Re: What it Means to Live in a Virtual World Generated by Our Brain

2016-08-28 Thread Brent Meeker 
That would imply that people in sensory deprivation tanks would dream.  
I don't think they do  though they experience sensory illusions.


Of course the interesting question is why do we sleep.  When you're 
asleep you're not actually deprived of sensory perception. Most people 
will awake instantly if you whisper their name.  And dreaming only takes 
place during part of sleep.  I suspect it has something to do with 
condensing and encoding the days experiences into long-term memory.


Brent


On 8/28/2016 9:07 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Why do we dream? I think it is because the brain is a dreaming machine.

Waking life is merely a dream kept roughly in sync with reality 
through clues passed in from the senses.


Jason

On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 4:29 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi > wrote:


I have found a nice paper

Jan Westerhoff, What it Means to Live in a Virtual World Generated
by Our Brain, Erkenntnis (2016) 81:507–528

The author considers the logical consequences from the theory that
the brain generates a virtual world. Below is how Richard Dawkins
describes the theory in his book Unweaving the Rainbow

"We move through a virtual world of our own brains’ making. Our
constructed models of rocks and of trees are a part of the
environment in which we animals live, no less than the real rocks
and trees that they represent."

"There is an easy way to demonstrate that the brain works as a
sophisticated virtual reality computer. First, look about you by
moving your eyes. As you swivel your eyes, the images on your
retinas move as if you were in an earthquake. But you don’t see an
earthquake. To you, the scene seems as steady as a rock. I am
leading up, of course, to saying that the virtual model in your
brain is constructed to remain steady."

Other proponents of the theory are Thomas Metzinger and Steven Lehar.

Westerhoff offers three accounts for such a theory: strong, weak
and irrealism. They differ from each other on the account of an
external world.

The strong account implies a structural correspondence between the
virtual and external world. The week account just says that the
external world exists but one can add almost nothing to this end.

Irrealism on the other hand states the the external world is a
part of the virtual world. I guess that Bruno's theory is close to
irrealism.

Evgeny

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Re: What it Means to Live in a Virtual World Generated by Our Brain

2016-08-28 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi 

Am 28.08.2016 um 18:07 schrieb Jason Resch:

Why do we dream? I think it is because the brain is a dreaming
machine.

Waking life is merely a dream kept roughly in sync with reality
through clues passed in from the senses.


But this is exactly the question. What reality is for someone that 
cannot leave the virtual world by definition?


Evgenii

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Re: What it Means to Live in a Virtual World Generated by Our Brain

2016-08-28 Thread Jason Resch 
Why do we dream? I think it is because the brain is a dreaming machine.

Waking life is merely a dream kept roughly in sync with reality through
clues passed in from the senses.

Jason

On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 4:29 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi  wrote:

> I have found a nice paper
>
> Jan Westerhoff, What it Means to Live in a Virtual World Generated by Our
> Brain, Erkenntnis (2016) 81:507–528
>
> The author considers the logical consequences from the theory that the
> brain generates a virtual world. Below is how Richard Dawkins describes the
> theory in his book Unweaving the Rainbow
>
> "We move through a virtual world of our own brains’ making. Our
> constructed models of rocks and of trees are a part of the environment in
> which we animals live, no less than the real rocks and trees that they
> represent."
>
> "There is an easy way to demonstrate that the brain works as a
> sophisticated virtual reality computer. First, look about you by moving
> your eyes. As you swivel your eyes, the images on your retinas move as if
> you were in an earthquake. But you don’t see an earthquake. To you, the
> scene seems as steady as a rock. I am leading up, of course, to saying that
> the virtual model in your brain is constructed to remain steady."
>
> Other proponents of the theory are Thomas Metzinger and Steven Lehar.
>
> Westerhoff offers three accounts for such a theory: strong, weak and
> irrealism. They differ from each other on the account of an external world.
>
> The strong account implies a structural correspondence between the virtual
> and external world. The week account just says that the external world
> exists but one can add almost nothing to this end.
>
> Irrealism on the other hand states the the external world is a part of the
> virtual world. I guess that Bruno's theory is close to irrealism.
>
> Evgeny
>
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What it Means to Live in a Virtual World Generated by Our Brain

2016-08-28 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi 

I have found a nice paper

Jan Westerhoff, What it Means to Live in a Virtual World Generated by 
Our Brain, Erkenntnis (2016) 81:507–528


The author considers the logical consequences from the theory that the 
brain generates a virtual world. Below is how Richard Dawkins describes 
the theory in his book Unweaving the Rainbow


"We move through a virtual world of our own brains’ making. Our 
constructed models of rocks and of trees are a part of the environment 
in which we animals live, no less than the real rocks and trees that 
they represent."


"There is an easy way to demonstrate that the brain works as a 
sophisticated virtual reality computer. First, look about you by moving 
your eyes. As you swivel your eyes, the images on your retinas move as 
if you were in an earthquake. But you don’t see an earthquake. To you, 
the scene seems as steady as a rock. I am leading up, of course, to 
saying that the virtual model in your brain is constructed to remain 
steady."


Other proponents of the theory are Thomas Metzinger and Steven Lehar.

Westerhoff offers three accounts for such a theory: strong, weak and 
irrealism. They differ from each other on the account of an external world.


The strong account implies a structural correspondence between the 
virtual and external world. The week account just says that the external 
world exists but one can add almost nothing to this end.


Irrealism on the other hand states the the external world is a part of 
the virtual world. I guess that Bruno's theory is close to irrealism.


Evgeny

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Re: A question for Bruno

2016-08-28 Thread Bruno Marchal 

Hi Charles,

On 28 Aug 2016, at 04:37, Charles Goodwin wrote (to Telmo and Russell):


Thank you, we should have remembered that zig-zag approach!


Yes, that's the dovetailing, and we cannot avoid it because there is  
no algorithmic procedure to decide if a program (with or without  
input) will stop or not (the logical price of Turing completeness). So  
we zig-zag among them indeed, and as the others said, this ensures  
that all accessible computational states will be generated soon or  
later. Obviously, there will be greater and greater delays (measured  
in some UD-step "time") between the states of each computation, but as  
you can guess, this does not change the first person indeterminacy, as  
it explain in step 2 and 4.


Note that if the universe was a one-branch universe, the probability  
is near-zero that we are not generated by the UD, as it contains  
(generates) the infinitely many computations going through our states  
infinitely many times. Indeed the physics has to be retrieved from  
that statistic on the UD* (the work of the UD). Same with a concrete  
multiverse, although this is less obvious, and perhaps more debatable  
a priori (as Russell remarked once).


Nice to hear from you and Liz,

Bruno




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



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