Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Le 01-juin-05, à 17:24, scerir a écrit : Bruno Marchal: To be clear I have only proved that IF COMP is taken seriously enough THEN the appearance of a pre-existing physical world, including its stability, lawfulness ... MUST BE derivable from the relation between numbers. This is done. Then I got results confirming in part that comp can be true, in proving that the logic of physical propositions is not boolean and even has a quantum smelling (to be short). Sorry for my naiveté. Has the above something to do with the quotation below? I mean, what is the main difference? The only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter. - James Clerk Maxwell It is perhaps not so different. The difference is perhaps that my proposition has been the object of a proof, where Maxwell looks like a poem. Also Maxwell's statement looks circular, he says that minds fabricate matter and matter fabricate minds, where I say that if we take comp seriously then we are lead to: numbers fabricate mind which fabricate matter, and then (but only then) matter fabricate mind which fabricate matter etc. I solve the logical initial condition problem. Put it in another way it is like Maxwell would say that the factorial function is given by the rule Factorial(n) = n*factorial(n-1) Where I say: factorial(n) = IF n = 0 THEN 1, ELSE (but only else) n*factorial(n-1). To sum up very shortly: I say numbers fabricate the mind matter dissociation, including all tergiversation's To sum up less shortly: I say numbers fabricate the web of numbers dreams, which are just the possible computations as seen from some internal (first person) view. Then incompleteness constraints can justify how and why stable and coherent computations emerges which make *us* capable of sharing partially some deep dream (making solipsism false as Stephen rightly insist it should be so). (or perhaps *not* but I would take that as a refutation of comp) Regards, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: (offlist) RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Dear Stephen, With your permission, I answer an offlist post you sended to me and some others, Bruno, you claim that I assume a physical world. While I would agree with that claim to some degree, it misses the point that I am trying to make, just as Lee's interpretation of my idea as being about an intersubjective reality. I am trying to start with those aspects that I can not coherently be skeptical of, the unassailables (to use Penrose's favorite term). (I am being a Curmudgeon!) I can not doubt that I have a 1st person experience and I can not dismiss that that 1st person experience has some content. Like me. We agree. Additionally I am lead by logic to not be able to doubt the existence of otherminds - there is no coherent solipsism for finite computations - thus it is necessary that any model of consciousness must include means and mechanism to explain and predict how the contents of multiple 1st person experiences are synchronized such that this conversation itself is not only allowed by the model but can also be shown to be unavoidable or inevitable; that, I think, satisfies my argument for necessity of a 1st person viewpoint. I completely agree with you. Bruno, it seems that you claim that you don't need a pre-existing physical world since such, you hope to prove, can be derived solely from the relations between numbers. To be clear I have only proved that IF COMP is taken seriously enough THEN the appearance of a pre-existing physical world, including its stability, lawfulness ... MUST BE derivable from the relation between numbers. This is done. Then I got results confirming in part that comp can be true, in proving that the logic of physical propositions is not boolean and even has a quantum smelling (to be short). I will agree, for the sake of discussion, that numbers can represent the content of any and all 1st person viewpoints at some level of Existence but my challenge to you is to shown how this Existence is stratified such that our unassailable experience of being-in-the-world is necessary. I completely agree with you again. It is easy to see that if we only consider a single mind the problems of synchronization and flow vanish - we have the ideal solipsist whose experiences are identified with the relations between numbers. But where does meaningfulness come from? Meaningfulness comes from the non triviality of our experiences. Suppose someone is cut and pasted in two exemplars in city A and in city B. From a third person point of view no bits are produced. From the personal point of view of each exemplar, when they localize themselves, they find no trivial answers (A or B) each of which produces one bit of information. It is genuine information because for each of them, their result *could* have been different. Note that such bits are not communicable to the outside observer. (Note the importance of the counterfactuals). How is it a coherent claim to have numbers representing everything when there is no way that the numbers can be distinguished. It seems to me that this distinguishability requires something more than just relations between numbers.. I don't understand. Please elaborate (when and if you have the time). I still don't get how Bruno bypasses the proofs that quantum logics can not be reduced to Boolean algebras... Maybe what I do not grasp is that Bruno is using a higher logical algebra that has quantum logics as a subgroup - of course we know that Boolean algebras are a subgroup of quantum... Quantum logic cannot be embedded by a truth preserving translation. It does not mean the quantum cannot be translated by some more general translation. I will say more on the everything-list because this is obviously a technical point. I use a theorem by Robert Goldblatt translating quantum logic in some modal logic. Goldblatt, R. I. (1974). Semantic Analysis of Orthologic. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 3:19-35 I am still troubled by the idea that we seem to think that Integers (recursively enumerable numbers more precisely?) are sufficient to code all possible experience - how do we get complex numbers? ... Wait a sec. I have an epiphany! Are all other forms of numbers, set, groups, categories, etc. embedded in the Integers by the identification of their descriptions with some bitstring, a Geodel numbering scheme? No. Perhaps it could be, and this would give a constructive version of my theorem, but I doubt it is possible. As a mathematician I use as tools any portion of Cantor paradise. I believe in all real numbers, even non-standard one. I am not at all a constructivist, and I certainly don't identify object with their description. On the contrary, I show explicitly that when the Universal dovetailer executes (mathematically in Platonia) his infinite computation, then, what emerge from the point of view of internal observer simulated all along, will forever prevent any such identification between observable object and their
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Bruno Marchal: To be clear I have only proved that IF COMP is taken seriously enough THEN the appearance of a pre-existing physical world, including its stability, lawfulness ... MUST BE derivable from the relation between numbers. This is done. Then I got results confirming in part that comp can be true, in proving that the logic of physical propositions is not boolean and even has a quantum smelling (to be short). Sorry for my naiveté. Has the above something to do with the quotation below? I mean, what is the main difference? The only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter. - James Clerk Maxwell Regards, -serafino
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Le 19-mai-05, à 21:18, John M a écrit : Without trying to defend Robert Rosen, his (unlimited) natural systems (maximum models = the THING itself, not a model) are (in his words) not Turing -computable, I think that is different from Bruno's unlimited 'comp'. I would like to insist on this key point: comp entails that first person reality, whatever it is, is NOT COMPUTABLE. (and the UDA shows that physics is among the 1-realities). If I am a machine then whatever I am embedded in, CANNOT BE CAPTURED BY ANY PROGRAM, with the exception of the UD which does not really captured reality as we can know it, because the capture in provably NOT EFFECTIVE. The UD generates all the machine dreams which by highly non trivial interference (not the quantum one but the comp one) generates a non computable solidity. To understand COMP = to understand we are infinitely more ignorant than we could have thought. And this aspect of comp appears still more clearly in the interview of the Loebian machine which is the most modest being ever conceived until now (to my knowledge). John, I'm afraid you still have a reductionist, pre-godelian, understanding of machine. Or perhaps, by inattention you are coming back to such a reductionist conception of machine. Since Goedel 1931 such a reductive view of machine is just wrong. Godel's theorem is the realisation that we just don't know what universal machine are, what they are able to do. It makes us humble! I insist because that's a widespread misconception. The real miracle is that those machine dreams are still interfering in a way which makes the appearance of physical reality locally testable, inluding the testability of comp itself. And so I do agree with ROSEN's conclusion that nature is not computable. But I extracted this by what amounts essentially to a self-finiteness assumption (that's comp) where Rosen got it by assuming at the start that he is natural and by assuming at the start that nature is not computable. I don't do that because I have never understand what the word Nature means in that context, except as some dogmatic oversimplification of Aristotle physics and theology. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Le 19-mai-05, à 21:51, Quentin Anciaux a écrit : Hi, Le Jeudi 19 Mai 2005 21:18, John M a écrit : Without trying to defend Robert Rosen, his (unlimited) natural systems (maximum models = the THING itself, not a model) are (in his words) not Turing -computable, I think that is different from Bruno's unlimited 'comp'. I think that is what Bruno explains (rather my understanding of it), that consciousness (a thing ?) is emergent on all computations passing through th(is/ese) state(s). If I understand, there is not one computation that simulate a thing but a set of computation having this state. Right. But it seems to me that an infinity of computation passing through a particular state exists, Right. so I do not very well understand how a measure can be associated to it. Measure theory has been developed for taking into account infinite sets on which the measure bears on. Excuse me for falling through a trap-door into a reply about things I am no expert in. I may have the wrong bootstraps. I'm not an expert too ;) Beware the experts. today, in the interdisciplinary fields, they are in average worst than honest inquiring lay(wo)men. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Quentin Anciaux wrote: - Original Message - Subject: Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you? Hi, Le Jeudi 19 Mai 2005 21:18, John M a écrit : SNIP I think that is what Bruno explains (rather my understanding of it), that consciousness (a thing ?) is emergent on all computations passing through th(is/ese) state(s). If I understand, there is not one computation that simulate a thing but a set of computation having this state. But it seems to me that an infinity of computation passing through a particular state exists, so I do not very well understand how a measure can be associated to it. JM: IMO consciousness is not a thing, maybe a set of functions(?) - if we ever agree. Bruno remarked: Measure theory has been developed for taking into account infinite sets on which the measure bears on. JM: that must be a good compromise between the wholistic and model views. I still hesitate to exempt a 'measure' from its reductionistic status in spite of the wholistic infinite set it is 'based on' - seemingly to be by simulation, ie. model construction. I'm not an expert too ;) Beware the experts. today, in the interdisciplinary fields, they are in average worst than honest inquiring lay(wo)men. Bruno JM: An 'expert' is a person who knows all - better than others. As a technical consultant I always preferred to be called a specilaist. JOhn M
RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Jonathan writes Lee writes: No, the important claims that Bruno makes go far beyond. He attempts to derive physics from the theory of computation (i.e., recursive functions, effective computability, incompleteness, and unsolvability). His is also one set of the claims, hypotheses, and conjectures that attempt to reduce physics to a completely timeless abstract world. Julian Barbour, in The End of Time, gave, as you probably know, one of the most brilliant presentations from this perspective. Sure; but I was just addressing the observation by Bruno that a description of a ball can bruise you (if you are also a description). That observation is not unique to Bruno's Comp; it applies to any theory that accepts the premise of Strong AI. I'm astonished to hear this; I thought that strong AI referred merely to the claim that fully human or beyond intelligence might be achieved by automatic machinery even if the programs only push bits around one at a time. In other words, what distinguished the strong AI camp from the weak AI camp was that the latter believed that more is needed somehow or other: perhaps parallel processing; perhaps biological program instantiation; perhaps quantum gravity tubules or... something. Also, strong vs. weak was/is distinguished so far as I know by the claim about what is the best *practical* road to AI. That is, some in the weak AI camp acknowledge that a purely symbolic machine may some day achieve working human intelligence, just that this is not the way most nearly at hand, (most easily achieved). As far as believing that a billiard-ball *machine* or a hydraulic machine might instantiate me (as a running program), I for one *do* believe that. So in my understanding of the terms, as I said above, then it follows that I myself am in the strong AI camp (ontologically). But I (and I know I speak for others) don't think that I'm only a description; we believe that we must be processes running during some time interval on some kind of hardware in some physical reality. So we are as yet unmoved :-) by Bruno's descriptions. Lee
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Russell wrote: -quote--- Pulling up the door you're standing on is known in the computer industry as bootstrapping, which comes from the expression to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Of course, over time, this has been shortened to boot, as in booting your computer. Initially, to boot a computer, one had to enter a small loader program inot the computer by flicking switches. Run the program, and this would a larger program from a disk or tape, which in turn would read in an operating system (or whatever and start it running). These days, this initial program is burned into a nonvolatile silicon chip, which loads and runs the first sector of the hard disk, and so on, so the tedious stage of entering the first program by hand is avoided. Can a conscious mind be understood completely by a conscious mind? This can be cast in terms of Cantor's diagonalisation argument. Goedel's 2nd theorem effectively says that arithmetic cannot understand itself. However, the set of recursive functions is closed to diagonalisation, namely recursive functions exist that can emulate any other. Coming back to the original question - Bruno Marchal would probably answer yes, with repsect to the assumption of COMP. Robert Rosen (to pick a somewhat extreme opposing example) would probably argue no - that consciousness lies in a class of systems outside the computable set. Cheers --end quote If my memory serves well, I heard that explanation of bootstrapping some decades ago, (cosmological Q-theories) I suppose, before it was applied to computers. Thanks, Russell, for the computer class, however I would not equate 'booting' with 'bootstrapping', especially based on your info about the 'special' initiating programs you have to provide to 'strapp'. It may well be that the usage of the word originated from such poor understanding of the metaphor. I wanted to stress the ignorance of that bootstrapper (to use your preferred word) about the way she was acting. She did not want to lift herself up. She thought she is lifting a trapdoor (to go down the stairs). Exactly the goal we are pursuing in trying to understand the 'world' we belong to as part of it - together with its 'sense' of which we use a small part to think with. Maybe Cantor and Goedel were smarter, yet I doubt if they could encompass the totality in its interactions up and down to draw wholistic conclusions upon the world they also were a small part of only. They might have known more than us. That's all. If one considers an infinite set for comp, (imaginary that is) unlimited and encompassing all (knowable and coming) ramifications into its computations, that is a different ballgame. I try to stay within our applicable limits and accept the limitations of our mental capabilities. Not only mine, those of other humans as well. I have no computer working with unlimited sets of data, unlimited ways of comp, unlimited options to consider and the unlimited choice to apply for results, I envy all who have that. Without trying to defend Robert Rosen, his (unlimited) natural systems (maximum models = the THING itself, not a model) are (in his words) not Turing -computable, I think that is different from Bruno's unlimited 'comp'. Excuse me for falling through a trap-door into a reply about things I am no expert in. I may have the wrong bootstraps. Cheers John - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 12:20 AM Subject: Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Hi, Le Jeudi 19 Mai 2005 21:18, John M a écrit : Without trying to defend Robert Rosen, his (unlimited) natural systems (maximum models = the THING itself, not a model) are (in his words) not Turing -computable, I think that is different from Bruno's unlimited 'comp'. I think that is what Bruno explains (rather my understanding of it), that consciousness (a thing ?) is emergent on all computations passing through th(is/ese) state(s). If I understand, there is not one computation that simulate a thing but a set of computation having this state. But it seems to me that an infinity of computation passing through a particular state exists, so I do not very well understand how a measure can be associated to it. Excuse me for falling through a trap-door into a reply about things I am no expert in. I may have the wrong bootstraps. I'm not an expert too ;) Cheers John Regards, Quentin Anciaux
RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Lee: No, the important claims that Bruno makes go far beyond. He attempts to derive physics from the theory of computation (i.e., recursive functions, effective computability, incompleteness, and unsolvability). His is also one set of the claims, hypotheses, and conjectures that attempt to reduce physics to a completely timeless abstract world. Julian Barbour, in The End of Time, gave, as you probably know, one of the most brilliant presentations from this perspective. Jonathan: Sure; but I was just addressing the observation by Bruno that a description of a ball can bruise you (if you are also a description). That observation is not unique to Bruno's Comp; it applies to any theory that accepts the premise of Strong AI. I'm astonished to hear this; I thought that strong AI referred merely to the claim that fully human or beyond intelligence might be achieved by automatic machinery even if the programs only push bits around one at a time. In other words, what distinguished the strong AI camp from the weak AI camp was that the latter believed that more is needed somehow or other: perhaps parallel processing; perhaps biological program instantiation; perhaps quantum gravity tubules or... something. No, the conventional meanings of strong vs. weak AI are merely: Weak AI: machines can be made to act *as if* they were intelligent (conscious, etc). Strong AI: machines that act intelligently have real, conscious minds (actually experience the world, qualia etc). A claim that a description of an object (a simulated billiard ball for instance) can bruise me (cause me pain etc) if I am a simulation, requires strong AI, such that my simulation is conscious. Otherwise, under weak AI, my simulation can only act *as if* it were bruised or in pain, since it is not actually conscious. As far as believing that a billiard-ball *machine* or a hydraulic machine might instantiate me (as a running program), I for one *do* believe that. So in my understanding of the terms, as I said above, then it follows that I myself am in the strong AI camp (ontologically). But Strong AI usually presumes substrate independance; so if you don't believe that a mechanical ping pong ball machine for instance could instantiate an intelligence, you would not be classed as in the Strong AI camp. But I (and I know I speak for others) don't think that I'm only a description; we believe that we must be processes running during some time interval on some kind of hardware in some physical reality. So we are as yet unmoved :-) by Bruno's descriptions. The usual reply is that this begs the question as to what a process is. If we accept the block universe, time is a 1st person phenomenon anyway, so how do differentiate between what is a description and what is a process? Jonathan Colvin
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Hi Stephen, Le 17-mai-05, à 22:39, Stephen Paul King a écrit : There is still one question that needs to be answered: what is it that gives rise to the differentiation necessary for one description to bruise (or cause any kind of change) in another description if we disallow for some thing that acts as an interface between the two. What forms the interface in your theory? I think we should come back to the difference between your assumptions and mine. For me interface and resource are the thing I would like to explain. But I accept the notion that 0 is a number, and if x is a number then x+1 is a number, etc. Utimately interface and resource are explained in term of the rlation between those numbers. I think you assume at the start a physical world. I don't need that hypothesis. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Well, ... Le 18-mai-05, à 08:53, Bruno Marchal a écrit : I think you assume at the start a physical world. I don't need that hypothesis. I should have said: I can't use that hypothesis, because the physical world is what I would like to explain. (Let us not exaggerate the partial success I got) ;) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
In AI we consider (certain) qualia (characteristics) of the mind to get simulated by the machine, in first range those ones that are relevant to the activities we are interested in, but really: a choice of only those we know about at all in the model we have of human mentality. There is always more to it and we disregard the rest of the totality (of course). The billiard ball also has more to it than in our model's characteristics of the toy we consider. That's the way we think. What brings to my mind the silly young peasant girl who worked in my grandparents' home in the 30s and was sent down to the cellar made by my grandfather with a horizontal trap-door covering the stairs down. She came back desperate that the door does not open. She was standing on it. The joke is on us: Are we not trying to explain our own consciousness, using our own consciousness, the mind, using our mind, and the (rest of the?) world 'objectively' - of which we are an intrinsic part of? Aren't we standing on the trap door and try to lift it? Excuse my rambling, I am not against advamced thinking, just apply always the notion of a humble insecurity: that's all I can think of with my limited means and there always may be much more to it. Respectfully John Mikes - Original Message - From: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:33 PM Subject: RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you? Bruno's claim is a straightforward consequence of Strong AI; that a simulated mind would behave in an identical way to a real one, and would experience the same qualia. There's no special interface required here; the simulated mind and the simulated billiard ball are in the same world, ie. at the same level of simulation. As far as the simulated person is concerned, the billiard ball is real. Of course, the simulation can also contain a simulation of the billiard ball (2nd level simulation), which will equally be unable to bruise the simulated person, and so on ad infinitum. If we take Bostrom's simulation argument seriously, we all exist in some Nth level simulation, while our simulated billiard ball exists at the (N+1)th level. Jonathan Colvin Stephen: Your claim reminds me of the scene in the movie Matrix: Reloaded where Neo deactivates some Sentinels all the while believing that he is Unplugged. This leads to speculations about matrix in a matrix, etc. http://www.thematrix101.com/reloaded/meaning.php#mwam There is still one question that needs to be answered: what is it that gives rise to the differentiation necessary for one description to bruise (or cause any kind of change) in another description if we disallow for some thing that acts as an interface between the two. What forms the interface in your theory? http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0001/0001064.pdf Stephen - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:56 AM Subject: Re: What do you lose if you simply accept... Le 17-mai-05, à 09:56, Jonathan Colvin a écrit : Is it any stranger that a blind man can not see, than that a description of a billiard ball's properties (weight, diameter, colour etc) can not bruise me? It is different with comp. because a description of you + a description of billiard ball, done at some right level, can bruise you. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Lee writes: Jonathan: Bruno's claim is a straightforward consequence of Strong AI; that a simulated mind would behave in an identical way to a real one, and would experience the same qualia. There's no special interface required here; the simulated mind and the simulated billiard ball are in the same world, ie. at the same level of simulation. As far as the simulated person is concerned, the billiard ball is real. Of course, the simulation can also contain a simulation of the billiard ball (2nd level simulation), which will equally be unable to bruise the simulated person, and so on ad infinitum. If we take Bostrom's simulation argument seriously, we all exist in some Nth level simulation, while our simulated billiard ball exists at the (N+1)th level. Now just to keep our bookkeeping accurate, Bruno Marchal's claims far exceed what you have written. snip No, the important claims that Bruno makes go far beyond. He attempts to derive physics from the theory of computation (i.e., recursive functions, effective computability, incompleteness, and unsolvability). His is also one set of the claims, hypotheses, and conjectures that attempt to reduce physics to a completely timeless abstract world. Julian Barbour, in The End of Time, gave, as you probably know, one of the most brilliant presentations from this perspective. Sure; but I was just addressing the observation by Bruno that a description of a ball can bruise you (if you are also a description). That observation is not unique to Bruno's Comp; it applies to any theory that accepts the premise of Strong AI. Jonathan
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Pulling up the door you're standing on is known in the computer industry as bootstrapping, which comes from the expression to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Of course, over time, this has been shortened to boot, as in booting your computer. Initially, to boot a computer, one had to enter a small loader program inot the computer by flicking switches. Run the program, and this would a larger program from a disk or tape, which in turn would read in an operating system (or whatever and start it running). These days, this initial program is burned into a nonvolatile silicon chip, which loads and runs the first sector of the hard disk, and so on, so the tedious stage of entering the first program by hand is avoided. Can a conscious mind be understood completely by a conscious mind? This can be cast in terms of Cantor's diagonalisation argument. Goedel's 2nd theorem effectively says that arithmetic cannot understand itself. However, the set of recursive functions is closed to diagonalisation, namely recursive functions exist that can emulate any other. Coming back to the original question - Bruno Marchal would probably answer yes, with repsect to the assumption of COMP. Robert Rosen (to pick a somewhat extreme opposing example) would probably argue no - that consciousness lies in a class of systems outside the computable set. Cheers On Wed, May 18, 2005 at 11:26:12AM -0400, John M wrote: In AI we consider (certain) qualia (characteristics) of the mind to get simulated by the machine, in first range those ones that are relevant to the activities we are interested in, but really: a choice of only those we know about at all in the model we have of human mentality. There is always more to it and we disregard the rest of the totality (of course). The billiard ball also has more to it than in our model's characteristics of the toy we consider. That's the way we think. What brings to my mind the silly young peasant girl who worked in my grandparents' home in the 30s and was sent down to the cellar made by my grandfather with a horizontal trap-door covering the stairs down. She came back desperate that the door does not open. She was standing on it. The joke is on us: Are we not trying to explain our own consciousness, using our own consciousness, the mind, using our mind, and the (rest of the?) world 'objectively' - of which we are an intrinsic part of? Aren't we standing on the trap door and try to lift it? Excuse my rambling, I am not against advamced thinking, just apply always the notion of a humble insecurity: that's all I can think of with my limited means and there always may be much more to it. Respectfully John Mikes - Original Message - From: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:33 PM Subject: RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you? Bruno's claim is a straightforward consequence of Strong AI; that a simulated mind would behave in an identical way to a real one, and would experience the same qualia. There's no special interface required here; the simulated mind and the simulated billiard ball are in the same world, ie. at the same level of simulation. As far as the simulated person is concerned, the billiard ball is real. Of course, the simulation can also contain a simulation of the billiard ball (2nd level simulation), which will equally be unable to bruise the simulated person, and so on ad infinitum. If we take Bostrom's simulation argument seriously, we all exist in some Nth level simulation, while our simulated billiard ball exists at the (N+1)th level. Jonathan Colvin Stephen: Your claim reminds me of the scene in the movie Matrix: Reloaded where Neo deactivates some Sentinels all the while believing that he is Unplugged. This leads to speculations about matrix in a matrix, etc. http://www.thematrix101.com/reloaded/meaning.php#mwam There is still one question that needs to be answered: what is it that gives rise to the differentiation necessary for one description to bruise (or cause any kind of change) in another description if we disallow for some thing that acts as an interface between the two. What forms the interface in your theory? http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0001/0001064.pdf Stephen - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:56 AM Subject: Re: What do you lose if you simply accept... Le 17-mai-05, ? 09:56, Jonathan Colvin a ?crit : Is it any stranger that a blind man can not see, than that a description of a billiard ball's properties (weight, diameter, colour etc) can not bruise me? It is different with comp. because a description
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Dear Bruno, Your claim reminds me of the scene in the movie Matrix: Reloaded where Neo deactivates some Sentinels all the while believing that he is Unplugged. This leads to speculations about matrix in a matrix, etc. http://www.thematrix101.com/reloaded/meaning.php#mwam There is still one question that needs to be answered: what is it that gives rise to the differentiation necessary for one description to bruise (or cause any kind of change) in another description if we disallow for some thing that acts as an interface between the two. What forms the interface in your theory? http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0001/0001064.pdf Stephen - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:56 AM Subject: Re: What do you lose if you simply accept... Le 17-mai-05, à 09:56, Jonathan Colvin a écrit : Is it any stranger that a blind man can not see, than that a description of a billiard ball's properties (weight, diameter, colour etc) can not bruise me? It is different with comp. because a description of you + a description of billiard ball, done at some right level, can bruise you. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Bruno's claim is a straightforward consequence of Strong AI; that a simulated mind would behave in an identical way to a real one, and would experience the same qualia. There's no special interface required here; the simulated mind and the simulated billiard ball are in the same world, ie. at the same level of simulation. As far as the simulated person is concerned, the billiard ball is real. Of course, the simulation can also contain a simulation of the billiard ball (2nd level simulation), which will equally be unable to bruise the simulated person, and so on ad infinitum. If we take Bostrom's simulation argument seriously, we all exist in some Nth level simulation, while our simulated billiard ball exists at the (N+1)th level. Jonathan Colvin Stephen: Your claim reminds me of the scene in the movie Matrix: Reloaded where Neo deactivates some Sentinels all the while believing that he is Unplugged. This leads to speculations about matrix in a matrix, etc. http://www.thematrix101.com/reloaded/meaning.php#mwam There is still one question that needs to be answered: what is it that gives rise to the differentiation necessary for one description to bruise (or cause any kind of change) in another description if we disallow for some thing that acts as an interface between the two. What forms the interface in your theory? http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0001/0001064.pdf Stephen - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:56 AM Subject: Re: What do you lose if you simply accept... Le 17-mai-05, à 09:56, Jonathan Colvin a écrit : Is it any stranger that a blind man can not see, than that a description of a billiard ball's properties (weight, diameter, colour etc) can not bruise me? It is different with comp. because a description of you + a description of billiard ball, done at some right level, can bruise you. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?
Dear Johathan, I am trying to address the point of how we consider the interactions and communications between minds, simulated or otherwise. I do not, question the idea that simulated minds would be indistinguishable from real minds, especially from a 1st person view. I am asking about how such minds can interact such that notions of cause and effect and, say, signal to noise ratios are coherent notions. Additionally, I still would like to understand how we can continue to wonder about computations without ever considering the costs in resources associated. We can not tacitly assume abstract perpetual motion machines to power our abstract machines, or can we? Stephen - Original Message - From: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:33 PM Subject: RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you? Bruno's claim is a straightforward consequence of Strong AI; that a simulated mind would behave in an identical way to a real one, and would experience the same qualia. There's no special interface required here; the simulated mind and the simulated billiard ball are in the same world, ie. at the same level of simulation. As far as the simulated person is concerned, the billiard ball is real. Of course, the simulation can also contain a simulation of the billiard ball (2nd level simulation), which will equally be unable to bruise the simulated person, and so on ad infinitum. If we take Bostrom's simulation argument seriously, we all exist in some Nth level simulation, while our simulated billiard ball exists at the (N+1)th level. Jonathan Colvin
