptions of marriage - change conceptions of family - import for example its sacred ceremonial brew from South America, that has a controlled substance in it for thousands of years - want more appropriate economic frameworks for taxation for their conceptions of groups and individuals (why not marriages, as Judith Butler often put forward, between 3,4,5 or more partners, if their financial strategy and survival is solid with every partner consenting? Today: If a community of six partners works and lives together, hopefully they pair off to 3 males and 3 females, and still they would be taxed as 3 couples) - or simply make too much money: the western democracy rears its totalitarian face; less obvious than in North Korea, but let's stop telling ourselves stories about our democracy vs. China etc. We have learned nothing from totalitarian times and wars. Just because we hide the totalitarian tendencies in different judicial spots of cultural prejudice, doesn't mean freedom of religion. A Rastafarian wanting some of his sacred herb in France: fat chance, if he were to cite his religious reasons in court. So yes, you can apply for official recognition of your religion if you are interested in playing poker in pairs with plastic money beside your bed. Sorry, prohibition applies here too. So yes, alternate religious groupings are in practice illegal in Western Europe, if not on paper. PGC Quentin or does the government have some standard (numbers?) by which they automatically get recognized? Do they have to file some statement of doctrine/theology/dogma with the government so that it can be determined whether a group is a splinter sect or a different religion? Is Mormonism recognized? Brent The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even harder to get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get out of the influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then corruption makes also some sect still developing, like notably scientology. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to
Re: Lee Smolin and Darwin's Uncommon Success
On 06 Feb 2013, at 17:39, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, February 6, 2013 9:50:35 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 21:34, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 3:27:27 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: 2013/2/5 Stephen P. King step...@charter.net Hi, ISTM that purpose is a 1p, so to ask the question in a 3p sense is to make it meaningless. That´s it. But to insist into make the question in 3p may force the introduction of an implicit 1p that contemplate the 3p, that is, a metamind , with a metatime etc. (To avoid pavlovian responses, i don´t mention the G. world). That is the meaning of my previous response. Why doesn't the metamind need a metamind? In fact arithmetic explains the presence of mind, in both the 3p and 1p view. Even without comp actually, by using the definition of mind by self-reference, and true self-reference (with truth guven by Tarski theory applied to arithmetic). Bruno What explains the presence of arithmetic? It is mysterious. But it is the least mysterious thing that we have to assume to talk on anything else. Or if we assume arithmetic, why should there be the presence of anything else? That's the point. There isn't anything else. Arithmetic is quite enough to explain how immaterial beings can get lost in terrestrial realities, and why those realities obeys laws, and which laws. Bruno Craig On 2/5/2013 6:23 AM, Russell Standish wrote: Only in the same sense that evolution is teleological, ie not really. Cheers On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 06:59:01PM +1100, Kim Jones wrote: So does this explain the PURPOSE of the universe or merely a dominant FUNCTION? The blind exercise of function doesn't seem to me to include the global concept of purpose. The use of this word is about my only gripe with it. I could be wrong. Cheers, K -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Comp: Geometry Is A Zombie
On 06 Feb 2013, at 17:50, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, February 6, 2013 9:55:45 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 11:19, Simon Forman wrote: On Monday, February 4, 2013 12:22:53 PM UTC-8, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, February 4, 2013 3:09:16 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: but there is a self reference when we try to imagine how the brain or a computer process geometry, and we imagine them embedded in the space and time that they create, which is not a correct intuition. we must imagine it in no time and no space. IMHO. That's what I think too, geometry without space isn't geometry, so that there is no reason to assume that mathematics produces geometric presentations, or that it could possibly produce them. If we want mathematics to occupy space, we have to pull that possibility out of thin air, as well as the capacity for numbers to suddenly do that (and why would they need to?) Craig Doesn't the quantum physical reality of information mean that all math *is* geometry? Put another way, math without a substratum would be in some platonic world, and not the real one, How do you know that? See the paper below(*) for an argument showing that if we are machine, then the physical reality is *only* emergent from arithmetic. Moon and stars are coherent number's dream, and this can be tested. So if you want a material substratum, you need to assume that you and your brain are not Turing emulable. (*) http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html I'm just talking about geometric presentations though. If we accept that Moon and stars are coherent number's dreams, then why are they not presented that way, but instead, as a-signifying shape relations? Where does the shapeness come from? Moon and stars are not not numbers dreams, but image appearing *in* the content of those dreams. The shapeness is easy to explain from the number relations and number self-reference, as I illustrate with some details. Bruno Craig Bruno so aren't you basically asking if there's some way to do math without form? Forgive me if I'm being an idoit. ;) ~Simon -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: context, comp, and multiverses
On 06 Feb 2013, at 18:02, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Feb 2013, at 12:19, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:17 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 14:14, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno, The definitons of simulation and emulation I can find both use the word imitation. Can you explain what you mean as being the difference between the two ? A computer can simulate a storm. It can also simulate another computer. In this case, when we simulate digital events by a digital machine, we can define a notion of totally faithful simulation. This what is called an emulation. Some mac, for example, emulate some PC. In fact any universal machine can emulate all possible digital machinery. This is why they are said universal. I would argue that totally faithful simulation is not enough. Simulation implies a simulated environment, while emulation has to work in the emulated thing's environment. This is trivial for a mac emulating a PC. It already has a keyboard, a display and a mouse. If you want to emulate fire, it actually has to be able to burn you. Or emulating a complete human being would require a robot. This is not the standard definition in computer science. It has nothing to so with emulating the environment (the data) or not. Bruno, For what it's worth, wikipedia agrees with me: In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates (or emulates) the functions of a first computer system (the guest) in a different second computer system (the host), so that the emulated behavior closely resembles the behavior of the real system. This focus on exact reproduction of behavior is in contrast to some other forms of computer simulation, in which an abstract model of a system is being simulated. For example, a computer simulation of a hurricane or a chemical reaction is not emulation. This concurs with what I said: the emulator does not need to be hardware, still less to contain an environment. That was all I was saying. May be you were just ambiguous on this or I misunderstood you. I have no problem with the Wiki, here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator It just means that there is an exact simulation. The intensional Church thesis (which is a simple consequence of the usual Church's thesis) makes all programs emulable by all universal programs. With a mac, you can emiulate a PC, but you can also emulate a complete PC with the keyboard, and if comp is correct you can emulate the PC, its keyboard, and the user. You can emulate fire on a MAC, and it can burn anyone emulated on that mac and interacting with the emulated fire (again assuming comp). The correct level of comp is defined by the one which make yourself being emulated by the artificial brain or body, or local universe. Ok, I agree with what you say here. You can turn a very good simulation into an emulation (for me) iff you emulate my mind inside the simulation. Yes. And this might help to understand why we don't need a primary (assumed) physical reality, as the number relations contains all possible emulations. Note that the MGA says something stronger: it says that not only we don't need a physical primary reality, but that even if that existed, we can't use it to relate any form of consciousness to it. By the usual Occam, weak-materialism is made into a sort of useless principle, a bit like vitalism in biology. Bruno Bruno Bruno Simulation - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster ... www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simulation a : the imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process by means of the functioning of another a computer simulation of an industrial process ... Definition of EMULATION 1 obsolete : ambitious or envious rivalry 2 : ambition or endeavor to equal or excel others (as in achievement) 3 a : imitation b : the use of or technique of using an emulator — em·u·la·tive adjective — em·u·la·tive·ly adverb - Receiving the following content - From: Telmo Menezes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-04, 17:07:32 Subject: Re: context, comp, and multiverses On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Monday, February 4, 2013 9:59:09 AM UTC-5, telmo_menezes wrote: On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:31 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: On Sunday, February 3, 2013 12:11:17 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 01 Feb 2013, at 16:42, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal � I would think that each universe provides its own distinctive context to any燾alculation, including comp. Comp is the assumption that we are Turing emulable. That notion is made very solid by Church's thesis. I don't think that we can assume that a Turing emulation of us is actually us. To the contrary, a
Re: Topical combination
On 06 Feb 2013, at 18:07, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, February 6, 2013 9:37:22 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 19:01, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 12:51:10 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 18:10, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2013/2/5 Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be On 05 Feb 2013, at 14:34, Roger Clough wrote: Hi meekerdb There's nothing wrong with science as science. But a problem arises when you apply the results to theology. Two completely different worlds. That's indeed a point where string atheists agree with string christian. Let us try to be not serious on theology, so we can assert the fairy tales. Strong Christian are happy because they feel like they can contradict the scientific evidences, and the atheists are happy so they can continue to mock the christians, and continue to sleep on their own (materialist) dogma. You put meaning in atheism which is not there... an atheist can perfectly be an idealist... materialism is not part of the definition of atheism. Definition here are often contradictory. Some years ago, the definition keep changing. Can you give me the name of an atheist who is idealist? I would consider Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet idealists, in the sense that the ideal is reduced to function rather than a material. That is not idealism. That's only the common functionalism. Idealists believe that matter is a production of the mind. I think that the common belief of Harris and Dennett is that the function of mind creates the illusion of matter as we know it. That contradicts what I read. You might give a reference. Beyond our view of matter, I would guess that both of them would agree that matter is a function of quantum functions, which to me is the same thing as an image of the mind made impersonal. But that is not what people means by quantum, which need to refer to the *assumed* (not derived like in comp) physics. Dennett made clear that he is physicalist, naturalist, and weak materialist. I don't know any scientist being idealist, and even in philosophy of mind, most dictionaries describe it as being abandoned. I agree in the sense that you intend, but I think that functionalism is the same thing as impersonal idealism. You can't provide new meaning to terms having standard definition. Most functionalist are weak-materialist today. Most scientists believe that comp needs materialism. They are still completely unaware of the first person indeterminacy, and the immaterialist consequences. Functionalism might imply immaterialism, as comp does (comp is that there is a level where functionalism is correct. Functionalism is usually vague on the level, which is implicitly given by some neuro- level, comp is just a much weaker hypothesis). Bruno Craig That explain probably why people take time to swallow the consequences of comp. Comp is the favorite theory of the (weak) materialist, and so it is hard for them to get that comp and materialism, and the usual weak Occam razor, are contradictory. Bruno Bruno Craig Bruno Quentin That does not give much place for the genuine inquiry, I think. Bruno - Receiving the following content - From: meekerdb Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-04, 13:48:50 Subject: Re: Topical combination On 2/4/2013 7:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Feb 2013, at 12:30, Roger Clough wrote: Hi John Mikes � It says � The Fabric of Eternity is the author's personal view of the Universe that allows for science and theology to explore the wonders of creation in peaceful unison.' � IMHO that is completely misguided, because the worlds they understand燼re separate magisteria, to use� Stephan Jay Gould's phrase.� Science deals with the physical world, and theology deals with the nonphysical world. Only an Aristotelian can say science deals with the physical world. This sums up physicalism. A Platonist says that science is just the modest tool/method to deal with any subject. Except it was Plato who thought he could understand the world by just thinking about it, while it was Aristotle who went out to observe and let the world teach him.� So who was modest and who was arrogant? Brent Allowing the abandon of science in the theological field can only be an invitation to the bad faith in there, and to the don't ask mentality. Bruno DreamMail - The first mail software supporting source tracking www.dreammail.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On 06 Feb 2013, at 19:04, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: I'm not claiming that intelligence == mind. Do you believe that your fellow human beings have minds? If so why? Yes (weakly). You believe that only weakly?! Do you really think there is a 49% chance that you are the only conscious being in the universe? By the way, I don't believe other people have minds when they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead because when they are in those states they don't behave very intelligently. Occam's razor. If I'm the only human being with a mind, then, for some mysterious reason, there are two types of human beings: me (with a mind) and the others (zombies). So heuristically I'm inclined to believe that all human beings have a mind, OK, but if you also believe in Darwin's theory of Evolution then you must also believe that consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence because Evolution can't directly see consciousness any better than we can and so cannot select for it, and yet you and probably other people are conscious. This not valid. You don't need to believe in any religion to see why that point is just not valid. Bruno Thus you must also believe that if a computer is intelligent then it is conscious. Then you must also believe that intelligence == mind. although I know I will never be able to prove it. I agree on that point. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On 06 Feb 2013, at 20:06, meekerdb wrote: On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. A religion is just a cult with good PR. It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point, What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought the recognition. And all that you can consider 'established' have sought adherents. But legitimacy?? I'm not sure how that world can be attached to religion. In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case. I'm curious. How do they get recognized? Arbitrarily. basically great known religion are accepted (the Abramanic one and, Hinduism, Buddhism). With the other you have to be careful when recruiting, and try to look like an association without financial interests. Typically a sect will be considered as such if people complain on sectarian activity, the most typical one being the subtraction of the children from the parents. Do they have to apply, or does the government have some standard (numbers?) by which they automatically get recognized? Do they have to file some statement of doctrine/theology/dogma with the government so that it can be determined whether a group is a splinter sect or a different religion? Is Mormonism recognized? It is not. Now if there are enough people adhering, and if the religion is widespread in some places, they can have a chance. Most people accept this state of affair, because we do have an history of bad sects leading to collective suicide. Scientology has oscillated between some form of acceptance and reject. Eventually, when too much people complains, like it has been the case for scientology, the government get its attention turned on them, and they disintegrate the sect, which sometimes come back with another name. Jehovah witness are tolerated because they are numerous, and considered as a variant of christians. Most male members were sent to jail, though, because they refused the military service, when it was obligatory for all. Bruno Brent The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even harder to get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get out of the influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then corruption makes also some sect still developing, like notably scientology. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On 06 Feb 2013, at 20:11, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2013/2/6 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. A religion is just a cult with good PR. It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point, What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought the recognition. And all that you can consider 'established' have sought adherents. But legitimacy?? I'm not sure how that world can be attached to religion. In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case. I'm curious. How do they get recognized? Do they have to apply, They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) OK. With enough money on the table, anything is legal in Belgium, and many countries. but they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think). Also, I am talking about the legislation I knew about many years ago. Maybe today they focus only on sectarian behavior (which would be more reasonable). Bruno Quentin or does the government have some standard (numbers?) by which they automatically get recognized? Do they have to file some statement of doctrine/theology/dogma with the government so that it can be determined whether a group is a splinter sect or a different religion? Is Mormonism recognized? Brent The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even harder to get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get out of the influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then corruption makes also some sect still developing, like notably scientology. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Topical combination
2013/2/7 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be On 06 Feb 2013, at 18:07, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, February 6, 2013 9:37:22 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 19:01, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 12:51:10 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 18:10, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2013/2/5 Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be On 05 Feb 2013, at 14:34, Roger Clough wrote: Hi meekerdb There's nothing wrong with science as science. But a problem arises when you apply the results to theology. Two completely different worlds. That's indeed a point where string atheists agree with string christian. Let us try to be not serious on theology, so we can assert the fairy tales. Strong Christian are happy because they feel like they can contradict the scientific evidences, and the atheists are happy so they can continue to mock the christians, and continue to sleep on their own (materialist) dogma. You put meaning in atheism which is not there... an atheist can perfectly be an idealist... materialism is not part of the definition of atheism. Definition here are often contradictory. Some years ago, the definition keep changing. Can you give me the name of an atheist who is idealist? I would consider Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet idealists, in the sense that the ideal is reduced to function rather than a material. That is not idealism. That's only the common functionalism. Idealists believe that matter is a production of the mind. I think that the common belief of Harris and Dennett is that the function of mind creates the illusion of matter as we know it. That contradicts what I read. You might give a reference. Beyond our view of matter, I would guess that both of them would agree that matter is a function of quantum functions, which to me is the same thing as an image of the mind made impersonal. But that is not what people means by quantum, which need to refer to the *assumed* (not derived like in comp) physics. Dennett made clear that he is physicalist, naturalist, and weak materialist. I don't know any scientist being idealist, and even in philosophy of mind, most dictionaries describe it as being abandoned. I agree in the sense that you intend, but I think that functionalism is the same thing as impersonal idealism. You can't provide new meaning to terms having standard definition. As you do with term such as God ? Most functionalist are weak-materialist today. Most people that believe in God, believe it is a supreme being/person which answers the prayer. Do you deny that ? Do you really think a lot of people use your god = arithmetical truth/existential absolute ? If you talk about God to people not reading this list, they would never come to your meaning, as such your usage is a misuse and leads to confusion. Regards, Quentin Most scientists believe that comp needs materialism. They are still completely unaware of the first person indeterminacy, and the immaterialist consequences. Functionalism might imply immaterialism, as comp does (comp is that there is a level where functionalism is correct. Functionalism is usually vague on the level, which is implicitly given by some neuro-level, comp is just a much weaker hypothesis). Bruno Craig That explain probably why people take time to swallow the consequences of comp. Comp is the favorite theory of the (weak) materialist, and so it is hard for them to get that comp and materialism, and the usual weak Occam razor, are contradictory. Bruno Bruno Craig Bruno Quentin That does not give much place for the genuine inquiry, I think. Bruno - Receiving the following content - *From:* meekerdb *Receiver:* everything-list *Time:* 2013-02-04, 13:48:50 *Subject:* Re: Topical combination On 2/4/2013 7:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Feb 2013, at 12:30, Roger Clough wrote: Hi John Mikes � It says � The Fabric of Eternity is the author's personal view of the Universe that allows for science and theology to explore the wonders of creation in peaceful unison.' � IMHO that is completely misguided, because the worlds they understand燼re separate magisteria, to use� Stephan Jay Gould's phrase.� Science deals with the physical world, and theology deals with the nonphysical world. Only an Aristotelian can say science deals with the physical world. This sums up physicalism. A Platonist says that science is just the modest tool/method to deal with any subject. Except it was Plato who thought he could understand the world by just thinking about it, while it was Aristotle who went out to observe and let the world teach him.� So who was modest and who was arrogant? Brent Allowing the abandon of science in the theological field can only be an invitation to the bad faith in there, and to the don't ask mentality. Bruno
Re: Lee Smolin and Darwin's Uncommon Success
On 06 Feb 2013, at 20:36, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 2013/2/6 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be On 06 Feb 2013, at 10:22, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 2013/2/6 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net On 2/5/2013 3:27 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 2013/2/5 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net Hi, ISTM that purpose is a 1p, so to ask the question in a 3p sense is to make it meaningless. That´s it. But to insist into make the question in 3p may force the introduction of an implicit 1p that contemplate the 3p, that is, a metamind , with a metatime etc. (To avoid pavlovian responses, i don´t mention the G. world). That is the meaning of my previous response. Hi Alberto, But the meta versions would be 1p's in their own right, no? Absolutely. Not only when talking about purpose. Most of the concepts we use are 1p, so it is supposed that they are meaningless when used in the description of a multiverse . Precisely because the multiverse is a design with the explicit goal of eliminate purpose as an axiom. But at the end, as I mentioned, this goal is not possible, because we can not avoid the infinite regression in the search for causes, and causality is 1p indeed. I agree that causality is 1p, but that makes causality emergent, and secondary, not fundamental. We can stop the regression at the place we postulate the theory. I have explained why arithmetic is a good starting places. It explains the physical and non physical 1p and 3p, and it explains why we cannot take less than arithmetic (or Turing equivalent). Se inadvertently, when we talk about what exist and what do not exist in a multiverse, we turn into looking at an implicit 1p designer of the multiverse Arithmetic is enough. It is 3p. At the end we can not think outside 1p. Scientific inquiry is comunicable 1p. If it is communicable, it can be 1p, but it is genuinely 3p too. The 1p part is not relevant, I think. Unless you assume that the whole arithmetic truth is conscious. That's an open problem, but we don't need to solve it to extract physics from the number's dreams. Math is ambiguous on that. A priori, yes. But once we assume computationalism in cognitive science, then we can accept that when numbers, relatively to other numbers, behave in some ways (self-reference, etc.) they get mind, or at least some mind can be associate to them (and then on the infinity of them). We can postulate a 3p mathematical existence apart from any mind and any reality. That is clear for arithmetic, but already not so clear for more than arithmetic. With the exception of the very rare ultrafinitsis, mathematicians agree on arithmetic, and then disagree on anything else, even if most mathematician will agree on large part of analysis, but apparently, when they do, soon or later some logicians shows that they were agreeing on a part which can be re-explained in arithmetical terms. We can imagine that, but this is probably because we assume an implicit 1p mind or meta-mind that is contemplating the mathematical thing. That is my guess and this is the most coherent notion of existence, related to a mind,, even for mathematical existence (apart form a null hypothesis in which everything exist). That is indeed the neoplatonic view. Its´nt it? It becomes close to neoplatonism, if you made the everything into the meta-mind, perhaps. The everything exist is not a null hypothesis, because the everything, once made precise, needs to define what we mean by thing (set? categories? numbers? computations?). Almost all attempts to define everything in math has led to contradictory theories. To avoid the contradiction, some restriction principles must be introduced, and then we can show that some reasonable mathematical objects get lost. In fact the only exception is all computations, which, thanks to the non trivial Church thesis, and the closure of the computations for Cantor diagonalization, leads to a quite conceptually solid notion of everything. This is the strongest point in favor of comp: it has a non trivial and solid notion of everything on its ontological side. Then it can explain why we live the appearance from inside of more than arithmetic. Bruno Because the world of the mind -where we live- is and ever will be teleological. OK with this. In a sense, matter is teleological with comp. Bruno On 2/5/2013 6:23 AM, Russell Standish wrote: Only in the same sense that evolution is teleological, ie not really. Cheers On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 06:59:01PM +1100, Kim Jones wrote: So does this explain the PURPOSE of the universe or merely a dominant FUNCTION? The blind exercise of function doesn't seem to me to include the global concept of purpose. The use of this word is about my only gripe with it. I could be wrong. Cheers, K -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message
Re: Comp: Geometry Is A Zombie
On 06 Feb 2013, at 20:46, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 2013/2/6 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be On 05 Feb 2013, at 11:19, Simon Forman wrote: On Monday, February 4, 2013 12:22:53 PM UTC-8, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, February 4, 2013 3:09:16 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: but there is a self reference when we try to imagine how the brain or a computer process geometry, and we imagine them embedded in the space and time that they create, which is not a correct intuition. we must imagine it in no time and no space. IMHO. That's what I think too, geometry without space isn't geometry, so that there is no reason to assume that mathematics produces geometric presentations, or that it could possibly produce them. If we want mathematics to occupy space, we have to pull that possibility out of thin air, as well as the capacity for numbers to suddenly do that (and why would they need to?) Craig Doesn't the quantum physical reality of information mean that all math *is* geometry? Put another way, math without a substratum would be in some platonic world, and not the real one, How do you know that? See the paper below(*) for an argument showing that if we are machine, then the physical reality is *only* emergent from arithmetic. Moon and stars are coherent number's dream, and this can be tested. So if you want a material substratum, you need to assume that you and your brain are not Turing emulable. (*) http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html Bruno. Just a question: THe non emulability of a brain made of a real material substratum is because the non computability of the continuum, that is, of real numbers I suppose. Am I right? Yes, I think you are right, although a part of computability on natural numbers can be enlarged on real numbers, but then we lost the equivalent of Church's thesis, and the universal machines. There are different theory of computability on the reals. Note also that a notion of a constructive or computable real can be defined by a computable function from N to N. What is mainly not computable in the apparent substratum of matter, is the first person indeterminacy on the continuum of possible computational extensions, notably because the reals appearing there are statistically arbitrary, a bit like in the infinite iteration of WM-duplication experiences. The probability is near ONE that we will obtain a non computable real number, indeed we will obtain a non algorithmically compressible real number. Bruno Bruno so aren't you basically asking if there's some way to do math without form? Forgive me if I'm being an idoit. ;) ~Simon -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Origin of probabilities and their application to the multiverse
On 06 Feb 2013, at 21:57, meekerdb wrote: OK, Bruno, I keep looking for some place that your theory might predict something (which is much more impressive than 'explaining'). Comp + Theaetetus (to be short) gives the whole physics. (the whole theology, to be more exact). So the observable, in particular, are given by the material hypostases: the S4Grz1, Z1* and X1* logics. Anything not predictable by such theories must be out of the domain of physics per se, and probably be geographical contingencies. The math are not well known by those supposed to have interest in the subject, that's all. The physics is already given. I wrote a theorem prover for Z1*, it answers NIL when given a physical tautologies, and it gives a finite Kripke models, when he find a counter-examples, and this can be seen as a description of experimental setting which can be tested. Up to now, we get NIL for the empirical quantum setting. Unfortunately they cannot be too much complex because even a relation as simple as the simplest Bell inequality becomes untractable for my theorem prover. We need to optimize G and G*, or top find simpler direct algorithm for the Z and X logics. Ad we need to study the Z and X logic in the first order real, for which there are no theorem provers, and evidence that there will never be. Normally, the Z logics should give a logic already searched by von Neumann, but not yet found by physicists, which should give the exact arithmetical ortholattice on which only one probability measure can be shown to exist and be unique, in a manner similar to Gleason. Then this approach explains both the quanta and the qualia, and their relations. I will take a look on the paper below, but I suspect that they assume the multiverse, or the quantum, which is what I show cannot work, neither for the quanta, nor for the qualia, once we assume comp. Bruno Here's a problem, essentially the measure problem in the multiverse, that COMP might have something to say about: Origin of probabilities and their application to the multiverse Andreas Albrecht and Daniel Phillips University of California at Davis; Department of Physics One Shields Avenue; Davis, CA 95616 We argue using simple models that all successful practical uses of probabilities originate in quan- tum fluctuations in the microscopic physical world around us, often propagated to macroscopic scales. Thus we claim there is no physically verified fully classical theory of probability. We com- ment on the general implications of this view, and specifically question the application of classical probability theory to cosmology in cases where key questions are known to have no quantum answer. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.0953v1.pdf Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Comp: Geometry Is A Zombie
On 07 Feb 2013, at 00:12, Simon Forman wrote: On 2/6/13, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 11:19, Simon Forman wrote: On Monday, February 4, 2013 12:22:53 PM UTC-8, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, February 4, 2013 3:09:16 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: but there is a self reference when we try to imagine how the brain or a computer process geometry, and we imagine them embedded in the space and time that they create, which is not a correct intuition. we must imagine it in no time and no space. IMHO. That's what I think too, geometry without space isn't geometry, so that there is no reason to assume that mathematics produces geometric presentations, or that it could possibly produce them. If we want mathematics to occupy space, we have to pull that possibility out of thin air, as well as the capacity for numbers to suddenly do that (and why would they need to?) Craig Doesn't the quantum physical reality of information mean that all math *is* geometry? Put another way, math without a substratum would be in some platonic world, and not the real one, How do you know that? See the paper below(*) for an argument showing that if we are machine, then the physical reality is *only* emergent from arithmetic. Moon and stars are coherent number's dream, and this can be tested. So if you want a material substratum, you need to assume that you and your brain are not Turing emulable. (*) http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html Bruno That paper is fascinating. If I can understand it and come up with anything to say I will. :) Thank you for sharing it. Thanks for saying. If you can't understand it, don't hesitate to ask any question. The first part (the UDA, Universal Dovetailer Argument) requires only some passive understanding of elementary computer science, and it makes the main point. The second part requires some knowledge in mathematical logic. It makes the same point, more constructively, and in a language accessible to all sufficiently rich (Löbian) universal machine. Bruno ~Simon -- The history of mankind for the last four centuries is rather like that of an imprisoned sleeper, stirring clumsily and uneasily while the prison that restrains and shelters him catches fire, not waking but incorporating the crackling and warmth of the fire with ancient and incongruous dreams, than like that of a man consciously awake to danger and opportunity. -- H. P. Wells, A Short History of the World -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On 2/7/2013 3:52 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:04 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com mailto:te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: I'm not claiming that intelligence == mind. Do you believe that your fellow human beings have minds? If so why? Yes (weakly). You believe that only weakly?! Do you really think there is a 49% chance that you are the only conscious being in the universe? I don't know how to assign a probability to that. I guess I believe it's in ]0.5, 1] because I would bet on it, but that's all I can say. I say weakly because the only thing I have to back this belief is an heuristic, which I find to be a weaker form of approximating the truth than mathematical proof or experimental confirmation. By the way, I don't believe other people have minds when they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead because when they are in those states they don't behave very intelligently. But that is because you believe that intelligence == mind. I don't. Certain experiences that you can do on yourself might make you doubt that belief, but I don't know of any way to convince you except suggesting that you do those experiences. Occam's razor. If I'm the only human being with a mind, then, for some mysterious reason, there are two types of human beings: me (with a mind) and the others (zombies). So heuristically I'm inclined to believe that all human beings have a mind, OK, but if you also believe in Darwin's theory of Evolution then you must also believe that consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence because Evolution can't directly see consciousness any better than we can and so cannot select for it, and yet you and probably other people are conscious. Thus you must also believe that if a computer is intelligent then it is conscious. Then you must also believe that intelligence == mind. You are begging the question. You're assuming, to begin with, that intelligence == mind and then you claim to prove that intelligence == mind. By the way, for evolution to generate consciousness there has to exist a gradient to climb. Unless the evolutionary process just stumbles into consciousness, but in that case it is not a valid theory of it's origin. So you are implicitly assuming that there is some measure of consciousness, where you can say that entity A is more conscious than entity B. What would that even mean? My cat seems conscious to me (but I can't know for sure). Is he less conscious than me? Well I know stuff that he doesn't, but he also knows stuff that I don't -- for example he knows how it feels to be a cat. But that doesn't mean there's something magic about being a cat. I think it might be possible to change your brain, and your sensory organs, so that it implemented consciousness very similar to a cat's (it couldn't be exact because you'd need a cat's body for that). Of course it wouldn't be Telmo Menezes any more. And yes I think there are degrees and kinds of consciousness and that a cat's consciousness differs in both respects. There's consciousness of being an individual and of being located in 3-space and in time. You and the cat have both of those (whereas a Mars rover only has the latter). But there's language and narrative memory that you have and the cat doesn't. There's reflective thought,I'm Telmo and I'm thinking about myself and where I fit in the world. The cat probably doesn't have this because it's not social - but a dog might. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On 2/7/2013 7:12 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com mailto:allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2013/2/6 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. A religion is just a cult with good PR. It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point, What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought the recognition. And all that you can consider 'established' have sought adherents. But legitimacy?? I'm not sure how that world can be attached to religion. In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case. I'm curious. How do they get recognized? Do they have to apply, They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think). Sorry to be frank, but if this is serious (I miss some joke), then it is naive: the mechanism that serves to monitor and regulate the founding of religions in Western Europe, is the same judicial tool to control and finally repress religious groups- by seemingly integrating them. The moment any of these groups moves to do things like: - change conceptions of marriage - change conceptions of family - import for example its sacred ceremonial brew from South America, that has a controlled substance in it for thousands of years - want more appropriate economic frameworks for taxation for their conceptions of groups and individuals (why not marriages, as Judith Butler often put forward, between 3,4,5 or more partners, if their financial strategy and survival is solid with every partner consenting? Today: If a community of six partners works and lives together, hopefully they pair off to 3 males and 3 females, and still they would be taxed as 3 couples) - or simply make too much money: the western democracy rears its totalitarian face; less obvious than in North Korea, but let's stop telling ourselves stories about our democracy vs. China etc. We have learned nothing from totalitarian times and wars. Just because we hide the totalitarian tendencies in different judicial spots of cultural prejudice, doesn't mean freedom of religion. A Rastafarian wanting some of his sacred herb in France: fat chance, if he were to cite his religious reasons in court. One can invent a religion and cite it for anything from eating hallucinogenic mushrooms to burning Jews. In the U.S. the general rule is that a legal prohibition must serve a secular purpose (not be directed specifically at a religion) and laws apply equally to everyone. So if your religion says you can beat women who show their face in public, that's just too bad for your religion. So yes, you can apply for official recognition of your religion if you are interested in playing poker in pairs with plastic money beside your bed. Sorry, prohibition applies here too. So yes, alternate religious groupings are in practice illegal in Western Europe, if not on paper. PGC So what's the advantage of being recognized? Will some authority prevent you praying at a shrine or from reading your sacred text if you're not recognized? Will you get some tax advantage if you are? And when a religion is recognized that must imply that it is somehow defined. How is that done? And how finely are religions defined...is Christianity recognized as one religion, or do they distinguish Catholics from Baptists from Mormons? This all seems impossibly messy. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Topical combination
On 2/7/2013 8:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Beyond our view of matter, I would guess that both of them would agree that matter is a function of quantum functions, which to me is the same thing as an image of the mind made impersonal. But that is not what people means by quantum, which need to refer to the *assumed* (not derived like in comp) physics. Comp is derived from an assumption. Physics is derived from observation. Dennett made clear that he is physicalist, naturalist, and weak materialist. I don't know any scientist being idealist, and even in philosophy of mind, most dictionaries describe it as being abandoned. I agree in the sense that you intend, but I think that functionalism is the same thing as impersonal idealism. You can't provide new meaning to terms having standard definition. That's pretty funny from a guy who redefines God, theology, and mechanism. :-) Brent Most functionalist are weak-materialist today. Most scientists believe that comp needs materialism. They are still completely unaware of the first person indeterminacy, and the immaterialist consequences. Functionalism might imply immaterialism, as comp does (comp is that there is a level where functionalism is correct. Functionalism is usually vague on the level, which is implicitly given by some neuro-level, comp is just a much weaker hypothesis). Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On 2/7/2013 8:23 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com mailto:allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2013/2/7 Platonist Guitar Cowboy multiplecit...@gmail.com mailto:multiplecit...@gmail.com On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com mailto:allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2013/2/6 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. A religion is just a cult with good PR. It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point, What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought the recognition. And all that you can consider 'established' have sought adherents. But legitimacy?? I'm not sure how that world can be attached to religion. In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case. I'm curious. How do they get recognized? Do they have to apply, They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think). Sorry to be frank, but if this is serious (I miss some joke), then it is naive: the mechanism that serves to monitor and regulate the founding of religions in Western Europe, is the same judicial tool to control and finally repress religious groups- by seemingly integrating them. The moment any of these groups moves to do things like: Well they have to conform to the laws (same as in the USA)... So no sects are not illegal in belgium, they can't be declared illegal as long as they conform to the laws like anywhere else on earth. And as I said, scientology *is not* illegal in belgium and it is *in practice* not in theory. No if you rant about the laws it's a totally different subject and you should not conflate the two. Why? Because religious beliefs have nothing to do with judicial concepts? Our judicial marriage model has nothing to do with the Christian conception of marriage? There is no freedom of religion, You seem to jump from there are some restrictions on practices that claimed to be religious, to there is NO freedom of religion. Is it your position that freedom of religion only exists when every practice called 'religion' by its adherents is permitted? I hope you don't have freedom of religion for Aztecs. no freedom of thought, no legality of sects that stray from Western European Christian-Secular legal conceptions = this is conflated via history, so don't blame the messenger á la thou shalt not conflate... also you take this conflation for granted in arbitrary manner suiting your argument, but not when I raise religious freedom issues + you legitimize via because they conform to the laws like everywhere else on earth, which is not an argument. Discriminatory laws have been passed before and continue to be passed. The legality of sects you cite is peanuts given to caged animals, to be a bit hyperbolic :) The freedom of religion you seek is like letting the lions run free in the zoo - to be a little hyperbolic. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Lee Smolin and Darwin's Uncommon Success
On 2/7/2013 8:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Math is ambiguous on that. A priori, yes. But once we assume computationalism in cognitive science, then we can accept that when numbers, relatively to other numbers, behave in some ways (self-reference, etc.) they get mind, or at least some mind can be associate to them (and then on the infinity of them). But this is very vague. Why should there be more than one mind. What picks out individual minds? And why are they associated with brains? And why do they agree on a common physical world? Arithmetic only shows that some numbers can refer to other numbers, where 'refer' is in terms arithmetic operations. That is very far from showing they are 'minds'. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 8:34 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 2/7/2013 8:23 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.comwrote: 2013/2/7 Platonist Guitar Cowboy multiplecit...@gmail.com On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.comwrote: 2013/2/6 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. A religion is just a cult with good PR. It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point, What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought the recognition. And all that you can consider 'established' have sought adherents. But legitimacy?? I'm not sure how that world can be attached to religion. In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case. I'm curious. How do they get recognized? Do they have to apply, They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think). Sorry to be frank, but if this is serious (I miss some joke), then it is naive: the mechanism that serves to monitor and regulate the founding of religions in Western Europe, is the same judicial tool to control and finally repress religious groups- by seemingly integrating them. The moment any of these groups moves to do things like: Well they have to conform to the laws (same as in the USA)... So no sects are not illegal in belgium, they can't be declared illegal as long as they conform to the laws like anywhere else on earth. And as I said, scientology *is not* illegal in belgium and it is *in practice* not in theory. No if you rant about the laws it's a totally different subject and you should not conflate the two. Why? Because religious beliefs have nothing to do with judicial concepts? Our judicial marriage model has nothing to do with the Christian conception of marriage? There is no freedom of religion, You seem to jump from there are some restrictions on practices that claimed to be religious, to there is NO freedom of religion. Is it your position that freedom of religion only exists when every practice called 'religion' by its adherents is permitted? I hope you don't have freedom of religion for Aztecs. Yes, that is what I am after Brent. You want me to take this seriously? Ok: you got me. Should I step outside put my hands on the car now, or what? Damn it! I was so close to world domination, and then Brent stepped in... DAMN YOU BRENT :) no freedom of thought, no legality of sects that stray from Western European Christian-Secular legal conceptions = this is conflated via history, so don't blame the messenger á la thou shalt not conflate... also you take this conflation for granted in arbitrary manner suiting your argument, but not when I raise religious freedom issues + you legitimize via because they conform to the laws like everywhere else on earth, which is not an argument. Discriminatory laws have been passed before and continue to be passed. The legality of sects you cite is peanuts given to caged animals, to be a bit hyperbolic :) The freedom of religion you seek is like letting the lions run free in the zoo - to be a little hyperbolic. I just don't like to confuse necessary and possible in absolute reductive sense, particularly when considering danger in a broad sense, which you do in every line here. I am not being hyperbolic this time. PGC Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to
Re: Science is a religion by itself.
On 07 Feb 2013, at 08:03, socra...@bezeqint.net wrote: Does somebody know what Vacuum is ? No, we don’t know what Vacuum is. From below I see that you meant here the physical vacuum. If comp is correct the physical vacuum is the statistical sum on all (arithmetical) computations. Why and if that behaves like the observable quantum vacuum remains to be seen in detail, but it has to be, or we are not Turing emulable. In that case the physical vacuum might be less or more than such a sum. Bruno 1 Paul Dirac wrote: ‘ The problem of the exact description of vacuum, in my opinion, is the basic problem now before physics. Really, if you can’t correctly describe the vacuum, how it is possible to expect a correct description of something more complex? ‘ 2. The most fundamental question facing 21st century physics will be: What is the vacuum? As quantum mechanics teaches us, with its zero point energy this vacuum is not empty and the word vacuum is a gross misnomer! / Prof. Friedwardt Winterberg / 3. Wikipedia : “ Unfortunately neither the concept of space nor of time is well defined, resulting in a dilemma. If we don't know the character of time nor of space, how can we characterize either? “ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime 4. Now we know that the vacuum can have all sorts of wonderful effects over an enormous range of scales, from the microscopic to the cosmic, said Peter Milonni from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. 5. ‘ All kinds of electromagnetic waves ( including light’s) spread in vacuum . . . . thanks to the vacuum, to the specific ability of empty space these electromagnetic waves can exist.’ / Book : To what physics was come, page 32. R. K. Utiyama. / ==. So, we know that the vacuum is very important conception in physics and nature, but . . . but . . . we don’t know what vacuum is, and therefore is possible to have many speculations including metaphysical too. For example: Danah Zohar wrote: ‘It might even give us some ground to speculate that the vacuum itself (and hence the universe) is ‘conscious’. / Book ‘The quantum self ’ page 208. / # ‘If we were looking for something that we could conceive of as God within the universe of the new physics, this ground state, coherent quantum vacuum might be a good place to start.’ / Book ‘The quantum self ’ page 208, by Danah Zohar. / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danah_Zohar The question is: How is it possible to prove Zohar’s metaphysical confirmation with physical laws and formulas? ==. Socratus ===. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On 2/7/2013 12:01 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: There might be confusion between necessary and possible dangers. If there is, you haven't cleared it up. Necessary danger: It’s legal for your neighbor to walk on to your property and shoot you for emotional reasons or it’s legal to burn a minority on racial grounds etc. What's 'necessary' about either one of those events? First, if it were legal it would still be extremely unlikely (my neighbor likes me) and certainly no necessary. Second, it can happen even though it is illegal. So it's a possible danger - but not necessitated by anything. Possible danger: eating hallucinogenic mushrooms or driving a car (more die of the latter on % basis). These involve some degree of danger, so you are required to meet certain criteria and get a license to drive a car and there are various rules for traffic to reduce the degree of danger. That more people die of car accidents than eating hallucinogenic mushrooms is not really to the point. Many more people drive and ride in cars that eat hallucinogenic mushrooms and they thereby accomplish many things useful to society as well as too themselves, while of hallucinating is of dubious value. In any case eating hallucinogenic mushrooms is widely tolerated in the U.S. and it's not even clear that it is illegal under federal law, independent of any religious claims. Beating people in public/private again: necessary, forced harm; no matter how you look at it. Smoking a herb: possibly, depends on how you look at it. “A secular purpose” is a nice ruse, because it is “theology-free”, right? Yes it is. It's not dependent on any ultimate foundation of the universe (per Bruno's definition of 'theology') or even any agreement about what that might be. It only depends on the public subjective non-religious values of society as expressed in their laws. That's what 'secular' means. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Plant Teachers
On 07 Feb 2013, at 10:57, Kim Jones wrote: Graham Hancock's experiences with Ayahuasca Of course some will immediately denounce this post as irrelevant to the search for a TOE. But, recall that CONSCIOUSNESS is the ultimate final frontier in science and that voyagers in consciousness- altering substances have a perspective to contribute here. This blog I find to be one of the more convincingly serious and thought- provoking essays on the use of DMT that I have yet encountered. In many ways, the experience of Ayahuasca seems to dovetail with the experience of Salvia Divinorum, as I'm sure Bruno will agree. I have tried neither, but would leap at the opportunity were it to present itself to me. Yes, Plant teacher might be not completely out of topic, if we want study consciousness. Dale Pendell, the chemist and expert in psychedelic wrote, provocatively, I think, that humans and animals have no consciousness, and that only plants have it, and that animal are conscious by eating plant. About DMT and salvia comparison, this is the object of a lasting debate among those who appreciate them for spiritual purpose. My own experience, perhaps not successful for having not well done the extraction, is that DMT is just like some strong mushrooms. Interesting but not so incredible compared to salvia, about the nature of consciousness and reality. Salvia, like Ketamine, (but quite less dangerous, and anti-addictive) has a dissociative effect which might illustrate the Galois connection between 1p-mind (consciousness) and its 3p local handlings (the 3p-brains). By making a peculiar dissociation at some place in the brain, one are left with the feeling that we are *less* than we are used to think, and that we are consequently in front of *more* possibilities. That Galois connection occurs in many place in math: less equations = more solutions, or less axioms = more interpretations/ models. Somehow less brain = more experience, or more intense and richer feeling of experience. This would make the brain being more a filter of consciousness than a producer of consciousness. Technically, I still have no real clue if this really follows from comp, but the relation between G and Z suggests that there might be some truth there. There is something similar already between the box [] and the diamond in all modal logics, but to apply it to the brain, we need this between G and Z, and this is partially confirmed (for example t is true and non provable in G, and it is []t which becomes true but not provable in Z (with the intuitive meanings that self-consistency is not provable by the correct machines, and that truth is not an observable for the self-observing machine. There might be a partial Galois connection here. Now, if it is obvious that altered conscious states can be a gold mine for the researcher in consciousness, there is the obvious problem that they concern 1p experiences, which are not communicable. Statistics can be done on many reports, but the texts are usually hard to interpret, and the texts can get influences by each others, etc. So extreme cautiousness is asked before jumping on conclusion. Especially with salvia which lead to experience that you can hardly describe to yourself, and from which you get amnesic in some systematic way. But words, here too, are not so important, at least for its most peculiar and easy aspects. When the Mexican Mazatec get christianized, they probably did not understand what the Spanish were talking about when they mentioned the Mother of God, or the Virgin Mary, until some exclaimed Ah but that must be the lady we met when we use salvia, and everything was clear, then :) Bruno Fascinating, Captain, fascinating. Kim Jones. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Lee Smolin and Darwin's Uncommon Success
On Thursday, February 7, 2013 10:50:23 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Feb 2013, at 17:39, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, February 6, 2013 9:50:35 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Feb 2013, at 21:34, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 3:27:27 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: 2013/2/5 Stephen P. King step...@charter.net Hi, ISTM that purpose is a 1p, so to ask the question in a 3p sense is to make it meaningless. That´s it. But to insist into make the question in 3p may force the introduction of an implicit 1p that contemplate the 3p, that is, a metamind , with a metatime etc. (To avoid pavlovian responses, i don´t mention the G. world). That is the meaning of my previous response. Why doesn't the metamind need a metamind? In fact arithmetic explains the presence of mind, in both the 3p and 1p view. Even without comp actually, by using the definition of mind by self-reference, and true self-reference (with truth guven by Tarski theory applied to arithmetic). Bruno What explains the presence of arithmetic? It is mysterious. But it is the least mysterious thing that we have to assume to talk on anything else. Sense is less mysterious because we experience it first hand. It is most mysterious because it cannot be explained. It cannot be explained because there is nothing more primitive than sense with which to explain it. To begin to talk arithmetically, you have to first have a way to talk. That is sensory-motor participation. Input and output. Without I/O, there is no reason for numbers, as the purpose of numbers is to represent figurative relations discretely - not to manifest material objects or subjective experiences (even if they can be used to figuratively represent one to the other). Or if we assume arithmetic, why should there be the presence of anything else? That's the point. There isn't anything else. But you are always saying 'no, that's not arithmetic, that's the dreams of numbers, or the contents of the dreams of numbers.' How can you have it both ways? Arithmetic is quite enough to explain how immaterial beings can get lost in terrestrial realities, and why those realities obeys laws, and which laws. Only if you assume terrestrial qualities and realism and beings in advance. If there isn't anything but arithmetic, then why should such qualities and experiences exist? Craig Bruno Craig On 2/5/2013 6:23 AM, Russell Standish wrote: Only in the same sense that evolution is teleological, ie not really. Cheers On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 06:59:01PM +1100, Kim Jones wrote: So does this explain the PURPOSE of the universe or merely a dominant FUNCTION? The blind exercise of function doesn't seem to me to include the global concept of purpose. The use of this word is about my only gripe with it. I could be wrong. Cheers, K -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@**googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.**com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Thursday, February 7, 2013 7:12:08 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: That's just because the simulation of a person isn't good enough. The question is what if the simulation *is* good enough to completely fool you. Fooling me is meaningless. I think that you think therefore you are fails to account for the subjective thinker in the first place. If someone kills you, but they then find a nifty way to use your cadaver as a ventriloquist's dummy, does it matter if it fools someone into thinking that you are still alive? You have said that you can just sense the consciousness of other minds but you have contradicted that, or at least admitted that the sensing faculty can be fooled. An individual's sense can be fooled, but not necessarily fooled forever, and not everyone can be fooled. That doesn't mean that when we look at a beercan in the trash we can't tell that it doesn't literally feel crushed and abandoned. If you have no sure test for consciousness that means you might see it where it isn't present or miss it where it is present. So your friend might be unconscious despite your feeling that he is, Of course. People have been buried alive because the undertaker was fooled. and your computer might be conscious despite your feeling that it is not. Except my feeling is backed up with my knowledge of what it is - a human artifact designed to mimic certain mental functions. That knowledge should augment my personal intuition, as well as social and cultural reinforcements that indeed there is no reason to suspect that this map of mind is sentient territory. Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 9:20 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, February 7, 2013 7:12:08 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: That's just because the simulation of a person isn't good enough. The question is what if the simulation *is* good enough to completely fool you. Fooling me is meaningless. I think that you think therefore you are fails to account for the subjective thinker in the first place. If someone kills you, but they then find a nifty way to use your cadaver as a ventriloquist's dummy, does it matter if it fools someone into thinking that you are still alive? You have said that you can just sense the consciousness of other minds but you have contradicted that, or at least admitted that the sensing faculty can be fooled. An individual's sense can be fooled, but not necessarily fooled forever, and not everyone can be fooled. That doesn't mean that when we look at a beercan in the trash we can't tell that it doesn't literally feel crushed and abandoned. If you have no sure test for consciousness that means you might see it where it isn't present or miss it where it is present. So your friend might be unconscious despite your feeling that he is, Of course. People have been buried alive because the undertaker was fooled. and your computer might be conscious despite your feeling that it is not. Except my feeling is backed up with my knowledge of what it is - a human artifact designed to mimic certain mental functions. That knowledge should augment my personal intuition, as well as social and cultural reinforcements that indeed there is no reason to suspect that this map of mind is sentient territory. You're avoiding the question. What is your definitive test for consciousness? If you don't have one, then you have to admit that your friend (who talks to you and behaves like people do, not in a coma, not on a video recording, not dead in the morgue) may not be conscious and your computer may be conscious. You talk with authority on what can and can't have consciousness but it seems you don't have even an operational definition of the word. I am not asking for an explanation or theory of consciousness, just for a test to indicate its presence, which is a much weaker requirement. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On 2/7/2013 3:15 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:53 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 2/7/2013 12:01 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: “A secular purpose” is a nice ruse, because it is “theology-free”, right? Yes it is. It's not dependent on any ultimate foundation of the universe (per Bruno's definition of 'theology') or even any agreement about what that might be. It only depends on the public subjective non-religious values of society as expressed in their laws. That's what 'secular' means. By what mechanism does a value become non-religious? How did marriage become secular for instance? Can you define non-religious values? I can where religions are certified by the state. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Thursday, February 7, 2013 6:28:39 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 9:20 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: On Thursday, February 7, 2013 7:12:08 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: That's just because the simulation of a person isn't good enough. The question is what if the simulation *is* good enough to completely fool you. Fooling me is meaningless. I think that you think therefore you are fails to account for the subjective thinker in the first place. If someone kills you, but they then find a nifty way to use your cadaver as a ventriloquist's dummy, does it matter if it fools someone into thinking that you are still alive? You have said that you can just sense the consciousness of other minds but you have contradicted that, or at least admitted that the sensing faculty can be fooled. An individual's sense can be fooled, but not necessarily fooled forever, and not everyone can be fooled. That doesn't mean that when we look at a beercan in the trash we can't tell that it doesn't literally feel crushed and abandoned. If you have no sure test for consciousness that means you might see it where it isn't present or miss it where it is present. So your friend might be unconscious despite your feeling that he is, Of course. People have been buried alive because the undertaker was fooled. and your computer might be conscious despite your feeling that it is not. Except my feeling is backed up with my knowledge of what it is - a human artifact designed to mimic certain mental functions. That knowledge should augment my personal intuition, as well as social and cultural reinforcements that indeed there is no reason to suspect that this map of mind is sentient territory. You're avoiding the question. What is your definitive test for consciousness? If you don't have one, then you have to admit that your friend (who talks to you and behaves like people do, not in a coma, not on a video recording, not dead in the morgue) may not be conscious and your computer may be conscious. No, you are avoiding my answer. What is your definitive test for your own consciousness? My point is that sense is broader, deeper, and more primitive than our cognitive ability to examine it, since cognitive qualities are only the tip of the iceberg of sense. To test is to circumvent direct sense in favor of indirect sense - which is a good thing, but it is by definition not applicable to consciousness itself in any way. There is no test to tell if you are conscious, because none is required. If you need to ask if you are conscious, then you are probably having a lucid dream or in some phase of shock. In those cases, no test will help you as you can dream a test result as easily as you can experience one while awake. The only test for consciousness is the test of time. If you are fooled by some inanimate object, eventually you will probably see through it or outgrow the fantasy. You talk with authority on what can and can't have consciousness but it seems you don't have even an operational definition of the word. Consciousness is what defines, not what can be defined. I am not asking for an explanation or theory of consciousness, just for a test to indicate its presence, which is a much weaker requirement. That is too much to ask, since all tests supervene upon the consciousness to evaluate results. Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You're avoiding the question. What is your definitive test for consciousness? If you don't have one, then you have to admit that your friend (who talks to you and behaves like people do, not in a coma, not on a video recording, not dead in the morgue) may not be conscious and your computer may be conscious. No, you are avoiding my answer. What is your definitive test for your own consciousness? The test for my own consciousness is that I feel I am conscious. That is not at issue. At issue is the test for *other* entities' consciousness. You are convinced that computers and other machines don't have consciousness, but you can't say what test you will apply to them and see them fail. My point is that sense is broader, deeper, and more primitive than our cognitive ability to examine it, since cognitive qualities are only the tip of the iceberg of sense. To test is to circumvent direct sense in favor of indirect sense - which is a good thing, but it is by definition not applicable to consciousness itself in any way. There is no test to tell if you are conscious, because none is required. If you need to ask if you are conscious, then you are probably having a lucid dream or in some phase of shock. In those cases, no test will help you as you can dream a test result as easily as you can experience one while awake. The only test for consciousness is the test of time. If you are fooled by some inanimate object, eventually you will probably see through it or outgrow the fantasy. So if, in future, robots live among us for years and are accepted by most people as conscious, does that mean they are conscious? This is essentially a form of the Turing test. You talk with authority on what can and can't have consciousness but it seems you don't have even an operational definition of the word. Consciousness is what defines, not what can be defined. I am not asking for an explanation or theory of consciousness, just for a test to indicate its presence, which is a much weaker requirement. That is too much to ask, since all tests supervene upon the consciousness to evaluate results. It's the case for any test that you will use your consciousness to evaluate the results. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Thursday, February 7, 2013 8:50:09 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: You're avoiding the question. What is your definitive test for consciousness? If you don't have one, then you have to admit that your friend (who talks to you and behaves like people do, not in a coma, not on a video recording, not dead in the morgue) may not be conscious and your computer may be conscious. No, you are avoiding my answer. What is your definitive test for your own consciousness? The test for my own consciousness is that I feel I am conscious. That is not at issue. At issue is the test for *other* entities' consciousness. Why would the test be any different? You are convinced that computers and other machines don't have consciousness, but you can't say what test you will apply to them and see them fail. I'm convinced of that because I understand why there is no reason why they would have consciousness... there is no 'they' there. Computers are not born in a single moment through cell fertilization, they are assembled by people. Computers have to be programmed to do absolutely everything, they have no capacity to make sense of anything which is not explicitly defined. This is the polar opposite of living organisms which are general purpose entities who explore and adapt when they can, on their own, for their own internally generated motives. Computers lack that completely. We use objects to compute for us, but those objects are not actually computing themselves, just as these letters don't actually mean anything for themselves. My point is that sense is broader, deeper, and more primitive than our cognitive ability to examine it, since cognitive qualities are only the tip of the iceberg of sense. To test is to circumvent direct sense in favor of indirect sense - which is a good thing, but it is by definition not applicable to consciousness itself in any way. There is no test to tell if you are conscious, because none is required. If you need to ask if you are conscious, then you are probably having a lucid dream or in some phase of shock. In those cases, no test will help you as you can dream a test result as easily as you can experience one while awake. The only test for consciousness is the test of time. If you are fooled by some inanimate object, eventually you will probably see through it or outgrow the fantasy. So if, in future, robots live among us for years and are accepted by most people as conscious, does that mean they are conscious? This is essentially a form of the Turing test. I don't think that will happen unless they aren't robots. The whole point is that the degree to which an organism is conscious is inversely proportionate to the degree that the organism is 100% controllable. That's the purpose of intelligence - to advance your own agenda rather than to be overpowered by your environment. So if something is a robot, it will never be accepted by anyone as conscious, and if something is conscious it will never be useful to anyone as a robot - it would in fact be a slave. You talk with authority on what can and can't have consciousness but it seems you don't have even an operational definition of the word. Consciousness is what defines, not what can be defined. I am not asking for an explanation or theory of consciousness, just for a test to indicate its presence, which is a much weaker requirement. That is too much to ask, since all tests supervene upon the consciousness to evaluate results. It's the case for any test that you will use your consciousness to evaluate the results. Sure, but for most things you can corroborate and triangulate what you are testing by using a control. With consciousness itself, there is no control possible. You can do tests on the water because you can get out of the water. You can do tests on air because you can evacuate a glass beaker of air and compare your results. With consciousness though, there is no escape possible. You can personally lose your own consciousness, but there is no experience which is not experienced through consciousness. Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On 2/7/2013 7:04 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 1:02 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: Hi Stathis, The simulation of our 'self' that our brain generates *is* good enough to fool oneself! I speculate that schizophrenia and autism are caused by failures of the self-simulation system... The former is a failure where multiple self-simulations are generated and no stability on their convergent occurs and the latter is where the self-simulation fails altogether. Mind version of autism, such as Aspergers syndrome are where bad simulations occur and/or the self-simulation fails to update properly. That's an interesting idea, but schizophrenia is where the the connections between functional subsystems in the brain is disrupted, so that you get perceptions, beliefs, emotions occurring without the normal chain of causation, while autism is where the concept of other minds is disrupted. I think the self-image is present but distorted. Hi Stathis, I'm OK with that, a distortion of a self-image can go far enough to reduce the self-image to noise... but this is just a theoretical discussion. I am not even sure if this idea is correct.. Just testing it for plausibility... If we consider that the Libet experiments show that we are making decisions without knowing it, and Blindsight shows that we are able to see without being conscious of it, then there is no reason why we should suddenly trust our own reporting of what we think that we know about the sense of interacting with a living person. A true Turing test would require a face-to-face interaction, so that none of our natural sensory capabilities would be blocked as they would with just a text or video interaction. That's the situation that is assumed in the idea of a philosophical zombie: you interact with the being face to face. If at the end of several days' interaction (or however long you think you need) you are completely convinced that it is conscious, does that mean it is conscious? As I see things, the only coherent concept of a zombie is what we see in the autistic case. Such is 'conscious' with no self-image/self-awareness, thus it has no ability to report on its 1p content. I think of autistic people as differently conscious, not unconscious. OK, I would agree, but how could we find out for sure? One thing that I am 100% sure about is that the full scope of the content of an entities consciousness is a strictly 1p thing. I cannot know what it is like to be you unless I am you. But we can speculate and see where the idea takes us. Incidentally, there is a movement among higher functioning autistic people whereby they resent being labelled as disabled, but assert that their way of thinking is just as valid and intrinsically worthwhile as that of the neurotypicals. Well! Those people would not be so autistic, now would they! It they are indeed aware that other entities have minds of their own, then my hypothesis is wrong or needs reworking... I an proposing that autists are natural solipsists. I think that it is important to remember that in theory, logically, consciousness cannot exist. It is only through our own undeniable experience of consciousness that we feel the need to justify it with logic - but so far we have only projected the religious miracles of the past into a science fiction future. If it was up to logic alone, there could not, and would not every be a such thing as experience. You could as well say that logically there's no reason for anything to exist, but it does. How about that! Does this not tell us that we must start, in our musing about existence with the postulate that something exists? Perhaps, but there are other ways to look at it. A primary mathematical/Platonic universe necessarily rather than contingently exists. That is merely a conjecture unless there is a genuine 3p way of testing it. We can freely haev the belief in a Platonia and that A primary mathematical/Platonic universe necessarily rather than contingently exists. But without something that connects the truth of that belief to a physical fact, it is not a scientific fact, it is merely a belief, like a belief in a God. I have come to the conclusion that I don't believe in Platonia nor any other realm or entity or whatever that allows me to by-pass the rules of objective evidence that science demands if I am to make what I would claim to be 'scientific' statements. Platonia allows computers to run in violation of the laws of thermodynamics, that bothers me. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On 2/7/2013 9:42 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, February 7, 2013 8:50:09 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: You're avoiding the question. What is your definitive test for consciousness? If you don't have one, then you have to admit that your friend (who talks to you and behaves like people do, not in a coma, not on a video recording, not dead in the morgue) may not be conscious and your computer may be conscious. No, you are avoiding my answer. What is your definitive test for your own consciousness? The test for my own consciousness is that I feel I am conscious. That is not at issue. At issue is the test for *other* entities' consciousness. Why would the test be any different? You are convinced that computers and other machines don't have consciousness, but you can't say what test you will apply to them and see them fail. I'm convinced of that because I understand why there is no reason why they would have consciousness... there is no 'they' there. Computers are not born in a single moment through cell fertilization, they are assembled by people. Computers have to be programmed to do absolutely everything, they have no capacity to make sense of anything which is not explicitly defined. This is the polar opposite of living organisms which are general purpose entities who explore and adapt when they can, on their own, for their own internally generated motives. Computers lack that completely. We use objects to compute for us, but those objects are not actually computing themselves, just as these letters don't actually mean anything for themselves. When objects can compute 'for themselves' they are conscious. Maybe? My point is that sense is broader, deeper, and more primitive than our cognitive ability to examine it, since cognitive qualities are only the tip of the iceberg of sense. To test is to circumvent direct sense in favor of indirect sense - which is a good thing, but it is by definition not applicable to consciousness itself in any way. There is no test to tell if you are conscious, because none is required. If you need to ask if you are conscious, then you are probably having a lucid dream or in some phase of shock. In those cases, no test will help you as you can dream a test result as easily as you can experience one while awake. The only test for consciousness is the test of time. If you are fooled by some inanimate object, eventually you will probably see through it or outgrow the fantasy. So if, in future, robots live among us for years and are accepted by most people as conscious, does that mean they are conscious? This is essentially a form of the Turing test. I don't think that will happen unless they aren't robots. The whole point is that the degree to which an organism is conscious is inversely proportionate to the degree that the organism is 100% controllable. That's the purpose of intelligence - to advance your own agenda rather than to be overpowered by your environment. So if something is a robot, it will never be accepted by anyone as conscious, and if something is conscious it will never be useful to anyone as a robot - it would in fact be a slave. /L'homme est d'abord ce qui se jette vers un avenir, et ce qui est conscient de se projeter dans l'avenir./ ~ Jean Paul Satre (Man is, before all else, something which propels itself toward a future and is aware that it is doing so.) You talk with authority on what can and can't have consciousness but it seems you don't have even an operational definition of the word. Consciousness is what defines, not what can be defined. I am not asking for an explanation or theory of consciousness, just for a test to indicate its presence, which is a much weaker requirement. That is too much to ask, since all tests supervene upon the consciousness to evaluate results. It's the case for any test that you will use your consciousness to evaluate the results. Sure, but for most things you can corroborate and triangulate what you are testing by using a control. With consciousness itself, there is no control possible. You can do tests on the water because you can get out of the water. You can do tests on air because you can evacuate a glass beaker of air and compare your results. With consciousness though, there is no escape possible. You can personally lose your own consciousness, but there is no experience which is not experienced through consciousness. Craig Indeed! This makes consciousness a subject forever removed from the instruments of the scientific method -- Onward! Stephen -- You
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On 2/7/2013 8:35 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: I don't think that will happen unless they aren't robots. The whole point is that the degree to which an organism is conscious is inversely proportionate to the degree that the organism is 100% controllable. That's the purpose of intelligence - to advance your own agenda rather than to be overpowered by your environment. So if something is a robot, it will never be accepted by anyone as conscious, and if something is conscious it will never be useful to anyone as a robot - it would in fact be a slave. You don't think slaves were useful?? Tell it to the Romans, Greeks, Syrians, Babylonians, Egyptians,... Do you think oxen are conscious? Dogs? Horses? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
