Re: The indestructable Pareto distribution
Marxism is more a criticism of capitalism than an economic system. I guess the system should be called centralized planning. The system and the policy can make a big difference in distributio of wealth. The nordic countries are very egalitarian (and rich) countries. So it was Japan. Germany is more equal than the USA. In fact the US is an outlier among the rich countries (much more unequal than the rest). Also, until the end of the seventies, inequalities did grow much slowly than after the eighties. Policies and systems do make a difference. El sep 3, 2012 1:57 p.m., Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net escribió: Hi R AM Many economists find that an incredible number of things fit the Pareto distriution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution such that, to make up an example, 20% of the people own 80% of the wealth. In some cases, the effect might be second order, so don't ask me for proof, but it seems to be inescapable: 1) It doesn't matter much what the economic system is or who is president, it's very stubborn. 2) I don't think that even Marxism can change thIS fundamental distribution of wealth. 3) It's also probably why taxing the rich ultimnately doesn''t work, it lowers everybody's income to fit the curve. A nd why trickle down doesn't work. Roger Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/3/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - *From:* R AM ramra...@gmail.com *Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com *Time:* 2012-08-31, 13:09:44 *Subject:* Re: Re: Marxism and the pursuit of money, sex and power The L-Curve: A Graph of the US Income Distribution http://www.lcurve.org/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.+everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+ unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. +unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: Marxism and the pursuit of money, sex and power
The L-Curve: A Graph of the US Income Distribution http://www.lcurve.org/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: scientists simulate an entire organism in software for the first time ever
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 10:29 AM, rclough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: As I see it, intelligence is the ability to make choices completely on one's own. Autonomously. Intelligence involves solving problems and making good choices. Autonomy might be good or bad, depending on the context. But a computer program can only make choices that the programmer previously allowed. So in effect the choices are made by the computer programmer, The programmer only specifies the rules for making choices, but not the actual choices. furthermore, the program can change its own rules via machine learning or artificial evolution. The programmer is the puppet master.. No. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 8:45 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: Dear Brent, Your statement is a nonsequitur. In your acceptance of the definition of fascism (as given by fascism promoters) is a tacit acceptance of the existence of fascism as an actual matter of fact. The atheists that Bruno is criticising are making claims against the existence of the Christan or more generally the Abrahamic concept of god. Bruno's point might be construed as that any and all claims for or against a particular definition must assume as possibly existing the entity in question. The concept of God as defined by its usage by most philosophers (not just the small minority of Christian apologists) is nowhere isomorphic to the definition of God as defined by Christians and therefore is immune to your critique. This confirms what I have already explained. Atheism is a variant of christianism. They defend the same conception of God than the Christians, as you do all the time. Note that philosophers use often the term God in the general and original sense of theology: as being, by definition, the transcendental cause of everything. as a force greater than myself then I am a devout believer because I believe in gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong nuclear force. I believe in bulldozers too. But I have already told you that God is supposed to be responsible for our existence; Doesn't that responsibility require 'free will'? Why are you tacitly assuming the Abrahamic theory of free-will? You could accept the secular version as it is used in game theory (that I defined in a previous post) but you seem to ignore or refuse this possibility. Why do you think that the concept of autonomy or, its equivalent, agency (in economics) requires the Abrahamic theory? I think thou doth protest too much! -- Onward! Stephen Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. ~ Francis Bacon -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will: a definition
If rationality is used in the technical sense then the irrational category becomes too broad because it includes doing the right thing under the current resources (time, computing power, knowledge) and any other plain dumb action. El ago 3, 2012 1:16 a.m., Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au escribió: On Thu, Aug 02, 2012 at 04:46:07PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: But then to compete with other agents it may well be optimum to adopt a random policy and flip a coin. Of course. But rationality is not just about doing the optimal thing, its about knowing what is the optimal thing to do, and then doing it. One must add some caveats to this characterisation, of course - divine inspiration needs to be ruled out, for example. The knowledge must derived by logical reasoning from that available information, which is where the requirement for unlimited computational resources comes from. I do understand where you're coming from - everyday usage of the word rational is considerably looser than the technical meaning used in philosophy, economics, etc. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I'm not clear on why you emphasize incomplete information? What would constitute complete information? and why how would that obviate 'free will'. Is it coercive? I agree with Russell's answer. If the information was complete (with respect to what is relevant), then there would be no choice at all. I would know that right I will make a cup of coffee, or perhaps not, instead of hesitating about it. Then, the less we know, the freer is our will? When making decisions, what we want is to make the right decision. And therefore, we need as much information as possible. The best situation is when we have so much knowledge that there is no alternative. That's the best situation (not the worst)! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will: a definition
On 7/30/2012 7:05 PM, Russell Standish wrote: With complete information, a totally rational being makes optimal choices, and has no free will, but always beats an irrational being. Conversely, with incomplete information, a rational being will make a wrong choice, or simply fail to make a choice at all, and so is usually beaten by an irrational being. With incomplete information, a rational being will make the best choice under the available information and would beat an irrational being most of the time. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 8:51 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/18/2012 6:28 AM, R AM wrote: Dear Bruno, compatibilist free-will is defined as without coercion. Metaphisical (non-compatibilist) free-will is a property or ability people claim to have when making decisions (i.e. they are so absolutely free that even natural law does not coerce them). Compatibilist free-will is NOT something people have, since it is defined by the external situation to the agent (i.e. the agent is not externally constrained). That seems like a strange conception of what it means to have. I have a motorcycle. The fact that it is external and is mine because I paid for it and it is registered in my name doesn't negate my having it. I don't think we say we have free-will in the same sense than owning a motorcycle. Here is an example of what I mean: 1) Someone is coercing you to give some secret information. A member of your family will be killed if you don't comply. You decide to provide the information: you are coerced = no compatibilist free-will, but you still exercised your metaphysical free-will. 2) You decide to provide the information without coercion. Here you have both metaphysical and compatibilist free-will (you have not been coerced). From the point of view of compatibilist free-will, the only difference between 1 and 2 is the external situation (the coercion). Compatibilist free will is not something you have, or something you do, or a power of you. It's something that happens to you. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Unto Others (very interesting)
free markets produce the types of social systems that best enable people to interact in a way that puts them on the oxytocin-empathy? Really I thought it was each one on its own. On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 6:47 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This may be of interest to those recently discussing free-riders. Brent Original Message Unto Others BY MICHAEL SHERMER It is the oldest and most universally recognized moral principle that was codified over two millennia ago by the Jewish sage Hillel the Elder: “Whatsoever thou wouldst that men should not do to thee, do not do that to them. This is the whole Law. The rest is only explanation.” That explanation has been the subject of intense theological and philosophical disputation for millennia, and recently scientists are weighing in with naturalistic accounts of morality, such as the two books under review here. Paul J. Zak is an economist and pioneer in the new science of neuroeconomics who built his reputation on research that identified the hormone oxytocin as a biological proxy for trust. As Zak documents, countries whose citizens trust one another have higher average GDPs, and trust is built through mutually-beneficial exchanges that result in higher levels of oxytocin as measured in blood draws of subjects in economic exchange games as well as real-world in situ encounters. The Moral Molecule is an engaging and enlightening popular account of Zak’s decade of intense research into how this molecule evolved for one purpose—pair bonding and attachment in social mammals—and was co-opted for trust between strangers. The problem to be solved here is why strangers would be nice to one another. Evolutionary “selfish gene” theory well accounts for why we would be nice to our kin and kind—they share our genes so being altruistic and moral has an evolutionary payoff in our genes being indirectly propagated into future generations. The theory of kin selection explains how this works, and the theory of reciprocal altruism—I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine—goes a long way toward explaining why unrelated people in a social group would be kind to one another: my generosity to you today when my fortunes are sound will pay off down the road when life is good to you and my luck has run out. What Zak has so brilliantly done is to identify the precise biological pathways that explain the mechanics of how this system evolved and operates today. Order the hardcover from Amazon Order the Kindle Edition The Moral Molecule is loaded with first-person accounts of how Zak got his data, starting with a wedding he attended in the English countryside to draw the blood and measure the oxytocin levels of the bride, groom, and accompanying parents before and after the vows. The half-life of oxytocin is measured in minutes, so Zak had to draw 24 blood samples in under ten minutes that then had to be frozen and shipped back to his lab for analysis, the results of which “could be mapped out like the solar system, with the bride as the sun,” he vividly recalls. The bride’s oxytocin level shot up by 28 percent after vows were spoken, “and for each of the other people tested, the increase in oxytocin was in direct proportion to the likely intensity of emotional engagement in the event.” Bride’s mother: up 24 percent. Groom’s father: up 19 percent. The groom: up only 13 percent. Why? It turns out that testosterone interferes with the release of oxytocin, and Zak measured a 100 percent increase in the groom’s testosterone level after his vows were pronounced! How far will Zak go to get his data? In the western highlands of Papua New Guinea he set up a make-shift lab to draw the blood from tribal warriors before and after they performed a ritual dance, discovering that the “band of brothers” phenomena has a molecular basis in oxytocin. The Moral Molecule aims to explain “the source of love and prosperity,” which Zak identifies in a causal chain from oxytocin to empathy to morality to trust to prosperity. Numerous experiments he has conducted in this lab that are detailed in the book demonstrate that subjects who are cooperative and generous in a trust game have higher levels of oxytocin, and infusing subjects with oxytocin through a nose spray causes their generosity and cooperativeness to increase. Zak concludes his book with a thoughtful discussion of how liberal democracies and free markets produce the types of social systems that best enable people to interact in a way that puts them on the oxytocin-empathy-morality-trust-prosperity positive feedback loop. Every corporate CEO and congressman should read this book before making important decisions. In Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame the USC evolutionary anthropologist Christopher Boehm tackles head-on the “free-rider” problem in explaining the origins of morality. Kin selection and reciprocal altruism
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Le 18-juil.-12, à 15:28, R AM a écrit : On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 2:12 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I gave a definition of compatibilist free-will which is not without coercion. I define free-will as the ability to make willing-full choice in absence of complete information, and in the presence of the awareness of our ignorance for some near future. I can practice that free-will even alone at home, like when hesitating between coffee and tea. Why not call it decision making? or will? why free-will? free from what? I guess you mean by metaphysical free-will the usual spurious definition based on third person indeterminacy. I think metaphysical free-will implies third person indeterminacy. But free-will is perceived by people as some sort of power to make absolutely free decisions. It does not exist if we assume computationalism. But a slight difference introduced in that definition (replace the 3-indeterminacy by a weaker self-indeterminacy, based on Turing and not on the first person indeterminacy) makes the notion full of sense, and provable for all universal machine having enough cognitive abilities (Löbian). Indeterminacy is a consequence of metaphysical free-will, but it's not free-will in itself. Your first-person indeterminacy implies that all possible decisions are made. I don't think this fits well with the idea of metaphysical free-will. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Unto Others (very interesting)
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 5:19 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/19/2012 1:43 AM, R AM wrote: free markets produce the types of social systems that best enable people to interact in a way that puts them on the oxytocin-empathy? Really I thought it was each one on its own. I think that's the interesting point: those two are not contrary. I think friendship may release oxytocin, but free-markets relations won't. In any case, that's something that can be found out empirically, I guess. Brent On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 6:47 AM, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: This may be of interest to those recently discussing free-riders. Brent Original Message Unto Others BY MICHAEL SHERMER It is the oldest and most universally recognized moral principle that was codified over two millennia ago by the Jewish sage Hillel the Elder: “Whatsoever thou wouldst that men should not do to thee, do not do that to them. This is the whole Law. The rest is only explanation.” That explanation has been the subject of intense theological and philosophical disputation for millennia, and recently scientists are weighing in with naturalistic accounts of morality, such as the two books under review here. Paul J. Zak is an economist and pioneer in the new science of neuroeconomics who built his reputation on research that identified the hormone oxytocin as a biological proxy for trust. As Zak documents, countries whose citizens trust one another have higher average GDPs, and trust is built through mutually-beneficial exchanges that result in higher levels of oxytocin as measured in blood draws of subjects in economic exchange games as well as real-world in situ encounters. The Moral Molecule is an engaging and enlightening popular account of Zak’s decade of intense research into how this molecule evolved for one purpose—pair bonding and attachment in social mammals—and was co-opted for trust between strangers. The problem to be solved here is why strangers would be nice to one another. Evolutionary “selfish gene” theory well accounts for why we would be nice to our kin and kind—they share our genes so being altruistic and moral has an evolutionary payoff in our genes being indirectly propagated into future generations. The theory of kin selection explains how this works, and the theory of reciprocal altruism—I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine—goes a long way toward explaining why unrelated people in a social group would be kind to one another: my generosity to you today when my fortunes are sound will pay off down the road when life is good to you and my luck has run out. What Zak has so brilliantly done is to identify the precise biological pathways that explain the mechanics of how this system evolved and operates today. Order the hardcover from Amazon Order the Kindle Edition The Moral Molecule is loaded with first-person accounts of how Zak got his data, starting with a wedding he attended in the English countryside to draw the blood and measure the oxytocin levels of the bride, groom, and accompanying parents before and after the vows. The half-life of oxytocin is measured in minutes, so Zak had to draw 24 blood samples in under ten minutes that then had to be frozen and shipped back to his lab for analysis, the results of which “could be mapped out like the solar system, with the bride as the sun,” he vividly recalls. The bride’s oxytocin level shot up by 28 percent after vows were spoken, “and for each of the other people tested, the increase in oxytocin was in direct proportion to the likely intensity of emotional engagement in the event.” Bride’s mother: up 24 percent. Groom’s father: up 19 percent. The groom: up only 13 percent. Why? It turns out that testosterone interferes with the release of oxytocin, and Zak measured a 100 percent increase in the groom’s testosterone level after his vows were pronounced! How far will Zak go to get his data? In the western highlands of Papua New Guinea he set up a make-shift lab to draw the blood from tribal warriors before and after they performed a ritual dance, discovering that the “band of brothers” phenomena has a molecular basis in oxytocin. The Moral Molecule aims to explain “the source of love and prosperity,” which Zak identifies in a causal chain from oxytocin to empathy to morality to trust to prosperity. Numerous experiments he has conducted in this lab that are detailed in the book demonstrate that subjects who are cooperative and generous in a trust game have higher levels of oxytocin, and infusing subjects with oxytocin through a nose spray causes their generosity and cooperativeness to increase. Zak concludes his book with a thoughtful discussion of how liberal democracies and free markets produce the types of social systems that best enable people to interact in a way that puts them on the oxytocin-empathy-morality-trust
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 2:12 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Well ... you are the one who continue to mock free-will, despite many of us have given new precise, and compatibilist, definition of it, and you do this without making precise that you limit yourself to the non sensical notion. Dear Bruno, compatibilist free-will is defined as without coercion. Metaphisical (non-compatibilist) free-will is a property or ability people claim to have when making decisions (i.e. they are so absolutely free that even natural law does not coerce them). Compatibilist free-will is NOT something people have, since it is defined by the external situation to the agent (i.e. the agent is not externally constrained). I think you have also defined free-will as not knowing (even in principle) what we will finally do. But this is again not something people have, but just something that happens to us. To reiterate, compatibilist free-will is not a property of the agents involved, and thus, it is hardly that something people claim to have. Compatibilist free-will is just a way of telling people that they will be considered responsible even though they do not have metaphisical free-will. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Autonomy?
On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: There is little difference, that I can see, between Brent's proposed spirit world intervening in the physical world, and brains in vats intervening in a virtual world, and there is nothing impossible about the latter scenario. From the perspective of those in the virtual world, the actions of entities would be neither random nor determined. But in that case, physics would not be closed. And, it would be a mistery why spirits that cause violations in physical law are attached to complex structures like human brains, and not, let's say, rocks or dead bodies. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 6:35 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 13 Jun 2012, at 10:44, R AM wrote: I know that you and Bruno are compatibilists. I'm not attacking your notion of free will. I agree that free will is a social construct. I'm going even further: free will doesn't even deserve a name. Deep down, free will is not something people have, but just a social definition of under what conditions or situations we will be considered responsible (and punishable). You can do that. But would *that* not be a reductionist view of reality? No, because I'm just exposing a false belief. You are saying that free-will does not exist because it is a higher level description of complex aggregations of simple processes. Not really, all I'm saying is that belief in free will is like belief in flat earth: false. And this is not based on physical reality being deterministic or random but on subjective experience: - Introspection shows that most of our thoughts and decisions are unconscious (try not to think on anything for 30 minutes and see what happens) - The idea of I could have done otherwise is silly. If you try to imagine yourself in exactly the same conscious situation, you will have to conclude that you would not have done otherwise (at least, not consciously). Otherwise, you would already have done it. Dan Dennett says most of these things much better than I could, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLAbWFCh1E -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 2:08 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/12/2012 1:06 PM, R AM wrote: Isn't that randomness? No, it's unpredictablity - something we may fruitfully model by a mathematical theory of randomness even though the dynamics are perfectly deterministic, when we don't know enough to use the dynamics to predict results. Except in quantum mechanics, where events may be inherently random, 'randomness' is just modeling uncertainty due to ignorance and so it is relative to what is known. OK, then it is random from the point of view of consciousness. Agreed, but then the reason is unconscious. To me, that's not free will. That's a problem with 'free will'. Some people, like Sam Harris, insist that it means the same thing it did in the middle ages, a supernatural ability to do the nomologically impossible by conscious thought. Some people, like Daniel Dennett, look at how the concept functions in society and redefine it so it doesn't require the supernatural but has the same extension in social and legal discourse. It's not only the Middle Ages. Most people believe that free will is supernatural or metaphisical (without using those words). OK, but I think a defender of free will would say that you could have also kissed that person instead of attacking him. But would he be wrong? Yes, he would be wrong. But many people believe that he could have not attacked that person. That's what free will feels like. But you know that's not the case. You have a certain character, a certain consistency of behavior so that your friends can trust you NOT to do anything at random. And having this consistency is essentially part of defining you and defining who it is who has compatibilist free will. The fact that almost all this character is subconscious is irrelevant to the social meaning of 'free will'. Yes, but then he could say, it's not my fault, my violent character made me attack that person. And the judge would say but you could have done otherwise, which is false. The judge should say instead: you will be punished anyway, so that next time your piriorities will change or you will be punished so that others know that this behavior is punishable. However, most people believe that it is unfair to punish someone if he couldn't have done otherwise (in some metaphysical sense). That is why this folk-psychology metaphysical meaning of free will is believed by all members of society, and transmited from parents to offspring. But it is a false belief. I know that you and Bruno are compatibilists. I'm not attacking your notion of free will. I agree that free will is a social construct. I'm going even further: free will doesn't even deserve a name. Deep down, free will is not something people have, but just a social definition of under what conditions or situations we will be considered responsible (and punishable). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 9:13 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Yes, but for the sake of the argument, I wanted you to consider the case where you are pretty certain about eating spaghetti. Defenders of free will would say that free will is active whenever you make a decision, hesitating or not hesitating. What do you mean by free will? The metaphysical kind of free will. The idea that a person can decide anything whatsoever, uncaused. We can punish them with the hope that they can learn to do otherwise. Yes. In fact, if there is no such hope at all, it doesn't make any sense punishing people. Some would say that there is still revenge. But revenge is just ano emotion for changing other people ways. We have to agree on a definition of free will first. I defend the compatibilist notion, and free will is just what makes responsibility sensical. I can identify it with will, responsibility, etc. I agree that a lot of definition of free will makes it non sensical. I'm not really attacking your views but folk-psychology ideas of free will. Someone like that must go to an hospital, be cured, and then can be judged responsible or not. It can depend on many factors. There are no general rules, nor any scientific criteria for judging with any certainty the responsibility. Agreed. However, If we punish people because they have free will (i.e. they could have done otherwise), then this person should also be punished. Again and again. It's not his free will that is failing, it's his memory. However, it makes no sense to punish such a person, because having no memory, the punishment will not change his future behavior. OK. Then, that's all I wanted to say. We punish people to change their ways, not because they posess free will (in whatever form). we have to conclude that we are random and inconsistent. Hardly the conclusion free will defenders would like to have. Sure. Free will is self-determination in presence of incomplete information, notably. That's fine. However, I don't think the idea of free will needs to be rescued, not even in its compatibilist form. People make decisions, that's all. Some of those decisions are not socially acceptable and have to be changed for the future. Punishing people is a way of achieving that (maybe not the only one, maybe not even the best one). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 6:42 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/11/2012 8:45 AM, R AM wrote: But what I'm saying here is not ontological determinism but in fact, about the subjective experience. I'm defending that we cannot imagine ourselves in exactly the same subjective situation and still think that we could have done otherwise. I can certainly imagine that. But I wonder if your use of subjective situation is ambiguous. Do you mean exactly the same state, including memory, conscious and unconscious thoughts..., or do you just mean satisfying the same subjective description? I would say exactly the same conscious state. If we are put again in the same conscious state, I don't think that we can consistently imagine ourselves doing otherwise. If at subjective situation t we decided x, why would we decide otherwise if *exactly* the same subjective situation was again the case? Of course, unconscious processes might make the difference (in fact, they do), but this is no help for a defender of free will, because he cannot maintain that decisions have, at bottom, an unconscious origin. Brent Or something equivalent, if we were put again in exactly the same subjective situation, would we do otherwise? I don't think so, but If yes, why? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@ **googlegroups.com everything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 12:18 AM, RMahoney rmaho...@poteau.com wrote: I'm assuming you mean by exactly the same situation, every atom in it's exact same physical state. Not really. I mean the same conscious or subjective situation. From the free will point of view, decisions are conscious and can only be based on what is available to consciousness at the moment of decision. Defenders of free will are commited to say that, no matter how long and deep we ponder a question before making a decision, if we were put again in exactly the same subjective situation (after all the pondering, etc) we could still do otherwise. Now the question that came up, is this person not responsible for his/her actions if only at the mercy of the physical laws of the universe (no free will). The answers I've been hearing that suggest she/he may not be responsible miss the point. The measure of wrongness was defined by society. I agree. People is not responsible in some ontological way. But society considers us responsible (i.e. punishable). And we take that into account. The important fact is not whether we have free will or not, but to know that we are considered responsible. It's interesting to notice that discussions about free will almost always go hand in hand with discussions about responsability and punishment. If history and experience yields a member of society that does a horrendous wrong, he/she is a defect of society and needs to be removed, rehabilitated, or whatever society dictates. Here's where I don't agree with aquitting someone due to mental defect. If the defect is there, the result is the same. Fix it if it's fixable or if it's not fixable remove them from society. I agree, but we have to be careful here, lest we consider people to be machines (something that has to be fixed or removed, like in the Clockwork Orange movie). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 7:44 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Well then it seems to come down to a question of timing. If this 'same conscious state' is before the action, then I can certainly imagine changing my mind. Yes, but why would you do that? You didn't change your mind in the first situation. Why would you change your mind if exactly the same conscious state is repeated? And this holds all the way up to the action, which is why you are even unpredictable by yourself. You don't know (for sure) what you'll do until you do it. I agree, but that's not exactly what I'm saying. I'm trying to make sense of the I could have done otherwise. What does it mean? Or in other words, if the same situation is repeated I would do otherwise. But it's difficult to explain (I might be wrong too). OK, let's suppose that exactly the same conscious state is repeated N times. If each time we do a different action, even opposite ones (such as killing or not killing someone), then our decision making is basically random. I don't think that is what is meant by free will. Let's go to an extreme case. We have to make an important decision. We spend one year pondering our alternatives, and a decision is reached (we will kill someone). We are pretty certain about it. Do you think that if we repeat the same conscious state of just before making the decision, we would conclude not to kill? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 7:23 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: No. But the gangster does not know this determination. So although at that level he could not do otherwise, from his perspective, it still can make genuine sense that he could have done otherwise, from our embedded pov perspective. Only for God, it does not make sense, but locally we are not God. More specifically. You are in a situation where you crave for spaghetti, you haven't had spaghetti in the last month, you know spaghetti is good for er ... whatever. You therefore make the decision to eat spaghetti. Now, you are put again in exactly the same situation and ... do you really think you could choose strawberries instead? would you choose strawberries? If I am craving spaghetti I could not do otherwise. Well, parents routinely punish their children for eating too much candy. Why do they do that, if their children could not do otherwise? But then I would not have said it. The situation is when I remember having hesitate, and the day after, despite the determination, I can think that I could have done otherwise, because I cannot be aware of the complete determination. And, indeed, after that hesitation, I might well have taken the strawberry. Yes, but for the sake of the argument, I wanted you to consider the case where you are pretty certain about eating spaghetti. Defenders of free will would say that free will is active whenever you make a decision, hesitating or not hesitating. Determinism is just not incompatible with genuine free will or will, for the will is not playing at the same level than the determination. If they were on the same level, you could trivially justify all your act by I am just obeying the physical laws, which is just false, because you are an abstract person, not a body. I am not really talking about physical determination. But in any case, I think the justification is correct. This is not important, though, because we do not actually punish people because they could have done otherwise. We punish people so that they will not repeat their bad behaviour in the future (among other reasons). He will convince nobody because we all believe that he (and all of us) could have done otherwise. And we all believe that because, for some reason, we believe it is unfair to punish someone if he cannot do otherwise. What I'm saying is that belief in free-will is just a justification for punishing people. OK. And rightly so, unless unfair trial of course. What i'm saying is that we believe in free will (although it is a false belief) so that we can punish people without feeling guilty. Usually, the opposite is claimed: we punish people because they have free will (but I'm claiming that's wrong). Actually this is not proved, and some argue that going in jail can augment the probability of recurrence of certain type of crime. But that's not relevant. So OK. I agree, but if that's the case, we should change the punishment. He learned to do otherwise. Agreed. But that's what I'm saying. Making people responsible has nothing to do with their free will, but with reinforcement and learning. Belief in free will is just a excuse to discipline people. Let's suppose that a person forgets everything every morning. Would it make any sense to punish someone like that, because he just could have done otherwise? Someone like that must go to an hospital, be cured, and then can be judged responsible or not. It can depend on many factors. There are no general rules, nor any scientific criteria for judging with any certainty the responsibility. Agreed. However, If we punish people because they have free will (i.e. they could have done otherwise), then this person should also be punished. Again and again. It's not his free will that is failing, it's his memory. However, it makes no sense to punish such a person, because having no memory, the punishment will not change his future behavior. But exactly the same subjective experience is ambiguous. Our doing depends also on unconscious processing, of the luminosity of the sky, of possible subliminal messages from peers, of hormone concentration, and all those factors might be unknown. But that's basically randomness! you cannot be sent to Hell because of the luminosity of the sky! I don't think that would be considered free will. Free will should be the result of deliberation, even if at the end you decide to do something random. Or something equivalent, if we were put again in exactly the same subjective situation, would we do otherwise? I don't think so, but If yes, why? We can't. Given your condition. But the determination being unknown, we can correctly conceive of having done otherwise, for a little unknown reason which would have influence the choice made after some hesitation. Even without hesitation, there is still, even more, free will. If we make up our mind, and we are
Re: free will and mathematics
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 7:44 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Why not. That's the compatibilist view of 'free will' and that's apparently why Sam Harris disagrees with compatibilism: he defines 'free will' to be *conscious* authorship of decisions. I think that is what is meant by typical defenders of free will too. In the course of a day almost all my decisions are made without conscious thought, like which keys to strike in typing the previous line. Earlier today I had to enter a computer generated random security code; I had to think about each character. So was the latter an exercise of free will and the former wasn't?? That's a good question for defenders of free will to answer. I think they would say that you can always stop consciously your unconscious will (that's one of the defences against Libet's experiments). However, Most of the day we are not even conscious that we could exercise that kind of free will, so ... I gues 99% of the time our decisions are not free willed. And it makes no difference, of course. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 9:39 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I means that, in retrospect, I can't trace back to external (to me) causes, a deterministic sequence that inevitably led me to do that. Isn't that randomness? Conceivably we could make an intelligent machine that could keep a record of all its internal states so that when did something it could then cite the sequence of internal states and say, See I had to do it. It was just physics. And the machine would be right ... Or in other words, if the same situation is repeated I would do otherwise. But it's difficult to explain (I might be wrong too). OK, let's suppose that exactly the same conscious state is repeated N times. If each time we do a different action, even opposite ones (such as killing or not killing someone), then our decision making is basically random. I don't think that is what is meant by free will. I think that's wrong. You are equating unpredictable with random. Suppose the same conscious state is repeated and one second later you either shoot someone or you punch him. In that second different unconscious processes may determine what you do; so that which you do is unpredictable. Agreed, but then the reason is unconscious. To me, that's not free will. But it is only 'random' within a range which is determined by who you are - and in this case you are very angry with the someone - OK, but I think a defender of free will would say that you could have also kissed that person instead of attacking him. so it is still an exercise of your will. And it's not constrained or coerced, so it's 'free will'. But you are removing all possible decisions except different ways of attaking the victim, so it is not free will, at least not that feeling that I could have done anything no matter what. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 5:34 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: OK, for the sake of the argument, let's suppose that you ate spaghetti because that's what you liked at that moment. Do you think you could have done otherwise? Now, let's suppose a gangster decides to rob a bank after considering all his options. Later he might be judged and told that he could have done otherwise? Could he really have done otherwise? At the level of the arithmetical laws, or physical laws, the answer is no. But we don't live at that level, so at the level of its first person impression the answer is yes. OK. So that means that if you (or the ganster) were put again in exactly the same subjective situation (same beliefs, likings, emotions, intentions, memories, same everything) you could do otherwise? More specifically. You are in a situation where you crave for spaghetti, you haven't had spaghetti in the last month, you know spaghetti is good for er ... whatever. You therefore make the decision to eat spaghetti. Now, you are put again in exactly the same situation and ... do you really think you could choose strawberries instead? would you choose strawberries? A guy rapes and tortures 10 children, could he have done otherwise? Well, there is a sense for some medical expert to say that he could have done otherwise, for the guy is judged responsible and not under some mental disease (for example). Now, if the guy defends himself in saying that he was just obeying to the physical laws, he will convince nobody, and rightly so. He will convince nobody because we all believe that he (and all of us) could have done otherwise. And we all believe that because, for some reason, we believe it is unfair to punish someone if he cannot do otherwise. What I'm saying is that belief in free-will is just a justification for punishing people. But in fact, we punish people, not because he could have done otherwise but because next time, he will think twice. Next time, he will not be in the same subjective situation: he will have the memories of his punishment and he will take that into account. If next time he is in exactly the same subjective situation, he will do exactly the same. Why would he do otherwise? Why didn't he already? Let's suppose that a person forgets everything every morning. Would it make any sense to punish someone like that, because he just could have done otherwise? We are determinate, but we cannot known completely our determination, so from our point of view there is a genuine spectrum of different possibilities and we can choose freely among them. It does not matter that a God, or a Laplacean daemon can predict our actions, for *we* can't, and have no other choice than choosing without complete information, and in some case it makes sense that we could have made a different choice (even if that is senseless at the basic ontological level, for the choice is made at another level, from an internal first person perspectives. But what I'm saying here is not ontological determinism but in fact, about the subjective experience. I'm defending that we cannot imagine ourselves in exactly the same subjective situation and still think that we could have done otherwise. Or something equivalent, if we were put again in exactly the same subjective situation, would we do otherwise? I don't think so, but If yes, why? To justify our acts by God Will or by Physical Laws (or Arithmetical laws) is the same type of level confusion, or perspective confusion, mistake. I would say. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 7:34 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: The answer must be relative to our (imperfect) knowledge. Since that knowledge is not sufficient to predict what he would do, we say Yes, he could have done otherwise. In the same way we may say, I know him well and he's not a person to rob a bank. We may believe the world is deterministic and yet still unpredictable, so when you ask could we need to think in what sense it is meant. I completely agree. It's not clear what we mean by could in this case (in the same sense that it's not clear what is meant by free-will). That is why I'm trying to reformulate the question as if you were put again in exactly the same subjective situation, do you think you would do otherwise? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I agree free-will is silly if it is defined like that. So let us try a less silly definition. So instead of was exactly the same in your definition, we can use was exactly the same from the subject point of view. OK. In that case, if the subject was aware of not having all information, he might consistently think that he could have done otherwise, because he was hesitating for example, as far as he can remember. It depends on what we mean by could. If we mean that I would have done otherwise because I could have done otherwise, I still think that belief in free-will is silly. If the subject was aware of not having all information and yet he did what he did, why would the subject think (later) that he could have done otherwise? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Because he remembers that he was hesitating. Yesterday I have eaten spaghetti, but I could have decide otherwise, I hesitated a lot. OK, for the sake of the argument, let's suppose that you ate spaghetti because that's what you liked at that moment. Do you think you could have done otherwise? Now, let's suppose a gangster decides to rob a bank after considering all his options. Later he might be judged and told that he could have done otherwise? Could he really have done otherwise? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 6:08 PM, Brian Tenneson tenn...@gmail.com wrote: Speaking of the legal aspect, Yes, Hitler exercised his *insert gibberish here* when he issued orders to kill the Jews. IF *gibberish* does not exist, then how can we hold criminals culpable in that they had no choice but to commit crime? Seems unfair to punish anyone under those circumstances. Perhaps the concept of free-will exists because people think it is unfair to punish anyone under those circumstances? On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 9:05 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 8:53 AM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: while you do not *always* know what you're going to do, you know your preferences most of the time. And Turing proved that some of the time a computer can tell if it will eventually stop or not, but not all of the time. The feeling of 'free will' comes from the inability retrospectively to see all the causes; so that, out of ignorance, it seems that one could have done otherwise. Yes, and unlike other definitions of free will this one is not gibberish, however when you boil it down all it's really saying is you don't know what you don't know. The highest status the philosophical concept called free will can aspire to is that of being right but trivially circular, most of the time it's not even that, most of the time it's just gibberish. Aside from the philosophical concept, there is the social/legal concept of not coerced, referred to as exercising 'free will', which is what Stenger proposes just to call autonomy. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 6:18 PM, Brian Tenneson tenn...@gmail.com wrote: I think people make choices from among available options many times every day and that is why the concept in question exists. I agree that people make choices. I dont't think it is free will. You said that people would believe that it would unfair to punish anyone if there were no free will. I agree that people believe that On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 9:15 AM, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 6:08 PM, Brian Tenneson tenn...@gmail.com wrote: Speaking of the legal aspect, Yes, Hitler exercised his *insert gibberish here* when he issued orders to kill the Jews. IF *gibberish* does not exist, then how can we hold criminals culpable in that they had no choice but to commit crime? Seems unfair to punish anyone under those circumstances. Perhaps the concept of free-will exists because people think it is unfair to punish anyone under those circumstances? On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 9:05 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 8:53 AM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: while you do not *always* know what you're going to do, you know your preferences most of the time. And Turing proved that some of the time a computer can tell if it will eventually stop or not, but not all of the time. The feeling of 'free will' comes from the inability retrospectively to see all the causes; so that, out of ignorance, it seems that one could have done otherwise. Yes, and unlike other definitions of free will this one is not gibberish, however when you boil it down all it's really saying is you don't know what you don't know. The highest status the philosophical concept called free will can aspire to is that of being right but trivially circular, most of the time it's not even that, most of the time it's just gibberish. Aside from the philosophical concept, there is the social/legal concept of not coerced, referred to as exercising 'free will', which is what Stenger proposes just to call autonomy. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 6:30 PM, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 6:18 PM, Brian Tenneson tenn...@gmail.com wrote: I think people make choices from among available options many times every day and that is why the concept in question exists. Deep down, free will is the belief that, if we were put again under exactly the same situation, exactly the same feelings, the same perceptions, the same beliefs, the same memories, the same past, the same values, etc ... if everything was exactly the same, the belief in free will says that we still could do otherwise. It's silly. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 6:57 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/6/2012 9:30 AM, R AM wrote: On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 6:18 PM, Brian Tenneson tenn...@gmail.com wrote: I think people make choices from among available options many times every day and that is why the concept in question exists. I agree that people make choices. I dont't think it is free will. You said that people would believe that it would unfair to punish anyone if there were no free will. I agree that people believe that If there were no free will of what kind? contra-causal? compatibilist? social/legal? Contral-causal, I guess. What I'm defending is that the belief in free-will is, in part, a social construct, useful from the social/legal point of view, as you say. We are educated to believe it. And even if it's not fair (another social term) it may be a useful thing for society to do. I'm pretty convinced it is not fair. Doing the right thing is just a skill, like any other (running fast, jumping, intelligence, ...), and different people posess it to different degrees. Yet, from a social point of view, we consider everybody to have the same amount of free will, excet in extreme cases (madness, drunkenness, etc). It's definitely not fair, but on the other hand, it is difficult to see what else we could do. It's useful for society to consider it that way. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: free will and mathematics
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 8:52 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Contral-causal, I guess. What I'm defending is that the belief in free-will is, in part, a social construct, useful from the social/legal point of view, as you say. We are educated to believe it. The social/legal concept is certainly a social construct, and one that has evolved over time from simple revenge and an eye for an eye to all sorts mitigating and exacerbating factors. I think that belief in contra causal free will is natural and not a social construct. It arises from that feeling I could have done otherwise and then, by the theory of mind, the other guy could have done otherwise. We will have be educated to disbelieve it. I think the feeling that I could have done otherwise comes from education. When our parents got mad at something we did when kids, what belief could have we learned, except that I could have done otherwise or damn it, why didn't I do otherwise? But I'm not sure if we can substitute that belief with something else ... Next time I will do otherwise perhaps doesn't work equally well, because you might think, ok, next time I will do the same, and it will be next next time that I will do otherwise -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will in MWI
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I would allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to be a form of decision, learning, or reinforcement. OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep Blue won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here? Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will in MWI
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On May 15, 7:19 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I would allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to be a form of decision, learning, or reinforcement. OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep Blue won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here? Yes. Deep Blue didn't know the difference between winning or losing, let alone care. The fact remains that good decision making can take place in a deterministic world. Some decision-making you will label as meaningful, some as meaningless. But good decision-making nevertheless. You cannot win chess withouth making good decisions. Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will in MWI
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 6:19 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On May 15, 11:59 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On May 15, 7:19 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I would allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to be a form of decision, learning, or reinforcement. OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep Blue won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here? Yes. Deep Blue didn't know the difference between winning or losing, let alone care. The fact remains that good decision making can take place in a deterministic world. Some decision-making you will label as meaningful, some as meaningless. But good decision-making nevertheless. You cannot win chess withouth making good decisions. I don't think Deep Blue makes any decisions or wins chess, I'm not sure what you don't see here. Deep Blue has several possible moves and chooses one of them (just as Kasparov does). It makes a decision each move. And given that it eventually gets to check-mate, Deep Blue wins chess. it just compares statistics and orders them according to an externally provided criteria. It is a filing cabinet of possible chess games that matches any particular supplied pattern to a designated outcome. We are able to project our own ideas and expectations onto our experience of Deep Blue, but that doesn't mean that there is any actual decision making going on. There is no decision, only automatic recursive reactions. Deep Blue decides what piece to move and where to move it. That counts as a decision to me. A programmer could easily change Deep Blue to lose every match or to command a robotic arm to smash it's CPUs. How can good decision making be claimed if it can just as easily be programmed to make bad decisions? Because Deep Blue wins chess? How else can you win chess except by making good decisions? Ultimately both Kasparov and Deep Blue make a move. Ricardo. There is no symbol grounding. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will in MWI
I'm saying that decision making, learning, and reinforcement are possible in a deterministic world, and you are not denying it. I guess our points of view are orthogonal. Ricardo. On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 12:19 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On May 13, 4:19 pm, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 6:19 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On May 13, 11:46 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: What would be the point of learning though? What would be the difference between any one outcome and any other one if decision making were determined? It is only because of our own experience of free will that we can project some significance of any particular outcome. Maybe it is because of the significance of outcomes that we believe to have free will. That assumes a possibility of significance without it. I don't think that can be supported. I don't see what free will has to do with the outcomes of surviving or not surviving. If you have free will, then the outcome of not surviving presents the ultimate threat to the continuation of free will, as well as the complete loss of subjective significance and the expectation of negative sensory experiences. If there were no free will, then outcomes of surviving or not surviving would not be significantly different...they would only be two differently numbered addresses in an infinite sequence of meaningless outcomes. Evolution doesn't care how species mutate or whether individuals survive, why should the individuals themselves care either? Because individuals that care about outcomes survive? Only if they translate that care into behavior using their free will. Without free will, care is meaningless to survival. Individuals that care about outcomes survive. You already said that but you aren't addressing my reply that care in and of itself cannot impact survival. Of course this implies a behaviour directed to producing good outcomes. No free will involved. These two sentences contradict each other. Why of course? Only because through free will you can choose how to make sense of your circumstances, prioritize which outcomes are most desirable to you, and which desires you choose to act upon. This is free will. Of course free will is involved. Nothing but free will is involved. Only if we program them to act like they are doing that. They never would learn anything on their own. The fact is that learning is possible in a deterministic universe. Even if it were possible, learning would be irrelevant in a deterministic universe. Whatever. The fact remains that learning is possible in a deterministic world. And individuals that survive thanks to learning, too. It depends on what you consider learning. Does a stone worn down by the ocean 'learn' to be smooth? Blue green algae has survived for a billion years without much learning. Our sense of learning comes purely out of free will - a desire to enhance our effectiveness in making more sense and acting more effectively on that sense. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will in MWI
On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 6:44 AM, Pierz pier...@gmail.com wrote: I can see that. But consider that the notion of being able to change the outcome of future society - 'prevent' or 'deter' anything at all - depends on the possibility of variant futures. From the absolute perspective, such variation is impossible (or is merely random and so not subject to reason or 'choice'). So how does one justify any decision? Seen absolutely, it was inevitable and there can be no talk of a good or a bad decision. I think determinism should not be confused with fatalism (i.e. it does not matter what you do, things will turn out the same). In determinism it matters what you do, even if what you do is determined. Once an outcome is obtained, we can still analyze the contribution of decisions to that outcome, evaluate them, and most importantly, learn from them. Next time, what we have learned will be taken into account for the next decision. This can take place in a purely deterministic world. Even two deterministic (with some pseudorandomness added) computer chess players playing against each other, can learn from each other mistakes and use what they have learned for future competitions. The point is not changing future outcomes. In fact we don't know what that outcome will be. The point is obtaining good outcomes. Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will in MWI
On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: What would be the point of learning though? What would be the difference between any one outcome and any other one if decision making were determined? It is only because of our own experience of free will that we can project some significance of any particular outcome. Maybe it is because of the significance of outcomes that we believe to have free will. Evolution doesn't care how species mutate or whether individuals survive, why should the individuals themselves care either? Because individuals that care about outcomes survive? Only if we program them to act like they are doing that. They never would learn anything on their own. The fact is that learning is possible in a deterministic universe. The point is not changing future outcomes. In fact we don't know what that outcome will be. The point is obtaining good outcomes. Without the existence of free will as a given, there can be no good. There is no problem in having good and bad outcomes in a deterministic universe. Ricardo. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Free will in MWI
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 3:07 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I agree with that point. But I also wanted to make the point that there is social concept of free will that has to do with responsibility, and it is compatible with different dualist, determinist, and non-deterministic concepts of will, free and otherwise. Yes, and responsability is linked with punishment which in turn is linked with learning and regulating behavior. It's all social. It is revealing that when discussing free will, most examples are moral situations. Very rarely free will is exemplified with choosing going to the movies or going to the theather. Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 2:25 AM, Pierz pier...@gmail.com wrote: You must have misread me. I am anything but sure nothing must have come before. Yes, probably I did. Indeed, my whole point is that something from nothing - genuine nothing - is a nonsense. You can't bridge the hgap between existence and non existence by any causal process. I think that's obvious, and we must accept that the universe simply 'is'. I agree. An empty set is not the absence of a set. A set is a collection of elements and the empty set is the absence of elements (nothing). But to take another angle on it: consider what you mean by removing these objects. It's merely something you're imagining, it does not correspond to any real process. In reality, energy and matter transform, they are not created or destroyed. I agree, it is not a physical process. But I am not proposing this combinatorics as a way to create something from nothing, but just to show that there are more ways of being than of non-being. In fact, it is not that different of saying that the laws of this universe are unlikely (given that many more are possible). But it is all combinatorics. You say existence is more likely than nonexistence based on this imaginary subtraction/addition, but think about the meaning of likely. What is the set you're sampling from? All possible states of existence including the absence of anything - the empty set. So you've already 'created' the universe of universes as it were. Why is there a set to sample from to allow there to be any likelihood of one or the other state of being? That is the crux of the issue. Well, I have not really created this set of possibilities, have I? The possibilities are out there, so to speak. I cannot even imagine how to make them go away, so to speak. I mean, I can imagine my home does not exist, but I cannot imagine the absence of the possibility of my home. OK, let's try another angle. People in this list have infinite universes for breakfast. To me, the most important problem of multiverses is that most universes in them are random (white rabbits). But it is not usually appreciated that very vew of them correspond to Newtonian empty space. In fact, the multiverse already explains why there is something rather than empty space (at the cost of white rabbits). I agree that Newtonian empty space is not nothing, but the argument that I have used is very similar, and classic empty space is what most people mean by nothing anyway. Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 12:48 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
The empty set is the absence of elements (nothing) in that set. It is the
set { }.
The empty set is not nothing. For example, the set is { { } } is not
empty. It contains as element the empty set.
Just to be precise.
Well, I guess that the empty set is more like an empty box.
Ricardo.
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
PM, Bruno Marchal
Yes.
Nothing, in set theory, would be more like an empty *collection* of
sets, or an empty universe (a model of set theory), except that in first
order logic we forbid empty models (so that AxP(x) - ExP(x) remains valid,
to simplify life (proofs)).
nothing could also be obtained by removing the curly brackets from the
empty set {}. Or removing the (empty) container. I guess this would be
equivalent to removing space from the universe. Except that this doesn't
make any sense in Set Theory (maybe it doesn't make any sense in reality
either).
Still, {} is some sort of nothing in Set Theory, given that it is what is
left after all that is allowed to be removed, is removed.
Ricardo.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 8:23 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
On 09 May 2012, at 17:09, R AM wrote:
nothing could also be obtained by removing the curly brackets from the
empty set {}.
N... Some bit of blank remains. If it was written on hemp, you could
smoke it. That's not nothing!
Don't confuse the notion and the symbols used to point to the notion.
Which you did, inadvertently I guess.
I was using the analogy between items contained in sets and things
contained in bags. The curly brackets would represent the bags. Removing
things from a bag leaves it empty. Removing the bag leaves ... nothing.
Sure, like 0 is some sort of nothing in Number theory, and like quantum
vacuum is some sort of nothing in QM. Nothing is a theory dependent notion.
(Not so for the notion of computable functions).
Yes, these concrete nothings are well behaved, unlike the absolute nothing,
which we don't know what rules it obey (in case it is a meaningful concept,
which it might not be).
Extensionally, the UD is a function from nothing (no inputs) to nothing
(no outputs), but then what a worker!
Extensionally it belongs to { } ^ { }. It is a function from { } to { }.
But I guess that is because the UD generates internally all possible inputs
for all possible programs, isn't it.
Ricardo.
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 9:26 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Ricardo: I hate to become a nothingologist, but if you REMOVE things to make NOTHING you still have the remnanat (empty space, hole, potential of 'it' having been there or whatever) from WHERE you removed it. IMO in Nothing there is not even a where identified. But the space gets removed too ... I'm not sure if I understand you. Ricardo. Forgive me the 'light' reply, please. John M On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 5:17 PM, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 9:46 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Ricardo: good text! I may add to it: Who created Nothing? - of course: Nobody. (The ancient joke of Odysseus towards Polyphemos: 'Nobody' has hurt me). Just one thing: if it contains (includes) EMPTY SPACE, it includes space, it is not nothing. I actually meant that most of the time, people say nothing when they mean Newtonian empty space. I agree that nothing is not empty space. And please, do not forget about my adage in the previous post that limits (borders) are similarly not includable into nothing, so it must be an infinite - well - nothing. It still may contain things we have no knowledge about and in such case it is NOT nothing. We just are ignorant. I agree that if it contains things, then it is not nothing, but you can create a nothing by removing them. Ricardo. JM On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 1:06 PM, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: Some thoughts about nothing: - If nothing has no properties, and a limitation is considered a property, then nothing cannot have any limitations, including the limitation of generating something. Therefore, something may come from nothing. - Given that something exists, it is possible that something exists (obviously). The later would be true even if nothing was the case. Therefore, we should envision the state of nothing co-existing with the possibility of something existing, which is rather bizarre. - Why should nothing be the default state? I think this is based on the intuition that nothing would require no explanation, whereas something requires an explanation. However, given that the possibility of something existing is necessarily true, an explanation would be required for why there is nothing instead of something. - There are many ways something can exist, but just one of nothing existing. Therefore, nothing is less likely :-) - I think the intuition that nothing requires less explanation than the universe we observe is based on a generalization of the idea of classical empty space. However, this intuition is based on what we know about *this* universe (i.e. empty space is simpler than things existing in it). But why this intuition about *our* reality should be extrapolated to metaphysics? - I think that the important question is why this universe instead of any other universe? (including nothing). Ricardo. On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 6:24 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.comwrote: On Sat, May 5, 2012 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Is it so hard to understand a word? Yes, the word nothing keeps evolving. Until about a hundred years ago nothing just meant a vacuum, space empty of any matter; then a few years later the meaning was expanded to include lacking any energy too, then still later it meant also not having space, and then it meant not even having time. Something that is lacking matter energy time and space may not be the purest form of nothing but it is, you must admit, a pretty pitiful thing, and if science can explain (and someday it very well may be able to) how our world with all it's beautiful complexity came to be from such modest beginnings then that would not be a bad days work, and to call such activities incredibly shallow as some on this list have is just idiotic. *** N O T H I N G - *is not a set of anything, no potential Then the question can something come from nothing? has a obvious and extremely dull answer. I wrote once a little silly 'ode' about ontology. I started: In the beginning there was Nothingness. And when Nothingness realised it's nothingness It turned into Somethingness Then your version of nothing had something, the potential to produce something. I also note the use of the word when, thus time, which is something, existed in your nothing universe as well as potential. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list
Re: Free will in MWI
On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 1:24 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: My definition: free will is when you're not sure you're going to do something until you've done it. My own take on free will is that it is mostly a social construct, so that we can be blamed (and blame others) without feeling bad. The idea of free will only makes sense within a society. What I want from my decisions is to be correct. I'm not sure what would be added if they also were absolutely free or what would be removed if they were not. If you are alone in the jungle, the last thing that will bother you is whether your decisions are absolutely free or not. I wanted to propose you an experiment. Sit for a moment and try not to think on anything. Sure enough, before 30 seconds have transpired, thoughts will pop up into your mind. Did you decide to think those thoughts? No, because you were actually trying not to think. If you were not doing this exercise but in your normal life and found yourself eating a chocolat bar you would believe that it was you who had decided so. But actually, it just popped up into your mind too. Most of our life is like that. Ricardo. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 9:54 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: As for the remark about nothingness having only one way of being and there being a lot more ways of existing, it's cute, but it's sophistry. Non-being is not a countable way of being. I agree. Hi Bruno, what do you agree with exactly? That non-being is not being is obvious but irrelevant. The real question here is whether nothing and the multiple somethings can be put in the same collection in a non-arbitrary way. And they can: the collection of elements created by removing things from one another. And nothing is one of these elements. It's the absence of being - obviously - so can't be presented as one among a myriad of possible configurations of the universe. I never claimed that nothing is a possible configuration of the universe. All I said is that there are more ways of being than of non-being, which is obviously true, in the same way that there is just one zero, but many positive integers. Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 6:37 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote:
Some people claim that something cannot come from nothing. I think they
are hanging a property on it.
Hi Ricardo,
Yes and some other people claim that something can indeed come out of
nothing - so long as that something comes with its antithesis so that the
sum of the two is equal to nothing, kinda like 1 and -1 popping out of
zero. I think that they are hanging a property on it and thus they are
assuming that it has hooks - to follow the metaphor. But I think that
here we are looking at the symptoms of something else, the symptoms of the
word come from or caused by or emergent. They all involve some kind
of transformation. Are transformations possible within a nothing? What
about automorphisms? Those transformations that leave some pattern or
object unchanged?
I agree that it is weird to say that something comes out of nothing, as it
implies some sort of time, which is not present in nothing. I don't know
what to answer you but here is another argument (sort of):
- Let's start with a classical universe (Newtonian, with matter in it).
- Let's remove the matter
What is left is empty classical space. Can something come out of empty
classical space? Of course not. I think that almost always, when people say
nothing they actually mean classical empty space.
- Now let's remove the empty space. What is left is nothing. Can
something come out of this nothing? Well, I think it could. At least, I
would say it cannot be discarded, or even, that anything is possible. Our
intuitions about classical empty space shouldn't be imposed on nothing.
For some reason, people believe that classical empty space and nothing
are sort of similar. But, why should they be, at all?
I think a proper philosopher would say that nothing is the state of
affairs (rather than nothing exists).
Umm, OK, but would this not make affairs more primitive than
nothing?
I think proper philosophers say state of affairs when they would like to
use state but know they shouldn't :-). OK, just kidding.
I think that this way of thinking starts of with a collection of
somethings (plural) and classifies nothing as that particular member of
the collection that is the place holder for the absence of a state. This is
the patterns that we see in the Natural numbers, where ZERO (0) marks the
spot that divides the positive numbers from the negative numbers.
I think so.
In any case, when people ask the question why something rather than
nothing, they implicitely assume that there is some sort of priority for
nothing over something.
My short answer to why something rather than nothing? is why not?.
Yeah, but while that is clever it does not explain much, but I
appreciate the spirit of the answer.
I agree, but it forces people to think about why they believe that
nothing should be preferably the case, rather than something.
Although we all have had this surprise/revelation hey, things actually
exist, how come!, it's sort of funny. I mean, we are born with stuff
around us, and this is the case until we die. Our experience in the world
is that of transformation, never of things becoming nothing. Science only
confirms this: existence is hard. It's impossible to make matter/energy
disappear. I mean, really disappear. We wouldn't be able to obtain
nothing even if we really really wanted to (not even a Big Crunch). And
yet, we find it difficult to believe that there is something rather than
nothing. Go figure :-). I think it would be interesting to ascertain why
our psychology sends us this way.
We tend not to think much of it, but 'Nothing' = Sum of {not a cat, not a
dot, not a fist, not a person, not a word, ... }
I agree, but why the absence of things requires less explanation than
the presence of things?
I think that it requires less of an explicit explanation as it relies
on the explanations that exist previously in the minds of those that are
apprehending the explanation. The fact that explanations are what conscious
entities do with each other, they communicate meanings, not by pushing some
stuff into them, but by implicating patterns of relations between the
elements of the minds of the entities. Knowledge, learning, perception,
Understanding are more like synchronization and entrainment than anything
else.
I understand what you mean by explanation, but not why nothing being the
case would require less explanation than something being the case ...
Ricardo.
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 7:43 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, May 6, 2012 ramra...@gmail.com wrote: There are many ways something can exist, but just one of nothing existing. Therefore, nothing is less likely :-) EXCELLENT! I wish I'd said that; Picasso said good artists borrow but great artists steal, so no doubt some day I will indeed say that. I just found out that this argument had been proposed by Van Inwagen in 1996. I must have read it somewhere and stuck into my mind. Hapens all the time :-) Van Inwagen, Peter (1996) “Why Is There Anything at All?”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 70: 95-110. Ricardo. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 9:46 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Ricardo: good text! I may add to it: Who created Nothing? - of course: Nobody. (The ancient joke of Odysseus towards Polyphemos: 'Nobody' has hurt me). Just one thing: if it contains (includes) EMPTY SPACE, it includes space, it is not nothing. I actually meant that most of the time, people say nothing when they mean Newtonian empty space. I agree that nothing is not empty space. And please, do not forget about my adage in the previous post that limits (borders) are similarly not includable into nothing, so it must be an infinite - well - nothing. It still may contain things we have no knowledge about and in such case it is NOT nothing. We just are ignorant. I agree that if it contains things, then it is not nothing, but you can create a nothing by removing them. Ricardo. JM On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 1:06 PM, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote: Some thoughts about nothing: - If nothing has no properties, and a limitation is considered a property, then nothing cannot have any limitations, including the limitation of generating something. Therefore, something may come from nothing. - Given that something exists, it is possible that something exists (obviously). The later would be true even if nothing was the case. Therefore, we should envision the state of nothing co-existing with the possibility of something existing, which is rather bizarre. - Why should nothing be the default state? I think this is based on the intuition that nothing would require no explanation, whereas something requires an explanation. However, given that the possibility of something existing is necessarily true, an explanation would be required for why there is nothing instead of something. - There are many ways something can exist, but just one of nothing existing. Therefore, nothing is less likely :-) - I think the intuition that nothing requires less explanation than the universe we observe is based on a generalization of the idea of classical empty space. However, this intuition is based on what we know about *this* universe (i.e. empty space is simpler than things existing in it). But why this intuition about *our* reality should be extrapolated to metaphysics? - I think that the important question is why this universe instead of any other universe? (including nothing). Ricardo. On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 6:24 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, May 5, 2012 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Is it so hard to understand a word? Yes, the word nothing keeps evolving. Until about a hundred years ago nothing just meant a vacuum, space empty of any matter; then a few years later the meaning was expanded to include lacking any energy too, then still later it meant also not having space, and then it meant not even having time. Something that is lacking matter energy time and space may not be the purest form of nothing but it is, you must admit, a pretty pitiful thing, and if science can explain (and someday it very well may be able to) how our world with all it's beautiful complexity came to be from such modest beginnings then that would not be a bad days work, and to call such activities incredibly shallow as some on this list have is just idiotic. *** N O T H I N G - *is not a set of anything, no potential Then the question can something come from nothing? has a obvious and extremely dull answer. I wrote once a little silly 'ode' about ontology. I started: In the beginning there was Nothingness. And when Nothingness realised it's nothingness It turned into Somethingness Then your version of nothing had something, the potential to produce something. I also note the use of the word when, thus time, which is something, existed in your nothing universe as well as potential. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 8:04 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote:
Hi Stephen,
- If nothing has no properties, and a limitation is considered a property,
then nothing cannot have any limitations, including the limitation of
generating something. Therefore, something may come from nothing.
Can nothing be treated as an object itself? Can we hang properties
on it?
Some people claim that something cannot come from nothing. I think they
are hanging a property on it.
Are we actually talking about substance as synonomous with what the
philosophers of old used to use as the object minus its properties? I like
to use the word Existence in this case, as it would seen to naturally
include nothing and something as its most trivial dual categories.
- Given that something exists, it is possible that something exists
(obviously). The later would be true even if nothing was the case.
Therefore, we should envision the state of nothing co-existing with the
possibility of something existing, which is rather bizarre.
Does Nothingness exist? Can Nothingness non-exist? At what point are
we playing games with words and at what point are we being meaningful?
I think a proper philosopher would say that nothing is the state of
affairs (rather than nothing exists).
You are pointing out how possibility seems to be implicitly tied to the
relation between something and nothing. In my reasoning this is why I
consider existence as necessary possibility. Unfortunately, this
consideration suffers from the ambiguity inherent in semiotics known as the
figure-frame
relationhttp://photoinf.com/Golden_Mean/Petteri_Sulonen/Space_Figure_Ground.htm.
Is the word we use to
denotehttp://grammar.about.com/od/d/g/denotationterm.htmor
connote http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/connotationterm.htm a referent?
What if we mean to use both denotative and connotative uses?
One way of intuiting nothing is that which remains when you have removed
everything. In fact, I believe that the philosophical nothing is nothing
else than classical empty space elevated to metaphysical heights. The
problem is that even after you have removed everything (including time and
space), there is something that cannot be removed: the possibility of
something existing. It would seem that nothing (or rather, NOTHING)
shouldn't allow even for the logical possibility of something existing. But
given that something exists, this possibility cannot be removed. That is
why I said that the idea of nothing and the logical possibility of
existence, sharing the same state of affairs, is bizarre (if not
incompatible).
- Why should nothing be the default state? I think this is based on
the intuition that nothing would require no explanation, whereas
something requires an explanation. However, given that the possibility of
something existing is necessarily true, an explanation would be required
for why there is nothing instead of something.
I agree. We might even think or intuit nothing as the absolute
absence of 'everything' : the sum of all particulars that piece-wise and
collection-wise are not-nothing; whereas 'something' is a special case of
'everything'; a particular case of everything.
Probably the best way of defining nothing is the absence of everything
(not this, not that, ...). But isn't it funny that in order to define
nothing you have to accept the possibility of everything?
- There are many ways something can exist, but just one of nothing
existing. Therefore, nothing is less likely :-)
But this statement implicitly assumes a measure that itself, then,
implies a common basis for comparison. Is there a set, class, category or
other 'collection' that has all of the forms, modalities, aspects, etc. of
something along with nothing?
I guess it couldn't be a set.
In any case, when people ask the question why something rather than
nothing, they implicitely assume that there is some sort of priority for
nothing over something.
My short answer to why something rather than nothing? is why not?.
We tend not to think much of it, but 'Nothing' = Sum of {not a cat, not a
dot, not a fist, not a person, not a word, ... }
I agree, but why the absence of things requires less explanation than the
presence of things?
I suspect that the answer to this question is trivial: We see this
universe because it is the only one that is minimally (?) consistent with
our ability to *both* observe it and communicate with each other about it.
OK, now prove the mass of the electron from these axioms :-)
Ricardo.
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Therefore, we should envision the state of nothing co-existing with the possibility of something existing, which is rather bizarre. Does Nothingness exist? Can Nothingness non-exist? At what point are we playing games with words and at what point are we being meaningful? I think a proper philosopher would say that nothing is the state of affairs (rather than nothing exists). By the way, Stephen, I didn't mean you are not a proper philosopher, but me :-) (it was me that used the sentence nothing co-exists with ...). Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 3:42 PM, Pierz pier...@gmail.com wrote: The question in my mind as a wondering child was never 'How did the nothing that must have come before the universe produce the universe?' It was my mind chasing the chain of causation of things and realizing that, whatever that chain looked like, I could never trace it all the way back to absolute nothing - There is an interesting point here, although probably not what you intended. What you say is true, you cannot trace it all the way back to absolute nothing, because there is no reverse physical process that transforms something into nothing (at least, not into absolute nothing). Or equivalently, there is no physical process that transforms absolute nothing into something. But if that is the case, why are you so sure that nothing must have come before? As for the remark about nothingness having only one way of being and there being a lot more ways of existing, it's cute, but it's sophistry. Non-being is not a countable way of being. It's the absence of being - obviously - so can't be presented as one among a myriad of possible configurations of the universe. I agree nothing is not a configuration of things, but I think it could be considered as one element belonging to an abstract space. Let's consider this universe and the abstract operation of removing things. We can remove the Sun, Andromeda, etc. Nothing is what is left after removing all things (including space, time, ...). It's one among many. It's not that different from 0 being a natural number or the empty set being a set. Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Some thoughts about nothing: - If nothing has no properties, and a limitation is considered a property, then nothing cannot have any limitations, including the limitation of generating something. Therefore, something may come from nothing. - Given that something exists, it is possible that something exists (obviously). The later would be true even if nothing was the case. Therefore, we should envision the state of nothing co-existing with the possibility of something existing, which is rather bizarre. - Why should nothing be the default state? I think this is based on the intuition that nothing would require no explanation, whereas something requires an explanation. However, given that the possibility of something existing is necessarily true, an explanation would be required for why there is nothing instead of something. - There are many ways something can exist, but just one of nothing existing. Therefore, nothing is less likely :-) - I think the intuition that nothing requires less explanation than the universe we observe is based on a generalization of the idea of classical empty space. However, this intuition is based on what we know about *this* universe (i.e. empty space is simpler than things existing in it). But why this intuition about *our* reality should be extrapolated to metaphysics? - I think that the important question is why this universe instead of any other universe? (including nothing). Ricardo. On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 6:24 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, May 5, 2012 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Is it so hard to understand a word? Yes, the word nothing keeps evolving. Until about a hundred years ago nothing just meant a vacuum, space empty of any matter; then a few years later the meaning was expanded to include lacking any energy too, then still later it meant also not having space, and then it meant not even having time. Something that is lacking matter energy time and space may not be the purest form of nothing but it is, you must admit, a pretty pitiful thing, and if science can explain (and someday it very well may be able to) how our world with all it's beautiful complexity came to be from such modest beginnings then that would not be a bad days work, and to call such activities incredibly shallow as some on this list have is just idiotic. *** N O T H I N G - *is not a set of anything, no potential Then the question can something come from nothing? has a obvious and extremely dull answer. I wrote once a little silly 'ode' about ontology. I started: In the beginning there was Nothingness. And when Nothingness realised it's nothingness It turned into Somethingness Then your version of nothing had something, the potential to produce something. I also note the use of the word when, thus time, which is something, existed in your nothing universe as well as potential. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: First person indeterminacy (Re: COMP theology)
On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 10:43 PM, acw a...@lavabit.com wrote: On 3/11/2012 21:44, R AM wrote: However, I think that if comp is true, future experience is not only indeterminate, but also arbitrary: our future experience could be anything at all. But given that this is not the case, shouldn't we conclude that comp is false? You're basically presenting the White Rabbit problem here. I used to wonder if that is indeed the case, but after considering it further, it doesn't seem to be: your 1p is identified with some particular abstract machine - that part is mostly determinate and deterministic (or quasi-deterministic if you allow some leeway as to what constitutes persona identity) in its behavior, but below that substitution level, anything can change, as long as that machine is implemented correctly/consistently. Not sure if I understand you ... I was thinking of something like this: if comp is true, then we can upload the mind into a computer and simulate the environment. The simulator could be constructed so that the stimuli given to the mind is a sequence of arbitrary white rabbits. Is there somehing in comp that makes the existence of such evil simulators unlikely? Ricardo. If the level is low enough and most of the machines implementing the lower layers that eventually implement our mind correspond to one world (such as ours), that would imply reasonably stable experience and some MWI-like laws of physics - not white noise experiences. That is to say that if we don't experience white noise, statistically our experiences will be stable - this does not mean that we won't have really unusual jumps or changes in laws-of-physics or experience when our measure is greatly reduced (such as the current statistically winning machines no longer being able to implement your mind - 3p death from the point of view of others). Also, one possible way of showing COMP false is to show that such stable implementations are impossible, however this seems not obvious to me. A more practical concern would be to consider the case of what would happen if the substitution level is chosen slightly wrong or too high - would it lead to too unstable 1p or merely just allow the SIM(Substrate Independent Mind) to more easily pick which lower-level machines implement it (there's another thought experiment which shows how this could be done, if a machine can find one of its own Godel-number). Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@ **googlegroups.com everything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: First person indeterminacy (Re: COMP theology)
This discussion has been long and sometimes I am confused about the whole point of the exercise. I think the idea is that if comp is true, then the future content of subjective experience is indeterminated? Although comp might seem to entail 100% determinacy, just the contrary is the case. Is that correct? However, I think that if comp is true, future experience is not only indeterminate, but also arbitrary: our future experience could be anything at all. But given that this is not the case, shouldn't we conclude that comp is false? Ricardo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: UDA refutation take 2
Dear Bruno, I've been following the list for a couple of months now and I sort of share Piertz worries about randomness. Here is a summary of what I've understood this far. The UDA might imply lots of white rabbits but only those computations with self-reference to have to be taken into account. In principle this restriction might reduce the number of white rabbits to a reasonable probability (compatible with QM). But whether this is the case remains to be proved. Is this understanding correct? I mean that if from UDA we get that the probability of me being converted to a giraffe is let's say 50%. then UDA is false. Self-reference might reduce this probability to 0.0001%, but we don't know whether this is the case yet. Correct? Do you have an intuition of why this should be the case? Ricardo El nov 19, 2011 9:49 a.m., Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be escribió: On 19 Nov 2011, at 03:02, Pierz wrote: In a previous post I launched a kamizake assault on UDA which was justly cut to shreds on the basis of a number of misunderstandings on my part, perhaps most crucially my conflation of information and computation. I claimed that the UD cannot be distinguished from the set of all possible information states and therefore from an infinite field of static, within which all possible realities can be found, none of which, however, have the slightest coherence. I also mistakenly used the word 'random' to describe this bit field, which of course is wrong. I should instead have used the word 'incoherent'. Bruno and others quickly put me straight on these errors. I am still troubled however by the suspicion that UDA, by explaining 'everything' (except itself - there is always that lacuna in any explanatory framework) also explains nothing. The UD is not proposed as an explanation per se. On the contrary UDA shows that it is a problem we met when we assume that the brain (or generalized brain) is Turing emulable. Because the UD executes every computation, it cannot explain why certain computations (say Schroedinger's equation, or those of general relativity) are preferred within our presenting reality. That is basically my critics of Schmidhuber I have made on this list. I'm afraid that you miss the role of the first person indeterminacy. I will add explanation here asap. You have to follow UDA step by step: it is a proof (in the theory mechanism), so to refute UDA you have to say where it goes wrong. I insist: UDA is a problem, not a solution. Indeed it is a subproblem of the mind-body problem in the mechanist theory. AUDA will be the solution, or the embryo of the solution. This very universality also insulates it against disproof, since although it allows everything we see, it is hard to conceive of something it would disallow. Not at all. A priori it predicts everything *at once*. That is the white rabbit problem. We don't see white rabbits, or everything at once, so mechanism seems to be disproved by UDA. The point will be that such a quick disprove does not work, and when we do the math we see mechanism is not yet disproved, but that it predicts or explain the quantum weirdness. David Deutsch's idea of a good explanation is one that closely matches the structure of the thing it describes, allowing for little variation. The vast variation in the possible worlds where UDA could be invoked makes it a bad explanation, in those terms. You have just not (yet) understood the role of the 1/3 person pov distinction in the reasoning. UDA shows that physics is determined by a relative measure on computations. If this leads to predict that electron weight one ton then mechanism is disproved. UDA shows that physics is entirely reduce to computer science/number theory in a very specific and unique way (modulo a variation on the arithmetical definition of knowledge). Of course the objection that nobody has yet found an application for UDA, a concrete example of its usefulness, is more of an objection to it as a scientific theory than a philosophical one. UDA is a proof. Unless wrong, it is done. Asking for the use of the UDA is like asking for the use of the theorem saying that no numbers n and m are such that (n/m)^2 = 2. UDA shows a fact to be true and that we have to live with it. UDA shows that mechanism and materialism are (epistemologically) incompatible. Still, I believe there is an argument against it at the philosophical level. The UDA invokes the notion of probability in relation to 1-p states on the basis of the infinite union of all finite portions of the UD in which correct emulation occurs. Thus the indeterminacy of 1-p experience is a function of the distribution of states within the observer’s consistent histories. For instance, there’s a 20% chance of x happening, if it happens within 20% of my consistent histories. Please Bruno correct me if this is a misunderstanding. No, here I mainly agree
Re: UDA refutation take 2
Has Eric Vandenbush written a paper about how complex numbers are derived from UDA? Ricardo El nov 19, 2011 9:49 a.m., Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be escribió: On 19 Nov 2011, at 03:02, Pierz wrote: In a previous post I launched a kamizake assault on UDA which was justly cut to shreds on the basis of a number of misunderstandings on my part, perhaps most crucially my conflation of information and computation. I claimed that the UD cannot be distinguished from the set of all possible information states and therefore from an infinite field of static, within which all possible realities can be found, none of which, however, have the slightest coherence. I also mistakenly used the word 'random' to describe this bit field, which of course is wrong. I should instead have used the word 'incoherent'. Bruno and others quickly put me straight on these errors. I am still troubled however by the suspicion that UDA, by explaining 'everything' (except itself - there is always that lacuna in any explanatory framework) also explains nothing. The UD is not proposed as an explanation per se. On the contrary UDA shows that it is a problem we met when we assume that the brain (or generalized brain) is Turing emulable. Because the UD executes every computation, it cannot explain why certain computations (say Schroedinger's equation, or those of general relativity) are preferred within our presenting reality. That is basically my critics of Schmidhuber I have made on this list. I'm afraid that you miss the role of the first person indeterminacy. I will add explanation here asap. You have to follow UDA step by step: it is a proof (in the theory mechanism), so to refute UDA you have to say where it goes wrong. I insist: UDA is a problem, not a solution. Indeed it is a subproblem of the mind-body problem in the mechanist theory. AUDA will be the solution, or the embryo of the solution. This very universality also insulates it against disproof, since although it allows everything we see, it is hard to conceive of something it would disallow. Not at all. A priori it predicts everything *at once*. That is the white rabbit problem. We don't see white rabbits, or everything at once, so mechanism seems to be disproved by UDA. The point will be that such a quick disprove does not work, and when we do the math we see mechanism is not yet disproved, but that it predicts or explain the quantum weirdness. David Deutsch's idea of a good explanation is one that closely matches the structure of the thing it describes, allowing for little variation. The vast variation in the possible worlds where UDA could be invoked makes it a bad explanation, in those terms. You have just not (yet) understood the role of the 1/3 person pov distinction in the reasoning. UDA shows that physics is determined by a relative measure on computations. If this leads to predict that electron weight one ton then mechanism is disproved. UDA shows that physics is entirely reduce to computer science/number theory in a very specific and unique way (modulo a variation on the arithmetical definition of knowledge). Of course the objection that nobody has yet found an application for UDA, a concrete example of its usefulness, is more of an objection to it as a scientific theory than a philosophical one. UDA is a proof. Unless wrong, it is done. Asking for the use of the UDA is like asking for the use of the theorem saying that no numbers n and m are such that (n/m)^2 = 2. UDA shows a fact to be true and that we have to live with it. UDA shows that mechanism and materialism are (epistemologically) incompatible. Still, I believe there is an argument against it at the philosophical level. The UDA invokes the notion of probability in relation to 1-p states on the basis of the infinite union of all finite portions of the UD in which correct emulation occurs. Thus the indeterminacy of 1-p experience is a function of the distribution of states within the observer’s consistent histories. For instance, there’s a 20% chance of x happening, if it happens within 20% of my consistent histories. Please Bruno correct me if this is a misunderstanding. No, here I mainly agree with you. Now we know from QT there is a finite, if absurdly remote, probability of my turning into a giraffe in the next minute. So the UD, if not to contradict science as it stands, must allow this too. And indeed there is no reason for it not to, since there must be computational pathways that lead from human to giraffe - a sort of deep version of the morphing algorithms used in CGI - or a simple arbitrary transform. In fact there must be infinite such pathways leading to slight variations on the giraffe theme, as well as to all other animals, inanimate objects and so on - okay let’s leave out the inanimate objects since they possess no consciousness as far as we know, therefore no 1-p
