Re: Numbers, Machine and Father Ted
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 7:21 PM Subject: Re: Numbers, Machine and Father Ted Tom Caylor wrote: Discovery is not simply a matter of seeing where a particular set of axioms and rules of inference leads. i.e. different sets of axioms and rules of inference, that you can start putting together a picture that gets closer and closer to reality. Tom It's even more than seeing where axioms and rules of inference lead. Given some axioms and rules of inference the only truths you can reach are those of the form It is true that axioms = theorems. Brent Meeker The existing set of axioms and rules leads to the enforcement of the topical content of the actual model we observe. So while I agree with your =, it may be added: presently established to the theorems. Referring to Tom's ... It's only when you see the truth from different perspectives IMO it may go like: ...see different kinds of truth from Of course then we need different axioms (maybe) and definitely different rules. We are walled-in into one topical model with explanations from ages when less information was available, so taking the ongoing axioms and rules as sacrosanct disallows advancement into new ideas. I don't say that those new ideas are 'good', or even 'are there', but I like to keep the possibilities (and mind) open. John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;)
Colin: I could not have expressed my similar doubts anyhow close to such full clarity, did not even try. About the conceptual (numerically expressed) essence of 5 : recalling some words of Bruno, it may be that it should be expressed by lots and lots of rules-including number expressions, as anything else. And, of course, A the included 'numbers' to express 5 should have similarly long and convoluted num-b-erical expressions as well. And so on. Does this make sense? (Not to me). John M - Original Message - From: Colin Geoffrey Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 5:56 PM Subject: Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;) LZ: Colin Hales wrote: I reached this position independently and you may think I'm nuts... I can't help what I see... is there something wrong with this way of thinking? I don't see what you think a non-ideal number is. This deficit of mine includes having trouble with ALL numbers. :-) For the life of me I cannot imagine what an 'object' is that has quintessential property of 'five' about it. Sitting in platonia somewhere is this object. Somewhere else in platonia sit the objects 'red' and 'sad' and 'big'. Here on the list we talk of integers and given them a label I and then speak of operations on I. We tend to think of I as 'being' an an integer.. ...But it's not. Lets talk about the object with this property of five in platonia as 5. Here in reality what we are doing is creating a label I and interpreting the label as a pointer to storage where the value in the storage (call it [I]) is not an integer, but a symbolic representation of property of five_ness as mapped from platonia to reality. What we are doing is (very very metaphorically) shining a light (of an infinity of possible numbers) on the object 5 in platonia and letting the reflected light inhabit [I]. We behave as if 5 was in there, but it's not. All the rules of integers act as-if 5 was there. At that moment the storage pointed to by I contains a symbolic rearrangment of matter such as binary 1001 implemented as the temporary state (an arrangement of charge in space) of logic gates. We logically interpret this artrangement of charge in space as having the effect of five_ness, which is property of we assign at the moment we use it (such as one more than 4). To me the actual numbers (things) don't exist at all. All I can really see here in reality is logical relations that behave as-if the platonic entities existed. This all may seem obvious to the rest of you. That's my problem! But to me here watching the industrial scale manipulations of symbols going on, I wonder why it is we think we are saying anything at all about reality - the computation that literally _is_ reality - which, again, I see as a pile of logical relations that sometimes lets the platonic light shine on them in useful ways - say in ways that enable a mathematical generalisation called an empirical law. As to what the non-ideal numbers are Well there aren't any. Not really. At least I can't conceive them. However the logical operations I see around us have the structure of numbers correponding to a rather odd plethora of bases. Quantity is implicit in any natural aggregation resulting from logical operations. One number might be: human.cell.molecule.atom.nucleus.proton.quark.fuzzy1.fuzzy2...fuzzyN (fred.dandruffskincell.omega3.carbon.nucleus.3rd_proton.UP_quark1_string.loo p_2.etc1.etc2.) If you work in base atom arithmetic you have and arithmetic where atoms associate with a remainder, say a unit in another base called .photon This is called chemistry. The human (and all the space that expresses it) is one single number consisting of 'digits' that are all the cells(and interstitial molecules) collected together according to affinities of fuzzyN, which acts in the above 'number' like the integer I does to the set of integers expressed in binary I mentioned above. There's no nice neat rows. No neat remainderless arithmetic. But it's all created with logical operators on an assumed elemental 'fuzzyN' (see above) primitive. '.fuzzyN' can be treated as an underlying structural primitive 'pseudo-object' as a fundamental 'thing'. But .fuzzyN can be just another logical relation between deeper primitives. There is no depth limit to it. As to computation - I have already described what we do here in maths and computation - all the same, really - all manipulating 'as-if' labeled entities. At the instant we lose sight of the logical/relational nature of what we are doing then we can delude ourselves that the symbols denote real 'objects' such as those in platonia and - especially - if you happen to 'be' a collection of these logical operations the rest of the logical operations going on around you look very lumpy and thingy indeed! It looks even more compellingly so
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
George and List: a very naive question (even more than my other posts) since I miss lots of posts that have been exuded on this list (since a decade or so of my incompletely reading it): Has it been ever formulated (and accepted on this list!) what we mean by the verb "to observe"? What does an 'observer' do in its (not his!!!) 'observer minute'? WHAT (and not 'who') is an observer? I did not 'study' the concept just developed a feeling. Observer in this feeling is "anything" (including 'anybody') that absorbs some (any?) information - of courseaccording tomy vocabulary as a difference to be acknowledged/absorbed. An electron is an observer to the potential it senses/follows and a reader/viewer is an observer of Shakespeare's plays. And anything in between. - This ID implies a target of the attention, not only the 'blank' observation itself. In this sense it is in the ballpark of the consciousness domain, in my identification, of course, which calls for acknowledgment of and response to (my!) information as the *process* of that darn consciousness. (Including memory/experience, decisionmaking, moving the body or else, both sensorially and ideationally). Which comes close to an 'observer' being conscious. Not bad even for a machine, what WE ARE ourselves as well (Bruno). (Well, also 'gods', for that matter). A thermostat observes and responds consciously - at its own level. Not at the level of I.Kant. John M - Original Message - From: George Levy To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 5:55 PM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) David Nyman wrote: On Oct 9, 8:54 pm, George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To observe a split consciousness, you need an observer who is also split, in sync with the split consciousness, across time, space, substrate and level (a la Zelazny - Science Fiction writer). In your example, for an observer to see consciousness in the machine, he must be willing to exist at the earlier interval, skip over the time delay carrying the recording and resume his existence at the later interval. If he observes only a part of the whole thing, say the recording, he may conclude that the machine is not conscious. Careful, George. Remember the observer *is* the machine. Consequently he's never in a position to 'conclude that the machine is not conscious', because in that case, it is precisely *he* that is not conscious. There is no question that the machine needs to be conscious - this is the whole point of the experiment - The observer *may* be the machine, but does not have to be (we could conduct a Turing test for example). In any case I think there may be great benefit in decoupling the observer function explicitely. The presence of such an observer and its location with respect the machine will force the issue on the first and third person perspective.In fact the consciousness of the observer is not really at issue. What I think is at issue is the consciousness of the machine as seen from different perspectives. It may even be sufficient to make the observer some kind of testing program running on a computer. But you're right IMO that the the concatenation of these observer moments represents the observer's conscious 'existence in time' . The 1-person narrative of this concatenation is what comprises IMO, the A-series (i.e. the conscious discriminability of observer moments arising from the consistent 1-person compresence of global and local aspects of the observer), whereas any 3-person account of this is necessarily stripped back to a B-series that reduces, ultimately, to Planck-length 'snapshots' devoid of temporality. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Not-Re: Maudlin's argument
Russell, thanks for the detailed reply with the agreement against Ccnss being sort-of a self-awareness. Unfortunately I cannot get to your book for the time being (we made a solemn oath with my wife at our 50th NOT to buy any more books, rather get rid of most of them) and our excellent publ library does not provide the fresh editions). On Nagel's bat (and later in JCS Hameroff-Penrose's 'worm') I wrote my objection that WE want to understand with OUR level ideation the mental functions of a bat or a worm - of course we cannot. So I seek a better (or none?!) definition than a comparison to those. And a consensus on Ccness will never set in as long as diverse researchers get grants (awards, tenure, etc.) and publish books with the diverse identifications - theories (against all other ones). See the 15 year success of the Tucson Conferences. John - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 2:52 AM Subject: Re: Maudlin's argument On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 11:44:38AM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Russell, I like your position - but am still at a loss of a generally agreed-upon description of consciousness - applied in the lit as all variations of an unidentified thing anyone needs to his theory. I 'feel' Ccness is a process. It not only 'knows', but also 'decides' and directs activity accordingly. I identified it as acknowledgement of and response to information (1992) - info not in the information-theory term, but as a 'noted difference by anything/body'. It is not my recent position to hold on to that. On another list I read about the ID of Ccness: it is one's feeling of SELF (of I) (which makes sense). We'll probably be old men (QTI-like ancient) by the time there is any concensus on the subject. I operationally define consciousness in terms of Bostrom's reference class - ie the property of there being something for it be like (references of Nagel's What is to be like bat - if bats are consciousm the question is answerable, if not then there is nothing that it is like to be a bat). Note that this is _not_ equivalent to self-awareness, which is the feeling of self you talk about. Mind you, self-awareness does seem to be necessary for consciousness in order to prevent the Occam catastrophe, which I mention in my book, and probably on this list. Process is covered by my TIME postulate, which I've been deliberately somewhat vague on. It essentially says that experienced observer moments can be placed into an ordered set (mathematical notion of ordering - for every experienced observer moment, all other experienced moments must exist in the past or the future of that one). This leaves open a wide variety of time structures (continuous, discrete, rational and so on), and indeed all structures called timescales is included. However, it dismisses things like 2D time, so it could potentially be wrong. You wrote a less controversial variation in your post; ... I don't see how I am conscious in the first place. ... which (being conscious) is part of the picture, I miss the activity in it, just as in the 'feeling of I. (Tied to: 'being conscious OF..., i.e. awareness, what many identify with the entire chapter.) Unfortunately the word is so deeply anchored in the multimillennial usage that we cannot get rid of this noumenon. We could talk about the 'ingredients' by themselves and agree, the ominous Ccness term is a good platform for eternal debates. Also for grants. I join you in disproving of assigning total meaning to simplified tools allegedly active in the mental concept, like a QM abstraction. John M - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 1:25 PM Subject: Re: Maudlin's argument On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 01:41:52PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: However, I don't see why having an interesting future should make the difference between consciousness and zombiehood. How do I know that I am not currently living through a virtual Sure, but I don't see how I am conscious in the first place. Yet the fact remains that I do. Until we have a better idea of the mechanisms behind consciousness, it is a little too early to rule out any specific conclusion. I think Penrose and Lockwood are dead wrong in their specific quantum mechanical connections with consciousness, but I retain a suspicion that quantum effects are important in some way. -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment.
Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;)
Bruno: you wrote: ...I do believe that 5 is equal to 1+1+1+1+1, ... Why not 1+1+1+1+1+1+1? you had a notion somewhere in your mathemaitcally instructed mind that you have to stop at exactly the 5th addition, because there is a quantity (???) in the number '5' that made you stop there. Now quantity is also expressed by numbers, lots of them in applying 'rules', so don't we see here a circularity? It looks as if the 'numbers' represent quantities? how about algebra? What key made you stop at the fifth '1'? (I wrote in a similar sense a post to Colin, an hour ago). You ended your reply with: My Platonism is the explicit or implicit standard platonism of most working mathematicians. Q: is there a way to reach an agreement between the working mathematicians and the rest of the world (common sense people)? John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 8:06 AM Subject: Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;) Le 09-oct.-06, à 23:56, Colin Geoffrey Hales a écrit : ...But it's not. Lets talk about the object with this property of five in platonia as 5. Here in reality what we are doing is creating a label I and interpreting the label as a pointer to storage where the value in the storage (call it [I]) is not an integer, but a symbolic representation of property of five_ness as mapped from platonia to reality. What we are doing is (very very metaphorically) shining a light (of an infinity of possible numbers) on the object 5 in platonia and letting the reflected light inhabit [I]. We behave as if 5 was in there, but it's not. I think you are reifying number, or, put in another way, you put much more in platonia than I am using in both the UDA and the AUDA (the arithmetical UDA alias the interview of the lobian machine). Some people makes confusion here. All I say is that a reasoner is platonist if he believes, about *arithmetical* propositions, in the principle of excluded middle. Equivalently he believes that if you execute a program P, then either the program stop or the program does not stop. I don't believe at all that the number 5 is somewhere there in any sense you would give to where or there. I do believe that 5 is equal to 1+1+1+1+1, and that for any natural number N either N is a multiple of 5 or it is not. So platonism is just in opposition to ultra-intuitionnism. We know since Godel that about numbers and arithmetic, intuitionnism is just a terminological variant of platonism (where a platonist says (A or ~A), an intuitionnist will say ~~(A or ~A), etc. My Platonism is the explicit or implicit standard platonism of most working mathematicians. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.13.1/466 - Release Date: 10/07/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's argument
Russell, I like your position - but am still at a loss of a generally agreed-upon description of consciousness - applied in the lit as all variations of an unidentified thing anyone needs to his theory. I 'feel' Ccness is a process. It not only 'knows', but also 'decides' and directs activity accordingly. I identified it as acknowledgement of and response to information (1992) - info not in the information-theory term, but as a 'noted difference by anything/body'. It is not my recent position to hold on to that. On another list I read about the ID of Ccness: it is one's feeling of SELF (of I) (which makes sense). You wrote a less controversial variation in your post; ... I don't see how I am conscious in the first place. ... which (being conscious) is part of the picture, I miss the activity in it, just as in the 'feeling of I. (Tied to: 'being conscious OF..., i.e. awareness, what many identify with the entire chapter.) Unfortunately the word is so deeply anchored in the multimillennial usage that we cannot get rid of this noumenon. We could talk about the 'ingredients' by themselves and agree, the ominous Ccness term is a good platform for eternal debates. Also for grants. I join you in disproving of assigning total meaning to simplified tools allegedly active in the mental concept, like a QM abstraction. John M - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 1:25 PM Subject: Re: Maudlin's argument On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 01:41:52PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: However, I don't see why having an interesting future should make the difference between consciousness and zombiehood. How do I know that I am not currently living through a virtual Sure, but I don't see how I am conscious in the first place. Yet the fact remains that I do. Until we have a better idea of the mechanisms behind consciousness, it is a little too early to rule out any specific conclusion. I think Penrose and Lockwood are dead wrong in their specific quantum mechanical connections with consciousness, but I retain a suspicion that quantum effects are important in some way. -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. -- -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 -- -- -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.13.1/466 - Release Date: 10/07/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Bruno: once I 'learn' about what you imply as 3rd pers. theory, my personal interpretation absorbs it (partly, distorted, or perfectly) as MY 1st pers. knowledge. It ENTERS my knowledge and from there on I can formulate my 'theories' (models) about it. Whether it is true or not. So when I hear you saying that the moon is a big lighting ball, I know so, it is not 'outside' my circle of information anymore. 3rd pers info is not a catalyst, it is an addition. (Right/wrong, accepted/rejected). * Sorry for the NESS after 'nothing-'. I don't look for a model when there is nothing to be found. Theory? maybeG. * I drew a parallel (with the differences pointed out) between religion and science in an earlier draft. Of course both are belief systems. And I don't think I am talking about 'theology' when I say religion. Th-y is a reductionist science of a non-science. It is the speculation about the belief. ONE belief. It tries to apply secular thinking to mystical stuff: an oxymoron. In the logic of the believers.(Oxym. No2). The Greeks were honest: their gods cheated, lied, were adulterous, raped and stole etc., just as the humans they were simulated after. The JudeoChrIslamics retained mostly the vainness: fishing for praise, the uncritical obedience, (religio?)chauvinism, wrath and punishing, vengefulness and a lot of hypocrisy. Science is subtle: the potentates just prevent the publication, tenure and grants for an opposing point-of-view - the establishment guards its integrity against new theories (enlarged models). John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 10:15 AM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) Le 07-oct.-06, à 22:24, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : my reductionism is simple: we have a circle of knowledge base and view the world as limited INTO such model. Well, it is not. The reductionist view enabled homo to step up into technological prowess but did not support an extension of understanding BEYOND the (so far) acquired knowledge-base. We simply cannot FIND OUT what we don't know of the world. Sciences are reductionistic, logic can try to step out, but that is simple sci-fi, use fantasy (imagination?) to bridge ignorance. I am stubborn in I don't know what I don't know. It is a little ambiguous, but if by I you refer to your first person view I could agree with you. But for the 3-person view then, once I bet on a theory I can bet on what I don't know. Example. If I just look at the moon without theory, I cannot know nor describe what I don't know. As soon I bet on a theory, like saying that the moon is a big ball, then I can know a part of what I don't know (like is there life form on that sphere, or what is the shape of the other face of that sphere). From a third person point of view, a theory (a model in your term) is a catalyzer for knowing we don't know much, and then formulating problems and then solving some of them or sometimes changing the theory (the model). Jump outside our knowledge? it is not 'ourselves', it is ALL we know and outside this is NOTHINGNESS for the mind to consider. Blank. In which model (theory)? This is how most of the religions came about. Provide a belief. Scientific theories also provide beliefs. Theology has been extracted from science for political purpose (about 1500 years ago), just to give name for what is really economical if not just xenophobical conflicts. The same happened in the USSR with genetics. No discipline, even math, is vaccine against the possible human misuses. PS Er..., to Markpeaty and other readers of Parfit: I think that his use of the term reductionist is misleading, and due in part to his lack of clearcut distinction between the person points of view. Well said. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Stathis, your post is 'logical', 'professional', 'smart', - good. It shows why we have so many posts on this list and why we get nowhere. You handle an assumption (robot) - its qualia, characteristics, make up a thought-situation and ASK about its annexed details. Now, your style is such that one cannot just disregard the irrelevance. So someone (many, me includedG) respond with similar mindtwists and it goes on and on. \ Have you ever ps-analyzed a robot? Professionally, I mean. If it is a simple digital computer, it certainly has a memory, the one fixed into chips as this PC I am using. Your and MY memory is quite different, I wish somebody could tell me acceptably, HOW???, but it is plastic, approximate, mixed with emotional changes, short and in cases false. I would throw out a robot with such memory. Best regards John Mikes - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 8:09 AM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) John, I should have been more precise with the terms copy and emulate. What I was asking is whether a robot which experiences something while it is shovelling coal (this of course assumes that a robot can have experiences) would experience the same thing if it were fed input to all its sensors exactly the same as if it were doing its job normally, such that it was not aware the inputs were in fact a sham. It seems to me that if the answer is no the robot would need to have some mysterious extra-computational knowledge of the world, which I find very difficult to conceptualise if we are talking about a standard digital computer. It is easier to conceptualise that such non-computational effects may be at play in a biological brain, which would then be an argument against computationalism. Stathis Papaioannou Stathis: let me skip the quoted texts and ask a particular question. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:41 PM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) You wrote: Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou - My question is about 'copy' and 'emulate'. Are we considering 'copying' the model and its content (in which case the coal shoveling robot last sentence applies) or do we include the interconnections unlimited in experience, beyond the particular model we talk about? If we go all the way and include all input from the unlimited totality that may 'format' or 'complete' the model-experience, then we re-create the 'real thing' and it is not a copy. If we restrict our copying to the aspect in question (model) then we copy only that aspect and should not draw conclusions on the total. Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. John Mikes _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-491 1fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.13.0/465 - Release Date: 10/06/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Please see some remarks interleft between -lines. John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 9:43 AM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) Le 05-oct.-06, à 13:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. I don't always insist on that but with just the Church thesis part of comp, it can be argued that we can emulate the third person describable totality, and indeed this is what the Universal Dovetailer do. The key thing, but technical (I was beginning to explain Tom and George), is that such an emulation can be shown to destroy any reductionist account of that totality, and still better, make the first person totality (George's first person plenitude perhaps) infinitely bigger (even non computably bigger, even unameable) than the 3 person totality. There is a Skolem-Carroll phenomena: the first person inside view of the 3-totality is infinitely bigger than the 3-totality, like in the Wonderland where a tree can hide a palace ... JM: my reductionism is simple: we have a circle of knowledge base and view the world as limited INTO such model. Well, it is not. The reductionist view enabled homo to step up into technological prowess but did not support an extension of understanding BEYOND the (so far) acquired knowledge-base. We simply cannot FIND OUT what we don't know of the world. Sciences are reductionistic, logic can try to step out, but that is simple sci-fi, use fantasy (imagination?) to bridge ignorance. I am stubborn in I don't know what I don't know. -- Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? Not really. It is like the quantum states. No clonable, but if known, preparable in many quantities. At this stage it is only an analogy. I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Mmmh... It is here that logician have made progress the last century, but nobody (except the experts) knows about those progress. JM: Those experts must know that it is not confirmable even true. That is why 'they' keep it to themselves. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. It looks, but perhaps it isn't. I agree it seems unbelievable, but somehow,we (the machine) can jump outside ourself ... (with some risk, though). - JM: Jump outside our knowledge? it is not 'ourselves', it is ALL we know and outside this is NOTHINGNESS for the mind to consider. Blank. This is how most of the religions came about. Provide a belief. - Bruno PS Er..., to Markpeaty and other readers of Parfit: I think that his use of the term reductionist is misleading, and due in part to his lack of clearcut distinction between the person points of view. - John - 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
- Original Message - Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) (Brent's quote): David Nyman wrote: (I skip the discussion...) In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
Stathis: let me skip the quoted texts and ask a particular question. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:41 PM Subject: RE: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) You wrote: Do you believe it is possible to copy a particular consciousness by emulating it, along with sham inputs (i.e. in virtual reality), on a general purpose computer? Or do you believe a coal-shovelling robot could only have the coal-shovelling experience by actually shovelling coal? Stathis Papaioannou - My question is about 'copy' and 'emulate'. Are we considering 'copying' the model and its content (in which case the coal shoveling robot last sentence applies) or do we include the interconnections unlimited in experience, beyond the particular model we talk about? If we go all the way and include all input from the unlimited totality that may 'format' or 'complete' the model-experience, then we re-create the 'real thing' and it is not a copy. If we restrict our copying to the aspect in question (model) then we copy only that aspect and should not draw conclusions on the total. Can we 'emulate' totality? I don't think so. Can we copy the total, unlimited wholeness? I don't think so. What I feel is a restriction to think within a model and draw conclusions from it towards beyond it. Which looks to me like a category-mistake. John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument)
David, thanks. Hofstadter's G-E-B is a delightful (BIG) book, I regret that I lost my (voracious ?) reading situation (possibility), especially to re-read it. Just next week I will quote GEB at a recital I will perform for our area music club about the Wohltemperiertes which Bach wrote for his sons to practice their fingers in piano-technique learning. I also loved his translation-book about that French poem of 1 word lines.- I cannot recall in which book I read that he was tricked by AI people into asking esoteric questions from an AI-computer - getting incredible answers, until next day 'they' confessed and showed him the 5 young guys in another room who made up the replies for him. Thanks for the URL To the statement in question here: a 'computation' can be anything I say it is - I find true, as long as I feel free to identify 'comp' as I like (need) it. (Same for 'numbers' and 'consciousness). John - Original Message - From: David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 10:38 AM Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John I was thinking of various examples in 'Godel, Escher, Bach', and it's years since I read it. Here's a URL I just Googled that may be relevant: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6100/geb.html From memory, Hofstadter decribes 'implementations' of computations that involve the detailed behaviour of anthills, and worse yet, detailed descriptions of 'Einstein's Brain' listed in a book that you can supposedly ask questions and receive answers! Trouble is, Hofstadter is such a brilliantly witty and creative writer that I could never be completely sure whether he was deliberately torturing your credulity by putting these forward as tongue-in-cheek reductios (like Schroedinger with his cat apparently) or whether he was actually serious. I'll have to re-read the book. David - Original Message - Subject: Re: Maudlin's Demon (Argument) (Brent's quote): David Nyman wrote: (I skip the discussion...) In other words, a 'computation' can be anything I say it is (cf. Hofstadter for some particularly egregious examples). David, could you give us 'some' of these, or at least an URL to find such? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Barbour's mistake: ..to Bruno
Bruno, kind reply, I was not ironical. You did not deny my position that ALL you do is coming from YOUR mind. However your justification ends with a 'funny' word: FACTS. What would YOU accept as facts and what would I? (Mind-body? our conscious feelings of a 'body(?) and all its accessory jazz is how WE (1st pers?) interpret our response to impacts we realize(d). Pain? Idea? Sport achievement? all from our solipsistic self considered as 'facts' (I start to be impressed by Colin's solipsism). So I am not impressed by (your) science based on (your) facts. I listen to them an - maybe - accept (in toto or in part). The Goedel-infection of complex machines (ourselves) was much simpler expressed by George (cannot prove that I am not crazy). "So, machine which introspect themselves sufficiently closely can not only guess the existence of something "bigger", but the machine can study the mathematical structure of its ignorance border." still does not show that 'it' comprehends the 'items' of such "BIGGER", only that 'it' accepts the existence of (something) such. Even more: it can study its (incomprehending) ignorance. * UDA step 1: do you really 'believe'(?!) that we, identified as (complex) machines are really ONLY the PARTS of the BODY? you seem to be in favor of the 'mind-body' idea (G) - where is the mind IN US? you replace (yes doctor) the body-parts and the mind just goes with it? I use YOUR words here, I would say 'mentality' or 'ideation' the part neurologists cannot give account for. Or would you 'make' mentality a bodily organ, not flesh and blood, but of ideational stuff? then 'mind' would merge into body and you are not in favor of that. Anyway such an extended body-concept in my appreciation for Gestalt would please me. Just like "brainS" is not the plural of "brain", the goo. Facilitation of the hard problem. Materialists cannot come up to such solutions.Theymeasure mVs- mAmps. So what does (your) body consist of? Or: what do you let go into the 'mind', what the YD does not exchange? Your 2nd par "*far* from being solved" is not explained by a cloudy allowance that it surely can be mathematically solved. I say similarly cloudily: no, it cannot. My fact. And I am not impressed by a reference to 'quantum-like rules', to refer to a simplified linear 1-track methodology in understanding something that is complex. Your 'results' (no matter how much I appreciate them) are still within the comprehension of your thinking, not of a mathematical structuring(Godel) that there issome 'BIG' which is above your comprehension. (QED). * I find your reference to atheists irrelevant as far as I am concerned. I simply do not find 'room' for 'supernatural' or any extraneous intelligence that would 'create', 'rule', 'organize' or do any other 'godly' activity over our (not understood) existence. So: no 'theo' for me. (a- or not). People with similar ideas in earlier times coined the 'pantheist' _expression_, but that. too, was a variant of the religious formula. I still stay with my 'scientific agnosticism': I dunno. But I can criticize. Best regards John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 9:53 AM Subject: Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia Le 04-oct.-06, à 18:09, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : "That is how YOU formulate these concepts in YOUR mind (i.e.comprehension),"Yes, but I make that comprehension sharable by being clear on the hypotheses. I would say that this is how science work. We make theories, which can only just be hypothetical. Then we derive theorems, that is consequences, and we compare them with the facts. "Puzzles me: are WE not ALL machines? Can we 'comprehend' the limitations of some "bigger" (=more comprehensive G) construct of which we are part of?"That is all the point of the limitation phenomena in "digital machine theory" (computer science). Once a machine complexity is higher than a precise "logical" threshold, then the machine can prove its own incompleteness theorem: "If I am consistent then I cannot prove that I am consistent". Still, the machine can bet on suchSo, machine which introspect themselves sufficiently closely can not only guess the existence of something "bigger", but the machine can study the mathematical structure of its ignorance border. I think most people understand the first seven steps of the eight [UDA] steps"(Do I envy them)"(May be you are perhaps just ironical, but I will answer like you were not).You can ask question, even on the first step, or on the hypotheses. The basic idea is simple. As David reminds us the game is to search the consequence of comp which is the digital version of the very old mechanist assumption: we are machine. It means there is no part of our body which cannot be substituted at
Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Hi, Bruno, you just 'tricked' me into another response. Let me interject into the postsome remarks in Italics - no topical conclusion attached. I apologize for my "concentrate" in this loose form, I meant 'study', 'draw valid conclusions, "find reasons and characteristics for", "understand" etc. John - Original Message - From: "Bruno Marchal" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 9:50 AM Subject: Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia Hi John,Le 30-sept.-06, à 21:45, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Whatever we 'concentrate on' for comprehensibility, is *our* way ofdoing. Within our HUMAN comprehension. We cannot concentrate on things wecannot comprehend.I don't understand. We do research because there are things which we don't comprehend with the hope to comprehend them. We don't comprehend the cosmos but we can look at it and learn things. "We look into what we THINK it "is" - We learn what we think." Don't even KNOW such things.I can know things like pain and pleasure, although there are no theory which can explain them. But I can look at them and interrogate them. "So you COMPREHEND pain and pleasure. To have "theories" is secondary , explanation ditto (you KNOW pain and pleasure)" We may assume that "there may be incomprehensible other features' inaccessible to our human mind, but *so* they are. So we may say that numbers (??) or comp CAN comprehend more than we do, but nothing can be said about that 'more' in human discours. We cannot even phantasize about 'those' items.I know that many on this list have a trouble with Godel's incompleteness theorem. The revolutionary character of such a theorem is that it explains how numbers and machines (and we are that, once we assume comp) can apprehend, if not comprehend, their limitations.Machine can look, well, not right into their blind spot, but on the border of their blind spot, and discover its creative nature. What I referred to is that we cannot detail such unknowables (= the incomprehensibles) into our image-composition of the existence. How do you know that (those?) numbers HAVE limitations to see? My "human prejudice" is the recognition of my limitations-. All what I claim is that this "prejudice" is much more general than human. Even without the comp assumption we can show that all machine developing correct theories about themselves will discover such limitations, and even discover the common mathematical structure of those limitations. The UDA shows the physical laws come from that. "That is how YOU formulate these concepts in YOUR mind (i.e. comprehension)," If you include into your discours the features comprehensible for the numbers or comp (beyond the human one) you must reduce the number- or comp comprehensibility to a human level to talk about it.The number comprehensibility is a priori simpler, but then longer. "The way you comprehend and formulate them" Like: To turn infinite into very much/big.Big finite things are usually more complex than the infinite which has been introduced mainly for simplifying things. "Ha ha, as being put into our incomprehensible fantasy-world" Domesticate the wild. I find it neither sad nor comical. I find it incomprehensible.I apologize if I have been a little rough. My point is that many interventions you are doing fit very nicely with what I try to express myself, except that I refer to machine's limitations instead of human limitations (this is natural once we assume the comp hyp.). "Puzzles me: are WE not ALL machines? Can we 'comprehend' the limitations of some "bigger" (=more comprehensive G) construct of which we are part of?"the study of machine's limitation has become a branch of math and/or computer science, and this gives, assuming comp, a way to tackle more systematically that limitation phenomena. Of course this leads to more technical posts. I will perhaps put some label like [tech] so that people who wants to skip more technical posts can do it even automatically.On the contrary the Universal Dovetailer Argument (UDA) needs only a very minimal amount of computer science, to get the idea of universal dovetailing.I think most people understand the first seven steps of the eight steps "(Do I envy them)"version of the UDA like in my "SANE" paper. The 8th step is intrinsically more difficult.Bruno "John" 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Barbour- Platonia in private!
- Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 8:58 AM Subject: Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia Drear Bruno I will reply to your comment to me on-list - this is a private remark. I leave part of your reply to Marc here to refer to personally. See please, after your signature John - (from your post:) Smolin's loop quantum gravity is the physics of the soul which has not yet fallen (!). String theory, or better the string theories landscape (as described by Smolin himself) would describe ... the gate of hell, or the state of the fallen soul: the fourth hypostase Very funny. So... I take it you don't like String Theory and think loop quantum gravity is the way the truth and the light? ;) Well, you should not infer this from the fact that I suspect string theories appears with the 4th hypostases, given that I am rather proud of having isolated them. If you look to Conscience and Mecanisme and to the Lille thesis you will see that at that time I was (wrongly) believing that physics could not occur but in the 4th and 5th hypostases. I thought that S4Grz1 collapses. Since then I have been able to prove that the 3rd hypostase does not collapse (under the comp restriction) but that they already defines an arithmetical quantization (that is: proves the main physical modal formulas: p - BDp and Bp - p), and I still don't know if this is a good new, except that it shows that the pure first person (the soul) has already a foot in Matter. But that soul's physics is like a pure physics completely detached of any background dependence, and at first sight it is a good place for something resembling Loop Quantum Gravity. The fourth and fifth hypostases, nevertheless, gives the only physical modalities which split through the G/G* distinction so that only them can be used for relating the non communicable qualia with the sharable quanta. Also they predicts many many exotical geographies, and currently, through the Moonshine Mystery + modular speculations, are closer to the strings theories. To be sure the experimental physicist in me (if there is any) has no competence for judging Loop versus String arguments. On the contrary, the many hypostatic nuances forced by the quantization of incompleteness (defined by the p- BDp + inverse Goldblatt transform) makes me willing to believe that both Loops and Strings are correct, but does not address the same problem. I'm prepared to believe that space and particles are not fundamental but are emergent. However Bruno, I'm not yet convinced the same is true for time. I don't see how time can be removed from our descriptions of reality. I'll read the things you mention at some point. BM: This is a bit weird because there has always been a tradition since Pythagoras, Plato, ..., Einstein, ... to consider that time is not part of the ontology (except under the form of arithmetical induction axioms (which I already put in the epistemology)). In general people are more shocked when I say that comp force space to be emergent than when I say that time is emergent. Note also that I don't remove time from the description of reality, I remove time from reality, if only because I recover time in the description of reality possible for the self-introspecting machine. Bruno --- JM: The second part is mostly congruent with how I feel. The first part, however... (I got stuck e.g. with the term: nth hypostase - etc.) Some time ago I had a glimps of what your and debate-partners wrote about, if not in its desirable understanding. This 1st part of your reply to Mark? - I read it 2-3 times and have no idea what you are talking about. It is a phenomenon which grew lately widening the gap of my mental tuning into what you are discussing. I confess: I did not follow some of the recent threads, because there were so many posts and I simply could not find the time (physical and mental endurance) to even read them. (My mailbox is time-consuming in opening replying and even deleting posts. Please, give up on me, the 'gap' is too big as far as your theory vs. me is concerned. I will 'talk into certain topics' carefully from my point of view, not as an argument with YOUR theoretical positions. In those explanations you suggested I find more and more features to look up - and if I did so, they were not explanatory to me, rather full of further concepts I could not come to grips with. When I was religious (50-60 years ago) I would have said that your 'numbers' are God. You wrote: WE are god, which I condone better. I am not satisfied if the numbers - or: the buttler DID IT If you know this slogan). I cannot step out from my own mental capabilities into a more capable medium, I rather confess and live with the limitations I have. I don't let my fantasy loose, because it is restricted by the present level of
Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Here is my second reflection to this post of Bruno. The first I wrote IN PRIVATE, deleting every hint to the list-address, only to Bruno's private e-mail, and within 20 minutes it was published on list. Is there a way how the list does not kidnap private communication? This 2nd part refers to Bruno's remark to what I posted to Marc G - below. I will interject after Bruno's text addressed to my post. John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 8:58 AM Subject: Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia Le 29-sept.-06, à 02:29, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit :[+ comment to John below] (I truncated the Marc-Bruno discussion) Bruno (Mark, let me take your quoting of John Mikes as an opportunity to repeat a key point ). We may concentrate on the part humanly comprehensible, but in the wholistic view we cannot make it a substantial part of the existence. John M John, I have already said this, but it is short and important so let me repeat: let us concentrate on machine or number comprehensibility, instead of humans' one. Assuming comp, this is substantially larger than human's comprehensibility, and still not trivial thanks to incompleteness. Also, the more I walk in number theory, the harder it is for me to imagine a better wholistic view of a reality where anything is connected to anything in a lot of surprising and unexpected ways. And incompleteness protects numbers against any totalitarian theory pretending to unify the truth about them. Numbers can see their limitations, they can find holes in their views, and they can see better through those holes. Numbers are saying you are right, but you seem not to listen, due to your human prejudice against them. I let you chose if that is sad or comical. Bruno JM: Whatever we 'concentrate on' for comprehensibility, is *our* way of doing. Within our HUMAN comprehension. We cannot concentrate on things we cannot comprehend. Don't even KNOW such things. We may assume that there may be incomprehensible other features' inaccessible to our human mind, but *so* they are. So we may say that numbers (??) or comp CAN comprehend more than we do, but nothing can be said about that 'more' in human discours. We cannot even phantasize about 'those' items. What I referred to is that we cannot detail such unknowables (= the incomprehensibles) into our image-composition of the existence. How do you know that (those?) numbers HAVE limitations to see? My human prejudice is the recognition of my limitations. If you include into your discours the features comprehensible for the numbers or comp (beyond the human one) you must reduce the number- or comp comprehensibility to a human level to talk about it. Like: To turn infinite into very much/big. Domesticate the wild. I find it neither sad nor comical. I find it incomprehensible. John M http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.9/458 - Release Date: 09/27/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Marc. (to your remark to Bruno: I don't like string theory either, consider it a sweated out reductionist sci-fi which has been worked through by excellent mathematicians so far that by now it looks like the panacea for high science. This is an opinion, I did not study Str-Th to understand (believe?) it retrogradely - meaning to accept the starting sci-fi idea impressed by the mathematical 'matches' it was supported by later on. This remark of mine will be deemed VERY 'unscientific', but you opened the way to liking.) To the 'incomprehensible' absolutes: It starts with what we would deem 'comprehensible' (not humanly only, of course) - it is difficult, because to 'comprehend' carries a (human?) mental activity in its semantics for 'understanding in its main features at least. As: to put it into OUR reductionist models. Now: widen this meaning into to anything (as you wrote: ANY mind?) [you must have a good identification for mind. May I ask for it?] comes back to the problem of 'comprehend' (understand?) and its object(s). I feel (again this personalized vagueness!) it refers to information in its more common sense meaning. (I could not get past the 'bit'-s meaninglessness: a bit can refer (belong) to anything). I boiled down the 'information' term to 'acknowledged difference' generalizing it to by anything (I refrained to call it 'mind', because features we do not deem mindful, (rather 'physical objects') also acknowledge i.e. absorb into their structure the impacted differences from other entities. A difference is only information when it is acknowledged (mentally OR physically). In my opinion (and by Colin's argument I cannot start with anything else in my private (scientific? theoretical? reality? my solipsism) the entirety is deterministic in the sense that everything is entailed by some originating factor. So 'occurring' means information (i.e. acceptance) from the originator (process?) which cannot occur without some sort of comprehension - within human bounds or not to put it into place (action?). This is why I was startled by the 'absolute incomprehensible' in wider sense than just humanly. Sorry for this convoluted explanation: my 'mind' works with differently formed (in-formed?) ceptual ways than applicable for the math-physx based 'scientists' in THEIR solipsism. It is a shame that you and me have to tackle these things when my original idea was that the (logical?) ways of yours are palatable to me. John M - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 8:29 PM Subject: Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia Smolin's loop quantum gravity is the physics of the soul which has not yet fallen (!). String theory, or better the string theories landscape (as described by Smolin himself) would describe ... the gate of hell, or the state of the fallen soul: the fourth hypostase Very funny. So... I take it you don't like String Theory and think loop quantum gravity is the way the truth and the light? ;) But the point here is that timelessness critics are again generated by an internal first person plural view, and to make it ontic would be a nth instantiation of Aristotle fundamental mistake of reifying time, space and matter, despite the beauty feature of loop gravity that time, space, and particles are fundamentally emergent Bruno I'm prepared to believe that space and particles are not fundamental but are emergent. However Bruno, I'm not yet convinced the same is true for time. I don't see how time can be removed from our descriptions of reality. I'll read the things you mention at some point. We may concentrate on the part humanly comprehensible, but in the wholistic view we cannot make it a substantial part of the existence. John M Of course. I certainly didn't man to restrict the conception of reality to reality which was only comprehensible to humans. Just to clarify: when I said that 'eXistenZ' was 'comprehensible reality' I didn't mean 'comprehensible to humans' I meant 'comprehensible to SOME mind' (which may be much greater than human). ie. Comprehensible in principle. Reality which is 'Comprehensible in principle' is of course much greater than reality which is 'Comprehensible only to humans'. By 'Incomprehensible' I meant the parts of reality which would be incomprehensible to ANY mind, even in principle. As for the vagueness of the definitions for Energy, Volition and Information you are quite right! But this was exactly my point: these three concepts apparently cannot be directly defined, only referenced by their effects or 'potential'. They appear to be incomprehensible concepts (incomprehensible to ALL minds, humans or not). --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this
Re: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia
Marc: you represent a 'free' mind with the division in existence. Alas, in elaborating on it you slip back into the limitedness of 'our' primitive universe-conditions (human comprehensibility, math, physics as we imagine it in our humanly observable timed circumstances) losing the benefit of the freedom from human limitations. I tried to apply (in my draft-narrative) existence as 'both knowable and not (yet?) discover(able)(ed) since our mental limitations do not control the entirety. We may concentrate on the part humanly comprehensible, but in the wholistic view we cannot make it a substantial part of the existence. We can speak (think) about it. I did not read Barbour (only 'about' him) so I leave this part untouched. Platonia is human understandability in out 'timed' world. Math as well, and I have no idea (being human) what other logic may govern non-human mentalities. I consider ourselves (even the most-free listmembers' views) within the model' of human logic. Even the 'unlimited' is limited to our boundaries. I humbly leave the 'outside' untouched with a theoretical recognition that it may exist. I salute your conclusive advantages over Barbour (with a slight ? to reality - completely out of our bounds, even in Colin's solipsic self indulging terms). To the 3 (of27) fundamental metaphys. actors: *Energy* - Capacity to do work Says nothing, only a name to mark that something does work *Volition* - Capacity to make choices highly circumstances-based anticipatory conclusion IMO *Information* - A variance, or 'difference'. I agree, defined it so 1992, with adding: difference acknowledged (by anything). The 'difference' by itself I identified as existence (as compared to nirvana). It was many steps before my today's (much more confused) views. I want to keep out from this thread, it is above my head, just post these ideas: maybe they can be used. And thanks for your free mind. John M - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 2:28 AM Subject: Barbour's mistake: An alternative to a timless Platonia Those who have read my past threads and seen the summary of my metaphysics analysis (Mathematico-Cognition Reality Theory-MCRT) know that I think that time is an irreducible property of reality and my analysis suggests that even Barbour's configuration space (Platonia, the Multiverse whatever you want to call it) isn't truly timeless. The trouble with a timeless multiverse lies in the notion of 'the space of all mathematical possibilities'. Unfortunately the notion of 'all mathematical possibilities co-existing' is highly suspect, precisely because it's so ill-defined. There are some things in math for which the quantifier 'existence' is suspect infinite sets in particular. If 'the space of all possibilities' is itself still evolving as I suggested, then Platonia would not be timeless as Barbour (and many here on this list) thinks. Another reason for suspecting that Platonia isn't truly timeless lies in the fact that Barbour's Platonia is an attempt to totally remove 'boundary conditions' from science. Note that no attempts to remove boundary conditions from science have ever succeeded. Why should Barbour's theory suddenly be the exception? There's a very good reason for defining boundary conditions... because without an 'inside and 'outside' to an entity, one simply cannot analyze it as a dynamical system. That's why no attempt to remove boundary conditions from science has ever succeeded. Now when the 'system' under disussion is 'all of reality' it may seem tautological that 'there exists nothing outside reality because reality is everything that exists' but... well... this so called tautology is not neccesserily true! The trouble lies in the definition of a 'thing'. If there are incomprehensible things, then it may actually make sense to talk about them existing 'outside reality'. Standard philosophy only recognizes one quantifier for 'existence' but perhaps thre are several different notions. Again, Barbour's attempt to 'remove an outside to reality' also prevents us from analyzing reality as a dynamical system, because any system analysis requires us to define system boundaries and external actors. Again, no attempts to remove boundary conditions from science have ever succeeded. Why? Because Barbour's entire notion of a timeless Platonia is misguided. It's an attempt to 'objectify everything, to imagine that 'all of reality' can somehow be comprehensible to a rational mind. But why should this be true? Why shouldn't there exist incomprehensible things? Again, we have examples from mathematics...such as uncomputable numbers...which appear to suggest that there do exist incomphensible things. And I propose that the existence of incomphrensible things enables us to establish boundary conditions for all of
Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test
Colin G. Hales: so we are all liars. As a matter of fact I never agreed to be a 'scientist' (and listmembers may approve that), and I try to do science (my term) on science (their term). I am still struggling with the identification of my term. Their term is: a wrong model view. But we all pretend to be smart liars. * Your last paragraph paved my way to the nuthouse. Thanks John M - Original Message - From: Colin Geoffrey Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2006 11:11 PM Subject: Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test ...preliminaries deleted... COLIN HALES: Yay! someone 'got' my little dialogue! The point is that scientists are actually ALL tacit solipsists. The only way a solipsist can exist is to outwardly agree with the massive confabulation they appear to inhabit whilst inwardly maintaining the only 'real truth'. There's no external reality...It's not real!...so being duplicitous is OK. But to go on being a tacit solipsist affirmed by inaction: not admitting consciouness itself of actually caused by something...is equivalent to an inward belief of Bishop Berkeley-esque magical intervention on a massive scale without actually realising it. The whole delusion is maintained by a belief in an 'objective-view' that makes it seem like we're directly accessing an external world when we are not - it's all mediated by MIND, which we deny by not admitting it to be evidence of anything and around we go the whole picture is self consistent and inherently deluded and ultimately not honest. This is the state of science the last 2 paragraphs of the latest version of my little monologue are as follows: where: CASE (a) world: Virtual solipsist world. In this world I accept my mind as conclusive proof supporting continued fervent adherence to the belief in a magical fabricator. CASE (b) world: In this world I let a real external world be responsible for all phenomenal mirrors. Concsiousness is held as proof of a separately described underlying natural world, totally compatible with normally traditional empirical science of appearances _within_ consciousness. If I am right to be a solipsist scientist I live in the universe of the magical fabricator, forced to play a pretend life ‘as-if’ there is a real external world with fictitious scientific colleagues, all doing the same thing. What is the reality of my life as a scientist telling me? I look around myself and what do I see universal evidence of? The world I actually live in is world (a). This evidence acts in support of my solipsism. No scientist anywhere has, for any reason other than accidentally, ever looked at systems producing worlds with scientists in them complete with minds inside it, built of it. The world I actually live in is the world of the 'as-if' ficticious objective view where scientist believe without justification that they are literally describing the natural world, and not how it appears to them. Indeed when someone tries to describe an underlying world they the scientific world snaps back, declares the attempt irrelevant, empirically unsupportable and therefore unscientific metaphysicsconsistent with an implicit outward methodological denial of mind. But if I am wrong to be a solipsist, then the evidence paints a very odd picture of science. In this bizarre world, ‘objective’ scientists outwardly all act ‘as-if’ an external world exists yet scientists are actually virtual solipsists outwardly acting ‘as-if’ there is no such thing as mind whilst being totally reliant on their mind to do science and also unaware that is the case. And, like me, being in methodological denial of their own mind, are tacitly affirming belief in a magical fabricator through a cultural omission of paying due attention to reviewing their own scientific evidence system. Scientists in this world will go on forever correlating appearances within their denied phenomenal mirrors and never get to do science on phenomenal mirrors. Which one to choose? Perhaps I’ll stay where the fictitious money is… in the land of the virtual magical fabricator…and keep quiet. == I'm done with yet another paper. This ..place... I have reached in depicting science I have reached from so many different perspectives now it's almost mundane ... So many I don't know where to submit them any more!... .each different approach results in the same basic conclusion science is structurally flawed and never questions itself - there's never any science done on science - since when did we earn the right to be one corner of the natural world immune from scientific method? Is this a club or a professional discipline? The current state of science - complete failure to solve the physics of phenomenal consciousness - is a scientific prediction of the state of science with the current virtual-solipsistic belief stystem. - that is what science done on
Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test
- Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 2:16 AM Subject: Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test (upon Bruno's question)... To be more precise, I identify Nothing with undifferentiated form, a bit like the Chaos of the ancient Greeks. To be even more precise, I identify it with the zero information object, or the set of all strings. Any person's experience is obtained by differentiating - selecting something from that nothing. The relationship between this zero information object, and arithmetical platonia is a bit unclear, but I would say that anything constructible (Sigma_1) must be extractable from the zero information object. In my narrative for a substitute Big Bang I called the originating zero-info-'object' Plenitude, as I realize from your words (thank you) it is close to the Old Greek Chaos. In that narrative Universes occur by 'differentiating - selecting something from that nothing (RSt). Information, observables. I had to give in to critics about the 'zero information' because it was said that having no information emanating from it IS information. Also my claims on infinite symmetry - dynamic invariance and what you say 'the set of all strings' (I called it an unlimited content of everything) was deemed 'information'. I defended my position by saying that I want to state as little about this unattainable 'object' as possible, it is only a starting point with more common sense relevance than the quantum science related expressionS applied in the narratives of the physical cosmology. A silly question: you wrote: Any person's experience is obtained by differentiating - selecting something from that nothing. What makes 'that nothing' available to persons? is it not also available to a computer? in which case computers may have unlimited consciousness (whatever we call under that name). John M ... Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. -- -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 -- -- -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.6/453 - Release Date: 09/20/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test
True, I may go a step further: In those terms as I defined an 'earlier solipsism' in another post, there is NO real solipsist. Maybe in the nuthouse. Or on his way to one. Game-playing is human and many fall into substituting their game for the real world. From Hitler to a nun. I was not thinking on the intermittent solips as pointed to by some (reasonable) list-colleagues. John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 10:59 PM Subject: RE: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test John, Even a real solipsist might eat, sleep, talk to people etc., all under the impression that everything is a construction of his own mind. People willingly suspend disbelief in order to indulge in fiction or computer games, and a solipsist may believe that he is participating in the greatest and most perfect of games. I think that most real solipsists would eventually go mad and start to believe that the game is reality. Maybe that's why there aren't that many of them around. Stathis Papaioannou From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:51:28 -0400 Stathis: wouod a real solipsist even talk to you? John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Bruno Marchal everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 7:21 PM Subject: RE: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test Bruno Marchal writes: About solipsism I am not sure why you introduce the subject. It seems to me nobody defend it in the list. Is anyone out there really a solipsist? Has anyone ever met or talked to a real solipsist? Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-491 1fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.6/453 - Release Date: 09/20/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test
And another quote: A solopist is like the man who gave up turning around because whatever he saw was always in front of him. --- Ernst Mach John M PS: but it is so entertaining to chat about it! JM - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 7:51 PM Subject: Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test Colin Hales wrote: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brent Meeker Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 9:31 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Bruno Marchal writes: About solipsism I am not sure why you introduce the subject. It seems to me nobody defend it in the list. Is anyone out there really a solipsist? Has anyone ever met or talked to a real solipsist? Stathis Papaioannou Will all those who believe I don't exist contact me immediately. :-) Brent I don't think anyone actually believes they are, but scientists certainly act as-if they are! (all except me, of course!) Then why do they collaborate, argue, and publish? Exactly how would they act as-if they weren't? Brent Nobody believes a theory, except the guy who thought of it. Everbody believes an experiment, except the guy who did it. --- Leon Lederman, on physics --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test
I had in mind (from very 'old' studies/readings) a somewhat different version of the hard' solipsism and this one - sort of - eliminates the validity of the questions. I will interject. My take was Russell's remark I mark with *** in the post. John M - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 9:23 AM Subject: Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 04:02:36PM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: BACK TO THE REAL ISSUE (solipsism) I am confused as to what the received view of the solipsist is. As us usual in philosophical discourse, definitions disagree: An epistemological position that one's own perceptions are the only things that can be known with certainty. The nature of the external world - that is, the source of one's perceptions - therefore cannot be conclusively known; it may not even exist. or belief in self as only reality: the belief that the only thing somebody can be sure of is that he or she exists, and that true knowledge of anything else is impossible or the belief that only one's own experiences and existence can be known with certainty The definitions are all variants on this theme.. It could also be argued that this theme is essentially instrumentalism. - Q1. As a solipsist, if you say 'belief in self as the only reality' does this entail the disbelief in anything else other than 'self' (=experiential reality of the observer)? .i.e. ...the active denial of any reality other than your experience? *** I think solipsism goes further in denying existence of other minds. Note that denial of materiality, or even of noumenon does not eliminate other minds. JM: I would formulate it harder: there is ONLY MY mind and it produces all that I (think to) experience as existent' at all. In that case it does not make sense to deny or eliminate the nonexistent. My problem was: why am I so stupid to imagine such a bad world? so I dropped solipsism. Q2. If experiences are all that are known with certainty, then why have scientists universally (a) adopted the explicit appearances (of the external reality) within experience as scientific evidence of an external reality, to the complete exclusion of (b) the implicit evidence that the existence of any experience at all provides that it is caused by something (and that something is also external reality)? This is rather odd, since in the 'certainty' stakes (b) wins. JM: in my 'hard' solipsism that all is my figment. You are nonexistent, the world is nonexistent, the problems and their solutions are my decisions/experiences in my own mind. To continue this line into cosequency is the road to the nuthouse. Bon Voyage! Most scientists do not even think about ontological issues. Its as though they practise as-if instrumentalism regardless of their personal beliefs. -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. - A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 JM: John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (SHORT)
Tom, thanks, you said it as I will try to spell it out interjected in your reply. John - Original Message - From: Tom Caylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 12:21 PM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (SHORT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: Tom Caylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 3:23 PM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (SHORT) You wrote: What is the non-mathematical part of UDA? The part that uses Church Thesis? When I hear non-mathematical I hear non-rigor. Define rigor that is non-mathematical. I guess if you do then you've been mathematical about it. I don't understand. Tom -- Smart: whatever I may come up with, as a different type of vigor (btw is this term well identified?) you will call it math - just a different type. John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ The root of the word math means learning, study, or science. Math is the effort to make things precise. So in my view applied math would be taking actual information and trying to make the science precise in order to further our learning and quest of the truth in the most efficient manner possible. Applied math is a sore point for me. As long as I accept (theoretical) Math as a language of logical thinking (IMO a one-plane one, but it is not the point now) I cannot condone the APPLIED math version, (math) using the results of Math for inrigorating (oops!) the imprecise model-values (reductionist) 'science' is dealing with. Precise it will be, right it won't, because it is based on a limited vue within the boundaries of (topical) science observations. It makes the imprecise value-system looking precise. I think that this is the concept that is captured by the term rigor. But what's in a name? I call it math and I think that a good many people would agree, but others might call it something else, like rigor. I think that it's an intuitive concept limited by our finite capabilities, as you so many times point out, John. I did, indeed and am glad that someone noticed. Your term 'rigor' is pretty wide, you call it 'math' (if not Math) including all those qualia-domains which are under discussion to be 'numbers(?) or not'. OK, I don't deny your godfatherish right to call anything by any name, but then - please - tell me what name to call the old mathematical math? (ie. churning conventional numbers like 1,2,3) by? Tom John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Counterfactual?
- Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 10:41 AM Subject: Re: computationalism and supervenience Peter: ... A counterfactual is a COUNTERfactual - -it is something that could have happenned but didn't. There is no reason why we should be conscious of in things we coudl have done but didn't. ... JM: It could not have happened in another way if it did happen THIS way.. WE may think - in our limited circle of knowledge - that something else was also viable, but in the deterministic world of a total (unlimited, not model-enclosed) interconnectedness - whatever happened, was the possible way of events. I am not talking about HP universes or thought experiments. The same argument holds against bifurcation when the scientist has a (limited?) fantasy and can 'think' of another (ONE?) option for the real happening and builds a theory on it. Because of such argumentation some researchers started to talk about not 'bi'-, but multifurcation which was not so bad, but not better indeed. Any better definition for counterfactuals? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: evidence blindness
I have the feeling that we are discussing words. Everybody tries how to 'make sense' of them, in a personal taste. Colin expressed it in his usual sophisticated ways, Ben more comprehensively, in many more words. The fact is: we observe the observer (ourselves) and want to describe it to others. The American 'slang' comes to mind: Consciousness Smonciousness - do we get anywhere with it? whether a device 'looks at' or we see if somebody understands what he sees? During the early 90s I gave up thinking ABOUT consciousness, it seemed a futile task with everybody speaking about something else. Now I see a reasonable topic behind it: ourselves - the object with which I struggle lately to identify (for myself about myself, which is the crux of the problem). I see no point to explain it to others: they will not get the 'real' image (only the interpreted (their) 1st person view of me). We all (excuse me to use 1st pers form) are well educated smart people and can say something upon everything. It is a rarity to read: I was wrong you are right - period. (I cannot keep my mouse shut either). Happy debating! John M - Original Message - From: Benjamin Udell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 10:29 PM Subject: Re: evidence blindness Colin, Stathis, Brent, 1. I think we need to distinguish a cybernetic, self-adjusting system like a sidewinder missile, from an inference-processing, self-_redesigning_ system like an intelligent being (well, not redesigning itself biologically, at least as of now). Somehow we're code-unbound to some sufficient extent that, as a result, we can test our representations, interpretations, our systems, habits, and codes of representation and interpretation, rather than leaving that task entirely to biological evolution which tends to punish bad interpretations by removal of the interpreter from the gene pool. There's something more than represented objects (sources), the representations (encodings), and the interpretations (decodings). This something more is the recipient, to whom falls any task of finding redundancies and inconsistencies between the message (or message set) and the rest of the world, such that the recipient -- I'm unsure how to put this -- is the one, or stands as the one, who deals with the existential consequences and for whom tests by subjection to existential consequences are meaningful; the recipient is in a sense a figuration of existential consequences as bearing upon the system's design. It's from a design-testing viewpoint that one re-designs the communication system itself; the recipient role in that sense is the role which includes the role of the evolutionator (as CA's governor might call it). In other words, the recipient is, in logical terms, the recognizer, the (dis-)verifier, the (dis-)corroborator, etc., and verification (using verification as the forest term for the various trees) is that something more than object, representation, interpretation. Okay, so far I'm just trying to distinguish an intelligence from a possibly quite vegetable-level information processs with a pre-programmed menu of feedback-based responses and behavior adjustments. 2. Verificatory bases are nearest us, while the entities laws by appeal to which we explain things, tend to be farther farther from us. I mean, that Colin has a point. There's an explanatory order (or sequence) of being and a verificatory order (sequence) of knowledge. Among the empirical, special sciences (physical, material, biological, human/social), physics comes first in the order of being, the order in which we explain things by appeal to entities, laws, etc., out there. But the order whereby we know things is the opposite; there human/social studies come first, and physics comes last. That is not the usual way in which we order those sciences, but it is the usual way in which we order a lot of maths when we put logic (deductive theory of logic) and structures of order (and conditions for applicability of mathematical induction) before other fields -- that's the ordering according to the bases on which we know things. The point is, that the ultimate explanatory object tends to be what's furthest from us; the ultimate verificatory basis tends to be what's nearest to us (at least within a given family of research fields -- logic and order structures are studies of reason and reason's crackups; extremization problems in analysis seem to be at an opposite pole). Well, in the end, nearest to us means _us_, in our personal experiences. Now, I'm not talking in general about deductively certain knowledge or verification, but just about those bases on which we gain sufficient assurance to act (not to mention believe reports coming from one area in research while not putting too much stock in reports coming from another). We are our own ultimate points of reference. Quine talks somewhere about dispensing with proper names and using a coordinate system
Re: evidence blindness
- Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 12:14 PM Subject: Re: evidence blindness Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: a) The belief in a fictional 'objective view'. This is a view that is never had by anyone. Peter replied: I don't think the view metaphior is very helpful. There are more or less objective beliefs. What is subjective about 2+2=4 ? JM: everything. First you had to learn and subjectively accept the meaning of the sign '+' and then the sign '=' without which subjective input you would consider 2 plus 2 as 22 - unless you are also missing the personally and subjectively absorbed meaning of a twoness , in which case you can frame the expression as an abstract picture. We are born naked and with a blank (almost) mind, not with a PhD in math. John M (I agree that the vie metaphor is not very informative.) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
- Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brent Meeker everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 7:52 AM Subject: RE: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... Brent Meeker writes: Saying that there is a material substrate which has certain properties is just a working assumption to facilitate thinking about the real world. It may turn out that if we dig into quarks very deeply there is nothing substantial there at all, but solid matter will still be solid matter, because it is defined by its properties, not by some mysterious raw physical substrate. But I don't think we ever have anything but working assumptions; so we might as well call our best ones real; while keeping in mind we may have to change them. SP reply: That's just what I meant. If you say, this is *not* just a working assumption, there is some definite, basic substance called reality over and above what we can observe, that is a metaphysical statement which can only be based on something akin to religious faith. Stathis Papaioannou JM: Brent can call it anything he likes, as long as he does not consider it a reality and Stathis can call it anything he likes, as long as he does not considers it a faith. I work with narratives - consider them working assumptions (hypotheses) with an open mind for getting contradictions and so changing their conditions. This prevents me from calling it reality and developing a faith in it, which (both) assign absolute truth to the idea(s) involved. John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computationalism and supervenience
Stathis: I am not 'debating' your position, just musing about expressions. You made a very interesting passage below: SP: ...Perhaps there is a difference between intelligence and consciousness. Intelligence must be defined operationally, as you have suggested, which involves the intelligent agent interacting with the environment. A computer hardwired with input is not a very useful device from the point of view of an observer, displaying no more intelligence than a film of the screen would JM: What I sense in your discussion with Peter, a certain group of qualia has been picked (computer input) and argued about it being consciousness. Irrespective of other qualia findable in systems outside that circle, which e.g. in 'human consciousness have their input. A limited model quality is matched to a wider background of interactions and assigned to the generalized concept. Speaking about intelligence may be an improvement: in my wording it requires (beside considerable knowledge-base - memory) an elasticity of the mind, to ponder the features according to (counterfactual? I am not so familiar with the term) contradictory 'arguments' and finding one outcome, not necessarily the obvious. In this activity the 'mind' includes 'more' than just the 'data fed into a computer' and may provide a different entailment from a (limitedly) 'conscious' (Turing?) machine. In your earlier post you wrote: SP: .There are those who argue that human cognition is fundamentally different from classical computers due to quantum randomness, but even if this is the case there is no reason to believe that it is necessarily the case. Brains would have evolved to give rise to appropriate survival-enhancing behaviour, which precludes random or erratic behaviour. A degree of unpredictability would have to be present in order to avoid predators or catch prey, but unpredictable does not necessarily mean random: it just has to be beyond the capabilities of the predators or prey to predict. The unpredictability could result from the effect of classical chaos, or simply from the complexity of the behaviour which is in fact perfectly deterministic. No true randomness is needed JM: I dislike the term 'Q-randomness' for 2 reasons: 1. randomness is not part of a totally interconnected deterministic world in which every change is triggered by the movement of the totality (my vision), and 2. the quantum refers to a linear reductionist mathematical science in which no randomness is feasible and nonlinear counterfactuals are not contemplated (In My Unprofessional Opinion) as ARE included in the (live?) human cognition. Unpredictability by whom? you mention the participants, but it may be a characteristic theoretically noted. Read on. (Classical?) chaos IMO is a feature not (yet?) explained by our cognition in the reductionist sciences. Like :emergence. Once we learn more, it becomes unchaos. (Or: the emergence: a regular result). So some model-terms we use are ambiguous and incomplete, yet we draw 'definite' (generalized) conclusions from them. (cf my previous post to Brent about 'model'). The best John Mikes - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brent Meeker everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 7:17 AM Subject: RE: computationalism and supervenience Brent Meeker writes: What I meant was, if a computer program can be associated with consciousness, then a rigid and deterministic computer program can also be associated with consciousness - leaving aside the question of how exactly the association occurs. For example, suppose I have a conversation with a putatively conscious computer program as part of a Turing test, and the program passes, convincing me and everyone else that it has been conscious during the test. Then, I start up the program again with no memory saved from the first run, but this time I play it a recording of my voice from the first test. The program will go through exactly the same resposes as during the first run, but this time to an external observer who saw the first run the program's responses will be no more surprising that my questions on the recording of my voice. The program itself won't know what's coming and it might even think it is being clever by throwing is some unpredictable answers to prove how free and human-like it really is. I don't think there is any basis for saying it is conscious during the first run but not during the second. I also don't think it helps to say that its responses *would* have been different even on the second run had its input been different, because that is true of any record player or automaton. I think it does help; or at least it makes a difference. I think you illegitmately move the boundary between the thing supposed to be conscious (I'd prefer intelligent, because I think intelligence requires counterfactuals, but I'm not sure about consciousness) and its
Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Thanks Bruno, for accepting my position about atheists. You just did not add that 'this is why I don't call myself an atheist'. Theology is well thought of in your explanation, however IMO it carries too much historical baggage (garbage?) since ~500AD to renew peoples' thinking about the meaning of the term. * One question to the math-teach(er): you pressed the 'integers' as the basis of your number-world. How about if we consider from the excellent explanation I read recently on this list about 'string theory origins': to consider the inside the circle equivalents of the 'points' (numbers) outside the circle, - which are the integers - AS THE INTEGERS??? (and call the reciprocals 'inside the circle' as our integers?) would that change the status of the world? Encased in the circle? (That would be a definitely human-manipulated image). You could freely apply all your theories on that, too. John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 9:06 AM Subject: Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology' Le 24-août-06, à 22:46, Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: .. theology A much better pejorative! I can understand, but I *strongly* disagree on this. theology has been studied by the so called rational mystics, which are also the greek philosopher/scientist (but also by Chinese and Indian logicians) during more than one millennia. It is just a sad and contingent fact that theology has been appropriated by politician since about 500 A.D. Abandoning the term theology is the product of a confusion between the field theology and the contingent christian theology. Well, apparently, thanks to St-Augustin (french writing) 2/3 of the main Christian Theology could be Plotinian, and so is closer to comp than, for example the Atheist position, and comp (I mean together with its immaterialist consequences) seems to be much harder to be accepted by atheists than by christians (I got many empirical confirmation of this). I agree with John Mikes: an atheist need to believe in something for not believing in it. Actually they are doubly dogmatic, in the sense they cannot doubt about the existence of a physical-stuffy universe, and very often, atheist denies they are dogmatic (unlike typical believer). I try to avoid completely the term metaphysics, mainly because I use metamathematics in comp, and this could be confusing. I agree with Peter, here, the two meta are unrelated. (Actually a case could be made that Everett made metaphysics in the sense of the meta in metamathematics: but I avoid insisting on that: the term metaphysics is too much emotionally charged). Now we have already developed an entire thread on this vocabulary problem, and I refer those interested to consult them. Other opportunity will appear probably when I will give more explanations on the arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus' hypostases. See the recent ROADMAP (SHORT) for a preview. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.6/427 - Release Date: 08/24/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Brent wrote: If you know the domain of your model there won't be any impact from beyond. Of course the domain is uncertain at the edges - but just because there is Grey doesn't mean there is no black and white. Our views (I did not press: definition) of a model' differs. Since I consider the totality as interrelated and interactive and the 'model' a topical cut as the object of our observation (c.f.: sciences) those boundaries we surround our (my) models are 'cutting off' the rest of the world. With all the influence it may have on events BENEATH those (selected) boundaries. I am not talking about a grey area. * Should we then resort mystical thinking or armchair philosophizing or theological revelation? I do not call your wording an argumentation (style?) ad hominem, if you know no better variant, you can refer to any one that comes to your mind. Finally: Can you do some other kind of thinking? The answer is: YES, for one there are things to which I respond I dunno but try to think in new ways which does not mean that I also completed it. To know about something that is not perfect does not imply the obligation to 'perfect it' at the same time. It takes lots of work. Without necessarily resorting to mystics or (religious) theology. John - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 8:00 PM Subject: Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology' [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stathis: would you condone to include in your (appreciated) post below the words at the * I plant into your text? The words: in the (scientific?) belief system we have TODAY about our interpretation of whatever epistemically we so far learned about the 'world'. That would underline your subsequent sentence - if you kindly stop denigrating the term 'metaphysics' - a pejoration of the same 'carried away' physicists. The word 'prediction' also sends the chill alongside my spine: how can a model based on a model predict events subject to impact from 'beyond model' changes? If you know the domain of your model there won't be any impact from beyond. Of course the domain is uncertain at the edges - but just because there is grey doesn't mean there is no black and white. The many results of science-technology should not lead us into a generalized acceptance of the model-based thinking. Should we then resort mystical thinking or armchair philosophizing or theological revelation? This list is a good example. Can you do some other kind of thinking? Brent Meeker -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.6/427 - Release Date: 08/24/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Stathis:
would you condone to include in your (appreciated) post below the words at
the * I plant into your text?
The words: in the (scientific?) belief system we have TODAY about our
interpretation of whatever epistemically we so far learned about the
'world'.
That would underline your subsequent sentence - if you kindly stop
denigrating the term 'metaphysics' - a pejoration of the same 'carried away'
physicists.
The word 'prediction' also sends the chill alongside my spine: how can a
model based on a model predict events subject to impact from 'beyond model'
changes?
The many results of science-technology should not lead us into a generalized
acceptance of the model-based thinking. This list is a good example.
John Mikes
- Original Message -
From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 8:54 PM
Subject: RE: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
As Brent Meeker has pointed out, physical theories are just models to make
predictions about how the world works*. If physists get carried away and say
this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth then they
are
talking metaphysics, not physics.
Stathis Papaioannou
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 11:51:07 -0400
Stathis,
you touched the 'truth' (a word I put into - because I don't believe
it).
Matter
cannot be an is - actually or virtually. Rutherford's empty atom shows
the
dichotomy between 'effects' ('affects'?) and 'explanation' (more than just
words).
The figment 'matter' is a product of 'mental evolution' in this universe,
to
catch imputes we cannot handle. 'We' is here the mental evolution of the
universe. It was not man, or the old ape who decided let there be matter
in
our thinking - it was a zillion-stepwise development to cope with
'affects'
we experienced without better explanation. So we (humans and animals)
nowadays (~1b years?) accept the notion that 'there IS matter' and we can
interact with it. Physics is a product in this development of reductionist
efforts to 'organize' our world for ourselves.
And then came the other sciences as well, in the same reductionism.
We better do not chase a figment, as long as we are living IN IT - accept
its use and the uncertainty of whatever we talk about. It looks like a
basic
tenet in our percept of reality - the what we see is what we live with
from which I TRY to get to a better understanding (not yet achieved, of
course). All our life, the base knowledge, the technology, the mental
construct, is a product of this figment.
Yes, matter is not matterly, just believed so. Energy is a cop-out - a
'name' for something we cannot put our finger on (mentally). And so are
numbers.
The theories you decry, or promote, all of them, are in the same circle.
Regards
John Mikes
- Original Message -
From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: 1Z everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 5:11 AM
Subject: RE: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Peter Jones writes:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
I can agree. No physicist posit matter in a fundamental theory.
All physical theories are theories of matter (mass/energy).
True, but they are not theories of what matter *actually is*. At
the turn of last century Rutherford showed that atoms were mostly
empty space. Tables and chairs did not suddenly become less solid as
a result, but it became clear that their apparent solidity was not
actually evidence that atoms are solid all the way through. In a similar
fashion, the apparent solidity of matter is not actually evidence that it
isn't just fluff all the way down, or part of a computer simulation. Our
physical theories describe the behaviour of matter without formally
addressing this question at all, despite what prejudices and working
assumptions physicists may have about the true basis of physical reality.
Stathis Papaioannou
_
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Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Stathis,
you touched the 'truth' (a word I put into - because I don't believe it).
Matter
cannot be an is - actually or virtually. Rutherford's empty atom shows the
dichotomy between 'effects' ('affects'?) and 'explanation' (more than just
words).
The figment 'matter' is a product of 'mental evolution' in this universe, to
catch imputes we cannot handle. 'We' is here the mental evolution of the
universe. It was not man, or the old ape who decided let there be matter in
our thinking - it was a zillion-stepwise development to cope with 'affects'
we experienced without better explanation. So we (humans and animals)
nowadays (~1b years?) accept the notion that 'there IS matter' and we can
interact with it. Physics is a product in this development of reductionist
efforts to 'organize' our world for ourselves.
And then came the other sciences as well, in the same reductionism.
We better do not chase a figment, as long as we are living IN IT - accept
its use and the uncertainty of whatever we talk about. It looks like a basic
tenet in our percept of reality - the what we see is what we live with
from which I TRY to get to a better understanding (not yet achieved, of
course). All our life, the base knowledge, the technology, the mental
construct, is a product of this figment.
Yes, matter is not matterly, just believed so. Energy is a cop-out - a
'name' for something we cannot put our finger on (mentally). And so are
numbers.
The theories you decry, or promote, all of them, are in the same circle.
Regards
John Mikes
- Original Message -
From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: 1Z everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 5:11 AM
Subject: RE: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Peter Jones writes:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
I can agree. No physicist posit matter in a fundamental theory.
All physical theories are theories of matter (mass/energy).
True, but they are not theories of what matter *actually is*. At
the turn of last century Rutherford showed that atoms were mostly
empty space. Tables and chairs did not suddenly become less solid as
a result, but it became clear that their apparent solidity was not
actually evidence that atoms are solid all the way through. In a similar
fashion, the apparent solidity of matter is not actually evidence that it
isn't just fluff all the way down, or part of a computer simulation. Our
physical theories describe the behaviour of matter without formally
addressing this question at all, despite what prejudices and working
assumptions physicists may have about the true basis of physical reality.
Stathis Papaioannou
_
Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail.
http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-491
1fb2b2e6d
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Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.5/425 - Release Date: 08/22/06
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Re: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Bruno: why do I have difficulties to go along with many of you? E.g. when you wrote (and not you brought up the ominous "axiom"): "...Which axioms? Indeed, good question, that's makes my point. Well, I was thinking about some physical theory the "someone" would argue for. Anyone a priori." I dislike 'axioms', but do not trust my dislike, so I looked up Wikipedia's definition to have something to argue against G. It said: An axiom is a sentence or proposition that is taken for granted as true, and serves as a starting point for deducing other truths. In many usage axiom and postulate are used as synonyms. In certain epistemological theories, an axiom is a self-evident truth upon which other knowledge must rest, and from which other knowledge is built up. An axiom in this sense can be known before one knows any of these other propostions. Not all epistemologists agree that any axioms, understood in that sense, exist. In logic and mathematics, an axiom is not necessarily a self-evident truth, but rather a formal logical _expression_ used in a deduction to yield further results. To axiomatize a system of knowledge is to show that all of its claims can be derived from a small set of sentences that are independent of one another. This does not imply that they could have been known independently; and there are typically multiple ways to axiomatize a given system of knowledge (such as arithmetic). Mathematics distinguishes two types of axioms: logical axioms and non-logical axioms. It speaks for itself. "We" (not you and me) create axioms to make 'our' theories work. Then we consider the 'system' in question based on such axioms. I try to scrutinize them, to find alternates and scrutinize those also. The other one is an 'a priori (physical?) theory' - sounds in physics similar to 'your' numbers which you may consider 'a priori' existing. If I may ask: what 'natural' senses may detect numbers? Unless. of course, you consider our mind a 'natural sense' (what may be true). As I 'believe': anything recognized by our 'senses' are our mental interpretations of the unattainable 'reality' (if we condone its validity). "My world" is a posteriori. Cheerz John M - Original Message - From: "Bruno Marchal" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 10:31 AM Subject: Re: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... Le 23-août-06, à 03:58, Brent Meeker a écrit : People who believes that inputs (being either absolute-material or relative-platonical) are needed for consciousness should not believe that we can be conscious in a dream, given the evidence that the brain is almost completely cut out from the environment during rem sleep. Almost is not completely.I am glad you don't insist. In any case, I don't think consciousness is maintained indefinitely with no inputs. I think a "brain-in-a-vat" would go into an endless loop without external stimulus.OK, but for our reasoning it is enough consciousness is maintained a nanosecond (relatively to us). I guess they have no problem with comatose people either. Comatose people are generally referred to as "unconscious".? ? ?I mean this *is* the question. In mind'sI (Dennett Hofstadter) we learn that a woman has been in comatose state during 50 years (if I remember correctly), and said she never stop to be conscious.They are more than one form of comatose state. To say they are "unconscious" is debatable at the least. And then there is the case of dreams. And for those who does not like dream, what about the following question: take a child and enclose him/her in a box completely isolated from the environement. Would that fact suppress his/her consciousness?Some parents will appreciate and feel less guilty with such ideas ... Of course they cannot be even just troubled by the UD, which is a program without inputs and without outputs. As I understood the UD the program itself was not conscious, but rather that some parts are supposed to be, relative to a simulated environment.Yes. some "person" attached to (infinity) of special computations, indeed. Now, without digging in the movie-graph, I would still be interested if someone accepting "standard comp" (Peter's _expression_) could explain how a digital machine could correctly decide that her environment is "real-physical". "Decide" is ambiguous. She could very well form that hypothesis and find much confirming and no contrary evidence. What are you asking for? a proof from some axioms? Which axioms?Sorry, I have used the word "decide" in the logician sense (like in undecidable). To decide = to proof, or to test, or to solve, in some math sense.Which axioms? Indeed, good question, that's makes my point. Well, I was thinking about some physical theory the "someone" would argue for. Anyone a priori. If such machine and reasoning exist, it will be done in Platonia, and, worst, assuming
Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
- Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 7:56 AM Subject: Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... Le 22-août-06, à 18:06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : So where is the key to translate number-monsters into thought-monsters? In front of you. Computer or universal machine, or universal numbers. More explanation in the posts. Bruno --- Not as I see it. I tried to describe what I thought and ended up with the question you emphasized above. The posts (many of them) take the 'translational' key for granted, others have similar doubts to mine. No understandable bridging occurred for those who do not start from the inside of the number world. In any religion: you have to believe to believe. John -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.5/425 - Release Date: 08/22/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Bruno:
I read you. I wanted to make a 'link' to
"heaven". Feynman had a humorous mind (as most intelligent people). He
also referred to the medieval silliness of realizing angels (in any
discussion).
Now back to numbers:
I always considered the "world" of (pure) math
[numbers?] a separate one on its own. This is why I differentiated between
"Math" (cap. introduced by Robert Rosen) from "math", the applied
quantizing in the (reductionist) sciences.
The ("other?") world is what makes sense
(sensible non-number meanings).
I still cannot see a bridge
between the (theoretical) churning of numbers (by whatever symbolics) and the
ideational (other?) world, to assign sensible meaning (content?) as equivalent
to number-monsters, or mental events in the 'sensible' world as referring to
'number-manipulations'.
(I call mental events also those that are
reflected as 'events of material world')
The only 'comp' that does that is a - not
binary, not decimal, but 26-ary device (in English, meaning letters as symbols)
the churning of which DOES represent 'meaning' (called words in semantics). The
rules of such math are translatable into 'sensible' meaning from their 26ary
comp (not by illiterates).
The binary (present embryonic-level comp)
reaches such result by the system of transforming the 26ary into binary and
applying additional binary rules into the 26ary meaning.
This is not new, my 1928 Underwood typewriter
did the trick (without binary).
The program was in the typists' brain and
fingers.
So where is the "key" to translate
number-monsters into "thought-monsters"?
Regards
John
- Original Message -
From:
Bruno Marchal
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 6:10
AM
Subject: Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet
really...
Le 22-août-06, à 05:32, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit
:
- Original
Message -From:
Bruno
Marchal To:
everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent:
Monday, August 21, 2006 6:39 AMSubject:
Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet
really...
skipI already told you that I
interpretThere exists a prime number "in plato
heaven",by"There exist a prime number" is true
independently of me, you, the universe ...comp does not need a
magical platonic realm in your sense. I don't introduce it for the notion
of matter and it would be a fatal damage for comp if we were needing such
a magic stuff for numbers.Comp needs just arithmetical realism AR. It
is just the idea that the truth value of arithmetical proposition,
including existential propositions, does not depend on me or of any
cognition apparatus (indeed "cognition apparatus" are defined, with comp,
by relation between numbers, like in Artificial Intelligence, or in comp
cognitive science. BrunoThere existinfinite
prime numbers in Plato's heaven and1000 of them can dance on the
point of a pin.I am sure you have something better thn
that!John Feynman
discovered quantum computation by asking himself how many bits can be handled
for a period of time on the point of a pin.Engineers would appreciate to
know how many primes numbers we could encode on a pin. This is not a silly
question, although out of topic in our fundamental quest, I
guess.Brunohttp://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
- Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 6:04 AM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... (See below) Teach! - I have a difference against your mathematical definition! (ha ha) I thought if '1' is a proper divisor of a number, then the number itself is also. Upon your post I looked up Wikipedia: divisor (nice page) and copied from it: * For example, 7 is a divisor of 42 because 42/7 = 6. We also say 42 is divisible by 7 or 42 is a multiple of 7 or 7 divides 42 and we usually write 7 | 42. For example, the positive divisors of 42 are 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 14, 21, 42. * I don't think 42 is so different from 6. If you abandon the number itself, you MUST abandon the 1 as well and in that case 6, indeed nothing is a perfect number. I really had that suspicion that 'numbers' are not so perfect! (metaphorically). (I have an idea why it is important to leave out the number proper: if '1' and the 'number' are included, there would be NO PRIME NUMBER at all. Would be a shame! Sorry for 37 indeed. Of course the definition of 'prime number' excludes 'the number itself and '1' - which, however, is not binding to the 'definition' of a divisor.) Pupil John == Le 19-août-06, à 21:13, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John M.) a écrit : BTW I have a problem with the perfect 6: ITS DIVISORS are 1,2,3,6, the sum of which is 12, not 6 and it looks that there is NO other perfect number in this sense either. I have define a number to be perfect when it is equal to the sum of its proper divisor. Six is not a proper divisor of six. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.4/424 - Release Date: 08/21/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
- Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 6:39 AM Subject: Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... skip I already told you that I interpretThere exists a prime number "in plato heaven",by"There exist a prime number" is true independently of me, you, the universe ...comp does not need a magical platonic realm in your sense. I don't introduce it for the notion of matter and it would be a fatal damage for comp if we were needing such a magic stuff for numbers.Comp needs just arithmetical realism AR. It is just the idea that the truth value of arithmetical proposition, including existential propositions, does not depend on me or of any cognition apparatus (indeed "cognition apparatus" are defined, with comp, by relation between numbers, like in Artificial Intelligence, or in comp cognitive science. BrunoThere existinfinite prime numbers in Plato's heaven and1000 of them can dance on the point of a pin. I am sure you have something better thn that! John No virus found in this incoming message.Checked by AVG Free Edition.Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.4/424 - Release Date: 08/21/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Hi, Bruno - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, August 18, 2006 11:23 AM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... Bruno wrote: Hi John, Le 18-août-06, à 03:03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Why has 6 'divisors'? because my math teacher said so? then ... Now I know you are joking. I know that you know that six has divisors. It follows from the elementary definitions... [JM]: Yes, I was. Not now: WHO supplied those elementary definitions? Surely a math teacher or the ancestor of such. Not even Gauss was born with the knowledge that 6/2=3. * Just as those axioms Stathis finds 'explanatory' stem from necessity to hold a theory valid. Another view of the world would require different axioms. * Brent wrote about the crows who counted to 5, with some uncertainty even higher and concluded that 'numbers exist in nature' - I did not examine what the crows think, whether it was just a waiting period until their memory expired, and the wise experimentors assigned it to 'counting' - all in their human logic? * BTW I have a problem with the perfect 6: ITS DIVISORS are 1,2,3,6, the sum of which is 12, not 6 and it looks that there is NO other perfect number in this sense either. (If 1 is a divisor - meaning 1x6 = 6 then 6 is also one: 6x1 = 6). An exclusion of '1' would give a sum of 5 - Unless you want to exclude the 'number itself' from the sum - in which case the sum of 1 would be zero (excluded the 1). NOW I was joking. John I say to my students that in case they are saying a falsity (in math), they will get a bad or a good note, depending on the way they will defend the proposition. If they defend it by saying because you say so during the course, then they will get a *very* bad note, indeed! Even, and I would say *especially* if it is true, that I have said that falsity. Actually I teach like that, I make error all the time (mostly intentionally but of course not always). It works. Students eventually understand that they must understand math by themselves. Each year I have student (about 20 years old) just realizing what math is all about. Now I know you are joking. I know that you know that six has divisors. It follows from the elementary definitions. And I will not repeat them, because that would be sort of an insult (of course a number is perfect if it is equal to the sum of its proper divisors ... by definition. Why using the word perfect? Pythagorean superstition or folklore, but mathematicians are not sanguine about words and representations. In the lobian interview all natural numbers are represented by strings like 0, s(0), s(s(0)), s(s(s(0))), etc. :-) Best regards, bon week-end, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.3/423 - Release Date: 08/18/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
David, your post has wits. Yet it reminded me of 'atheism' which starts from the belief it is supposed to deny. I am not an atheist, because I do not know what to deny: what do people 'think' to call god? My question to comp was (and I think it is different from your position): Let me IN into learning about 'comp' from the outside, the 'no comp' mindset. When you say: Comp is false you accepted it and argue about IT. I ask What is comp - if I am outside the entire mindset and don't assume? Bruno is VERY logical and knowledgeable, but his 'mindset' includes numbers and mathematical thinking. I got a lot of good responses from him to my questions and all started from some in theory assumption (e.g. 'assuming comp', etc.). What if we do NOT assume it? I asked about 'numbers' stripped from counting and quantities. Otherwise they are only quantizing adjectives (6 what?). (Like the 'color green'?) Pure mathematics works differently, it even substitutes the numbers with other symbols (yes, 'symbols', if we do not think of the 'what'). I differentiate an applied math in the sciences, working with quantities identified within the limited topical models of the science. This is another subject, - I want to concentrate here on the numbers concept. Ideas 'exist' relationally (and some are translated into physical (materialistic) features). To get to 'ideas' a receiving observer is necessary with enough complexity to accept them. (Then we (our mind) interpret them into the perception of reality). In my older thinking (prone to be revised) I defined my 'information' concept as some difference 'accepted' into an observer. The difference can be e.g. an electric (so called) potential and the acceptor )observer!) even a polar(!) moelcule(!), - or at a different level: a difference, like a strange societal story is accepted by a reader of G.B.Shaw (observer). (Existence in this ontology was the difference itself, observer anything that accepts information.) When the developing human 'mind' reached the complexity to identify 'numbers' the numbers enetered the human thinking. Does it make sense to argue a homoiusion war whether they existed before they could be accepted? For 'us' they started to exist when our mind became capable to 'accept' such information. It is only semantical in our syntax to call this situation an invention. It is only semantical in our syntax to call this situation an invention. Then we started to count and think in quantities using the newly invented 'numbers'. But what are these 'numbers' without the counting and quantizing? Do they have a quantitative original meaning? Originally the 'unit' was 2, and '1' was half of it in certain cases. In my language which is older than the Indo - European ones a man with 1 eye is half-eyed and with 1 hand or foot i said to have lost his half hand or foot. Yet a man is 1, a sable is 1, not 2. Many was 5, seemingly from the fingers, and in Russian grammar they have a dual case and a big plural above 5. (Also: a 'unit' involves more than one by its meaning). David, I do not go all along your long post. These remarks came to mind - I don't write a dissertation. Your idea was an intreresting one. My original reaction (above) was a reminiscence to a 'believer's' challenge that I should 'disprove' god and my answer was: only, if you prove something to exist can I refute it. Best wishes John Mikes - Original Message - From: David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 9:41 AM Subject: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology' Comp is false. Let's see where *that* leads. I'm erecting this as a signpost to indicate a direction, and I would beg the list's indulgence in helping me to look in this direction, rather than confining its comments to the ramshackle construction of the signpost itself. My hope is that you will help me to expose whatever is untrue or confused about what follows (I'm sure you will!). But I hope you will also 'catch my drift'. 1) The bit-stream Comp deals with a bit-stream representation of appearance. The theorems of comp process this bit-stream in terms of a formal system, creating a framework within which 'true or 'false' theorems may be evaluated. This system is by its nature closed, or tautological. The statements that can be made, their 'truth' or 'falsehood', are inherent in the axiomatic and operational characteristics of the formal system as applied to the bit-stream. 2) The instantiation In order to implement the comp approach, an instantiation is required that will represent the bit-stream and enact the formal operations. The Turing machine is an idealised version of such an instantiation. A digital computer is a physical version of a TM. Consequently comp may be instantiated in a digital computer, and copied in innumerable media that suitably preserve its informational structure. 3) Dimensionality The bit-stream
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Bruno: is your
I do indeed find plausible that the number six is perfect,...
an argument?
I asked about the sixness of six, without counting or quantizing. I honor
your opinion, but it is no evidence. 6 is so nice round, VI is not.
If you want, numbers are what makes any counting possible
No, I want: any counting makes numbers possible. On the abacus you may
count or calculate without numbers if you use identical bullets, by
comparing the length of the strings as your foot, your inch, or your elbow.
Why has 6 'divisors'? because my math teacher said so?
I see a vicious circularity here:
numbers are identified with characteristics which are said to be caused by
the numbers. Assigned characteristics, used as justification for the
character. All assumed to be so. If I do not count my fingers, why is 3
different from 5?
If 6 is so perfect, why do we generally use a decimal system? We can even
more compute in binary and even more in 24ary (English) or in 36ary
(Hungarian)
with strings (=words) arithmetic (=syntax) and sum (=sentence - meaning).
So what is the perfect sixness in 6? Or the imperfect nineness in 9 (upside
down)?
You tell me and I will be ready to calculate a Rieman integral or a Lagrange
series.
John Mikes
PS:
When my son was 4 we used 2 buses to the grandparents: #5 and #25. My son
was a good observer. He knew a '5'. On Sunday morning he pointed in the
newspaper to a #2 and said: a Twenty.
- Original Message -
From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Ante diem XVII-um calendas Septembris as Aug. 15 (not XVI as 32-16)
John M wrote:
Bruno:
What is - 6 - ?
Perfect number, you say.
If I do NOT count - or quantize, does it have ANY meaning at all?
Again we are discussing the arithmetical realism (which I just assume).
To be clear on that hypothesis, I do indeed find plausible that the
number six is perfect, even in the case the branes would not have
collide, no big bang, no physical universe.
Six is perfect just because its divisors are 1, 2, and 3; and that
1+2+3 = 6. Not because I know that. I blieve the contrary: it is the
independent truth of 6 = sum of its proper divisors than eventually
I, and you, can learn it.
I don't see sense in saying it is more than 5 and less than 7 if I do
not
know the meaning of 5 and 7 as well. And of 6 of course.
I agree. It does not make sense YOU SAYING that 5 6 7, if YOU
don't know the meaning of 5, and 6, and 7; unless you are lucky when
deciding to say random sentences ('course).
It has nothing to do with the fact that 5 6 7, independently of you
and me. Just keep silent, in case you are not sure about the meaning of
5, 6, and 7.
Without quantification, what does 6 mean? Why is it perfect? In
what?
Try to cut out 'counting' and 'quantities' - let us regard the symbol
'6'.
What does it symbolize?
I can understand it in 2+4=6 on an abacus, but there it is 'counting'
bullets.
If you want, numbers are what makes any counting possible.
What is it in the preceding line?
In old Rome 8-3=6 was the right result (as in their back-counting
calendar
as 8,7,6 - they included the starting (day) into the subtraction), now
8-2
make 6 - 6 what?
It is not because some country put salt on pancakes that pancakes do
not exist there. Roman where writing 8 -3 for us 8 - 2. It is like
saying 3*7 = 25 on planet TETRA. They mean 3*7 = 21, they just put it
differently.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
- Original Message -
From: David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Dave,
thanks fir the friendly and decent words. It was not questionable that you
did not 'attack' comp as false, I reflected principally as a
discussion-technique. I like Bruno a lot and use some not-so-kind
argumentation style lately to tease out from him a stronger argument.
We agree in the goal of learning. You are more of a professional than I am.
John
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
...
John
Thanks for taking the trouble to express your thoughts at such length.
I won't say too much now, as I have to leave shortly to meet a long
lost relative - from Hungary! However, I just want to make sure it's
clear, both for you and the list, that:
Comp is false. Let's see where *that* leads.
isn't intended as a definitive claim that comp *is* false. Rather, *if*
it is false, in what ways specifically, and what are the alternatives?
Can they be stated as clearly and explicitly as Bruno is trying to do
for his approach ('to see where it leads')? Hence the 'anti-roadmap',
or perhaps better - 'another roadmap', or some ideas for one. Most of
the thoughts in it were originally expressed in some earlier postings
on 'The Fabric of Reality' list, which Bruno was kind enough to copy to
this list. Anyway, it's intended as a point of departure (for me
certainly) and I look forward to some strenuous critiques.
One misgiving I have, now that I've finally grasped (I think) that the
comp 'theology' entails 'faith' in the number realm, is that by this
token it seeks to provide a TOE (Bruno, am I wrong about this?) That
is, beginning with an assertion of 'faith' in UDA + the number realm,
we seek to axiomatise and 'prove' a complete theory of our origins.
Bruno is a very modest person, but I worry about the 'modesty' of the
goal. Of course, it's highly probable that I just misunderstand this
point. However, I'm having trouble with my faith in numbers,
monseigneur. My own intuition begins from my own indexical
self-assertion, my necessity, generalised to an inclusive
self-asserting necessity extending outwards indefinitely. I don't look
for a way to 'get behind' this, and to this extent I don't seek a TOE,
because I can't believe that 'everything' (despite the name of this
list) is theoretically assimilable. This may well be blindness more
than modesty, however.
Having said this, of course in a spirit of learning I'm trying to
understand and adopt *as if* true the comp assumptions, and continue to
put my best efforts into getting my head around Bruno's roadmap as it
emerges. I have a lot of experience of changing my mind (and maybe I'll
get a better one!)
David
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Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Very wise words, Bruno. John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 8:45 AM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... Le 15-août-06, à 20:52, complexitystudies a écrit : The deductions made via UDA are impressing, but I would like to seriously question the Platonic Assumptions underlying all this reasoning. No problem. I see you assume a physical universe. I don't. We have just different theories. Note that if you understand the whole UDA, you should realize that the price of assuming a physical universe (and wanting it to be related with our experiences *and* our experiments) is to postulate that you (and us, if you are not solipsistic) are not turing emulable. No problem. (I like to separate issues concerning the choice of theory, and issues concerning propositions made *in* a theory, or accepting that theory). 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
I find Gunther's argumentation commendable, a 'wider' view and a free spirit getting away from the age-old reductionist education-stuff of subsequent many generations of scientists - maybe even to realize that early thinkers, (ingenious though), had to rely on a meager empirical cognitive inventory about the world - to Brent's final remark (in a seemingly positive acceptance) I have one thing to add: ...(Cooper)... argues that logic and mathematics are produced by evolution. Evolution of the human mind that is. (A sub-chapter in Darwin's pick of the biologic (life) aspect in the overall interconnected 'history' of the complexity planet/universe). John Mikes - Original Message - complexitystudies wrote: Hello to the List :-) The deductions made via UDA are impressing, but I would like to seriously question the Platonic Assumptions underlying all this reasoning. Arguments like the perfectness of 6 seem sensible at first sight, but only because we look at this with human eyes. 1) Mathematical thought only exists in human (or alien intelligent) brains. It thus has neural correlates. 2) These neural correlates are strongly coupled to our sensory experiences, how we experience the world in an embodied way. 3) No brains, no neural correlates, no mathematics. It doesn't make sense to argue about the perfectness of 6 when there is nobody around to argue, when nobody thinks about sixness. These concepts are ways of organizing the world around us, not platonic entities existing - indeed - where? (Insert: from Brent M): I agree. Mathematics and logic are ways of constraining our propositions so we don't assert contradictions; contradictions of our own rules. But that doesn't mean they are strong enough to keep us from asserting absurdities. 4) Why do we acknowledge some math as correct, other as not? It is only our grounding in reality, in our sensory experience, which let's us say: this mathematics describe reality sensibly. When we place one rock on another, then have two rocks, it is indeed not astounding that 1 + 1 = 2 in our symbol space. But, again, this is not a description of even an effect of math on reality, rather it is us getting back that what we have inferred beforehand. 5) Indeed, in advanced mathematics, one is often astounded that some math seems to perfectly fit reality, without us having thought of this application before. But in truth, this results from a selection effect of perception. The major body of mathematics is highly aesthetic but has no relevance to physical structures in the real world. Only the mathematics which fits (and getting this fit sometimes is not astounding, see point 4, because we laid it into the system by our experience of the sensory world) inspires some people to wonder why this works. Example: in many equations, we throw away negative solutions because they don't make sense. This illustrates that math doesn't fit by itself, we make it fit. 6) When we have accepted that mathematics does not exist in a platonic realm, but arises from our embodied experience of the world, we should humbly return to hypothesis, theory, validation, falsification, and a constant construction of a world around us which makes sense to _our specific human brains_, no more, no less. --- I think Quantum Weirdness, Gödels Incompleteness Theorem etc. are only consequences of our embodied mathematics, which has evolved on our macroscopical scale, and this granularity and method of reasoning is not adequate for dimensions which transend our immediate sensory experience. As such, I also find MWI and other extravagancies and erroneous way of approaching our current body of knowledge. This path leads astray. Science is successful because we stay connected with reality (our sensory, and enhanced - with machines - sensory experiences). We cannot hope for more, at least at our level of understanding. Interesting Literature: - Where Mathematics Comes from: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being; George Lakoff and Rafael Nunez, 2001 - Metaphors We Live; George Lakoff, Mark Johnson 2003 - Chasing Reality. Strife Over Realism; Mario Bunge, 2006 (I can recommend nearly everything by Bunge, who excels at clear reasoning, and is committed to an unspeculative view on nature) Best Regards, Günther -- From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 9:39 PM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... (See the insert above) I'll take a look at Lakoff. You might like William S. Cooper's The Evolution of Reason which argues that logic and mathematics are produced by evolution. Hence they would be common in any intelligent species that arose by evolution. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You
Re: Can we ever know truth?
Peter, let me 'condensate YOUR interspaced remarks and add my quip to them one by one. My long blurb was enough once on the listG. John Mikes - Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 9:12 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? (ref.:) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To Stathis, Brent, and List: (ref#2): - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] (not really!) To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 3:22 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? ... Any alternative theory also has to make a projecto from current circumstances. [JM]: 1.Exactly what I was missing: why pick ONE and dogmatize it? 2.Who said we are ready to formulate a theory for the 'origins'? ... You will find that unknown events are neglected in all theories. What else can you do with an unknown event ? [JM]: Consider it (or at least that there may be such) and realize the insufficiency of data for writing a bible. The wisdom you quote (accepted) does not make a 'theory' right. That's why I call 'my idea' a narrative, not even a hypothesis. I was not there. ... That would apply to any to any other coscmological theory. [JM]: So we should consider and use some humility. I pointed out ONE (TWO?)definite mistakes among many (see: Eric Lerner's book: The BB never happened - of course it was argued against by cosmophysicists - on 'their' bases and against Lerner's own hype which he voluteered to construct. A mistake. ). ... The Bb theorists were the lepers at one stage. They became establishment by being able ot prove their case. [JM]: The establishment bowed to the number of papers all slanted to 'prove' some details. They WERE indeed the establishment. See my remark on 'proof' at 'evidence' below. ... Is there evidence for any of those mechanisms ? [JM]: Not more than just considering the redshift an optical Doppler effect, which is a good idea. Those(?) mechanisms are also (based on? are?) valid theses in conventional physics - my opinion is anecdotal. LATER ON many 'measurements' were cited as supportive (in)/directly. Popper comes to mind and Goedel with 'evidencing' from the inside of a mindset. Which was considered and rejected. [JM]: You refer to good old Fred Hoyle' harmonica. Do you refer to all 'others' as well in the etc.? ... John Mikes The mindset - as I see it - in the BB-cosmology is 2500 year old. Not Plato, but the Greek mythology, when P. Athenai sprang out from Zeuss' head in full armor. There is a 'seed' accountable for zillion degrees K, zillion gauss gravity, zillion erg compressed work and pertinent energy and (almost) zero space. Yet this - call it - system 'obeys' the complex rules in our conventional physical system equations of VERY narrow limitations in charaacteristics at its very birth. In full armor and fervor. They even calculated out in our time-units what happened at the 10^42 or^32 sec after the (timeless???) zero point of banging. Which was the act of a Quantum Tooth Fairy. Problems? never mind, we have a good term: inflation and it will take care of the irregular behavior of that 'seed'. And never mind how it happened, just use a linear history with linear time-scale to arrive at 'now'. Interesting. Religions are as well interesting. John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Bruno: What is - 6 - ? Perfect number, you say. If I do NOT count - or quantize, does it have ANY meaning at all? I don't see sense in saying it is more than 5 and less than 7 if I do not know the meaning of 5 and 7 as well. And of 6 of course. Without quantification, what does 6 mean? Why is it perfect? In what? Try to cut out 'counting' and 'quantities' - let us regard the symbol '6'. What does it symbolize? I can understand it in 2+4=6 on an abacus, but there it is 'counting' bullets. What is it in the preceding line? In old Rome 8-3=6 was the right result (as in their back-counting calendar as 8,7,6 - they included the starting (day) into the subtraction), now 8-2 make 6 - 6 what? John M To date: Ante diem XVII-um calendas Septembris as Aug. 15 (not XVI as 32-16) - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 8:02 AM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... Le 14-août-06, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : But how must the perfect number exist or not exist? You say you only mean it must be true that there is a number equal to the sum of its divsors independent of you. Do you mean independent only in the sense that others will know 6 is perfect after you're gone, or do you mean 6 is perfect independent of all humans, all intelligent beings, the whole world? In the second sense. The perfectness of 6 is what would make any sufficiently clever entity from any possible (consistent) worlds, existing or not, to know that. In that sense it has to be a primitive truth. You can see this through a sequence of stronger and stronger modesty principles: 1) Bruno is not so important that 6 would loose its perfection after Bruno is gone; 2) The Belgian are not so important that 6 would loose its perfectness after the Belgian are gone; 3) The European are not so important that 6 would loose ... 4) The Humans are not so ... 5) The Mammals are not so ... 6) The creature of Earth are not so ... 7) the creature of the Solar system are not so ... 8) the creature of the Milky way are not so ... 9) the creature of the local universe are not so ... 10) the creature of the multiverse are not so ... 11) the creature of the multi multi verse are not so 11) the possible creatures are not so ... Yes, I think (and assume in the Arithmetical realist part of comp) that the fact that 6 is equal to its proper divisors sum, is a truth beyond time, space, whatever ... I have the feeling I would lie to myself to think the contrary. I am frankly more sure about that than about the presence of coffee in my cup right now. I cannot imagine that the numbers themselves could go away. They are not eternal, because they are not even in the category of things capable of lasting or not with respect to any form of observable or not reality. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.10/419 - Release Date: 08/15/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Can we ever know truth?
To Stathis, Brent, and List: - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] (not really!) To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 3:22 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? Stathis Papaioannou wrote: John M writes: When did you last learn that the tenets of ongoing physics are only provisionally accepted as 'real'? (I just wanted to tease members of this list. Of course on THIS list 'thinking' people gathered and such thoughts are not unusual. We are the exception.) An example is the Big Bang. Many scientists almost put it into their evening prayer. Doubting is heresy. This is why I scrutinize what we 'believe in' and try alternate narratives: do they hold water? Are the new (alternate) ideas palatable to what (we think) we experience? I'm sure all the Big Bang theorists would say that they would change their views if new evidence came to light. Of course, there are thousands of ideas out there and most of them are pretty crazy, pushed by people who don't understand even the basics of what they are criticizing, so it is understandable that these ideas would sometimes be dismissed out of hand by people working in the field. It is also understandable that scientists are only human and get quite attached to the theories on which they base their careers, so they may not change as quickly as they ought to in the light of new evidence. Stathis Papaioannou In fact there are serious theories of the universe in which there is no originating big bang. For example Paul Steinhardt has published papers on a model in which the universe we see is one of two 3-branes in a 10-dimensional space. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0403020 The origin of particles and energy and their flying apart as we see them is due to collision of our 3-brane with the other 3-brane. He shows that this can be a cyclic process in which the universe empties out due to expansion and then another collision can occur. While a few individual scientists may consider the big bang origin of the universe dogma, every scientist working in a field like cosmogony wants to make his name by showing that current theories are wrong. Brent Meeker Of course the Big Bang caught the attention. What I asked about considering our 'visualization' of a reality-percept as provisional - to work with, until a better one shows up : When did you last learn that the tenets of ongoing physics are only provisionally accepted as 'real'? and mentioned the BB as a (side?) example. BTW - speaking about 'the' Big Bang: Hubble (1922) detected a redshift in the spectra of distant (and greater in even more distant) heavenly bodies and was ingenious enough to connotate this with the Doppler effect, concluding, that this shift into lower frequencies of distant bodies MAY HAVE BEEN the result of a receding movement of the light-source, similar to the 'lowering voice' in a Doppler - type auditive phenomenon. Consequently: the universe MAY expand, producing those (alleged) receding movements from us. This is the 'provisionally(!)' accepted reality-percept as of the early 1920s: The idea was logical. - IF - this is a fact, we may apply a retrograde line backwards and arrive to the zero-point, when the universe was started - gradually collapsing into an extensionless point - from which it erose in a big bang. Then came the first (and biggest) mistake: scientists took our present physical science circumstances and applied them (equationally) to all those changing systems of concentration with incomparably higher density of everything (energy? temperature? gravity? if someone ha an idea what these are). They assigned the fractions of the hypothetical 1st sec (^-40 etc.) to storytelling of features just freezing out. It still did not make sense with our equations derived in the present 'cool' and dilated physical system, so an inflation was invented to correct 'some' of the compressed state which made the equations fully paradoxical. IF the Hubble proposal is right (and I give credit to assume it) the calculations and their conclusions must be false - e.g. the age of the universe. A linear retro-math for a chaotic development cannot match, unknown intermittent events are all neglected, the relationships of THIS system are applied for a totally different one. No experimental proof, not even asymptotically: those many orders of magn. make speculation into science fiction. (This is why I composed my narrative). After that - sorry, Brent - not those, who wanted to deny the theory, rather those, who wanted to show 'experimental' simulations assignable to the 'truth' of the theory - designed and performed thousands and thousands of experiments all slanted towards 'evidencing' the idea (E.g. Wilson's background radiation, presented as the 'remnant' of the Big Bang energy-level - earning him a Nobel). So the 'proving' became the way to grants, tenure, acceptance into the
Re: Difficulties in communication. . .
Communication - human and in language, I suppose, depends on words we say, understand and assign (some) meaning to. So here is a bit of nitpicking about the words you used below: (please, Peter, don't take it personally - thank you): Properties: Would you reduce them to green, hard, big, hot etc.? Isn't all that jazz in the physics books about 'properties' in another sense? Roles to perform: you mean roles we 1.) know about, 2.) accept as 'roles', or even does everything have to perform a role? Instantiated: represented by a 'role' we acknowledge. And if we don't? is nature subject to our approval (or even knowledge)? Existence: what is it? Possible things: possible in OUR (limited) view? or possible, even if we 'think' it is impossible (for us)? BTW Harry Potter things are all possible, they exist in our universe, since human minds (part of our universe) have it. So are the numbers (according to D. Bohm: human inventions) - they are part of nature, since humans as part of nature invented them with their minds - and now containing the numbers in nature. (No offense, numberist members!) Propertiless change: as I assume: existence is a property even of matter. Destroy matter and its property of 'existence' will change (BH etc.). Of course the big question remains: is 'radiation' (waves?) matter or not? Just for a lazy Sunday afternoon, with friendship John Mikes - Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 12:30 PM Subject: Re: Difficulties in communication. . . 1Z wrote: That is, there is no plurality of substances with essential characteristics. Just one bare subtrate. Matter is a bare substrate with no properties of its own. The question may well be asked at this point: what roles does it perform ? Why not dispense with matter and just have bundles of properties -- what does matter add to a merely abstract set of properties? The answer is that not all bundles of posible properties are instantiated. What matter adds to a bundle of properties is existence. Thus the concept of matter is very much tied to the idea of contingency or somethingism -- the idea that only certain possible things exist. The other issue matter is able to explain as a result of having no properties of its own is the issue of change and time. For change to be distinguishable from mere succession, it must be change in something. It could be a contingent natural law that certain properties never change. However, with a propertiless substrate, it becomes a logical necessity that the substrate endures through change; since all changes are changes in properties, a propertiless substrate cannot itself change and must endure through change. -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.9/417 - Release Date: 08/11/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Difficulties in communication. . .
!Z: Is matter a property vs not matter? later you substituted 'matter' with 'substrate' when you drew the identity as being interchangeable to. So is radiation matterly matter or an interchange? I told you I am nitpicking. I am not accepting the identification of existence as exist must be. Then you bring in things and concepts, hard to follow, when you deny the existence of HP things literally existing ONLY in the mind. You missed a reply about the numbers. Destroying 'matter'? one mysterious way is to let it be absorbed in a BH, the other - with your words - to 'interchange' (I still did not get whether radiation IS matter or only interchangeable into). I wanted to illustrate that the words we use are captured by different persons in different meanings/connotations. Once it comes to non-conventional thoughts, we do not have the words. I hope I did not irritate you. I tried hard to be difficult. John M - Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2006 3:33 PM Subject: Re: Difficulties in communication. . . [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Communication - human and in language, I suppose, depends on words we say, understand and assign (some) meaning to. So here is a bit of nitpicking about the words you used below: (please, Peter, don't take it personally - thank you): Properties: Would you reduce them to green, hard, big, hot etc.? Isn't all that jazz in the physics books about 'properties' in another sense? Properties are whatever distinguishes one thing from another. Whether green, hard, big etc are reducible to the properties of physics is another question. Roles to perform: you mean roles we 1.) know about, 2.) accept as 'roles', or even does everything have to perform a role? Instantiated: represented by a 'role' we acknowledge. And if we don't? is nature subject to our approval (or even knowledge)? Existence: what is it? A very tricky question. My take is that ..exists is a meaningful predicate of *concepts* rather than things. The thing must exist in some sense to be talked about ...in what sense ? Initially as a concept, and then we can say whether or not the concept has something to refer to. Thus bigfoot exists means the concept 'bigfoot' has a referent. Possible things: possible in OUR (limited) view? or possible, even if we 'think' it is impossible (for us)? BTW Harry Potter things are all possible, they exist in our universe, since human minds (part of our universe) have it. The don't *literally* exist in minds. So are the numbers (according to D. Bohm: human inventions) - they are part of nature, since humans as part of nature invented them with their minds - and now containing the numbers in nature. (No offense, numberist members!) Propertiless change: as I assume: existence is a property even of matter. Destroy matter and its property of 'existence' will change (BH etc.). How do you destroy matter ? Of course the big question remains: is 'radiation' (waves?) matter or not? Mass/energy are interchangeable and are both the substrate.. Just for a lazy Sunday afternoon, with friendship John Mikes - Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 12:30 PM Subject: Re: Difficulties in communication. . . -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.9/417 - Release Date: 08/11/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Colin, Thanks for expressing my ideas so eloquently. However... (of course!) I may interspace some remarks (as usual) on details. (I am more lenient on the oldies (do rely on them less) because our epistemic enrichment could work only on the 'timely' level of comprehension (buildability-up on the 'then' cognitive inventory and mind-function skills). Don't expect from me to be too appreciative on our present level though. We try, as much as we can. * I will insert initials. John M - Original Message - From: Colin Geoffrey Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 3:56 AM Subject: Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Bruno Marchal wrote: If grandmother asks for recalling the main difference between Plato and Aristotle's theories of matter, I would just say that in Plato, the visible (observable, measurable) realm is taken as appearances or shadows related to a deeper unknown reality. BTW Plato followed Heraclitus, who was already onto this. Surely Plato's view more astute model to assemble an understanding of the natural world than the assumption of Aristotlian/atomism thinking... that the universe is made of chunky bits of stuff that literally are the appearances we get and our descriptions of itfurthemore The arisotlian view is clearly anatomically untenable anyway! If the universe was literally made of appearances then when we opened up a brain we would see them. We do not. What we see is the brain in the act of delivering appearances. No 'appearance' of a brain is in any direct relation to the appearances it delivers to us in the 1st person. Ergo the structure and the appearances are not the same thing or at least are validly explored on that basis. [JM]: I will come back to that darn structure. With a 'better look' we may see more, just as we see more today than when that legendary king had the brain of his philosopher sliced up to see all those smart ideas). The modern neurologists claim to see it 'all' - including the term: somehow. This is empirical proof that at least in this small piece of thought Plato's position was correct and Aristotle is just plain wrong. And Kant too. The noumenon is most definitely real and scientifically tractible.(see below) The practical upshot of this is that the universe does not, for example, have atoms in it. It is made of some underlying structure behaving atomly within our appearances. It is only us that insist on making it a 'thing'. [JM]: After 1/2 century pioneering in making a new type of polymers: I agree. I use a slightly different wording, but for the same idea. You use structure - which is a term of our (present) imaging of what we do not see. I don't go that far, don't assign our 'structureal' image to the still unknown. Our present mental capability may be immature to categorize it. Our structure comes from a mathematical evaluation of that (partial) image we so far exerienced within that limited model we pretend to observe. That structure also behaves 'neutrino-ly' outside the scope of our direct perceptions (qualia). The appearances (qualia) are likewise delivered as behaviour of the very same structure. Plato's position unifies matter and qualia as different behaviours of the same underlying structure. So simple and obvious and practical and fits the evidence. A question from grandma: Since this deeper, unknown reality must forever be inaccessible to our direct probing, I agree when you suggest that this may better be thought of as theology, or at least metaphysics. Juicy stuff here: Since this deeper, unknown reality must forever be inaccessible to our direct probing The words 'direct probing' assume that indeed we are at some point directly probing. If you can justify any account that we directly probe (whatever that means!) anything I'd like to see it! [JM]: Amen. Me too. I would hold that the 'apprearances' we have and the 'underlying structure' are on an _equal_ epistemological footing in that a) Depictions of regularity in appearances b) Depictions of structure of a putative underlying natural world both have equal access to qualia as evidence. It is the underlying structure that delivers qualia into the brain. The two descriptive realms: appearances and structure are on an equal footing and qualia unifies them into a consistent set. The 'evidence', qualia, is evidence for BOTH domains. Whatever the structure is, it must simultaneously a) deliver qualia and all the rest of the structure in the universe and b) deliver the contents of qualia (appearances) that result in our correlations of appearances that we think of as empirical laws. [JM]: Maybe reverse: we THINK about a structure because the 'qualia' reaching our mind suggest such ideas. We are 'probing' the unkowable with the little we derived in our interpretation and 'think' it is the truth. Therefore we have not
Re: NOT YET THE ROADMAP
Bruno, I liked what George Levy wrote (19 July 2006): As a mathematician you are trying to compose a theory of everything using mathematics, this is understandable, and you came up with COMP which is strongly rooted in mathematics and logic. A bit lesser the continuation: I came up independently with my own concept involving a generalization of relativity to information theory ( my background is engineering/physics) and somehow we seem to agree on many points. Unfortunately I do not have the background and the time to give my ideas a formal background. It is just an engineering product and it feels right. because engineering and physics (as we know them from past times) are also based on mathematical logic - (if not on straightforward math!) and that puts George in a similar basket with you (No peiorative tone intended, or involved!) To your advice to seek a mathematician (as gossip has it: Einstein relied on the math-help of Goedel): it would serve to anchor George into YOUR basket (sorry George, I believe you are way above such fallibilities as to be 'anchored'). Why not consult (and not just educate into YOUR ways) somebody with a different view (background thinking?) from the rigorous mathematical concepts? I still believe that there is more than just 'numbers' and processes in the existence with different basis than just comp. I don't believe you can PROVE that there is nothing else but math-numbers-comp, unless you call all other possibilities with such NAMES. Name-calling is futile. I can arrive there in a 'little zillion' steps is fairy tale - without at least some details on the 'HOWs'. (Old cliche: the validity of a legal argument). I still wait impatiently for your 'roadmap' communications and preserve my mind to accept it as maybe proving me wrong. I hope I will not miss them in the maze of posts now swarming this list - really beyond my reading capabilities. I would love to watch (and find) a 'subject' preserved for YOUR line eg as: ROADMAP with nobody just clicking 'Reply' to make posts as the same subject 350 times. Grandmotherishly yours John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 10:59 AM Subject: NOT YET THE ROADMAP You should perhaps try to find a mathematician in your neighborhood for helping you to formalize a bit your approach. I can give you book advices on information theory if you are interested. Unfortunately the relation between information theory and logic are not so easy. I know that Abramski works on it, and Devlin wrote a book on information in some logician sense (this is not yet standard), you could search Devlin on Amazon for the reference. In this setting quantum information theory is also hard to avoid. There are many good books too. - Skipped: Copied above - I believe that what you are saying is right, however I am having some trouble following you, just like Norman Samish said. It would help if you outlined a roadmap. Then we would be able to follow the roadmap without having to stop and admire the mathematical scenery at every turn even though it is very beautiful to the initiated, I am sure. For example you could use several levels of explanation: a first level would be as if your were talking to your grandmother; a second level, talking to your kids (if they listen); a last level, talking to your colleagues. BM: Like I just said to Stathis, I have some difficulties. But this is really because I want that roadmap post to be comprehensible by the grandmother. Thanks for being patient, Bruno --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Can we ever know truth?
Norman, my response to the subject is: NO. I learned a good _expression_ here (on this list) I think from Tom(?): "perception of reality". "I can onlyassume that reality ishow things appear to me - and I might be wrong." (Wise way to save one's sanity.) Upon (cultural?) historical examples I have to conclude that our knowledge (unspecified, - all of it) is limited and increasing over time, so the 'reality' we think of is changing to include more and more details. We experience within our ever existing knowledge-base (ncluding now) by interpretation of the impacts we get into the now-content controlled variants. Provided that we believe that there IS a reality - the source of those impacts unknown - I would not call my present-level partial interpretation as the (unknown) total. John M - Original Message - From: Norman Samish To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 12:53 PM Subject: Can we ever know truth? In a discussion about philosophy, Nick Prince said, "If we are living in a simulation. . ." To which John Mikes replied, "I think this is the usual pretension. . . I think 'we simulate what we are living in' according to the little we know. Such 'simulation' - 'simplification' - 'modeling' - 'metaphorizing' - or even 'Harry Potterizing' things we think does not change the 'unknown/unknowable' we live in. We just think and therefore we think we are." This interchange reminded me of thoughts I had as a child - I used to wonder if if everything I experienced was real or a dream. How could I know which it was? I asked my parents andwas discouraged, in no uncertain terms, from asking them nonsensicalquestions. I asked my playmates and friends, but they didn't know the answer any more than I did. I had no other resources so I concluded that the question was unanswerable and that the best I could do was proceed as if what I experienced was reality. Now, many years later, I have this list - and Wikipedia - as resources. But, as John Mikes (and others) say,I still cannot know that what I experience is reality. I can onlyassume that reality ishow things appear to me - and I might be wrong. Norman Samish No virus found in this incoming message.Checked by AVG Free Edition.Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.8/415 - Release Date: 08/09/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The moral dimension of simulation
- Original Message - From: David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 12:10 PM Subject: Re: The moral dimension of simulation [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we simulate what we are living in according to the little we know. Such 'simulation' - 'simplification' - 'modeling' - 'metaphorizing' - or weven 'harrypotterizing' things we think does not change the unknown/unknowable we live in. We just think and therefore we think we are. John David wrote: I'm encouraged by the above to ask if you have any views deriving from this vis-a-vis the 'first person prime' thread? David The thread was much much more than I could attentively follow. My vocabulary is different from most posts and so the 'first person prime' is hard to comprehend. My views do not derive from that thread. 'My' 1st person views are derived from 'impacts' (I will accept a better word) I get - interpreted (adjusted?) according to my 'mindcontent' - experinece, knowledge-base, personality, - which means that it is by no means primary. My percept of reality is a composite of them all. Yours is different. If you tell me about yours, I will 'catch' them in the form my 1st person(ality) understands them, not as you thought it. I wonder if I caught your question? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The moral dimension of simulation
Nick (and List): just a short remark to the very first words of your post below (mostly erased): If we are living in a simulation . I think this is the usual pretension (not only on this list). I think we simulate what we are living in according to the little we know. Such 'simulation' - 'simplification' - 'modeling' - 'metaphorizing' - or weven 'harrypotterizing' things we think does not change the unknown/unknowable we live in. We just think and therefore we think we are. Most ignorantly and commonsensically yours John M - Original Message - From: Nick Prince [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 5:05 PM Subject: RE: The moral dimension of simulation If we are living in a simulation (and I believe the matrix hypothesis is a real possibility) and if we are all just software constructs then the architect has some options available to it. SNIP --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 2:54 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : Sure it is. Just because something cannot be directly experienced doesn't rule it out of a scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but their effects can. Brent: what gives you the right to assume a non experienceable quark as described, and 'assign' some observation (rather: math. conclusion) to IT? Only after eliminating ALL (possible and impossible in our view) other cases that might have led to the effect assigned to quarks quae non sunt. This is the very method by which conventional science arrives at paradoxes. Sorry for the outburst, please read it in a mild tune of voice. Thank you John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Hello, Quentin: we agree in spite of a different formulation: death - I wrote about it as a process in a concept, while I feel you refer to the 'death' of a 'person' or whatever, as a state. The person (or whatever) is a complex entity of its (his?) interconnected and self-reflective (yes, even 'lifeless' features) components - in connection with the rest of the world and when death (my semantics) steps in - such complex entity starts ;losing connection and accordingly ceases to exist altogether (as in its entirety). Portions of it do not qualify for the (entire) complex entity subjected to the 'death' (your semantics) process. It may continue to be something partially similar, but not anymore the entire complex. I have to differentiate in this respect between essential and non essential ingredients: a limb does not seem to be essential to a person, so the loss of a leg does not destroy the 'person' complexity into death. Even a (larger) part of the neuronic brain is not necessarily 'death-inducing', nor the partial loss of mentality. I have yet to find the criteria for identifying the kinds of 'ingredients' the loss (destruction, paralysis, dysfunction) of which we may qualify for 'death-inducing' - I do not rely on the ongoing medical terms which allow 'near-death' and reversible 'clinical' death (coma?) and consider the medically pronounceable death in a physiological restriction. I have no acceptable (for me) identification for life. For sure I consider it wider than the churning of C-H-O-N based molecules in the Terrestrial biosphere. Feeling identical with that kid of 5 is a funny notion: emotionally it is memory of that early I in my present terms, mentality is the present one, not that 5 year old (logic, experience, cognitive inventory, even use of memes) and - allegedly none of my present 'atoms' in my 'body' is the same anymore. So what is what I feel as MYSELF? In spite of Saibal's 'killing of a person by adding too much new information to his experience'??? I am still 'alive'(?) and feel identical to that (Saibal-killed) infant. And when I die, that kid also dies (with/in me). This question of the two of us is real, within common sense normalcy, no teleportation or duplication involved. Regards John M - Original Message - From: Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 6:51 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity Hi John, Le Vendredi 30 Juin 2006 21:06, John M a écrit : An interesting observation from Saibal that increasing the info-input to one's brain kills person(ality?). I would not say dead, rather 'changed' as into some different one. (It is a gradual change, death is being thought of as something more abrupt and comprehensive.) For me death means to never be conscious again... never. That's why death is meaningless in a 1st person point of view, because it is impossible by definition to feel being dead, because if you could feel being dead, it means you're not (dead), if you were by definition you couldn't feel/experience it. So the you at 3 years old could not be dead, because you remember being it (in your bones). That's why I think speaking of 1st person experience/identity as being illusionary is a bad step for explaining 1st person experience, which is the only thing we ever experience, the only real thing we can be sure of. In spite of that, knowing that when as a 5-yo I had different person-ality and ideas, brainfunction and emotions, I still feel NOW identity with THAT PERSON. I totally agree with this. And I think speaking (bis repetita) of 1st person experience/continuous identity through time as being an illusion can not explain the feeling of being a self every day till ... ? ;) The best John M Regards, Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 3:34 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity John M wrote: ... Stathis wrote: ... I agree. Other people are part of the model of the world we form. And in the same way the existence of myself, as a durable entity, is also a part of that model. Brent Meeker * Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close on solipsism? Not if you accept that *all* our ideas of reality are models. The fact that they work well and are coherent makes me believe they are models of an external reality - not a personal illusion - but I can still doubt that they *are reality* itself. In other words I take them to be like scientific theories: provisionally accepted, but subject to refutation. Provided that your solipsism does not 'illusion' similarly thinking persons and phenomena that all match closely he one you imagined as the 'original' one. 'Scientific theories' ditto. Solipsism is an irrefutable quagmire of lunacy. Then again: ... I have memories from when I was 5yrs old, but the source of identity I feel in those memories arises only from the fact that I remember a personal viewpoint in spactime and I remember emotions. Those are the same aspects of memories of last week that make them coherent with my model of myself as a being who persists over time. Brent Meeker I would love to go a bit further than that. I am working on it without firmly believing to arrive at a good solution soon. (I.e. during the time I have left). John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Only Existence is necessary?
Marc: your considerations are enlightening. I am no mathematician so I try to evaluate your (and others') remarks in a broader sense - and get diverse thoughts. Your question is more and more relevant and less and less explained by those who live in math. Tom wrote: math is invariant, but is it still? The world is NOT invariant, it is a ceaseless process of change and we take snapshots. Math puts explanatory logic on such snapshots, so far (?) invariance-wise, staying within. (Goedel stepped further and I suspect: Bruno as well). So I had to conclude: mathematicians are conservative, not advancing with the trend of a dynamic view of 'everything' - unless my above hint to newer math holds. I could not explain (1st person) (to myself) WHAT such math could be. Or: what the 'new' sense of NUMBER may be, everything is no answer. Then I do not need a new statement. Then I have an old noumenon: with a new word. I would leave that to the dictionary-writers. About your time-dimension(S): in THIS UNIVERSE a time-concept arose by the inside view according to the restricted qualia forming our world. Not differently from space and the combination of these: movement, referring in abstraction: to change. So we have the 'right' to formulate multiple concepts for them. Mathematics, the invention of the human mind (after Bohm) is a stage in our epistemic enlightenment and is the product of restriction since we (humans) use a materially (figment!) limited tool: the human brain, for thinking. It is not restrictive to the ...(?) existence? nature? everything? even: reality? beyond us. I leave it open that 'other' universes, composed by other qualia, may have 'other' concepts than ours. Time etc. Logic etc. Math on 'variant' units, unrestricted variables and dimensions (whatever these are) I use 'timelessness' as a variation: thought is atemporal, aspatial. We CAN think in those restrictions, but also transcending them. So several time-dimensions are not so 'radical' for me. I may not be able to 'concretize' them, but not excludable. Your use of causality is also universe-bound. In a total interconnectedness I figure a continuous change of everything with influence of everything on everything (is it culminating in Hal R's nothingness?) so all changes are deterministic even if we cannot follow all angles. Change comes from change, influence changes influence. We pick causes in our limited model-view, looking for influences and origins 'within' our (boundary-enclosed) topical? model we can think in. Then we find a most likely cause, just disregarding the 'rest of the world' with its combined entailment, outside our observational limitations. I do not base my speculations on ideas of (maybe ingenious) earlier thinkers too much (how much? good question) because the epistemic cognitive inventory at their time was meager, humanity is continuously increasing the 'stuff' we can think in, with, about, for, by etc. and do not restrict myself by 'accepted' limiting rules - maxims? like e.g.. the 'expanding universe' and its consequences all the way to e.g. the Everett to Tegmar type multiverse or even the Flat Earth as center of the universe (according to Einstein it may (or may not) well be it, since movements are relative, no matter how complicated it may be), adding to that the limited model view of our physicists (including Q-science). The figment of our traditionally built edifice of a physical world and its 'rules' is very impressive and practically exploitable, including 'math' (in which I, too, do differentiate between the 'ideal' (pure?) 'Math' and the applied 'math' (using (Robert Rosen's capitalization) applying the former's results to the latter, with limited model-quantities derived from the (scientific?) physical view. Thank you for triggering the formulation of these thoughts of mine by your post. I am not ready with my speculations to discuss them with people well versed in worldviews based on foundation of different knowledge-base 'sciences'. John Mikes - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 5:56 AM Subject: Re: Only Existence is necessary? Ah, waht is mathematics? I suspect humans could spend their life-times pondering this profound question and never fully understand. I'm a mathematical realist in the sense that I think mathematical entities are real objective properties of reality and not just human inventions, but I've come to seriously doubt the Platonist idea that mathematics is static and timeless. Rather I now favor the idea that mathematical truth can evolve with time. See Greg Chaitin for some ideas about this. As some of you may, know, I've suggested some radical ideas about time on this list: namely the idea that there may be more than one time dimension, in the sense that there may be more than one valid way to define cause and effect relations. My big big idea is that
Re: Only Existence is necessary?
Tom, my English may be feeble and artificial (as the 5th), but I see not too much difference IN ESSENCE whether math is dealing with (about!) invariance, or the idea of math is itself (about?) invariance. Invariance is the state itself I like to disregard. John - Original Message - From: Tom Caylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 12:25 PM Subject: Re: Only Existence is necessary? Marc and John, Interesting ideas. Don't have time to comment appropriately. But I want to say one thing about my previous thought. Note that I said that mathematics is *about* invariance; I didn't say that mathematics *is* necessarily invariant. There's a big difference. Tom -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.2/372 - Release Date: 06/21/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Brent, Colin and Bruno: I had my decade-long struggle on 3-4 discussion lists (~psych and ~Physx) about objective reality being really subjective virtuality - and I finally won. Assuming (!) an existing 'reality' (=not being solipsist) also assumes that impacts arrive at one's mind (what is it?) which interprets them to a suitable understanding within the limitations we have. That is widely called the objective reality. (Brent went a step further in his agreed upon clause). It was exciting how differently the students of different disciplines gave in. Subjective is ambiguous: pertaining to the subject (person) thinking, or pertinent to a subject to speak about. This later is frequently called object. So we have a semantical mess (why not in this, too?) and we fall in the trap. We have no ways (tools, understanding) to get to the real thing whatever that may be, sending those impacts to us. Agreed intersubjectively, or not. (We - sort of - agreed on this list lately to speak about percept of reality). * To Colin's experiment a question: are blind people not capable of thinking straight? scientific is an odd word and could be 'subject' to debate: IMO all sciences (conventional that is) are based on some model-view, at least are topically limited and observed within such limitations. The new ways of 'free thinking' what we try to exercise on this one and some other lists lately, try to think broader, if not quite without boundary-limitations (it would wash away whatever one could state into a wholeness of ambiguity). Paradoxes, (unexpected) i.e. emerging novelties, axioms, givens etc. are products of model-limitations. The visual is not the only restriction we suffer from, simply the most studied one. I thank Colin for the wise par about the 'objective'. * Finally to Brent's concluding words: We all can agree on features based on models because we all suffer from the same incompleteness. And please, take into account that the model you talked about is not fixed, it is a snapshot at a time and changes continually into different occurring characteristics. So our conclusions are temporary-based. It is hard to do science with such premises, but who said that life is easy? Best regards John Mikes - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 2:29 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: Bruno writes snip I see what you mean and I agree with you, but now, you were again talking about third person description of the first person point of view (I will write 1-pov, 3-pov, ...). Yes. I find that the 1st person accounts to be pretty subjective, actually. They also lead to inconsistencies and unnecessary differences of opinion. In history, the 1st person experience (e.g. the stars revolve around the Earth) are always upstaged sooner or later by actual, objective data. Bruno! This is a very good joke! I find that the 1st person accounts to be pretty subjective LOLOLOLOLOL!!! :-) How could a 1st person account be anything else!? Actually I'd like to challenge your statement and suggest that there is no such thing as 'an objective view'! All we _actually_ have for our scientific evidence is first person experience! What we do (behave) is to carry out a procedure called _objectivity_ to select/agree on what we are studying within the individual subjective experience of those doing the 'agreeing'/being objective. When they have all agreed, there is _no_ _one_ _person_ actually having (experiencing) that so called 'view'. The objective view is a VIRTUAL construct. The universe is acting 'as if' there was someone having the view, but there is no-one actually having the view. Ernest Nagel called the so called objective view the view from nowhere. Here's a scientific experiment for the list: 1) Close your eyes. 2) Now prove you can do science to the same extent you could before. That is if you are now even able to read the rest of the instructions for the experiment! .i.e it ain't gonna happen, is it? Such an odd position for a scientist! a) Totally dependent on subjective experience as a causal ancestor to the act of 'being scientific', .i.e. it is all there is. b) having a false belief in the existence of an 'objective view', and then, c) finds that when you use the scientific observation system (subjective experience) to try and observe and be scientific about the scientific observing system (subjective experience), you can't observe it! Your words actual, objective data are actually an oxymoron! There is objective data, but it's derived entirely from a subjective experience which is discarded by the act of objectivity. What does the word 'actual' mean in this context? We have something going on in the universe that has been mapped through a human's subjective experience and then
Re: Reasons and Persons
And why do you want to restrict a 'person' to a cut view of its neurons only? Isn't a person (as anything) part of his ambience - in a wider view: of the totality, with interction back and forth with all the changes that go on? Are you really interested only in the dance of those silly neurons? John M - Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, May 29, 2000 9:07 PM Subject: Re: Reasons and Persons There must exist a ''high level'' program that specifies a person in terms of qualia. These qualia are ultimately defined by the way neurons are connected, but you could also think of persons in terms of the high-level algorithm, instead of the ''machine language'' level algorithm specified by the neural network. The interpolation between two persons is more easily done in the high level language. Then you do obtain a continuous path from one person to the other. For each intermediary person, you can then try to ''compile'' the program to the corresponding neural network. - Original Message - From: Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 02:29 AM Subject: Re: Reasons and Persons Russell Standish wrote: On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 07:15:33PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I don't see why you are so sure about the necessity of passing through non-functional brain structures going from you to Napoleon. After all, there is a continuous sequence of intermediates between you and a fertilized ovum, and on the face of it you have much more in common mentally and physically with Napoleon than with a fertilized ovum. However, technical feasibility is not the point. The point is that *if* (let's say magically) your mind were gradually transformed, so that your We need to be a bit more precise than magically. In Parfit's book he talks about swapping out my neurons for the equivalent neurons in Napoleon's brain. Sure this is not exactly technically feasible at present, but for thought experiment purposes it is adequate, and suffices for doing the teleporting experiment. The trouble I have is that Napoleon's brain will be wired completely differently to my own. Substituting enough of his neurons and connections will eventually just disrupt the functioning of my brain. I agree that Parfit's simple method would probably create a nonfunctional state in between, or at least the intermediate phase would involve a sort of split personality disorder with two entirely separate minds coexisting in the same brain, without access to each other's thoughts and feelings. But this is probably not a fatal flaw in whatever larger argument he was making, because you could modify the thought experiment to say something like let's assume that in the phase space of all possibe arrangements of neurons and synapses, there is some continuous path between my brain and Napoleon's brain such that every intermediate state would have a single integrated consciousness. There's no way of knowing whether such a path exists (and of course I don't have a precise definition of 'single integrated consciousness'), but it seems at least somewhat plausible. Jesse -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.0/353 - Release Date: 05/31/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Reasons and Persons
Saibal, your phrase: ...very complex ''laws of physics'' that describe the qualia we experience. .. includes laws: the recurring observational portions in the model observed, (if our view extends, the 'laws' may alter) and a restriction to what we experience. Which is continually expanding as our epistemic enrichment goes on - and/or as we learn to 'think' better. I may compare your position in hard/soft ware dichotomy to my ignorance is computer science what I never learned: I see lights on/off and some hardware when I peek into the box and hear noises, and read what comes on the screen. As an engineer I may guess that the hardware turns and contacts lick off signs, organize them, but from software I have no idea (not compiler, not programs, not how your name comes out of 0,1, but I accept it and manipulate my computer (poor soul!) to DO what I want. This is the level I feel in your (and others) position about our brain (even if it includes the software) simulating us even understand the universe. Starting with that 'nothin' we know and speculating about the rest. The ideas may be recent, but the modus operandi (mental) is ancient. Thanks for the reply John M - Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything everything-list@googlegroups.com; John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 11:50 AM Subject: Re: Reasons and Persons John, actually I don't want to do that per se. I think that ultimately we live in a universe described by the very complex ''laws of physics'' that describe the qualia we experience. Perhaps it is better to say that we are such complex universes. We are simulated in a universe described by simple laws of physics. Our brains are simulating us. We shouldn't confuse the hardware with the software Saibal Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: And why do you want to restrict a 'person' to a cut view of its neurons only? Isn't a person (as anything) part of his ambience - in a wider view: of the totality, with interction back and forth with all the changes that go on? Are you really interested only in the dance of those silly neurons? John M - Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, May 29, 2000 9:07 PM Subject: Re: Reasons and Persons --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Smullyan Shmullyan, give me a real example
Stathis: 1. to Kim's question to Bruno (and your reply): I call reasonable the items matching OUR (human) logic, even if we call it a machine. There is no norm in the existence for 'reasonable', as Cohen and Stewart showed in their chef d'oeuvre on Chaos in the imaginary Zarathustrans. We, with our 100 years ahead thinking and Bruno with his 200 should be above such narrowminded limitations. 2.to your 'delusion': it is correctG. )...The single best test is to treat someone with antipsychotic medication and see if the delusion goes away.) is this to implant new delusions and see how the poor fellow reacts? We had some intelligent dicussions about 'everybody is crazy' (George at al.) and so crazy is 'normal' and the norm may be crazy. Are the psych-professionals exceptions? 3. You wrote: An unreasonable machine would look like a brain. The minds of living organisms, such as they are, evolved ... Because we know so little about the ways a brain works and assume too much based on our present ignorance to explain everything still unknown. There is the terror of physicists forcing their primitive model on the world, especially on domains where SOME features can be measured in established 'phisics-invented' concepts by the so fa physics-invented instruments and read in physics-invented units, although the conclusions come from 'non-physics-related' activities (mentality, ideation, feelings, delusions, etc.,) all having parallel and physically measurable phenomena in the neurological sciences. we use the 'brain' as a tool and have no idea how it works and for what. In your quoted fragment I feel an equating of brain and mind, which I find at least premature. I don't know what a mind may be. I know(?) it must be both atemporal and aspatial, while the material of the brain is imagined (physically) to be space and time related. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2006 8:25 AM Subject: RE: Smullyan Shmullyan, give me a real example Kim Jones writes: Bruno, what would an unreasonable machine be like? You seem to be implying they exist, also that they can prove things about their possible neighborhoods and or histories. (?) Kim An unreasonable machine would look like a brain. The minds of living organisms, such as they are, evolved to promote survival and reproduction, and apparently being rational is only a minor advantage towards this end. I am sure that even logicians, at least when they are off duty, pluck axioms out of the air according to whim or fashion, hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously or sequentially, decide that the correct course of action is x and then do ~x anyway, and so on. It is interesting that in psychiatry, it is impossible to give a reliable method for recognizing a delusion. The usual definition is that a delusion is a fixed, false belief which is not in keeping with the patient's cultural background. If you think about it, why should cultural background have any bearing on whether a person's reasoning is faulty? And even including this criterion, it is often difficult to tell without looking at associated factors such as change in personality, mood disturbance, etc. The single best test is to treat someone with antipsychotic medication and see if the delusion goes away. This means that in theory there might be two people with exactly the same belief, justified in exactly the same way, but one is demonstrably psychotic while the other is not! Crazy thinking is so common that, by itself, it is generally not enough reason to diagnose someone as being crazy. 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: why can't we erase information?
Thanks, Russell, I really do not want to continue - seems side-line to you and side line to me. I just cannot keep my mouse shut. 1. The 'nonequilibrium' topics still identify a certain 'cut' within the boundaries of them, neglecting wider - maybe unobserved/able - effects from 'unrelated' sides. (see my '3' below) Pertinent to 'closed systems' as well. In (my) wholistic view nothing is shut of of anything in an intereffectiveness that may include unknown elements at the level of our present cognitive inventory. 2. Suppose singularity is not - where does the (alleged) GR break down? It is a 150th consequential idea from a questionable startup-figment and we just continue to build logically, quantitatively, formally - call it science. To be clear: I appreciate and USE the technological marvels based on such questionable theoretical background. I believe in human ingenuity even on wrong premises. 3.To your last par: one cannot have it both ways. Einstein (what a comparison to myself!!!) did not accept all Newton in his thinking and tackled only certain terms in a new view. Copernicus did not abide by the well proven Flat Earth and just 'included' at some points his new ideas. You cannot keep creationism when you think in evolution. I may get lost - as you say - but it won't last long. I won't either. In the meantime I have the luxury of tasting the new ideas. And I feel I am not alone in these ways John M - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 2:01 AM Subject: Re: why can't we erase information? On Sat, May 06, 2006 at 10:24:05PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Russell, my apologies for the approximate typing. I don't assign to your not following my comments to that awful new keyboard I tried to use (light grey letters on a slightly less light grey base - not visible and I am not a good 'blind'typist) with the YAHOO-mail spellchecker that garbles up the letters - I think your uncertainty stems from a different knowledge-base I use. No doubt. Classical thermodynamics I learned in 1942 when I identified it as the science which tells us how things would go wouldn't they go the way they do go meaning the game of isotherm and reversible equational craze in closed systems. Then later Prigogine et al improved upon it, but I still hold the field within the limited model of our epistemic - ever changing, enriching - interpretation of the (obsolete) historical bases from very primitive knowledge level times and accordingly primitive measurements by unsophisticated instrumentation, subject to an all ingenious explanation on THAT level. (Think about the dozen+ (and still counting) changing views about the 'entropy' conceptS). Indeed - you are thinking of the difference between equilibrium thermodynamics (which is classical in the sense of being a mature topic, but of extremely limited validity), and nonequilibrium thermodynamics which applies to much of the rest of reality, but which is very much an ongoing research topic. I have always eschewed equilibrium physics in favour of the more exciting nonequlibrium topics. Nevertheless, the concept of closed system applies in both equilibrium and nonequlibrium cases. * Singularity in my view is a no-system because there is no way we can extract any information about it - unless we give up the definition. This is how I view a 'closed' system, (not lawyerish: well, you can look at it as semi-closed, or even open, if you like,...) If it is closed, it is closed. Singularity is nice to speak about, I hold: there is no such thing only in sci-fi. We get usded to many sci-fi marvels and in the 15th step it looks like real. Singularities are one of the features of General Relativity, but are contradictory in the sense that GR is expected to break down (in the sense of failing to describe reality) near them. So perhaps singularities do or do not exist. In fact we really don't know much about how they should behave assuming they do exist. The business of event horizons (which would cloak singularities, as well as other high density regions of space - collectively known as black holes) and information flow is certainly a case in point. Unitarity is tied up with information conservation, and some studies indicate black holes violate unitarity. I'm personally sceptical that unitarity is ever violated, except as a process of observation (the creation of information). But I have no plans to work in this area. Russell, when I said good bye to my polymer science (1987) and started to think I tried to throw out things to be 'believed' (axioms, paradoxes, emergence, chaos). I retired with limited movablity and allowed myself to get away from conventional reductionism. You are in the profession, books projects, responsibility for what you said yesterday: I don't want to persuade you to
Re: why can't we erase information?
Russell, my apologies for the approximate typing. I don't assign to your not following my comments to that awful new keyboard I tried to use (light grey letters on a slightly less light grey base - not visible and I am not a good 'blind'typist) with the YAHOO-mail spellchecker that garbles up the letters - I think your uncertainty stems from a different knowledge-base I use. Classical thermodynamics I learned in 1942 when I identified it as the science which tells us how things would go wouldn't they go the way they do go meaning the game of isotherm and reversible equational craze in closed systems. Then later Prigogine et al improved upon it, but I still hold the field within the limited model of our epistemic - ever changing, enriching - interpretation of the (obsolete) historical bases from very primitive knowledge level times and accordingly primitive measurements by unsophisticated instrumentation, subject to an all ingenious explanation on THAT level. (Think about the dozen+ (and still counting) changing views about the 'entropy' conceptS). The 'scientific view' does not fit into the interconnected and interactive wholeness - it is topically boundaried (reduced?) into a model view. It is representative to our ongoing sciences, we cannot think including the 'totality' using our matter-limited brainfunction, - only in a 'reduced-to-models' way, which is pretty efficient as long as we do not want to explain them all by the results drawn from within a limited model. Our present view (totality, or wholeness) is far from know-it-all, but I think it covers more information than had Ptolemy, Newton, Adam Smith or Rousseau. Brilliance of mind does not substitute for factual knowledge. * Singularity in my view is a no-system because there is no way we can extract any information about it - unless we give up the definition. This is how I view a 'closed' system, (not lawyerish: well, you can look at it as semi-closed, or even open, if you like,...) If it is closed, it is closed. Singularity is nice to speak about, I hold: there is no such thing only in sci-fi. We get usded to many sci-fi marvels and in the 15th step it looks like real. Russell, when I said good bye to my polymer science (1987) and started to think I tried to throw out things to be 'believed' (axioms, paradoxes, emergence, chaos). I retired with limited movablity and allowed myself to get away from conventional reductionism. You are in the profession, books projects, responsibility for what you said yesterday: I don't want to persuade you to think differently, especially since I am fully aware of the embryonic level of the 'new ways' I still try to find. I have questions, very few answers and I doubt them. John - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 12:17 AM Subject: Re: why can't we erase information? On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 08:04:40AM -0700, John M wrote: Russell, thanks for your fime and effort to reply. 3 things: 1. You picked my Hawkng typo, I have many more. I do recall that post and it gives me while writing, the subconscious vacillation: which version is the right and which the left? Very rarely do I wright his name. Well I was having a little dig at you - not being at all serious about it... 2. You use usable (used) physics views in a topic way away from classical physics views, puting a systems talk into space-time measuring with a morphology I cannot (don't want to) follow in this thread. This is the usual definition and context of the term closed system. Of course the term closed means many other things: a closed set for instance, or closure in formal systems (which means the formal system is complete). But I always thought we were talking about the thermodynamic meaning. 3. In your last par you said it: isolated from the rest of the unkiverse exactly the singularity I DO identify with Tom's description of a closed system. But I'm not sure a singularity is a closed system (the thermodynamics meaning anyway). And 2Qs: Yours: What is an unknowable closed system? If nothing (including information) comes out it must be pretty unknowable. In that ballgame ou suppose: it turns open from c;osed and then again closed, I assume it disappears from our observation. I see no indication that it keeps the same coordinates when dissappeared as we found kit at when it was open. The coordunates you want to find it at dissipate as well. I don't see why this should happen - perhaps it happens sometimes, but not to classical thermodynamics systems. Not to mention the changes or world ujndergoes to... Mine: RSt: Usually because it doesn't move :) Consider something inside a shielded container in a vacuum... How is move identified in connection with (my version of) closed system (singularity) with no interconnection in space lor time of OUR habiturl
Re: The Time Deniers
Dear Hal, let me know if my (naive) worldview on Stephen's question is compatible with what you wrote (below): (to1: I don't know what to do with all possible because it is far beyond any idea we may have. Unless we restrict the 'all' to whatever we can think/know of). to2: In the inherent and incessant DYNAMISM (as you wrote random? and I still do assign random to our ignorance to find order in cases called 'random') - - to resolve the inherent incompleteness (ie. relax the stress, as I like to word it): any BEING must represent a snapshot of an inevitable and transitional BECOMING - from and into. That is in my 'wholeness' worldview. Totally interconnected, interinfluencing, interresponsive dynamism. to 3: Boundaries are constituting the 'models' of 'Somethings', restricting the observer (which I identify as ANYTHING/EVERYTHING that accepts information) from viewing the totality. I call such diversion from the wholeness a reductionism: reducing the observation into a boundary-enclosed model view. So in such case a BEING is acceptable as partial to the model. I think this agrees with your 'states' being above-model entities, as you said: passing through the boundaries. to 4: I don't 'speculate' into reductionist detail-viewings (I have trouble enough with the wholistic formulations and once I slip into the cop-pout laxness of reductionist thinking, I lose grounds). However the width of boundaries you mention comes handy in the current problem I have on my agenda: How come that in the wholistic ie. unlimitedly interconnected world certain items are more connected than others - sort of a natural basis for model-formation? George Kampis lately called such differentiation (in evolution-thinking) a depth of the connection. I tried an ideational closeness but this is too primitive a metaphor. It emerged from my Karl Jaspers F. paper (2004) of Networks of Networks where the infinitely outbranching unlimited network systems still form networks and not a boundariless free floating 'grits'. Closeness came in from a visualization of interconnected networks, through how many can one get to a distnat item, which itself of course is also a network on its own. --Ideas appreciated. -- (Forgive me to burden you with my ongoing topic of so far unsolved speculations). John Mikes - Original Message - From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2005 3:31 PM Subject: Re: The Time Deniers Hi Stephen: At 03:03 PM 7/7/2005, you wrote: Dear Hal, Which is primitive in your thinking: Being or Becoming? Stephen Let me try it this way: 1) All possible states preexist [Existence]. 2) The system has a random dynamic [the Nothing is incomplete in the All/Nothing system and must resolve the incompleteness - this repeats endlessly] that passes states from the outside to the inside of an evolving Something [There are many [infinite] simultaneously evolving Somethings - due to the repeats] [Becoming]. 3) The boundaries of the Somethings bestow instantations of reality to states as they pass through the boundary [Being]. 4) The width of the boundary determines the pulse width of Being over the dimension of closely coupled states [continuity etc.] Hal Ruhl -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.8.10/43 - Release Date: 07/06/05
Re: Have all possible events occurred?
Brent. thanks for reason. How about staarting with that silly word: possible? According to what? Our imagination? Can we devise circumstances beyond our mind? Is it reasonable to judge whether something is possible that is beyond our mental capability? Or informational space? Is the world restricted to our views? (and I mean it broader than just numbers). Best regards John Mikes - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything-List everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2005 5:54 PM Subject: RE: Have all possible events occurred? -Original Message- From: Norman Samish [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 4:33 AM To: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Have all possible events occurred? Norman Samish writes: Stathis, when you say if you believe that everything possible exists are you implying that everything possible need NOT exist (thus refuting Tegmark)? Wouldn't this mean that space-time was not infinite? What hypothesis could explain finite space-time? Brent Meeker writes: Spacetime could be infinite without everything possible existing. It might even depend on how you define possible. Are all real numbers possible? Norman Samish writes: Brent, to me this is cryptic. Can you enlarge on what you mean? Your statement seems to contradict what I've read, more than once; In infinite space and time, anything that can occur must occur, not only once but an infinite number of times. I don't know the author or source, but I've assumed this is a mathematical truism. Am I wrong? It's certainly not a mathematical truism. It might follow from certain conceptions of quantum mechanics; but I haven't seen any explicit derivation of that. There's nothing to prevent the universe from being infinite in both space and time and yet be almost completely empty, or filled with only photons, or repeating periodically, or various other possibilities if you are willing to count as possible different spontaneous symmetry breaking of the fundamental symmetries. As for Are all real numbers 'possible'? According to the definitions I use, the answer, of course, is yes. I obviously do not understand the point you are trying to make. Different sets have different cardinality. The cardinality of real numbers is greater than that of integers. The cardinality of functions over space is greater than the cardinality of points in space. So what's the cardinality of occurences? Brent Meeker -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.8.5/32 - Release Date: 06/27/05
Re: Measure, Doomsday argument
Russell, you wrote: ... - ... By contrast a universe that is just big enough (eg a few years old,...=... what 'years'? Terrestrial? some planet's in Oregon? lightyear(!?) or do you have a UTM (Universal Time Schedule) for the Plenitude? Sorry for the bartend to speak into John M - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 12:02 AM Subject: Re: Measure, Doomsday argument
Re: Dualism and the DA
Dear List, I cannot keep to myself remarks on TWO kinds of unreasonabilities surfaced and are still being discussed to saturation (euphemism). #1: the use of the conditional form. This, as usually applied, pertains to a select aspect of the model without (of course) taking the rest of the world into consideration which effacts/affects all changes. One cannot think of changing one aspect and disregard the result of ALL influences onto it. Maybe Job's bluecollar parents provided a firm and steady grip on his growing up giving him the discipline to become a successful person, while the affluent couple's possibilities would have led him into drugs and/or crime. Si nisi non esset, perfectus quodlibet esset. It's a mind-game. Sci (or not so sci?) - fi??? One closing idea: the world is deterministic: All that happens has its origin in intereffectiveness, we have access only to a limited cognitive circle. So those 'facts' we want to hypothetically change are determined by the OM circumstances. It is nonsense: just like the 10^100 pensimilar copies in 10^100 pensimilar universes - all according to our (human and present) understanding, design and conditions. Our own mind-limited artifact. #2: Over the millennia faith-strategists invented dualism to imply something that 'survives' us and can be praised or punished just to secure the grip of 'faith' (organizations?) on the 'faithful, aoup carrying such memes over millennia. It was not an esoteric thought: the basic reductionist thinking humanity developed with its limited models gave rise to thinking in things ie cut models, without understanding of the total interconnectedness. If we step a bit further, we find that the world is change, process, substance is reduceable into such and it is our reductionist logic that looks for material substance on traditional basis. The process, change, ie. the 'function' usually assigned to such 'substance' as being considered a separable entity (like spirit, soul, consciousness, power, whatever) and voila: we have dualism. I do not imply that the soul is the function of the body: the unit we realize as our model of a human being (or anything else) is considered as having a substrate AND a function separately. So the personalized function can(??) 'survive' the substrate's demise. Bovine excrement: there is an intrinsic unity of 'functional units' - no mind separable from the (so called) material tool: the neuronal brain (and its functions). I don't blame Descartes: in his time dualistic basis kept him from the inquisition. And we cannot judge by our present epistemic level of ongoing information at our cognitive inventory, the outcome of another (lower?) level conclusion. Ptolemy was right in his rite. Pass. I like this list, because it 'thinks' for the future. Of course sometimes it is hard to shake off the firm handcuffs in thinking by traditional terms. We all have been brainwashed into them. Please, excuse my unorthodoxy John Mikes - Original Message - From: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Hal Finney' [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 4:34 PM Subject: RE: Dualism and the DA Hal Finney wrote: It's an interesting question as to how far we can comfortably or meaningfully take counterfactuals. At some level it is completely mundane to say things like, if I had taken a different route to work today, I wouldn't have gotten caught in that traffic jam. SNIP Computer head Steve Jobs gave a pretty good graduation speech at Stanford last week, ... SNIP Does it make sense for Jobs to say, who would I have been if that had happened? The point is that we can imagine a range of counterfactuals ... ... Those are counterfactuals regarding personal circumstance, and do not seem particularly controversial, even admitting that it is not straightforward to define a single theory of personal identity that covers all the bases. SNIP as Who would I be if my mother and father hadn't had sex?, or who would I be if they'd had sex a day later and a different egg and sperm had met?. I have to disagree with you here, and state that this sort of counterfactual seems to indeed embody a difference of kind, not just degree. We're not talking about imagining_whats_it_likeness. We are talking about me *being* someone different. Jonathan Colvin - And may I quote: Russell St. to JC Thursday, June 16, 2005 2:00 AM: (attachment): On Wed, Jun 15, 2005 at 10:30:11PM - Jonathan Colvin wrote: Nope, I'm thinking of dualism as the mind (or consciousness) is separate from the body. Ie. The mind is not identical to the body. - RS: These two statements are not equivalent. You cannot say that the fist is separate from the hand. Yet the fist is not identical to the hand. Another example. You cannot say that a smile is separate from someone's mouth. Yet a smile is not identical to the mouth. ... JC: As a little boy once asked, Why are lions, lions? Why
Re: White Rabbit vs. Tegmark
Dear Russell and Hal: thanks for the compassionate speedy replies. I would be happy to cpomply with Hal's advice, alas, I have no browser working yet(?), only the mailbox. Cluttered with garbage. I didn't believe a friend who had similar troubles when installing Symantec, I lost my cyberways by the 2005 ed. And Excuse me for keeping that irrelevant subject line. It is quite unfair to the rabbit. I have no difficulty with 'plain' HTML, OE6 can handle it - or my Word-viewer. It was the frightening 270 posts among the accumulated 13 - 1500 spam what I collected first out, into an 'everything' folder for simplicity's sake G (I did the same with the other 7 listposts as well.) * Could anybody still remember for me WHAT was originally what we could just simply accept... - in that former (other) (stupid) Subject line? I always try to read only but sometime I cannot keep my mouse shut. Will catch up hopefully soon. Best wishes John M - Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 7:41 PM Subject: Re: White Rabbit vs. Tegmark
Re: White Rabbit vs. Tegmark
Dear Russell and list: this is a personal problem due to my extremely feeble skills in computering. I had (optimistically in past tense) problems with my internet e-mail connection and could not get/send e-mail since the date of this post. Then 2 times I was lucky and got hundreds of email at a time, (the browser is still closed from my usage). To separate chaff from seed, I extracted the list-post before deleting the slumscumspam. From May 24 to June 13 I accumulated 270 listposts -absolutely impossible to scan for topical and content interest. Those posts were accessible (for me) that started with a statement of the writer and not a lot of copies with some reply-lines interjected. I know (and like to use) to copy the phrases to reply to but even in a 2-week archiving it turns sour. After the first 30-40 post-reviews I got dizzy. This pertains to the regular listpost. Your posts are one degree worse: You had 32 attachment-convoluted posts in the 270 of the 20 day everything list. The procedure to glance at your text (and I like to read what you wrote) I have to select the attachment, then call it up, then select open, then read it, and - If I want to save it: copy or cut it to file in 3-5 more clicks. A regular e-mail requires ONE click to read and ONE to save (in my Outlook Express). I don't want to reformulate this list, just tried to communicate a point that may make MY life easier. Apologies for whining John Mikes PS: I lost the 'original' post of the Subject: RE:What do you lose if you simply accept... and reading the posts I could not find out WHAT to accept? the posts were all over the Library of Congress, nothing to the original subject to explain. Just curious. JM == - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 2:45 AM Subject: Re: White Rabbit vs. Tegmark
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Dear Stephen, please see my note after the copy of your post John Mikes - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED]; James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 8:34 PM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? Dear Eric, I like your idea! But how do we reconsile your notion with the notion expressed by Russell: From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 5:12 PM Subject: Re: not-sets, not-gates, and the universe There is no problem is saying that all computations exist in platonia (or the plenitude). This is a zero information set, and requires no further explanation. One definition of information is a difference that makes a difference. If we take the substrate to be the capacity for there to be difference as you propose we obviously can not consider Platonia or the Plenitude do be it. If we take these two ideas seriously, is there any way that we can have both? Kindest regards, Stephen I defined information as difference acknowledged (by no specified acknowledger) because not all information DO make a difference, yet an unrecognized difference is no information. With the Plenitude (a version as the basis for my narrative leading to our universe) I have a question: Is no information not an information? (Or: is no difference an information about identicity?) JM
Re: emergence (or is that re-emergence)
Thank you, Eric for your considerate reply, however more comprehensive (branching into math) than I can absorbe all of it. Please see my remarks interjected as lines between John M - Original Message - From: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 2:42 AM Subject: Re: emergence (or is that re-emergence) Let me first apologize for not yet reading the mentioned references on the subject, John Mikes wrote: As long as we cannot qualify the steps in a 'process' leading to the emerged new, we call it emergence, later we call it process. Just look back into the cultural past, how many emergence-mystiques (miracles included) changed into regular quotidien processes, simply by developing more information about them. I did not say: the information. Some. I don't think this is correct. A fundamental concept when talking about emergence ought to be the pattern, or more precisely, the interesting, coherent, or perhaps useful pattern; useful perhaps in the sense of being a good building block for some other pattern. Process is a subset of pattern, in the sense in which I'm using pattern. Also, system is a subset of pattern. ** I also think in second thought that my statement is NOT correct. I mixed the (misused name) complexity, indeed a set of all descriptions with the model we form within a topic (a defined subset). Once you mention a 'pattern', it is a model. A cut-off view within the topical interest of the observer. In the 'emergence' as I formulated it, the effect of the total is invoked, influences from broader sets than the model itself. I find mathematical examples off (my) base, since math is 'describing' the model and so it is the map of the territory - where the territory itself is also only a model of our viewed (selected) part in question. ** Q: How do you know when you have completely described a pattern? Two examples, or analogies, for what I mean by this question: e.g. 1 I used to wonder whether I had completely proved something in math, and would go into circles trying to figure out how to know when something was sufficiently proved or needed more reductionism ... ** You said it in the last three words. I try to generalize (which is, of course, beyond my capabilites, but so be it: I don't cut my inqueries to the conventional old reductionistic knowledge in searching for new views). Your completely described pattern is still an incomplete model. [let me skip your example #1, the A to it, shows the model indeed] ** e.g. 2 Is the essence of human life in the domain of DNA chemistry, or in the domain of sociobiology, psychology, cultural anthropology? Are we likely to have a future DNA based theory of psychology or culture? Definitely not. Cellular processes and psychology and culture are related, but not in any essential manner. ** I don't know what is life, especially human life? There is a 'pattern' in processes of changes in parts of the complexity which - at a certain level - may be called 'life', not essentially different from other types of change. How good old reductionist science boxed in the models formulated under this name are good for the developmental sequence in the inquiry, but do not contribute much to my search of fundamental generalization. The organizations are interconnected and interinfluenced, which makes the difference between a machine and a natural system (words borrowed from Robert Rosen's vocabulary). Cellular processes IMO are definitly model based cut-offs. *** A: Let's define a complete description of a pattern as a description which describes the essential properties of the pattern. The essential properties of the pattern are those which, taken together, are sufficient to yield the defining interestingness, coherence, or usefulness of the pattern. **QED** Note that any other properties (of the medium in which the pattern lives) are accidental properties of the incarnation of the pattern. Note also that the more detailed mechanisms or sub-patterns which may have generated each particular essential property of the main pattern are irrelevant to the creation of a minimal complete description of the main pattern being described. As long as the property of the main pattern has whatever nature it has to have as far as the pattern is concerned, it simply doesn't matter how the property got that way, or what other humps on its back the property also has in the particular incarnation. And that level-independence or spurious-detail independence or simply abstractness of useful patterns is one of the reasons why it makes sense to talk about emergence. e.g.of level-independence of a pattern. 1. Game of Pong 2a. Visual Basic 2b. Pascal program 2c. Ping-pong table, program on PCon a Mac ball, bats, players 3a. x86 ML
Re: emergence
Russell, thanks for your considerate reply. I 'owe one' to 'vznuri' (whatever name that may be) for the URL of your paper. I glanced at it only, because it is on a different 'basis' from my thinking. I try to explain below. Try, because the complexity thinking I seek needs lots of enlightenment and is mostly a criticism of the conventionality, with very little (so far) to go on with. Basically: I don't think in terms of a complex system and of the calculable definitions (Kolmogoroff, Shanon, Chaitin, Santa Fe, and - R. StandishG,) rather a conceptual explanatory narrative (not even a theory) for the 'complementarities' (paradoxes) of the 'science/dilemma' we got into by overstepping the thinking barriers of math-based belief systems (btw. this list started exactly on such dissatisfaction some years ago, before too much conventional physics knowledge came into consideration on it). Quoting from your paper: Is complexity totally subjective? As far as our mind-formulated models are concerned: yes. However there are only insufficient models, the 'total model' would be the thing itself, nit a model. The 'complexity' (I emphasise: wrong word) is called by some students endogenous impredicative pointing more closely to the unmodellable diversification of the concept. Since this line would lead into a quagmire and I want to concentrate on emergence, I jump into it. Your definition (among another 1000 words): emergence (e-) is the concept of some new phenomenon arising in a system that wasn't in the specification of that system's specification to start with... Here we go: NEW, pointing to our (so far) ignorance. Which rests my case for my fist statement about human ignorance. Then you follow up with what you call my description of (e-), a lengthy mathematical-like part on macro vs micro language (description), irrelevant for me, since a 'description' secures an insufficient model. I appreciate your statement of the 'macrodesciption' as a good theory. As you conclude - and I agree: ...(the (e-) system) would not be an observed phenomenon. The 'observed' would be our model of the natural system's so far discovered part - while (e-) arises mostly from beyond that knowledge-segment (why we call it an (e-), of course) Ronald et al. focus on the element of surprise as a test of the (e-)... Another 'resting place' for my statement about 'ignorance' - we are not surprised about things we know. It would be predicted, expected. I do not go into your evidences by entropy, a mathematical ingenuity for making sense of things not understandable - at the informational - epistemic level of thinking 200+ years ago and still carried on by more than a dozen new and improved theories - a basic obsession of conventional physicists. I know this is anathema, but I am not religious. I would like to know why you find (e-) applicable for known circumstances. I think it is because of the different views I explained above. Thank you for your position on the math-applicability. One short rremark though: Maybe I call (e-) less of a product of a modeling process, rather a view within our modeling-results. Respectfully John Mikes - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 7:11 PM Subject: Re: emergence John, I can't remember whether you read my paper On Complexity and Emergence in Complexity International a couple of years ago. Basically, I think you are well on the mark, except I disagree with you on the issue that once a mechanism is known, the process is no longer emergent. I think it still is emergent, and explain why in that paper. As to mathematics predicting emergent phenomena, I believe that the answer is categorically no. Emergent phenomena is a result of a modelling process - eg what a brain does, not an analytic process. Mathematics can be used to describe the emergent phenomenon after it is discovered, but I don't think the discovery process can really be called mathematics. Cheers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The correspondent with that mystical name touched an interesting problem (earlier appearing in Hale's and Tim's posts): emergence. Colin Hales: Our main gripe is the issue of emergent behaviour and the mathematical treatment thereof? Yes? (Tim's post see below). I have an indecent opinion of this concept: it is human ignorance. Let me explain. As long as we cannot qualify the steps in a 'process' leading to the emerged new, we call it emergence, later we call it process. Just look back into the cultural past, how many emergence-mystiques (miracles included) changed into regular quotidien processes, simply by developing more information about them. I did not say: the information. Some. The world as we know about it, consists of models which the mind (who's-ever or what's-ever) was capable to construct at a given level
Re: Algorithmic Revolution?
George, beautiful. Maybe I propose a line at the end: With a LOT of ego attached Best wishes John Mikes - Original Message - From: George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 22, 2002 12:55 AM Subject: Re: Algorithmic Revolution? When you look at the bottom of the well, all the way deep down, you see yourself staring right back at you. And right now you look like an algorithm. Oh well, there was a time when you looked like clockwork Maybe tomorrow you'll be a brain. And the day after tomorrow maybe a quantum device. The universe that we perceive is in our own image. It can only be in our own image. Bruno is right, the foundation of physics may well be psychology. It could even be neurology. George
Re: My model presented more traditionally
Dear Hal,
thank you for your post. I will study your points before I can say Yeah or
Nah to any one of them. It seems I have to make up your mind G whether the
everything includes itself means an infinite succession of an increasing
line of 'evrythings', all including the previous one, or is it a 'one time'
wordflower?
I would appreciate your definition, how you define noise in Prop.6?
Prima vista it seems to include sort of a reductionistic modeling (as in
'parsing') and an arbitrrary dynamics ('nested' - as in a hierarchy), but I
have to think about that before I ask you.
Thank you for the homework I got. As you said 2-3 years ago, our thinking
includes 'close' foundation in different wording/conntoations. It still
seems so.
John Mikes
- Original Message -
From: H J Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 11:51 PM
Subject: My model presented more traditionally
The following is a new effort to present my model in a more traditional
way.
SNIP
Re: From Hardegree to Chellas for Joyce + Restall
On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 12:46:29PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: I would say the difference between animals and humans is that humans make drawings on the walls ..., and generally doesn't take their body as a limitation of their memory. I certainly enjoyed the beauty of this idea. Thanks, Bruno. I think you touched culture with all that belongs to it. Every word after that is redundant. To redund I offer a very plain paraphrasing: humans are within a more involved complexity than the other animals. But this is not 'beautiful'. Physical? I may say so. John Mikes
Re: Rucker's Infinity, Tegmark's TOE, and Cantor'sAbsoluteInfinity
Thanks, Bruno, I found your (beautiful) CCQ paper. About D.Bohm: in the paper you reference only the Bohm-Hiley book. IMO this posthumus book draws a rather one sided image of Bohm, almost entirely omitting the great philosopher in favor of his (pre-1952?) career. Yes, his UK professorship was as a physicist (his (l)earned profession he excelled in indeed), but in my mind his (natural) philosophical achievement is his 'signature' image. As you correctly remarked below: we both appreciate the 'Implicate'-book - and also lots of publications *about* his philosophy by others. Of course he could not refer to ideas surfacing after his death. His philosophical position was ahead of the time he wrote his book but today it may serve as a historic initiation. Start FROM his philosophy and step further. Respectfully John Mikes ( Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 5:00 AM Hi Brent, Brent Meeker wrote: Bohm's QM is empirically identical with non-relativistic Schroedinger QM - makes exactly the same predictions. So what does it have to do with AI and the duplication of brains? BruMa: We (John + me) were refering to Bohm's book the implicate order where Bohm takes some non comp stand. Also his interpretation of QM is contradictory with comp, in the sense than he does not attribute consciousness to the people in the other branches, BreMe: But in BQM there are no other branches. The world is completely deterministic. The apparent randomness is just a reflection of our incomplete knowledge of the universal psi-function. BruMa: I disagree: in Bohm QM there *are* other branches. This follows from the fact that there is no collapse. The SWE is obeyed. Bohm just add a potential which forces a (mysterious) set of particles with very special initial conditions to follow one branch of the universal superpositions. But to explain the interference Bohm accepts the existence of the other branches even if they are lacking particles. And to explain the behavior of a quantum computer even in just our branch, a Bohmian must accept that the computers of the other branches are able to make reasoning like any AI, even if they lacks particles. So Bohm is forced to abandon comp, as he does. (This illustrates also that existence of particles is hardly necessary with comp). Bruno
Re: Rucker's Infinity, Tegmark's TOE, and Cantor's Absolute Infinity
Title: Re: Rucker's Infinity, Tegmark's TOE, and Cantor's Ab
Bruno M wrote:
Friday, September 06, 2002 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: Rucker's Infinity, (or
whatever)
Dear John,
Bohm's statement is quite coherent with his philosophy.
SNIP
In its "implicate order" Bohm is explicitely against comp
or even AI.
I like very much Bohm. He is clear and honest in its
investigations.
Abandoning comp is natural for a Quantum Mechanician who want
keep ONE (substantial) universe.
Bruno Marchal
I do not recall (read Bohm hurriedly in the
early 90s) Bohm having excluded AI or even comp from'his' implicate, the
('so far' and shrinking)
unknown, as I took it. I felt the implicate
(order?) as an 'open unknown'.
Furthermore it was a surprise to me reading
"Bohm a QM-cian".
I thought he wanted to bring QM and
Relativity together after 1952 .
Then turned into a (nat. sci.) philosopher.
A good one IMO.
Anyway my thoughts are those of an outsider.
I may be wrong.
John M
^
---Original message---
Dear Bruno, you wrote:
In a nutshell I would say that natural
numbers exists and no more (like Pythagoreans!)
How do you relate to David Bohm's
observation that "numbers
do NOT exist in nature, only as the
products of the human mind"?
(I wouldn't mix rhythm or quantity with
numbers, the digital constructs)
John Mikes
Re: Rucker's Infinity, Tegmark's TOE, and Cantor's AbsoluteInfinity
Brent wrote Friday, September 06, 2002 11:48 AM: (Subject: Re: Rucker's Infinity, Tegmark's TOE, and Cantor's AbsoluteInfinity - not a true subject here): On 06-Sep-02, Bruno Marchal wrote: Dear John, Bohm's statement is quite coherent with his philosophy. SNIP Bohm's QM is empirically identical with non-relativistic Schroedinger QM - makes exactly the same predictions. So what does it have to do with AI and the duplication of brains? Brent Meeker As Bruno correctly indicated I asked about an observation of Bohm - the openminded philosopher - IMO so different from the professional physicist pictured mostly in his posthumus writings (and early ones aswell, before his decade+long philosophical work). My parentetical remark excluding rhythm and quantity indicated only that a correlation of these with numbers does not indicate any natural occurrence of numbers, rather a human attribution - a predicating. I believe the connection to AI and duplication of brains is misplaced. I hope the construction of Bruno's thesis's English version will come up soon, because I don't trrust my feeble French to read more about Bohm - what Bruno indicated to be found in his website. And Brent, thank you for the D.Adams quote. John Mikes
Re: Time
Dear George, would it be too strenuous to briefly (and understandably???) summarize a position on time which is in the 'spirit' of the 'spirited' members of this list? (I mean not the - as you wrote - just a rehash of old science-fiction technology of the fifties and sixties). I have a hard time (in formulation - wording) of things timeless and spaceless, such a rehab would be useful. IMO time (and space and the conventional cousality) are dimensions of the mind (not necessarily human, rather of the universe - down to anything) ordering THIS (our) universe, to make sense from the impacts we 'live in'. IMO other universes may have different 'ordering' features, not a space - time - causality system like ours. Best wishes John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes; - Original Message - From: George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2002 4:43 PM Subject: Re: Time Tim I agree with you. Scientific American did not do a good job covering the issue of time. The days of Martin Gardner are over. Paul Davies' article on time travel making use of worm holes is just a rehash of old science-fiction technology of the fifties and sixties. Falling into a worm hole is identical to falling into a black hole and would completely destroy any (information carried by a) time traveler and would therefore make time travel pointless and unverifiable. I was disappointed by the absence of any mention of the MWI. The MWI, in my opinion, is essential in understanding time and has the potential to lead to new science-fiction technology for time travel and parallel universe travel a la Roger Zelazny. George Tim May wrote: The September issue of Scientific American is usually/always devoted to some special theme. This issue is ostensibly devoted to Time and problems associated with it. Articles include some physics articles, some perception/psychology articles, and one or two on clocks and timepieces. Sad to say, Sci Am has fallen far from its once lofty perch. Flipping through the issue at a boostore, I found the first _half_ of the thin magazine devoted to advertising, general news, and a special 20-plus-page insert devoted to Italy and its industries, blah blah. Once the articles started, they were of course no longer the meaty, detailed dozen or so solid articles. (Used to be the special September issues were thicker than usual!) The articles were short, filled with colorful graphics (but with less content than the SciAm graphics of the 1950s-recent), but carried little information. The articles may be of use in introducing people to notions like block time, but the entire idea is covered in just a few paragraphs. Not much to go on. Paul Davies does one of the physics articles on time...nothing in his article not covered in much more detail in the books by Huw Price, Julian Barbour, Kip Thorne, and others. I didn't buy the issue. Meanwhile, my study of lattice and order continues. I'll say more in the future (if it exists, that is). --Tim May
Re: modal logic and possible worlds
Dear George, I was missing your input lately, I like this one a lot. 2 remarks: 1./ Logic in 'your', 'my', or anyody else's mind may be different. Does it allow to restrict it from being "any"? Any may be right in their own rite. We may not like 'some'. 2./ The world just HAD to accept Copernicus and his conclusions But was Copernicus right? (Partially: yes, of course). (A step forward does not make it a complete novelty. Important and salutable, but also debatable - especially when even newer ideas coincide). Thanks for the words of reason. John MIkes - Original Message - From: George Levy To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 7:39 PM Subject: Re: modal logic and possible worlds I have been following the latest very scholarly exchange involving different logical models in relation to the MWI, however I fail to see how it relates to my own perception of the world and my own consciousness unless I think according to those formal systems which I think is unlikely.Using different logical models to describe possible worlds is interesting but isn't it true that if the problem of consciousness (as an observer, and definer, for these worlds) is to be addressed, then the only logic that matters is the one in my, or in your, own head? Of all these logical models which one is the "right" one? Are all of them "right?"When Copernicus formulated the heliocentric system, he didn't go around saying that a "new" logic had to be used to explain the central position of the sun. He simply used a physical model. People just had to accept the new paradigm that the Earth "moves" even though they do not feel the Earth move. Can't we just accept the fact that the world - and our consciousness - "split" or "merge" even though we do not feel them "split" and "merge?" It seems to me that if we define a good physical model, then classical probability could do the job of formulating the decision theory desired by Wei.George
Re: Ordinary atom-mirror atom bound states
Dear Saibal Mitra, I believe you represent the highest scientific level in physical views. This post is not personally to you, your communication just prompted it - to the list. It is in my opinion a 20th (2000th?)level consequential sophistication of primitive views, 2D, not even 3D, observing nature not even outside the cave. I don't believe in atoms, photons, etc., which are ingenius representations of observed effects in their insufficient view, personalized into pieces of objects in lack of any better in the ancient observational views. Millennia ago. Since then the view has not changed, irrespective of our epistemic enrichment. We still add and add calculalitve newer and newer theories to the ancient dreamed-on views. The mind (ours, the universe's, whatever) interprets the impact it receives. The newer ones are complacently fit into the old habits, even squeezed in. It takes mental power to sever the dependence of the brainwashing of learned tales and think in new terms.There is IMO sufficient brainpower in this list for such renovative thinking. There were such initiations, there are still going-on topics of the new. Every now and then. A mirror-restricted symmetry is not the 'new way of thinking'. You did better other times. Especially not for "particles" of scientific imagination. That we can get in physics class. Sorry, Ihope notto have offended you,all I wanted is to shake up the latent talent to free-up itself from the complacent slumber. Respectfully John Mikes[EMAIL PROTECTED]"http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes" - Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra To: everything Cc: FoR Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2002 9:57 AM Subject: Ordinary atom-mirror atom bound states http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0204256 Ordinary atom-mirror atom bound states: A new window on the mirror world Authors: R. Foot, S. MitraComments: about 8 pages, couple of changes Mirror symmetry is a plausible candidate for a fundamental symmetry of particle interactions which can be exactly conserved if a set of mirror particles exist. The properties of the mirror particles seem to provide an excellent candidate to explain the inferred dark matter of the Universe and might also be responsible for a variety of other puzzles in particle physics, astrophysics, meteoritics and planetary science. One such puzzle -- the orthopositronium lifetime problem -- can be explained if there is a small kinetic mixing of ordinary and mirror photons. We show that this kinetic mixing implies the existence of ordinary atom - mirror atom bound states with interesting terrestrial and astrophysical implications. We suggest that sensitive mass spectroscopic studies of ordinary samples containing heavy elements such as lead might reveal the presence of these bound states, as they would appear as anomalously heavy elements. In addition to the effects of single mirror atoms, collective effects from embedded fragments of mirror matter (such as mirror iron microparticles) are also possible. We speculate that such mirror matter fragments might explain a mysterious UV photon burst observed coming from a laser irradiated lead target in a recent experiment.
Re: Bruno's UDA argument
The statement it contains no information IS information. -- (In my Plenitude story the no info - infinite invariance total symmetry requires correction in this spirit. The infinite variety dose not fit: it intrinsically includes repetitions of similars (and that is a major point for generating universes) which (transitionally) falls out from both the infinite symmetry and the infinite invariance. Which is the fulguration for universe-formation, as observable complexity. Sorry for the digression: I am reworking my 2000 text in this sense. John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes; - Original Message - From: H J Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 1:11 AM Subject: Re: Bruno's UDA argument Dear Hal: The idea that the Everything does not contain the UD appears self contradictory. That said the Everything as a system is generally thought of by some at least as containing no information. [Otherwise where did this information come from?] To sustain this requirement it must contain counterfactuals to the UD. Among these would be universe generators whose foundation is anything but the UD [or any ensemble of UDs]. Having reached that result, at least some of these generators would form an ensemble subject - by their internal structure - to the injection of external random noise originating in the remainder of the Everything. Is it possible to sustain a no information Everything if there is a selection in which this latter ensemble is the only generators subject to such noise? The very concept of any selection within the Everything necessarily places information within the Everything and must thus be disallowed. My conclusion is the all generators within the Everything are subject to such noise by some mechanism or another. Further I think that from this I would have to conclude that no differential measure of any sort [actually a selection result] between universes can arise over the ensemble of all universes. As to consciousness I do not believe a decent definition of it is extant but I do believe for obvious reasons that - whatever it is - it is only supported in a universe with noise of external origin there being no other kind of universe - IMO. All of this is OK as far as I can tell since one can see our universe inside the complete ensemble but I see it as being in the part of the ensemble that contains those universes that are subject to the noise by their internal structure as opposed to the UD type of generator which would be subject to this noise to avoid a selection. There is no reason that I can see why some of these universes subject to noise by their internal structure would not evolve in a way that appears [internally] to follow simple rules expressible in a mathematics. I also believe there are easy ways to demonstrate that features of our universe can be based on such a foundation. Further I do not see that universes evolving in a highly random way can not be an alternate base for a universe evolving by simple rather well behaved rules if we allow that intervening states inconsistent with such a view go unnoticed by an observer - whatever that is - that considers itself to be in the supposed well behaved universe. Hal
Re: Copenhagen interpretation
Thank you, Saibal Mitra. If I may add one remark to your position: to They are mere mathematical tools to compute the outcome of experiments. I would add: and the presupposition of such contributed to the design of those experiments with a presupposition of acceptable vs rejectable results. John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes; - Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED]; scerir [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: FoR [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 8:11 AM Subject: Copenhagen interpretation This all assumes that photons, electrons, etc. are real. We don't know that. If you were Einstein, and you were faced with Bell's result, you could have concluded that the nonexistence of local hidden variables implies that elementary paricles don't exist. They are mere mathematical tools to compute the outcome of experiments. The real underlying theory of Nature could be still be deterministic. Recently 't Hooft has shown how QM can emerge out of a deterministic theory. In this case QM has to be interpreted according to the Copenhagen interpretation. - Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: scerir [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: vrijdag 12 juli 2002 12:44 Onderwerp: Re: Morality in a Block Multiverse Hi Serafino, SNIP
Re: Travelling to a different universe
Dear Saibal, you misunderstood my post. I did not ask about "technicalities" of your sci-fi, I simply suggested that you may not "play" to get from here to there, but are "here" by a play from "over there". Simply humor, nothing else. John I don't see why one would want to go back, but there are still copies left in ordinary universes, there are universes in which the probability to win will return to normal after a while. One should thus be able to go back using a suicide machine. Also one could use memory erasure to go back. Saibal John Mikes wrote: SNIP
Re: random, was Predictions duplications
Bruno, I appreciate your choice of incompressibility - as far as mathematical views are concerned. How about a random choice of a color from a hundred others? can this be algorithmic and incomressible? Or a choice at random from available several routes, how to defend an innocent accused in court? I admire you, physicists, for writing an equation to everything. I cannot find this applicable with infinite variables and infinite levels of influences among applicable factors (=natural systems). I do not find Russell's choice without a cause applicable without interjecting known before 'cause'. Which does not mean deterministic extremism, the choices are close and fractalously propagating into quite diverse routes, so it is beyond designability how a later situation will look. John M
Re: Random, was Predictions duplications
According to whim or taste implies a conscious entity performing choices according to a free will. This need not be the case. In my mind, random means selected without cause (or without procedure/algorithm). Russell picked my example from a language which has no equivalent to the word random . Besides: I deny free will, except for the Creator Almighty when the world was drawn up. G Since then all free will is subject to I/O circumstances, prior art, experience, whatever (un?)conscious consideration one may include. A lot has been written on randomness, and its problematic nature. I don't for one minute suggest I have anything new to say on the matter. Maybe some choice anong controversial versions? I find Bruno's choice remarkable about the incompressibility. Will think about it, thanks, Bruno. JM
Re: immortality
But I'm still curious to know what you mean by I rest my case. Charles In my post I was denying the experiences after death, knowable while still living. Rwas was upset because of his alleged after death experiences. If it turns out that they are imaginary - i.e. mystical - fantasies, I rest my case because I am a sci-fi writer myself. One 'dreams' about past knowledge, received e.g. in religion classes. Bruno wrote: About mystic experiences I tend to believe awareness or consciousness is sort of degree 1 mystic experiences, and I would not be astonished that the psychology of machine entails a vast number of variate possible mystical experiences, but all belongs to G* minus G and would be uncommunicable/unprovable (like consciousness). Since consciousness is an undefined quagmire in which everybody includes whatever one's digestive tract dictates, I deny the use of such in serious discussions. We can talk about the single concepts of ideation which may or may not be included into one's private consciousness concept. Neither am I impressed by the marvels of the psychology of the machine, especially if it may include mystical fantasies (OOOPS: experiences). Somewhere I seek a line between things to be taken seriously and the fantasy-fables. So, not wanting to open the door to the Brothers Grimm or to Andersen, I rest my case. Sorry, rwas, about your experiences. John Mikes
immortality
--- Charles Goodwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of rwasEh? If I understood this statement then I must object. I have quite clear memories of before-death, during-death, and after-death. I realize that within the context of the narrow communication style prevailent here that this claim means nothing. But your statement would seem to attempt rewrite my experiences as false by default.I resent that. Preempting my question, there was an immediate post: That's very interesting. What experiences are you refering to? Charles [G]Somehow I missed rwas's replydetailing those 'experiences. Could anybody supply them to me? Or perhaps C. Goodwin himself who now wrote: "Mystic experiences of course. Experiences which have renderedunderstanding which makes participating in the predominate discoursefound on this list very painful to endure. Sequential, temporal,in-the-box thinking is not how to transcend the physical in my view." Maybethis paragraph is the answer. In which case I rest my case. John Mikes
Re: Logically possible universes and Occam's razor
Bruno, before we get phased out: you quoted Russell: I raised this very issue in Why Occams Razor, and came to the conclusion that the only satisfactory interpreter is the observer itself then you write very smart thoughts (like: Modelising near possibilities by consistent extensions (UD accessible) etc. all, including Occam, reducing the concept of 'all' into the segment we can stuff into our mind. Our limited capabilities are not limiting nature (or call it whatever), we just don't comprehend/observe the rest of it. Not even the 'logically possible' part of it. Our way of talking is not too humble, I can say modestly. John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes; - Original Message - From: Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:02 PM Subject: Re: Logically possible universes and Occam's razor S N I P
Re: Provable vs Computable
George, thanks for your reply, which is almost as convoluted and hard-to-follow as was my question. You wrote: I am not restricting anything. I am only saying that Juergens has to choose between violating Bell's inequality theorem and all that this implies, or not and all that this implies. My stand is that we shouldn't. George So ;let me rephrase the question: is your stand that if an imaginary universe would violate eg. Bell's theorem, it should be excluded from consideration as a possibility, - or - we should rather conclude that Bell's theorem (or any other fundemntal human rule) has a limited validity and does not cover every possible universe? John
Re: Consistency?
Hal wrote: (Subject: Consistency?) If one takes the position that logical proof is not universally relevant to the evolution of universes within the Everything and the determination of the sequence of successive states of a universe is replaced with concepts such as computable or my acceptable what role does logical consistency play? Since we are part of the Everything and our logic is part of us, logical proof would be a pars pro toto category mistake to control relevant or acceptable anything (changes, etc.). Computable as well. It is in our mind, not restrictive to Everything - which is not restricted to what we think or observe. Logical consistency would seem to play no role. The transition is merely acceptable. More than one acceptable successor state enables splitting. How about rather: to be accepted? Hal John MIkes
Re: Provable vs Computable
Juergen Schmidhuber wrote: Which are the logically possible universes? Max Tegmark mentioned a somewhat vaguely defined set of self-consistent mathematical structures'' implying provability of some sort. The postings of Bruno Marchal and George Levy and Hal Ruhl also focus on what's provable and what's not. Is provability really relevant? Philosophers and physicists find it sexy for its Goedelian limits. But what does this have to do with the set of possible universes? scerir writes an enjoyable version on the last part of the quote. Let me address the first part about possible universes. Of course Juergen was cautious and included logically in his phrase. Logically most likely refers to human (on this list: even mathematical) logic. Do we really think that human (math) logic is the restrictive principle for nature? What we see (what we want to see?) seems to point to that, but do we see'em all? Isn't possible what we don't see or understgand or realize? Didn't our horizon (logic, math) increase over some time? Are we at the end? In considering plenitude/multiverse, does it make sense to select part of it (maybe a small, unimportant segment only)? Even if we cannot develop knowledge about the rest, we should not deny its possibility of existence. The farthest from this list would be a closed mind! John Mikes
Re: The role of logic, planning ...
Just as an example, he says most philosophers would agree that []A-A, where []A is interpreted as knowing A. This is clearly a different meaning of the word to know that we use here in Australia. Provided that A is not a simple artificial construct, meaning: it is a complicity (called generally a complexity), it cannot be known in its entirety. So the [] for knowing is a deficiency rather than an addition. The fact of knowing is added, but the [knowledge of A] is less than A (at least by the Aristotelian part of more.) 'Most' philosophers have yet to learn about complexities. John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes;
Re: on formally describable universes and measures
Dear Stephen, I believe Descartes used the verb 'cogitare', meaning the fact of thinking (prius cogitare quam conari consuesce... consider first think, then (than??) talk) Consequently he did not assume to think back into some memory and refreshing it. He spoke about the observation that one IS THINKING, IMO without any connotation of time passing. John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes; - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2001 12:07 PM Subject: Re: on formally describable universes and measures Dear George, If I might advance a minor change: Descartes' dictum should be: Cognito (I think), ergo eram (therefore I was). The observation of one's state of existence is always *after* the fact of the thought. This points to the possibility that the chaining implicit in conscious flow (time) is in the opposite direction to the logical linking. Kindest regards, Stephen George Levy wrote: The exchange between Bruno and Juergens is, I believe, instructive and constructive as it forces them to refine their positions. However, while there is a need for some formalism, too much formalism gets in the way. As Einstein said, Imagination is more important than knowledge. Juergens' insistence on being absolutely formal in defining delays, is truly impossible unless a TOE is in place. And if we had a TOE, then we wouldn't waste our time arguing. His constructivist approach can never achieve the required conceptual leap. Here is a suggestion: rather than getting bogged down with attempting to define time and delays, wouldn't be simpler to start as Descartes did with the fundamental assumption of the I or I think which is the primary uncontrovertible observation and also the necessary assumption for deriving everything else. From this observation (or assumption), use anthropic reasonning to deduce that the whole observed world is a set of logically linked relationship. In other words: I think (observation of the I and the now; I am rational, logical, I understand causality) therefore I am ( rationality is the definition of existence) therefore the world is (anthropic reasoning-- the initial boundary condition for the causal chain starts with I) therefore the plenitude is (absence of irrational and acausal arbitrariness in the description of the world leads to all possible rational worlds) therefore I exists in plural (absence of arbitrariness leads to the existence of several differing I's, in fact of all possible I's.) Conscious flow (time) becomes a logical linkage between I's. In other words, the time thread from one I to the next, or more generally, from one I to several other I's is constrained by the self rationality of I. Consciousness can be described as a web in the plenitude, linking all conscious points together. George
Re: A possible argument against branching universes.
Hal, you wrote (among lots of other things): 2) But the other universe also has to stop given the fixed FAS complexity i.e. another new running contradiction. Can you discern - after the split - which is the other? (excuse me for this question for a situation which I do not condone at all). John Mikes
Fw: Is consciousness real?
- Original Message - From: jamikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 5:43 PM Subject: Re: Is consciousness real? Dear Bruno, No, I am not provocating you or anyone else and Yes. I know pain. Why do you think if you say 'pain' it has to be spelled consciousness? or suffering not good enough for you on its own right? I am conscious (of lots of things), but you sure are wasting your words. I wouldn't say joy etc. does not exist: that 'ominous noumenon' doesn't. Those 2000+ learned savants in now 3 conferences on consciousness from all over the world, - all of them - had something else to put into the content and description, science and discussion of it. Why do you think that especially your version will hold? They all make a living on it. And: Poor old Descartes (I esteem his genius to the highest level) would have made quite different conclusions had he had a freshman's cours of the 2000/2001 schoolyear in physiology and biology. (Pineal gland?) Just that you mentioned him. Have fun John M - Original Message - From: Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 9:45 AM Subject: Re: Is consciousness real? Johnn Mikes wrote: Consciousness is a historical noumenon of no content, an imaginary 'thing' that does not exist. Consciousness is what makes pain painfull. It makes also conscience possible, and it makes the human right sensefull. If you have had one moment of joy or pain, I take it that you belief in consciousness, and that you are playing with words when you say it does not exists. (Although I agree it exists only in some second order sense, and I agree it is terribly difficult, if not impossible, to define). Like Descartes I believe that consciousness is a sort of fixed point of doubt (like consistency for sound machines is a fixed point of the non-provability predicate). But perhaps, John, you are not conscious, in which case I am loosing my time telling you that. Honestly I guess you are conscious, and I guess you want just provocate us. Consciousness is as real as suffering. You don't believe in suffering ? Bruno
