date:20130321

On Thursday, March 21, 2013 9:06:51 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:03 AM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> > To recap then, the difference between non-living and living is only 
> visible 
> > to the living. Biological units are vastly larger and slower, more 
> > vulnerable in a thousand ways than molecular units, but they are a sign 
> of a 
> > nested relation of experiences. The experience that is associated with 
> the 
> > cell (and this is tricky because it is not ultimately 'the cell's 
> > experience', like our lives are not 'our body's experience') has 
> 'leveled 
> > up' from the inorganic, and enjoys a richer, more wonderful/awful range 
> of 
> > sensitivities - which is the purpose of the universe (or at least the 
> half 
> > of the universe that can have a purpose). 
>
> There is surely a difference between living and non-living, but 
> nevertheless it is possible to get living from non-living. 

Not without the potential for life already present in the universe. If 
there was a universe which contained only non-living substances, there 
would be no logical possibility for anything like "life". There isn't even 
a way to assume that there could be sanity or coherence enough to define 
any of the qualities of life.

> It is also 
> possible to get intentional from non-intentional, which is what you 
> disputed. 
>

It is also possible that I would accidentally think that you have done 
something here other than repeat your assertions. It is meaningless to say 
that you can get intention from non-intention, or life from non-life unless 
you have some 'how', 'why', and 'where' to back it up. I can say that you 
can get real estate from a cartoon too.

> >> > Laughing at a joke demonstrates that semantic content causes physical 
> >> > responses. Any activity in the brain which relates to anything in the 
> >> > world 
> >> > or the mind has nothing to do with neurochemistry. Physical processes 
> >> > can 
> >> > induce experiences, but only because experiences are a priori part of 
> >> > the 
> >> > cosmos. There is nothing about the physical processes which you 
> >> > recognize 
> >> > which could possibly relate laughter to a joke, or anger to an 
> >> > injustice, 
> >> > etc. There is no way for your physics of the brain to represent 
> anything 
> >> > except the brain. 
> >> 
> >> The claim is that the physics explains all of the physical activity. 
> > 
> > 
> > That's tautological. Economics explains all of the economic activity. 
> That 
> > doesn't mean that a person can be understood by their economic 
> transactions 
> > alone. 
>
> Physics will not explain to an observer your experience since only you 
> know your experience, but it will completely explain your behaviour, 
> since everyone can see your behaviour. 

Only things with eyes can see my behavior. Of things that have eyes, only 
those things who are sized roughly larger than a cockroach and smaller than 
an office building are going to be able to parse my behavior as detectable. 
There is no such thing as "everyone can see X". Likewise, our physics can 
only see those things which our instruments can examine, which is only 
things very much like the instruments themselves. Radiotelescopes don't get 
jokes, they don't comfort the sick, etc.

> At one level it is correct to 
> say your experience influences your behaviour, but all that an 
> observer will see is the physical process underlying the experience 
> influencing the behaviour.

They aren't going to see anything if what is underlying the behavior is 
semantic. If I decide to drive to Georgia tomorrow, there is nothing in my 
brain that is going to explain my behavior of suddenly driving to Georgia 
tomorrow. That influence cannot be reverse engineered from neurology, 
unless, perhaps, the entire history of the universe is simulated as well.

> If this is not so and some behaviours are 
> directly caused by experience without going through the usual chain of 
> physical causation then the observer would see something magical 
> happening. 
>

This is the usual physical causation, but it is not a chain. It is one 
physical thing. My will to move my arm is the mobilization of every 
process, every cell, every tissue and organ that we see moving and 
changing. It's not magical, it's ordinary. What is magical is the idea of 
cells that need some physical mechanism satisfied by making my body drive 
to Georgia.

>
> >> A 
> >> door does not open unless someone or something pushes it, whether it's 
> >> a person, a gust of wind, the reaction from a decaying  radioisotope 
> >> in the wood, or whatever. If the door is a little one inside the brain 
> >> that does NOT mean it opens without any identifiable physical cause. 
> > 
> > 
> > But all physical causes are thought to originate in quantum fluctuations 
> > from within. Those fluctuations are known to be probabilistic and 
> > self-entangling. 
>
> And describable by phy

Re: Losing Control

2013-03-21 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:03 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> To recap then, the difference between non-living and living is only visible
> to the living. Biological units are vastly larger and slower, more
> vulnerable in a thousand ways than molecular units, but they are a sign of a
> nested relation of experiences. The experience that is associated with the
> cell (and this is tricky because it is not ultimately 'the cell's
> experience', like our lives are not 'our body's experience') has 'leveled
> up' from the inorganic, and enjoys a richer, more wonderful/awful range of
> sensitivities - which is the purpose of the universe (or at least the half
> of the universe that can have a purpose).

There is surely a difference between living and non-living, but
nevertheless it is possible to get living from non-living. It is also
possible to get intentional from non-intentional, which is what you
disputed.

>> > Laughing at a joke demonstrates that semantic content causes physical
>> > responses. Any activity in the brain which relates to anything in the
>> > world
>> > or the mind has nothing to do with neurochemistry. Physical processes
>> > can
>> > induce experiences, but only because experiences are a priori part of
>> > the
>> > cosmos. There is nothing about the physical processes which you
>> > recognize
>> > which could possibly relate laughter to a joke, or anger to an
>> > injustice,
>> > etc. There is no way for your physics of the brain to represent anything
>> > except the brain.
>>
>> The claim is that the physics explains all of the physical activity.
>
>
> That's tautological. Economics explains all of the economic activity. That
> doesn't mean that a person can be understood by their economic transactions
> alone.

Physics will not explain to an observer your experience since only you
know your experience, but it will completely explain your behaviour,
since everyone can see your behaviour. At one level it is correct to
say your experience influences your behaviour, but all that an
observer will see is the physical process underlying the experience
influencing the behaviour. If this is not so and some behaviours are
directly caused by experience without going through the usual chain of
physical causation then the observer would see something magical
happening.

>> A
>> door does not open unless someone or something pushes it, whether it's
>> a person, a gust of wind, the reaction from a decaying  radioisotope
>> in the wood, or whatever. If the door is a little one inside the brain
>> that does NOT mean it opens without any identifiable physical cause.
>
>
> But all physical causes are thought to originate in quantum fluctuations
> from within. Those fluctuations are known to be probabilistic and
> self-entangling.

And describable by physics. Radioactive decay is a good example. It is
thought to be truly random when an atom will decay, in that there is
no deterministic formula that can predict this even if we know
everything about the atom and its environment. It could happen in the
next second, it could happen in a billion years. However, it is easy
to calculate accurately what proportion a large collection of such
atoms will decay; much easier than many processes that are
deterministic. Deterministic does not necessarily mean predictable and
random does not necessarily mean unpredictable.

>> If the little door opens in response to a joke it is because the
>> physical manifestations of the joke (sound waves) cause some other
>> physical process which makes it open. It does NOT open because the
>> joke just magically makes it open, which is what would appear to
>> happen if consciousness had a direct causal effect on matter.
>
>
> I understand exactly what you think that I don't understand, but you're
> wasting your time. I understand your position completely. Your view is that
> the joke is merely the decoded set of neurological patterns associated with
> whatever processed vibrations or collisions of the sense organs that have
> introduced the encoded patterns to your body. You think that, like a
> computer, there is a code input and an evolutionarily programmed response
> which generates an output.

Yes, although of course evolution cannot directly program a response
to a joke. Evolution programs the potential for a brain, which then
grows in fantastically complex ways in response to the environment.

> What I am saying is that model could work in theory, but in reality, that is
> not at all what is happening with the nervous system or our awareness. What
> is happening is both simpler and more complex but you have to begin by
> throwing out the assumption that anything is ever decoded by the brain into
> an experience. There is no decoder, and none is possible. That would be like
> installing a flat screen TV inside an abacus, and then building eyes in the
> abacus to see the TV. The abacus would then have to go through this
> meaningless exercise of converting some of its calculations

Chalmers - Consciousness: The Logical Geography of the Issues


>
> The argument for my view is an inference from roughly four premises:
>
> (1) Conscious experience exists.
>
> (2) Conscious experience is not logically supervenient on the physical.
>
> (3) If there are positive facts that are not logically supervenient on the 
> physical facts, then physicalism is false.
>
> (4) The physical domain is causally closed.
>
> (1), (2), and (3) clearly imply the falsity of physicalism. This, taken in 
> conjunction with
>
> (4) and the plausible assumption that physically identical beings will 
> have identical conscious experiences, implies the view that I have called 
> natural supervenience: conscious experience arises from the physical 
> according to some laws of nature, but is not itself physical.
>
> The various alternative positions can be catalogued according to whether 
> they deny (1), (2), (3), or (4). Of course some of these premises can be 
> denied in more than one way.
>
> Denying (1):
>
> (i) Eliminativism. On this view, there are no facts about conscious 
> experience. Nobody is conscious in the phenomenal sense.
>
> Denying (2): 
>
> Premise (2) can be denied in various ways, depending on how the entailment 
> in question proceeds—that is, depending on what sort of physical 
> properties are centrally responsible for entailing consciousness. I call 
> all of these views “reductive physicalist” views, because they suppose an 
> analysis of the notion of consciousness that is compatible with reductive 
> explanation.
>
> (ii) Reductive functionalism. This view takes consciousness to be entailed 
> by physical states in virtue of their functional properties, or their 
> causal roles. On this view, what it means for a state to be conscious is 
> for it to play a certain causal role. In a world physically identical to 
> ours, all the relevant causal roles would be played, and therefore the 
> conscious states would all be the same. The zombie world is therefore 
> logically impossible.
>
> (iii) Nonfunctionalist reductive physicalism. On this view, the facts 
> about consciousness are entailed by some physical facts in virtue of 
> their satisfaction of some nonfunctional property. Possible candidates 
> might include biochemical and quantum properties, or properties yet to be 
> determined.
>
> (iv) Holding out for new physics. According to this view, we have no 
> current idea of how physical facts could explain consciousness, but that 
> is because our current conception of physical facts is too narrow. When 
> one argues that a zombie world is logically possible, one is really 
> arguing that all the fields and particles interacting in the space-time 
> manifold, postulated by current physics, could exist in the absence of 
> consciousness. But with a new physics, things might be different. The 
> entities in a radically different theoretical framework might be 
> sufficient to entail and explain consciousness.
>
> Denying (3):
>
> (v) Nonreductive physicalism. This is the view that although there may be 
> no logical entailment from the physical facts to the facts about 
> consciousness, and therefore no reductive explanation of consciousness, 
> consciousness just is physical. The physical facts “metaphysically 
> necessitate” 
> the facts about consciousness. Even though the idea of a zombie world is 
> quite coherent, such a world is metaphysically impossible.
>
> Denying (4):
>
> (vi) Interactionist dualism. This view accepts that consciousness is 
> non-physical, but denies that the physical world is causally closed, so 
> that consciousness can play an autonomous causal role.
>
> Then there is my view, which accepts (1), (2), (3), and (4): 
>
> (vii) Property dualism. Consciousness supervenes naturally on the 
> physical, without supervening logically or “metaphysically”.
>
> There is also an eighth common view, which is generally underspecified:
>
> (viii) Don’t-have-a-clue physicalism: “I don’t have a clue about 
> consciousness. It seems utterly mysterious to me. But it must be 
> physical, as physicalism must be true.” Such a view is held widely, but 
> rarely in print (although see Fodor 1992). 
>
> To quickly summarize the situation as I see it: (i) seems to be manifestly 
> false; (ii) and (iii) rely on false analyses of the notion of 
> consciousness, and therefore change the subject; (iv) and (vi) place 
> large and implausible bets on the way that physics will turn out, and also 
> have 
> fatal conceptual problems; and (vi) either makes an invalid appeal to 
> Kripkean a posteriori necessity, or relies on a bizarre metaphysics. I 
> have a certain amount of sympathy with (viii), but it presumably must 
> eventually reduce to some more specific view, and none of these seem to 
> work. This leaves (vii) as the only tenable option.
>
> —David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind
>

My view would require an extra option in between vi and vii - 

(vi.5) Oroborean monism. Physics supervenes reflexively on its own 
(proposed) capacities to experience

Re: Mind is a quantum computer


On 3/21/2013 6:04 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 01:46:11PM +0100, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 6:08 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>> But still, I tend to bet that creativity, if he can exploit it, is still
>>> independent of it.
>> I still find it hard to grasp how we could have a creative process
>> without some degree of random exploration.
>>
> Bruno has a technical definition of "creative" due to Post, that is
> most definitely deterministic. I haven't had the chance to really
> understand what that means (I've read Wikipedia, and the significance
> escapes me :()
>
> But I agree with Telmo - I think random exploration is an essential
> component of creativity - whether that's truly random, or just random
> with respect to the observer (ie cryptographically strong), is still a
> bit of an open point. Whether there's any connection to Post's sense
> of creative is another open question ...
>
> Cheers
>
Hi Russell,

I agree also, it is like a drunk walking with candles on his shoes,
he has enough light that can see a bit ahead of himself. So it is not a
true 'random' walk.

-- 
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: 'Brain Waves' Challenge Area-Specific View of Brain Activity


On 3/21/2013 4:40 PM, John Mikes wrote:
> Dear Bruno,
> it is so fascinating to read about "universal machines".
> Is there a place where I could learn in short, understandable terms
> what they may be? Then again the difference between a 'Turing machine'
> and a 'physical computer' (what I usually call our embryonic Kraxlwerk).

Hi John,

When Bruno discusses Machines, they are never something that might
inhabit your lab. It is the computer program X that generates an exact
simulation of a physical system that has exactly the functional space
required to run X. A logical loop of sorts. It does *not* run on just
any one or finite subset of the hardware box that is a physical system.
Do you see why?


> I grew up into my science without computers, got my doctorates in 1948
> and 1967 and faced a computer first on a different continent (USA) in
> 1980. At that time I had already ~30 patents and a reputation of a
> practical scientist.  
> So I need more than the 'difference' into the universal.

You have a difficulty with Bruno because he lives in an abstract
universe where he does not have to work within the constraints of the
physical world. The computers I know of do constrain and thus influence
the programs that can run on it!

>
> Descriptions I saw turned me off. My chemistry-based polymer science
> does not give me the base for most (and mostly theoretical!)
> descriptions. 
> How'bout common sense base?
> John M
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 2:02 PM, Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
>
>
> On 21 Mar 2013, at 02:32, Stephen P. King wrote:
>
>> Are physical computers truly "universal Turing Machines"? No!
>> They do not have infinite tape, not precise read/write heads.
>> They are subject to noise and error.
>
>
> The infinite tape is not part of the universal machine. A
> universal machine is a number u such that phi_u(x, y) = phi_x(y).
>
> Please concentrate to the thought experiments, the sum will be
> taken on the memories of those who get the continuations, and the
> extensions. 
>
> When a löbian universal number run out of memory, he asks for more
> memory space or write on the wall of the cave, soon or later. And
> if it does not get it it dies, but from the 1p, it will find
> itself in a situation extending the memory (by just 1p indeterminacy).
>
>
> Universal machines are finite entities. Physical Computer are
> particular case of Turing machine, and can emulate all other
> possible universal number, and the same is true for each of them.
> All universal machine can imitate all universal machines.
> But no universal machines can be universal for the notion of a
> belief, knowledge, observation, feeling, etc. In those matter,
> they can differ a lot. 
>
> But they are all finite, and their ability is measured by
> abstracting from the time and space (in the number theoretical or
> computer theoretical sense) needed to accomplish the task. 
>
> That they have no precise read/write components, makes them harder
> to recognize among the phi_i, but this is not a problem, given
> that we know that we already cannot know which machine we are, and
> form the first person point of view, we are supported by all the
> relevant machines and computations. 
>
> And they are all subject to noise and error, (that follows from
> arithmetic).  Those noise and errors are their best allies to
> build more stable realities, I guess.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
> 
>
>
>
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Onward!

Stephen

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Good video on telepathy studies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMXqyf13HeM

DEAN RADIN: Men Who Stare at Photons, Part 1 | EU 2013 

Skip to the last 10 minutes for the brain evidence if you like.

Craig

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Re: Mind is a quantum computer

2013-03-21 Thread Russell Standish

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 01:46:11PM +0100, Telmo Menezes wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 6:08 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> > But still, I tend to bet that creativity, if he can exploit it, is still
> > independent of it.
> 
> I still find it hard to grasp how we could have a creative process
> without some degree of random exploration.
> 

Bruno has a technical definition of "creative" due to Post, that is
most definitely deterministic. I haven't had the chance to really
understand what that means (I've read Wikipedia, and the significance
escapes me :()

But I agree with Telmo - I think random exploration is an essential
component of creativity - whether that's truly random, or just random
with respect to the observer (ie cryptographically strong), is still a
bit of an open point. Whether there's any connection to Post's sense
of creative is another open question ...

Cheers

-- 

Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au

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Re: 'Brain Waves' Challenge Area-Specific View of Brain Activity

2013-03-21 Thread John Mikes

Dear Bruno,
it is so fascinating to read about "universal machines".
Is there a place where I could learn in short, understandable terms what
they may be? Then again the difference between a 'Turing machine' and a
'physical computer' (what I usually call our embryonic Kraxlwerk).
I grew up into my science without computers, got my doctorates in 1948 and
1967 and faced a computer first on a different continent (USA) in 1980. At
that time I had already ~30 patents and a reputation of a practical
scientist.
So I need more than the 'difference' into the universal.

Descriptions I saw turned me off. My chemistry-based polymer science does
not give me the base for most (and mostly theoretical!) descriptions.
How'bout common sense base?
John M

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 2:02 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 21 Mar 2013, at 02:32, Stephen P. King wrote:
>
> Are physical computers truly "universal Turing Machines"? No! They do not
> have infinite tape, not precise read/write heads. They are subject to noise
> and error.
>
>
>
> The infinite tape is not part of the universal machine. A universal
> machine is a number u such that phi_u(x, y) = phi_x(y).
>
> Please concentrate to the thought experiments, the sum will be taken on
> the memories of those who get the continuations, and the extensions.
>
> When a löbian universal number run out of memory, he asks for more memory
> space or write on the wall of the cave, soon or later. And if it does not
> get it it dies, but from the 1p, it will find itself in a situation
> extending the memory (by just 1p indeterminacy).
>
>
> Universal machines are finite entities. Physical Computer are particular
> case of Turing machine, and can emulate all other possible universal
> number, and the same is true for each of them. All universal machine can
> imitate all universal machines.
> But no universal machines can be universal for the notion of a belief,
> knowledge, observation, feeling, etc. In those matter, they can differ a
> lot.
>
> But they are all finite, and their ability is measured by abstracting from
> the time and space (in the number theoretical or computer theoretical
> sense) needed to accomplish the task.
>
> That they have no precise read/write components, makes them harder to
> recognize among the phi_i, but this is not a problem, given that we know
> that we already cannot know which machine we are, and form the first person
> point of view, we are supported by all the relevant machines and
> computations.
>
> And they are all subject to noise and error, (that follows from
> arithmetic).  Those noise and errors are their best allies to build more
> stable realities, I guess.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>  --
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>
>

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Re: True?

2013-03-21 Thread meekerdb

On 3/21/2013 12:18 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 20.03.2013 22:59 meekerdb said the following:

On 3/20/2013 1:01 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:

On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

...

At the Occam's time, realists were people who have believed that
universals exist. Occam has employed his razor to strip universals
from the reality and his position has led to nominalism. That is,
universals are just creation of the mind and it does not make
sense to search for them in the real world.

Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is just
a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make sense to
search for it in reality. Here is the irony.

That's a false dichotomy. You are assuming that because something,
like an atom, is an element of a model which was invented to describe
reality that it is *just* a concept. No, it is a concept which is
part of very successful model and which we therefore have reason to
believe captures some aspect of reality. It makes perfect sense to
"search for it" in the sense of test the predictions of the model to
see if they agree with observation.

I completely agree with the last sentences. This is exactly what Van Fraassen says. Yet,
physicists like Deutsch seem to believe for example that multiverse exists as reality -
see his The Beginning of Infinity and his defense of realism.

But Deutsch is just making the argument that instrumentalism is wrong and that when we
create models we're aiming to explain reality. It doesn't follow that our model IS
reality and it doesn't follow that it IS NOT reality. When you say be believes the
multiverse exists (I don't think it adds anything to say "as reality") he's just saying he
thinks it's the right model, it's the one to try to test and extend and use in explaining
things. It doesn't mean he wouldn't change his mind if it failed some test.

Brent

Re: 'Brain Waves' Challenge Area-Specific View of Brain Activity



On 21 Mar 2013, at 02:32, Stephen P. King wrote:

Are physical computers truly "universal Turing Machines"? No! They  
do not have infinite tape, not precise read/write heads. They are  
subject to noise and error.



The infinite tape is not part of the universal machine. A universal  
machine is a number u such that phi_u(x, y) = phi_x(y).


Please concentrate to the thought experiments, the sum will be taken  
on the memories of those who get the continuations, and the extensions.


When a löbian universal number run out of memory, he asks for more  
memory space or write on the wall of the cave, soon or later. And if  
it does not get it it dies, but from the 1p, it will find itself in a  
situation extending the memory (by just 1p indeterminacy).



Universal machines are finite entities. Physical Computer are  
particular case of Turing machine, and can emulate all other possible  
universal number, and the same is true for each of them. All universal  
machine can imitate all universal machines.
But no universal machines can be universal for the notion of a belief,  
knowledge, observation, feeling, etc. In those matter, they can differ  
a lot.


But they are all finite, and their ability is measured by abstracting  
from the time and space (in the number theoretical or computer  
theoretical sense) needed to accomplish the task.


That they have no precise read/write components, makes them harder to  
recognize among the phi_i, but this is not a problem, given that we  
know that we already cannot know which machine we are, and form the  
first person point of view, we are supported by all the relevant  
machines and computations.


And they are all subject to noise and error, (that follows from  
arithmetic).  Those noise and errors are their best allies to build  
more stable realities, I guess.


Bruno




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Re: 'Brain Waves' Challenge Area-Specific View of Brain Activity



On Thursday, March 21, 2013 1:28:24 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 20 Mar 2013, at 19:16, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130320115111.htm
>
> "We are examining the activity in the cerebral cortex *as a whole*. The 
> brain is a non-stop, always-active system. When we perceive something, the 
> information does not end up in a specific *part* of our brain. Rather, it 
> is added to the brain's existing activity. If we measure the 
> electrochemical activity of the whole cortex, we find wave-like patterns. 
> This shows that brain activity is not local but rather that activity 
> constantly moves from one part of the brain to another." 
>
>
>
> Please, don't confuse the very particular neuro-philosophy with the much 
> weaker assumption of computationalism. 
> Wave-like pattern are typically computable functions. 
> (I mentioned this when saying that I would say yes to a doctor only if he 
> copies my glial cells at the right chemical level).
>
> There are just no evidence for non computable activities acting in a 
> relevant way in the biological organism, or actually even in the physical 
> universe.
> You could point on the the wave packet reduction, but it does not make 
> much sense by itself.
>

Right, I'm not arguing this as evidence of non-comp. Even if there was 
non-comp activity in the brain, nothing that we could use to detect it 
would be able to find anything since we would only know how to use an 
exrternal detection instrument computationally. Mainly I posted this to 
show the direction that the scientific evidence is leading us does not 
support any kind of narrow folk-neuroscience of point to point 
chain-reactions.


>
> Not looking very charitable to the bottom-up, neuron machine view.
>
>
> Ideas don't need charity  but in this case it is totally charitable, even 
> with neurophilosophy, given that in your example, those waves still seem 
> neuron driven.
>

How do you know that it seem neuron driven rather than whole brain driven? 
What would it look like if the brain as a whole were driving the neurons?

Craig
 

>
> Bruno
>
>
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>
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Re: 'Brain Waves' Challenge Area-Specific View of Brain Activity



On 20 Mar 2013, at 19:16, Craig Weinberg wrote:


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130320115111.htm

"We are examining the activity in the cerebral cortex as a whole.  
The brain is a non-stop, always-active system. When we perceive  
something, the information does not end up in a specific part of our  
brain. Rather, it is added to the brain's existing activity. If we  
measure the electrochemical activity of the whole cortex, we find  
wave-like patterns. This shows that brain activity is not local but  
rather that activity constantly moves from one part of the brain to  
another."





Please, don't confuse the very particular neuro-philosophy with the  
much weaker assumption of computationalism.

Wave-like pattern are typically computable functions.
(I mentioned this when saying that I would say yes to a doctor only if  
he copies my glial cells at the right chemical level).


There are just no evidence for non computable activities acting in a  
relevant way in the biological organism, or actually even in the  
physical universe.
You could point on the the wave packet reduction, but it does not make  
much sense by itself.




Not looking very charitable to the bottom-up, neuron machine view.


Ideas don't need charity  but in this case it is totally charitable,  
even with neurophilosophy, given that in your example, those waves  
still seem neuron driven.


Bruno









Craig

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Re: A philosopher making the Duplication argument

On 20 Mar 2013, at 21:08, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/20/2013 6:43 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Stephen P. King > wrote:

http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/What-is-the-Nature-of-Personal-Identity-Peter-van-Inwagen-/176

He starts off with a straightforward, materialist position. Then he
reveals he is a Christian, believes in the resurrection of the body.
How is this to be accomplished? Not by reproducing the dead person,
since then there could be multiple copies, which he finds
unacceptable. So God must do it using some occult method neither
science nor philosophy can fathom.

Dear Stathis,

I agree with your critisms of what Peter van Inwagen is saying.
This

is mostly because I find the concept of an entity, "God', that has the
capacities (attributed by implication) in the discussion to be
inconsistent, for example it is not possible for an entity that does
not

have a continuous extension of itself in a realm to have any causal
efficacy (power to cause a change in the state of affairs) on that
realm. My motivation of posting a link to this video is that I believe
that Prof. van Inwagen's argument is qualitatively identical to
Bruno's

discussion of Platonic Numbers.

Not at all. Come one ...
I hope you will read carefully my reply on FOAR.

If Bruno's argument is coherent (not self-contradictory) then there
must be some finite physical way to implement it, for example: Does
comp
explain how computer programs and physical stuff, such as the laptop
of

desktop computer that you are using to read this post and compose a
reply and sent it out, etc., are related such that actions 'in the
software' and actions of the physical stuff are correlated with each
other? I believe that comp should be capable of explaining this
relation.

That's the object of AUDA.

UDA shows that physics is a infinite sum on computations (which is an
arithmetical notion, not a physical one). UDA already shows the big
shape of the possible physics.

AUDA is the beginning of the derivation.

I have been trying to explain how Pratt's theory should that the
relation between the two (software and hardware) is one of mutual
constraint between dual aspects, but I have not stated such
explicitly.

I wanted to see if the members of this list could see the implication
for themselves without my having to point this out... I see this as a
test of Pratt's idea. So far I have failed.

That is still an Aristotelian picture, with mind and matter being
basically the same thing (or the dual thing). This is comparable to
Craig.
But with comp UDA shows that mind and matter are not dual, nor
isomorphic. Their relation is more like a volume and its border. See
my post to FOAR, and reply there, please, as we have already talk
about this here.
If you want defend Craig theory, then follow Craig in abandoning comp.
Simply.

Bruno

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

Re: True?



On 20 Mar 2013, at 21:01, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:

On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:


...


I see a bit of irony in the fact that people who believe in
physical reality often call to a principle developed by Occam.


What's the irony?  Occam is about our theories and models.  One
generally believes in some reality; that why you develop theories
about it and try to model it.  I'm not sure what 'physical' adds to
'reality'?


Let us take an atom as an example (you may replace it by an  
elementary particle or a superstring, your choice). Physicists using  
such a concept usually believe that the atom does exist, aren't  
they? In this sense, physicists are realists.


At the Occam's time, realists were people who have believed that  
universals exist.



But the notion of atom of the physicist is based on many universals.  
You can't believe in atoms if you don't believe that *all* electron in  
a electromagnetic field will not behave in such or such way. And the  
notion of field relies on even stronger universal propositions, like  
analytical assertion on all complex numbers, etc.





Occam has employed his razor to strip universals from the reality  
and his position has led to nominalism. That is, universals are just  
creation of the mind and it does not make sense to search for them  
in the real world.


That can make sense in comp. Ontologically you need on the true  
sigma_1 sentences, which are existential (ExP(x), P decidable, or  
sigma_0). So you can indeed put all universal propositions in the  
epistemology. Now this leads to awkward statements, and comp is  
provocative enough, so I put the negation of sigma_1 propositions also  
at the ontological level. It is not important where we put the exact  
cut between ontology and epistemology, with comp, as far as we don't  
put too much in the ontology, as this will make more obscure the  
derivations.







Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is just  
a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make sense to  
search for it in reality.


Ah Ah, even better. Occam was good!





Here is the irony.



OK.

Bruno





Evgenii

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Re: True?



On 20 Mar 2013, at 20:18, meekerdb wrote:


On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

Since I´m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato
sometimes- I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist,
that  is rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to
think in terms universals, because if universals exist, for example
Truth, Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for
example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition. Then,
why Evil exist?

Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted
an omnipotent God.  That was the original meaning of the Occam
razor.

But the secularization of this principle produced the modern concept
of materialist science, separated from philosophy, via an empiricism
science and the negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense
and finally the negation of the possibility of objective
understanding of anything but some phisical phenomena, and in  
general

the negation of anything that can be not tested by experiments


I see a bit of irony in the fact that people who believe in  
physical reality often call to a principle developed by Occam.


What's the irony?  Occam is about our theories and models.  One  
generally believes in some reality; that why you develop theories  
about it and try to model it.  I'm not sure what 'physical' adds to  
'reality'?



Good point. I missed it :)

 Obviously people who believe in a *primary physical* reality already  
might not obey to Occam. (provably so with comp).


But it is true that some materialist invoke Occam for saying that  
"God" is not a useful concept. But they are just choosing some other  
(Aristotelian) God.


And you are right we have to assume some reality to do research, or  
just to live.


Bruno






Brent




A small note. At some time in the middle ages nominalist and  
realist philosophy departments co-existed in the same University. A  
lovely fact from the dark middle ages.


Evgenii



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Re: (Not so) Free Will



On 20 Mar 2013, at 20:16, John Mikes wrote:


3-19-13 John M wrote:
---
"...I am not faithful enough to believe in MY free will and go  
to hell by force of this misconception. I may make mistakes.
I am not deterministically forced to comply with all facets of the  
infinite complexity - known,  or unknown. I can revolt. Meaning: I  
can knowingly choose the wrong decision.

Is that free will? Maybe. That's a matter of definition."

3-20-13 Bruno replied:
It is a good definition, close to Standish "right to do something  
stupid", or the "Christian's ability to do knowingly the bad". The  
point is that this can make sense in a determined reality, and that  
it has nothing to do with randomness.

Bruno

Adding to my statement: do I indeed believe that my 'knowing'  
choice is independent from the influences I 'got'
 -  and applied - consciously/unconsciously - in making such  
decision? Is the "something stupid" so, indeed? Or is it the wise  
variant above average human views? Is "bad" --- bad - indeed, or  
only deemed so by the powers to be?


Answer YES: then I am a god with random capabilities (improbable in  
my worldview)  (rejected by both Bruno and myself)


Answer NO: my (free?) will is still UN-FREE even if not  
deterministic. I have (determined?) choices to choose from.
We cannot include ALL possible circumstances at our present  
capabilities.


John M





John,

But my knowing choice can be dependent of the influences. That  
dependence has nothing to do with the fact that I do it from free will.


Anyone knowing me in the eighties could predict that I would have gone  
to the movie to see "2010 Space Odyssey". All the influences were  
clear and transparent, but this did not prevent me to decide to see  
that movie with my own free-will.


Like freedom is the right to say "2+2=4", free will is the ability to  
obey laws. It needs determinacy, and get weaker with indeterminacy.  
But it is free by the very fact that we cannot include all possible  
circumstances at our present capabilities.


For bad, I don't refer to any power. By bad I mean harming someone  
else, create pain and suffering. We cannot define that -, but we have  
good stock of examples, and they make sense if you agree that eating  
an ice cream can be good, but burning in car crash can be bad.


Bruno










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Re: True?



On 20 Mar 2013, at 19:51, Alberto G. Corona wrote:




2013/3/20 Bruno Marchal 

On 19 Mar 2013, at 22:25, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

Since I´m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato  
sometimes-


?
I see Plato and Aristotle as the most opposite view we can have on  
reality.
(To be sure by Aristotle I means its usual interpretation by the  
followers. Aristotle himself is still close to Plato, at least that  
can be accepted, if only because his treatise on metaphysics is  
quite unclear and hard to interpret).



Are you a follower of La Rouche? I do not see such opposition  
between Plato and Aristotle .  Aristotle believed in essences and  
ideas and in the the inner sense of what is right, just like Plato.  
he was not an empiricist nor a materialist. its phisics is drawn  
both form intuition and observation, not from experiments (and it  
was quite right for the range of  the terrestrial phenomena that he  
studied)



I aml not sure that Arsitotle and Plato differ so much, theologically,  
as Aristotle is unclear. But it is generally accepted that we can sum  
up "Aristotelianism" by the belief in the existence of a primary  
matter, and that this is related to the widespread physicalist belief.


But Plato makes clear in more than one text that the physical reality,  
what we see and measure, might be only the shadow of something else.


So a usefulm summary, which might not been entirely fait to the  
historic Aristotle is that:


- with Aristotle, reality is WYSIWYG  (what you see in what you get)
- With Plato, reality is NOT WYSIWYG. (what you see is not the  
reality, but a facet of reality).











I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist, that  is  
rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to think in  
terms universals, because if universals exist, for example Truth,  
Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for  
example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition.  
Then, why Evil exist?


Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted  
an omnipotent God.  That was the original meaning of the Occam razor.






In the least Occam refer only to the idea that between a simple  
(short) and a complex (long) theory, having the same explanative  
power for the same range of phenomena, we will choose the shorter,  
and this most often (but allowing exception). It is the idea that  
the conceptually simple is better than the ad hoc complex construct.  
In particular we don't introduce as axiom what is a theorem.


Probalby what Occam said was purely teological and philosophical.  
Occam AFIK did not told about scientific theories. What we know as  
the Occam Razor is a materialistic version of the philosophical  
principle of "not to multiplicate the (philosophical) entities  
without need"


It is more general than that. Occam principle has nothing to do with  
materialism a priori. It is just the idea that we should use the  
simplest general assumption which explain the most.








But the secularization of this principle produced the modern  
concept of materialist science,


I am not sure. materialism violate Occam directly. It is bad  
metaphysics at the start. No one has ever given a way to test the  
existence of primary matter.


materialism ios a bad name. The appropriate name is phenomenalism.  
What is know now as "science" is the sole study of the phenomena   
(as if they were no concepts beyond that) .


You simplify too much here. By materialism I mean what I call most of  
the time weak materialism, and it is the doctrine that primary matter  
exist. Its epistemological version is physicalism (physics is the  
fundamental science to which all other are in principle reductible).
My point (proof) is that if we are machine, then physics is reduced to  
arithmetical truth. Most mathematicians would not catalog the  
mathematical truth into a phenomena.





Materialism may be considered as a hypostasization of phenomenalism.  
in such a way that "because phenomena are the only thing that I care  
for, let´s make them real as "things" outside me, and let´s make the  
mind and everithing else , inexistent until more phenomena prove  
otherwise.


You can see it in that way, but few materialist would agree. But we  
agree that they are wrong. I mean that what you say is consistent with  
comp.











separated from philosophy, via an empiricism science and the  
negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense and finally the  
negation of the possibility of objective understanding of anything  
but some phisical phenomena, and in general the negation of  
anything that can be not tested by experiments


This is more like Aristotle + a bit of positivism. Positivism has  
been refuted, mainly. But most scientist still believe that  
Aristotelianism is "scientific". They confuse the physical reality  
with the primary physical reality.


I don´t think so. It is not so historically AFAI

Re: Synchronicity in Leibniz, Jung and Sheldrake



On Thursday, March 21, 2013 9:42:34 AM UTC-4, Roger Clough wrote:
>
>   
> Leibnizian causation differs from most other forms of causation in that
> no forces are involved, only ideas, although from any objective viewpoint 
> it might seem "as if" the usual types of forces cause the event.
> This makes sense if the resultant situation is a meaningful one
> because generated by the dominant monad.
>
> In that respect it is similar to meaningful causation (synchronicity) as 
> Jung 
> envisionized it, wherein the "forces" are meanings, just as monads
> are grouped according to meanings. Hence meaning or synchronicity 
> becomnes a causal determinant. and perhaps dominated by the 
> most powerful meanings, whatever that mean sin a Darwinian sense.
> Meanings arwe in some ways similar to relational quauntum histories,
>

I think you are on the right track, although I would differentiate between 
meaning, idea, and causation. Ideas and meanings can inspire motives, but 
only actual motive investment - will - causes changes that can be publicly 
experienced.

Quantum histories are an impersonal, third person view of the 'places where 
meaning would be', but ultimately quantum theory has nothing to say about 
meaning. We can try to reverse engineer meaning or will to quantum 
functions, but it is really like looking for the dog's face from the wrong 
end of the dog.

Craig
 

>
> Dr. Roger Clough NIST (ret.) 3/21/2013 
> "Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous."
> - Albert Einstein
>
 

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Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism

On Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:42:02 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2013  Tom Bayley > wrote:
>  
>
>> > I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's 
>> interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is 
>> materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up 
>> to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't 
>> have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that 
>> it has been explained.
>>
>
> Does the chain of questions "what caused that?" ever come to a end? 
>

Yes. What causes cause? ends that regress. What causes cause is nested 
sensory-motor participation - which means that sensory-motor participation 
is not itself subject to causality.

> If it doesn't then you can keep asking that question forever in infinite 
> regress; however if it does come to a end, if A caused B and B causes C and 
> C causes D and that's all there is then once we've said that C causes D 
> we've said all we can say and we know that D is a fundamental thing in the 
> universe; although it might not be the only fundamental thing, there might 
> be other sequences of "what caused that?" questions that come to a 
> different end. 
>

The ability to read and write causes A through Z. Sense is always outside 
of any frame, as all frames are a sense of perceptual or conceptual inertia.

> Most members of this list insist that consciousness is fundamental 
>

Really? It seems like most people here are functionalists.

> but it's clear they haven't thought it through because after saying that 
> they demand to know how D causes consciousness. I think that D is 
> information processing and once you say that consciousness is the way data 
> feels like when it is being processed you've said all you can say about the 
> matter because consciousness is fundamental.
>

But we know that data doesn't feel like anything. Bugs Bunny is data. He 
doesn't feel like Bugs Bunny, right? The assumption of naked representation 
is tempting, but ultimately can only be an extension of the pathetic 
fallacy as far as I can tell.

>
> If that leaves you with a sense of dissatisfaction that's just in the 
> nature of fundamental things, but I doubt you'd be any happier if the chain 
> of questions "what caused that?" never came to a end and it was like a 
> onion with a infinite number of layers with one mystery always inside 
> another. And after all, the sequence either comes to a end or it does not, 
> neither possibility is likely to leave you entirely satisfied. 
>

This has nothing to do with satisfaction. It's about overlooking the 
fundamental context. Your metaphor takes letters of the alphabet for 
granted, it take the whole sense of identity and sequence, causality, 
coherence, relation, etc as givens. You are explaining the restaurant by 
pointing to the items on the menu - completely ignoring all of the tables 
and chairs, the waiters, the plates and silverware, etc. You are saying 
that we have to just accept that if we order something on the menu, that 
food always appears, so therefore the menu causes food...which I can 
understand, but the disturbing part is that when this is pointed out, you 
don't seem to mind this appearance of food, as long is it keeps us from 
looking away from the menu.

Craig  

>
>John K Clark   
>

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Re: G.K. Chesterton on Materialism

2013-03-21 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013  Tom Bayley  wrote:

> > I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's
> interesting that you can break this example down. Each explanatory step is
> materially plausible (it has a satisfactory public explanation), right up
> to the perception of the light. But the qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't
> have a public description, and there isn't any sense of satisfaction that
> it has been explained.
>

Does the chain of questions "what caused that?" ever come to a end? If
it doesn't then you can keep asking that question forever in infinite
regress; however if it does come to a end, if A caused B and B causes C and
C causes D and that's all there is then once we've said that C causes D
we've said all we can say and we know that D is a fundamental thing in the
universe; although it might not be the only fundamental thing, there might
be other sequences of "what caused that?" questions that come to a
different end.

Most members of this list insist that consciousness is fundamental but it's
clear they haven't thought it through because after saying that they demand
to know how D causes consciousness. I think that D is information
processing and once you say that consciousness is the way data feels like
when it is being processed you've said all you can say about the matter
because consciousness is fundamental.

If that leaves you with a sense of dissatisfaction that's just in the
nature of fundamental things, but I doubt you'd be any happier if the chain
of questions "what caused that?" never came to a end and it was like a
onion with a infinite number of layers with one mystery always inside
another. And after all, the sequence either comes to a end or it does not,
neither possibility is likely to leave you entirely satisfied.

   John K Clark

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Synchronicity in Leibniz, Jung and Sheldrake

2013-03-21 Thread Roger Clough


Leibnizian causation differs from most other forms of causation in that
no forces are involved, only ideas, although from any objective viewpoint 
it might seem "as if" the usual types of forces cause the event.
This makes sense if the resultant situation is a meaningful one
because generated by the dominant monad.

In that respect it is similar to meaningful causation (synchronicity) as Jung 
envisionized it, wherein the "forces" are meanings, just as monads
are grouped according to meanings. Hence meaning or synchronicity 
becomnes a causal determinant. and perhaps dominated by the 
most powerful meanings, whatever that mean sin a Darwinian sense.
Meanings arwe in some ways similar to relational quauntum histories,

Dr. Roger Clough NIST (ret.) 3/21/2013 
"Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous."
- Albert Einstein

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Re: Losing Control

On Thursday, March 21, 2013 2:44:16 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> >> How could something non-living lead to something living? 
> > 
> > 
> > Non-living and living are just different qualities of experience. Living 
> > systems are nested non-living systems, which gives rise to mortality and 
> > condenses an eternal perceptual frame into a more qualitatively 
> saturated 
> > temporary perceptual frame. 
> > 
> >> 
> >> How could 
> >> something non-computational could lead to something computational? 
> > 
> > 
> > Easily. You have a bunch of junk in your closet, so you organize it. 
> That is 
> > what computation is. A system for organizing experience. 
>
> I'm not sure what you mean with your distinction between living and 
> non-living, but it seems that you can get living from living, 
> computational from non-computational and intentional from 
> non-intentional. If you want to say that the non-living, 
> non-computational and non-intentional already had a dormant form of 
> the quality they were lacking then you could say that but I don't see 
> what it adds. 
>

I think that the distinction is qualitative. To the inorganic world, 
everything is inorganic. The entire molecular level is likely blind to 
meta-molecular (bio-cellular) levels of simplicity. Certain molecules, 
through their own discovery or fate/destiny promoted themselves to a 
genetic sense and motive - or they were promoted--- on the lower levels, I 
suggest that free-will and determinism are not yet very different. Part of 
the promotion is the push toward differentiation. Each level of qualitative 
promotion > more privacy > more temporal caching = broader range of 
sensitivity frequencies > higher quality of sense > more strategic 
foresight > higher quality motive = more degrees of freedom, initiative, 
and creativity.

The key is the idea of higher octaves of simplicity - not just a sleeker 
design but a legitimately higher order based on larger primitives. The cell 
is not a collection of molecules. Molecules don't know what role they play 
in the cell necessarily, but the cell's experiences can now operate through 
molecular experiences. A new top-down conversation has begun - at least 
existentially new...the origin of this conversation is outside of time. It 
runs retro and teleo from eternity.

To recap then, the difference between non-living and living is only visible 
to the living. Biological units are vastly larger and slower, more 
vulnerable in a thousand ways than molecular units, but they are a sign of 
a nested relation of experiences. The experience that is associated with 
the cell (and this is tricky because it is not ultimately 'the cell's 
experience', like our lives are not 'our body's experience') has 'leveled 
up' from the inorganic, and enjoys a richer, more wonderful/awful range of 
sensitivities - which is the purpose of the universe (or at least the half 
of the universe that can have a purpose).

> >> Please show one piece of evidence demonstrating that a physical 
> >> process occurs in the brain that cannot be completely explained as 
> >> caused by another physical process. Note that it isn't good enough to 
> >> point to complex behaviour and say "in there somewhere". 
> > 
> > 
> > Laughing at a joke demonstrates that semantic content causes physical 
> > responses. Any activity in the brain which relates to anything in the 
> world 
> > or the mind has nothing to do with neurochemistry. Physical processes 
> can 
> > induce experiences, but only because experiences are a priori part of 
> the 
> > cosmos. There is nothing about the physical processes which you 
> recognize 
> > which could possibly relate laughter to a joke, or anger to an 
> injustice, 
> > etc. There is no way for your physics of the brain to represent anything 
> > except the brain. 
>
> The claim is that the physics explains all of the physical activity. 

That's tautological. Economics explains all of the economic activity. That 
doesn't mean that a person can be understood by their economic transactions 
alone.

> A 
> door does not open unless someone or something pushes it, whether it's 
> a person, a gust of wind, the reaction from a decaying  radioisotope 
> in the wood, or whatever. If the door is a little one inside the brain 
> that does NOT mean it opens without any identifiable physical cause. 
>

But all physical causes are thought to originate in quantum fluctuations 
from within. Those fluctuations are known to be probabilistic and 
self-entangling.

> If the little door opens in response to a joke it is because the 
> physical manifestations of the joke (sound waves) cause some other 
> physical process which makes it open. It does NOT open because the 
> joke just magically makes it open, which is what would appear to 
> happen if consciousness had a direct causal effect on matter. 
>

I understand exactly what you think that I don't

Re: Mind is a quantum computer

2013-03-21 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 6:08 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
> On 19 Mar 2013, at 17:34, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 5:05 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 19 Mar 2013, at 16:52, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>>>
 On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 2:06 AM, Russell Standish
 
 wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 07:39:44PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi Roger,
>>
>> On 18 Mar 2013, at 12:48, Roger Clough wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Since mind is an MQS or Multiple Quantum Superposition, it can
>>> process information at the rate of a quantum computer.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Since you seem to talk  philosophy, let me translate what you say
>> for our friends the scientists.
>>
>> If we assume that mind is a Multiple Quantum Superposition, and if
>> we assume that mind can exploit those quantum superpositions to
>> process information, then the mind can process information at the
>> rate of a quantum computer.
>>
>> That implication seems to me quite reasonable.
>>
>> Test of the theory according to which a human mind is a Multiple
>> Quantum Superposition:
>>
>>
>> 1) show me a human as good as a quantum computer for finding a
>> needle in a haystack.
>>
>> 2) Factorize 13195212121
>>
>>
>
> Demonstrating these sorts of exponential speedups only falsifies the
> proposition that a human mind is an ordinary classical computer (but
> not COMP). It does not confirm in any way that a human mind operates
> as a quantum computer, since random oracles are another way of
> bridging computational complexity classes.
>
> We only need one idiot-savant to demonstrate this.
>
> By contrast, being unable to demonstrate this scaling means - well
> nothing
> at all, actually.



 I agree with Russell here.

 More generally, I always disliked these evaluations of the
 computational power of the human brain by the speed at which it can do
 arithmetics. It's quite possible that the brain is a computational
 beast, but the "software" it runs is specialised in other things:
 image pattern recognition, parsing semantic trees and so on.
 Arithmetics is a recent and unnatural activity for the brain, so it
 might very well have to be performed on top of inadequate and
 expensive pre-existing machinery.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But QC is not just a speed scaling of computation. It is a different way
>>> to
>>> do some computation, some of which are just impossible to do in "real
>>> time"
>>> by a classical computer.
>>
>>
>> Good point, I didn't mean to imply the contrary.
>
>
> OK.
>
>
>
>
>>
>>> So here the speed is of conceptual importance. If
>>> my brain is a QC I can do a Fourier transform of the state of my
>>> infinitely
>>> many doppelgangers in some superposition states of myself, and this gives
>>> ways to confirm the quantum many-world in a less indirect way than by
>>> doing
>>> QM.
>>
>>
>> That would be a cool explanation for the feeling of deja-vu?
>
>
> Cool, perhaps. Probable? I don't think so. There are classical explanation
> of that phenomenon. Which one is correct I don't know.

Agreed, I was 99% kidding.

>
>
>
>>
>>> My point to Russell was that a random oracle is less powerful than a
>>> quantum
>>> computer, even if the contrary is correct (a quantum computer can
>>> simulate a
>>> random oracle, in principle).
>>>
>>> My point to Roger was just that it is doubtful that the brain is a
>>> quantum
>>> computer, for theoretical and experimental reason.
>>
>>
>> An hypothesis that fascinates me, though, is that it may have access
>> to sources of quantum randomness.
>
>
> But we have access to the comp first indeterminacy, and comp explain why it
> has to be quantum, and have some equivalent of the randomization of phase,
> to eliminate the white rabbits.
>
>
>
>
>
>> I believe that randomness is related
>> to creativity.
>
>
> No, randomness has not the redundancy which is the mark of creativity.
>
>  Post number (ith digit = 1 if phi_i(i) stops, and zero if not) is creative,
> in the sense of Emil Post, and corresponds to the Turing Universal.
>
> Algorithmic randomness (the most random thing we can conceive, like
> Chaitin's Omega, which is a compression of Post number, render it useless.
>
> randomness is useful, tough, for making the computation which can develop
> some relation with it, like the quantum, having a winning measure in the
> rize of the sharable physical laws.
>
> But still, I tend to bet that creativity, if he can exploit it, is still
> independent of it.

I still find it hard to grasp how we could have a creative process
without some degree of random exploration.

>
>
>
>
>
>> One of the things that always bothered me with Roger
>> Penrose's argument is that he considers a theoretical classical
>> computer, but

Re: Losing Control



On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 11:42:38 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> >> At least you now agree that the atoms in my body could be replaced and 
> >> I would feel the same. What if the atoms were replaced by a person: 
> >> would I still have free will or would I, as you claim for a computer, 
> >> only have the will of the programmer? 
> > 
> > 
> > What do you mean by replacing the atoms with a person? Like the China 
> Brain? 
> > Quintillions of human beings each pretending to act like hydrogen? That 
> > wouldn't work, although you might be able to model chemistry that way. 
>
> No, I meant if a person did the replacing of the atoms in my body. I 
> would then have been created and programmed by that person. Would I 
> still have free will? Would I think I had free will? 
>
>
No, it doesn't matter who does the programming/creating. I think what makes 
the difference is only whether the development is self-directed or not. 
Only something which discovers its own way of growing and learning would be 
able to recover the higher qualities of human-like free will. We can even 
see this in human society - heavy indoctrination and 'schooling' tends to 
shape individuals away from discovering their capacities for freedom. If 
someone has the capacity for free will inherently, then you might be able 
to encourage that institutionally, but it seems unlikely to be very 
successful in that aim overall.

Craig


> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: True?


On 21.03.2013 12:44 Stephen P. King said the following:


On 3/21/2013 7:30 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 21.03.2013 12:20 Stephen P. King said the following:


...


How do we forget what we cannot even know that we know?


As far as I know, that's the main Sartre's point. You just start
with that you know that you know. Without the Other there is no I.

Evgenii


Sartre was the philosopher that was the hardest for me to study, but
I did manage to finish Being and Nothingness. Consciousness might
be, itself, the act of distinctioning between I and Other, but how to
do so without Being other than either of these?


Van Fraassen's answer to this question is as follows:

“Let us begin with a statement that I am sure you must have heard before:

God is dead.

You are right if you take it that I am serious about this. But what do I 
mean? When Pascal died, a scrap of paper was found in the lining of his 
coat. On it was written ” The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not the 
God of the philosophers.” Pascal was a contemporary of Descartes in the 
seventeenth century, and the God who appears in Descartes’ Meditations 
on First Philosophy was the paradigmatic philosophers’ God. He is of 
course omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent, and he is designed 
precisely so as to guarantee that everything that Descartes says is 
true. So Pascal had a very good example near at hand. Here is what I 
mean when I say that God is dead:


The God of the philosophers is dead.

This God is dead because he is a creature of metaphysics – that type of 
metaphysics – and metaphysics is dead.”


I am trying now to see things along this way. I should confess though 
that this is not that easy.


Evgenii

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Re: True?


On 3/21/2013 7:30 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
> On 21.03.2013 12:20 Stephen P. King said the following:
>>
>> On 3/21/2013 3:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>> On 20.03.2013 22:14 Stephen P. King said the following:

 On 3/20/2013 4:01 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
> On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:
>> On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>> On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:
>
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>
>
> Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is
> just a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make
> sense to search for it in reality. Here is the irony.
>
> Evgenii
>
 Dear Evgenii,

 I agree! What is almost worse is that immaterialism makes the
 very idea that a 'reality' has any existence outside one the mind
 of the individual. This makes escape from solipsism impossible.

>>>
>>> Well, you have the way out when you consider the Other - look what
>>> Sartre says about consciousness. "The Other" intrinsically belongs
>>> to the Universe in the same way as "I". Solipsism happens when you
>>> forget about The Other. I believe that Sartre is very good in this
>>> respect.
>>>
>>> Evgenii
>>>
>>
>> How do we forget what we cannot even know that we know?
>
> As far as I know, that's the main Sartre's point. You just start with
> that you know that you know. Without the Other there is no I.
>
> Evgenii
>
Sartre was the philosopher that was the hardest for me to study, but
I did manage to finish Being and Nothingness. Consciousness might be,
itself, the act of distinctioning between I and Other, but how to do so
without Being other than either of these?



-- 
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: True?


On 21.03.2013 12:20 Stephen P. King said the following:


On 3/21/2013 3:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 20.03.2013 22:14 Stephen P. King said the following:


On 3/20/2013 4:01 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:

On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:




...




Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is
just a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make
sense to search for it in reality. Here is the irony.

Evgenii


Dear Evgenii,

I agree! What is almost worse is that immaterialism makes the
very idea that a 'reality' has any existence outside one the mind
of the individual. This makes escape from solipsism impossible.



Well, you have the way out when you consider the Other - look what
Sartre says about consciousness. "The Other" intrinsically belongs
to the Universe in the same way as "I". Solipsism happens when you
forget about The Other. I believe that Sartre is very good in this
respect.

Evgenii



How do we forget what we cannot even know that we know?


As far as I know, that's the main Sartre's point. You just start with 
that you know that you know. Without the Other there is no I.


Evgenii

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Re: True?


On 3/21/2013 3:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
> On 20.03.2013 22:14 Stephen P. King said the following:
>>
>> On 3/20/2013 4:01 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>> On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:
 On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
> On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:
>>>
>
> ...
>
>
>>>
>>> Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is just
>>> a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make sense to
>>> search for it in reality. Here is the irony.
>>>
>>> Evgenii
>>>
>> Dear Evgenii,
>>
>> I agree! What is almost worse is that immaterialism makes the very
>> idea that a 'reality' has any existence outside one the mind of the
>> individual. This makes escape from solipsism impossible.
>>
>
> Well, you have the way out when you consider the Other - look what
> Sartre says about consciousness. "The Other" intrinsically belongs to
> the Universe in the same way as "I". Solipsism happens when you forget
> about The Other. I believe that Sartre is very good in this respect.
>
> Evgenii
>

How do we forget what we cannot even know that we know?



-- 
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: True?


On 20.03.2013 22:06 Stephen P. King said the following:


On 3/20/2013 2:51 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:





...


Are you a follower of La Rouche? I do not see such opposition
between Plato and Aristotle .  Aristotle believed in essences and
ideas and in the the inner sense of what is right, just like Plato.
he was not an empiricist nor a materialist. its phisics is drawn
both form intuition and observation, not from experiments (and it
was quite right for the range of  the terrestrial phenomena that he
studied)



A small note. I have recently listened to lectures by Maarten Hoenen

Antike und mittelalterliche Philosophie

He has considered in his lectures

Plato
Aristotle
Plotinus
Augustine of Hippo
Avicenna
Anselm of Canterbury
Albertus Magnus
Thomas Aquinas
Meister Eckhart
Duns Scotus
William of Ockham
Nicolaus Cusanus
Descartes

In his words, Christian philosophers have tried all the time to find the 
right mixture between Aristotle and Plato. Say Augustine is almost 
Neo-Platonic while Thomas Aquinas is almost pure Aristotelian. And it 
seems that among Christian philosophers you could find any possible 
superposition between ideas of Plato and Aristotle.


Evgenii

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Re: True?


On 20.03.2013 22:14 Stephen P. King said the following:


On 3/20/2013 4:01 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:

On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:




...




Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is just
a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make sense to
search for it in reality. Here is the irony.

Evgenii


Dear Evgenii,

I agree! What is almost worse is that immaterialism makes the very
idea that a 'reality' has any existence outside one the mind of the
individual. This makes escape from solipsism impossible.



Well, you have the way out when you consider the Other - look what 
Sartre says about consciousness. "The Other" intrinsically belongs to 
the Universe in the same way as "I". Solipsism happens when you forget 
about The Other. I believe that Sartre is very good in this respect.


Evgenii

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Re: True?