Re: Consciousness is information?
Just to be fair with Torgny, it seems he changed his mind on ultrafinitism: On 10 May 2009, at 19:05, Torgny Tholerus wrote: 2009/5/8 Torgny Tholerus tor...@dsv.su.se: I was an ultrafinitist before, but I have changed my mind. Now I accept that you can say that the natural numbers are unlimited. I only deny actual infinities. The set of all natural numbers are always finite, but you can always increase the set of all natural number by adding more natural numbers to it. 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-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Consciousness is information?
Many people believe something like objectivity = serious, truth, rationality etc. subjectivity = not serious, childish, unscientific, irrational when truth is (if I can say, to be short): subjectivity = what you cannot doubt, what you know, truth objectivity = hypothetical, theoretical, but sharable, learnable and refutable. You have to doubt the theories, and you have to take them seriously so as to clarify them, and doubt them even more, up to their replacement. Now, that confusion is made greater when you begin to make objective (doubtable) theories on subjectivity (undoubtable). It is good to keep always in mind that subjectivity = undoubtable (not improvable) objectivity = doubtable (improvable) This can be made more precise in the language and theorems/non- theorems of the universal machine which introspects herself. This is really the AUDA thing Plato, Descartes and Popper have grasped similar things, imo. Bruno On 14 Jun 2009, at 03:40, David Nyman wrote: On Apr 24, 4:39 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Any content of consciousness can be an illusion. Consciousness itself cannot, because without consciousness there is no more illusion at all. - just catching up with the thread, but I feel compelled to comment that this is beautifully and clearly put. Why does this insight escape so many whose grasp of logic in other respects seems quite adequate? The word 'illusion' is often brandished in a scarily 'eliminative' way, but those who do so seem quite 'unconscious' (ironically) that the subtle knife they wield for this excision is precisely that which they seek to excise! David On 24 Apr 2009, at 06:14, Kelly wrote: On Apr 22, 12:24 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: So for that to be a plausible scenario we have to say that a person at a particular instant in time can be fully described by some set of data. Not fully. I agree with Brent that you need an interpreter to make that person manifest herself in front of you. A bit like a CD, you will need a player to get the music. It seems to me that consciousness is the self-interpretion of information. David Chalmers has a good line: Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. First person experience and third person experiment. Glad to hear Chalmers accept this at last. In UDA, inside/outside are perfectly well defined in a pure third person way: inside (first person) = memories annihilated and reconstructed in classical teleportation, outside = the view outside the teleporter. In AUDA I use the old classical definition by Plato in the Theaetetus. I still don't see what an interpreter adds, except to satisfy the intuition that something is happening that produces consciousness. Which I think is an attempt to reintroduce time. I don't think so. The only time needed is the discrete order on the natural numbers. An interpreter is needed to play the role of the person who gives some content to the information handled through his local brain. (For this I need also addition and multiplication). But I don't see any advantage of this view over the idea that conscious states just exist as a type of platonic form (as Brent mentioned earlier). The advantage is that we have the tools to derive physics in a way which is enough precise for testing the comp hypothesis. Physics has became a branch of computer's psychology or theology. At any given instant that I'm awake, I'm conscious of SOMETHING. To predict something, the difficulty is to relate that consciousness to its computational histories. Physics is given by a measure of probability on those comp histories. And I'm conscious of it by virtue of my mental state at that instant. In the materialist view, my mental state is just the state of the particles of my brain at that instant. Which cannot be maintained with the comp hyp. Your consciousness is an abstract type related to all computations going through your current state. But I say that what this really means is that my mental state is just the information represented by the particles of my brain at that instant. And that if you transfer that information to a computer and run a simulation that updates that information appropriately, my consciousness will continue in that computer simulation, regardless of the hardware (digital computer, mechanical computer, massively parallel or single processor, etc) or algorithmic details of that computer simulation. OK. But it is a very special form of information. Consciousness is really the qualia associated to your belief in some reality. It is a bet on self-consistency: it speed up your reaction time relatively to your most probable histories. But, what is information? I think it has nothing to do with physical storage or instantiation. I think it has an existence seperate from that. A platonic
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 24, 4:39 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Any content of consciousness can be an illusion. Consciousness itself cannot, because without consciousness there is no more illusion at all. - just catching up with the thread, but I feel compelled to comment that this is beautifully and clearly put. Why does this insight escape so many whose grasp of logic in other respects seems quite adequate? The word 'illusion' is often brandished in a scarily 'eliminative' way, but those who do so seem quite 'unconscious' (ironically) that the subtle knife they wield for this excision is precisely that which they seek to excise! David On 24 Apr 2009, at 06:14, Kelly wrote: On Apr 22, 12:24 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: So for that to be a plausible scenario we have to say that a person at a particular instant in time can be fully described by some set of data. Not fully. I agree with Brent that you need an interpreter to make that person manifest herself in front of you. A bit like a CD, you will need a player to get the music. It seems to me that consciousness is the self-interpretion of information. David Chalmers has a good line: Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. First person experience and third person experiment. Glad to hear Chalmers accept this at last. In UDA, inside/outside are perfectly well defined in a pure third person way: inside (first person) = memories annihilated and reconstructed in classical teleportation, outside = the view outside the teleporter. In AUDA I use the old classical definition by Plato in the Theaetetus. I still don't see what an interpreter adds, except to satisfy the intuition that something is happening that produces consciousness. Which I think is an attempt to reintroduce time. I don't think so. The only time needed is the discrete order on the natural numbers. An interpreter is needed to play the role of the person who gives some content to the information handled through his local brain. (For this I need also addition and multiplication). But I don't see any advantage of this view over the idea that conscious states just exist as a type of platonic form (as Brent mentioned earlier). The advantage is that we have the tools to derive physics in a way which is enough precise for testing the comp hypothesis. Physics has became a branch of computer's psychology or theology. At any given instant that I'm awake, I'm conscious of SOMETHING. To predict something, the difficulty is to relate that consciousness to its computational histories. Physics is given by a measure of probability on those comp histories. And I'm conscious of it by virtue of my mental state at that instant. In the materialist view, my mental state is just the state of the particles of my brain at that instant. Which cannot be maintained with the comp hyp. Your consciousness is an abstract type related to all computations going through your current state. But I say that what this really means is that my mental state is just the information represented by the particles of my brain at that instant. And that if you transfer that information to a computer and run a simulation that updates that information appropriately, my consciousness will continue in that computer simulation, regardless of the hardware (digital computer, mechanical computer, massively parallel or single processor, etc) or algorithmic details of that computer simulation. OK. But it is a very special form of information. Consciousness is really the qualia associated to your belief in some reality. It is a bet on self-consistency: it speed up your reaction time relatively to your most probable histories. But, what is information? I think it has nothing to do with physical storage or instantiation. I think it has an existence seperate from that. A platonic existence. And since the information that represents my brain exists platonically, then the information for every possible brain (including variations of my brain) should also exist platonically. You make the same error than those who confuse a universal dovetailer with a counting algorithm or the babel library. The sequence: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... , or 0 1 10 11 100 101 110 111 go through all description of all information, but it lacks the infinitely subtle redundancy contained in the space of all computations (the universal dovetaling). You work in N, succ, you lack addition and multiplication, needed for having a notion of interpreter or universal machine, the key entity capable of giving content to its information structure. This is needed to have a coherent internal interpretation of computerland. Conscious experience is more the content, or the interpretation of that information, made by a person or by a universal
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Jesse, On 01 May 2009, at 19:36, Jesse Mazer wrote: I found a paper on the Mandelbrot set and computability, I understand very little but maybe Bruno would be able to follow it: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.CC/0604003 The same author has a shorter outline or slides for a presentation on this subject at http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/cie06/files/d37/PHP_MandelbrotCiE2006Swansea_Jul2006.pdf and at the end he asks the question If M (Mandelbrot set) not Q- computable, can the Halting Problem be reduced to determining membership of (intersection of M and Q^2), i.e. how powerful a 'hypercomputer' is the Mandelbrot set? I believe Q^2 here just refers to the set of all possible pairs of rational numbers. Maybe by reducing the Halting Problem he means that for any Turing machine + input, there might be some rule that would translate it into a pair of rational numbers such that the computation will halt iff the pair is included in the Mandelbrot set? Whatever he means, it sounds like he's saying it's an open question... Jesse On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The mathematical Universal Dovetailer, the splashed universal Turing Machine, the rational Mandelbrot set, or any creative sets in the sense of Emil Post, does all computations. Really all, with Church thesis. This is a theorem in math. The rock? Show me just the 30 first steps of a computation of square-root(2). ... Bruno, I am interested about your statement regarding the Mandelbrot set implementing all computations, could you elaborate on this? So, indeed the conjecture I made on the Mandelbrot Set concerns the decidability-on-the-rationals of the set M intersected with QXQ. And it is indeed still an open problem. Actually my question is the creativity (in the sense of Post) of M, and this would mean that you can reduce the halting problem of any Turing machine into a problem of membership of a rational complex number a+bi (a, b, in Q) to M. There would be one fixed algorithm transforming any computable problem on N into such a membership problem. If the solution is positive, then the Mandelbrot Set would be a compact representation of a Universal Dovetailing. Also, this would entail the existence of interesting relationship between classical computability theory and the theory of Chaos on the reals. The universality in chaos phenomenon (Feigenbaum) would be related to the Turing Universality. Also, each of us would be, in a sense, distributed densely on the boundary of M, and each little Mandelbrot would represent the third person projection view of each of our first person plenitude. That would be cute, mainly for the pedagogy of the UD, but also, it would made it possible to borrow mathematical tools from chaos theory theory for the pursue of deriving physics from numbers. Not everything is clear for me in Potgieter paper, probably a result of my incomptence, but it is very interesting. Thanks for the link. Did I give you the link of the last, impressive M-zoom by phaumann? Look at it with the high quality option + full screen, if you are patient enough. Love it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6DD1k4BAUgfeature=channel_page Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 03 Jun 2009, at 20:11, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Do you believe if we create a computer in this physical universe that it could be made conscious, But a computer is never conscious, nor is a brain. Only a person is conscious, and a computer or a brain can only make it possible for a person to be conscious relatively to another computer. So your question is ambiguous. It is not my brain which is conscious, it is me who is conscious. My brain appears to make it possible for my consciousness to manifest itself relatively to you. Remember that we are supposed to no more count on the physical supervenience thesis. It remains locally correct to attribute a consciousness through a brain or a body to a person we judged succesfully implemented locally in some piece of matter (like when we say yes to a doctor). But the piece of matter is not the subject of the consciousness. It is only the abstract person or program who is the subject of consciousness. To say a brain is conscious consists in doing Searle's'mistake when he confused levels of computations in the Chinese room, as well seen already by Hofstadter and Dennett in Mind's I. Thanks for your response, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that if we run a simulation of a mind, we are not creating consciousness, only adding an additional instantiation to a mind which already has an infinity of indeterminable instantiations. Is that right? Yes, you are right. When you implement an emulation of a mind, you are just adding such an instanciation relatively to you. Of course you are not adding anything in Platonia. Does this imply that it is impossible to create a simulation of a mind that finds it lives in an environment without uncertainty? That is correct. If so is it because even if the physical laws in one instantiation may be certain, where some of the infinite number of computations that all instantiate that mind may diverge and in particular which one that mind will find itself in is not knowable? Yes. I will come back on this in the seven step thread. The consequence being that all observers everywhere live in QM-like environments? Absolutely. We can consider that we live in an infinity of computations, but we cannot distinguish them ... until they differentiate sufficiently so that they are in principle distinguishable (like being in Washington or being in Moscow). This entails that below our substitution level what can be observed depends directly on some average on an infinity of computations. The quantum-like aspect of nature is, in that sense, a consequence of digitalism in the cognitive science. The classical, and computational, aspect of physics remains the hard things to derive. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 03 Jun 2009, at 20:11, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Do you believe if we create a computer in this physical universe that it could be made conscious, But a computer is never conscious, nor is a brain. Only a person is conscious, and a computer or a brain can only make it possible for a person to be conscious relatively to another computer. So your question is ambiguous. It is not my brain which is conscious, it is me who is conscious. My brain appears to make it possible for my consciousness to manifest itself relatively to you. Remember that we are supposed to no more count on the physical supervenience thesis. It remains locally correct to attribute a consciousness through a brain or a body to a person we judged succesfully implemented locally in some piece of matter (like when we say yes to a doctor). But the piece of matter is not the subject of the consciousness. It is only the abstract person or program who is the subject of consciousness. To say a brain is conscious consists in doing Searle's'mistake when he confused levels of computations in the Chinese room, as well seen already by Hofstadter and Dennett in Mind's I. Thanks for your response, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that if we run a simulation of a mind, we are not creating consciousness, only adding an additional instantiation to a mind which already has an infinity of indeterminable instantiations. Is that right? Yes, you are right. When you implement an emulation of a mind, you are just adding such an instanciation relatively to you. Of course you are not adding anything in Platonia. But is the computer emulating the mind not also a platonic object? If the computer simulation does not count toward anything then what is the point of saying yes to the doctor, or to pursue mind uploading technology as a method to obtain immortality and escape eternal aging as QM-immortality would predict? Does this imply that it is impossible to create a simulation of a mind that finds it lives in an environment without uncertainty? That is correct. If so is it because even if the physical laws in one instantiation may be certain, where some of the infinite number of computations that all instantiate that mind may diverge and in particular which one that mind will find itself in is not knowable? Yes. I will come back on this in the seven step thread. The consequence being that all observers everywhere live in QM-like environments? Absolutely. We can consider that we live in an infinity of computations, but we cannot distinguish them ... until they differentiate sufficiently so that they are in principle distinguishable (like being in Washington or being in Moscow). This entails that below our substitution level what can be observed depends directly on some average on an infinity of computations. The quantum-like aspect of nature is, in that sense, a consequence of digitalism in the cognitive science. The classical, and computational, aspect of physics remains the hard things to derive. Interesting, I am curious is there some relationship between ones substitution level and where one will find the QM uncertainty? If all observers live in uncertain environments, and it took us this long to discover QM behavior, I imagine for some observers it could be much harder or much easier to find this uncertainty level. What do you think controls how deep one must look to see the QM behavior first hand? I suppose it might also be related to the complexity of one's observer moment; the more information one takes in from the environment and has in memory the lower the level the uncertainty should be. A God like mind that knew the position of every particle in the universe in which it lived might not have any uncertainty, but of course the mind couldn't encode everything about itself... Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Do you believe if we create a computer in this physical universe that it could be made conscious, But a computer is never conscious, nor is a brain. Only a person is conscious, and a computer or a brain can only make it possible for a person to be conscious relatively to another computer. So your question is ambiguous. It is not my brain which is conscious, it is me who is conscious. My brain appears to make it possible for my consciousness to manifest itself relatively to you. Remember that we are supposed to no more count on the physical supervenience thesis. It remains locally correct to attribute a consciousness through a brain or a body to a person we judged succesfully implemented locally in some piece of matter (like when we say yes to a doctor). But the piece of matter is not the subject of the consciousness. It is only the abstract person or program who is the subject of consciousness. To say a brain is conscious consists in doing Searle's'mistake when he confused levels of computations in the Chinese room, as well seen already by Hofstadter and Dennett in Mind's I. Thanks for your response, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that if we run a simulation of a mind, we are not creating consciousness, only adding an additional instantiation to a mind which already has an infinity of indeterminable instantiations. Is that right? Does this imply that it is impossible to create a simulation of a mind that finds it lives in an environment without uncertainty? If so is it because even if the physical laws in one instantiation may be certain, where some of the infinite number of computations that all instantiate that mind may diverge and in particular which one that mind will find itself in is not knowable? The consequence being that all observers everywhere live in QM-like environments? Thanks, I look forward to your reply. Jason or do you count all appearance of matter to be only a description of a computation and not capable of true computation? appearance of matter is a qualia. It does not describe anything but is a subjective experience, which may correspond to something stable and reflecting the existence of a computation (in Platonia) capable to manifest itself relatively to you. Do you believe that the only real computation exists platonically and this is the only source of conscious experience? Computations and their relative implementations exist only in platonia, yes. But even in Platonia, they exist in multiple relative version, all defined eventually through many multiple relations between numbers. If so I find this confusing, as could there not be multiple levels? But they are multiple levels of computations in Platonia or Arithmetic. Even a huge number of them. That is why we have to take into account the first person indeterminacies. For example would a platonic turing machine simulating another turing machine, simulating a mind be consicous? A 3-machine is never conscious. A 3-entity is never conscious. Only a person is. First person can only be associated with the infinities of computations computing them in Platonia. If so, how does that differ from a platonic turing machine simulating a physical reality with matter, simulating a mind? You will have to introduce a magical (assuming comp) selection principle for attaching, in a persistent way, a mind to that physical reality simulation. The mind can only be attached to an infinity of such relative simulations, and this is why if that mind look at itself below its substitution level he will find a trace of those computations. Comp says you have to make the statistic on all the computations. So the Physical has to be a sum on all those computations. That such computations statistically interfere is not so difficult to show. That the comp interference gives the apparent quantum one is not yet discarded. I think you are not taking sufficiently into account the first person (hopefully plural) indeterminacy in front of the universal dovetailer, (or arithmetic) which defined the space of all computations. Does this help a bit? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 02 Jun 2009, at 18:46, Kelly Harmon wrote: First, in the multiplication experience, the question of your choice is not addressed, nor needed. The question is really: what will happen to you. You give the right answer above. You're saying that there are no low probability worlds? Or only that they're outnumbered by the high probability worlds? The last. Low probability world exists but not only it is rare to access them, but it super-rare to remain in them, well, if comp succeeds! I guess I'm not clear on what you're getting at with this pixel thought-experiment. The UD is the many-world, or many-histories. The 2^big movies multiplication is a tiny trivial part of the UD, and being immaterialist you should understand that we are doing all the time this thought experiment. If we don't succeed in justifying why things look normal, comp has to be abandoned. We have to explain why the computational histories win when the UD plays the trick of generating a continuum of non computational histories. The computational histories which will win are those who entangled with the non computational histories so as to make normality inherited by the computational one. Somehow. Have you understand UDA1-6?, because I think most get those steps. I will soon explain in all details UDA-7, which is not entirely obvious. If you take your own philosophy seriously, you don't need UDA8. But it can be useful to convince others, of the necessity of that philosophy, once we bet on the comp hyp. I think I have a good grasp of 1 through 6. Cool, I am just explaining UDA-7, in all details, from scratch. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 29 May 2009, at 18:53, Kelly Harmon wrote: On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: What do you thing is the more probable events that you will live which one is the more probable? What is your most rational choice among So if nothing is riding on the outcome of my choice, then it seems rational to choose the option that will make me right in the most futures, which is option 6, white noise. What a relief ... If there's one world for each unique pattern of pixels, It is more or less explicit in the ideal protocol of the experience. then most of those worlds will be white noise worlds, and making the choice that makes me right in the most worlds seems as rational as anything else. Perfect. Though, if there is something significant riding on whether I choose correctly or not, then I have to decide what is most important to me: minimizing my suffering in the worlds where I'm wrong, or maximizing my gains in the worlds where I'm right. If there isn't significant suffering likely in the losing worlds, then I will be much more likely to base my decision on the observed or calculated probabilities, as Papineau suggests. OK. It is not incompatible. BUT, if there is significant suffering likely in the worlds where I lose, I might very well focus making a choice that will minimize that suffering. In which case I will generally not base much of my decision on the probabilities, since it is my view that all outcomes occur. ? However, going a little further, this assumes that I only make one bet. As I mentioned before, I think that I will make all possible bets. Before the multiplication? I don't see how you could, here and now, decide to do 2^(16180*1*60*90*24) bets. I am not asking your quantum or comp counterparts. The question is asked to *the* Kelly to which I send this post. So, even if I make the safe suffering-minimizing bet in this branch, I know that in a closely related branch I will make the risky gain-maximizing bet and say to hell with the Kellys in the losing worlds. You are hard with yourself, I mean with your selves ... So I know that even if I make the safe bet, there's another Kelly two worlds over making the risky bet, which will result in a Kelly suffering the consequences of losing over there anyway. So maybe I'll say, screw it, and make the risky bet myself. You could as well put your hand in the fire directly. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Every Kelly in every situation with every history is actualized. So my subjective feeling that I am making choices is irrelevant. Every choice is going to get made, so my choice is really just me taking my place in the continuum of Kellys. First, in the multiplication experience, the question of your choice is not addressed, nor needed. The question is really: what will happen to you. You give the right answer above. And I am asking you, here and now, what do you expect the most probable experience you will feel tomorrow, when I will do that experiment. So to speak of expectations is to appeal to my single world intuitions. But we know that intuition isn't a reliable guide, since there are many aspects of reality that are unintuitive. So I think the fact that I have an intuitive expectation that things will happen a certain way, and only that way, is neither here nor there. We can get counter-intuitive results only by starting with our intuition, and we have to succeed in making those basic intuition very solid, if we want to be able to make clear the counter-intuitive consequences. If not, we can't progress at all, and we lose the opportunity to abandon our wrong theories. Common sense is the ONLY tool to go beyond common sense. Have you understand UDA1-6?, because I think most get those steps. I will soon explain in all details UDA-7, which is not entirely obvious. If you take your own philosophy seriously, you don't need UDA8. But it can be useful to convince others, of the necessity of that philosophy, once we bet on the comp hyp. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Marty, On 29 May 2009, at 02:32, m.a. wrote: Bruno, Thank you for this detailed reply. May I pose one follow- up question? Is the universal dovetailer some sort of God/Machine that is mathematical like the rest of creation but separate from it and of a higher order of purpose? The universal dovetailer (UD) is a program. A finite piece of code, which, when executed, generates all programs, in all possible programming languages, and which also executes all those programs, by dovetailing on those executions. In that sense the UD is just a program among all programs. When it runs (platonistically or not) it generates itself, and executes itself, an infinity of times. I will explain this in all details to Kim. It is not a trivial subject, and the more you know about the diagonalization technic, the more you are amazed that the UD can exist. But its existence is a consequence of simple axioms defining addition and multiplication of the natural numbers. Its universal character is a consequence of Church's thesis, which is needed for accepting the generality of incompleteness and limitation theorems. If so, is there an explanation for its existence that doesn't exclude a deity? You can explain the existence of the UD without invoking any deity. But this does not exclude any (non naïve or literal) deity. Then, if you are willing to define deities by non turing emulable (mathematical) subject or objects, like actual infinities, then, even machines (like us, with comp) cannot NOT invoke deities when trying to learn some truth about just the numbers and the machines. We need even a transfinite ladder of deities to grasp more and more the machine's abilities. The opposition between science and religion is a red herring. Science is opposed only to authoritative arguments. The confusion comes from the fact that many religions, including some form of atheism, are based on authoritative arguments, apparently as a consequence of their temporal institutionalization. But real, ideal perhaps, science leads only to modesty and respect, especially in regard with fundamental question. Science cannot have definite answers on fundamental questions, it can only enlarge the awe, the astonishment. Science cannot kill the mystery, but it can clean it better and better from the superstitions and the fake mysteries, generally brought by the fear sellers and the egocentric manipulators. If you follow the explanation to Kim, there will be a point where you will understand that science is really what breaks down all possible form of reductive or reductionist explanation. This can explain why the pseudo religious authoritarians are used to fight against science, and against freedom. Comp superficially looks like a reductionism, but it is the most powerful vaccine against reductionism. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno, and List: I think Marty's question brought us to the point when everybody's pesonal belief (worldview? mindset?) comes into consideration. Some base the totality upon the (consciousness(?) provided) Platonsim, numbers, even physical world - view, others upon mysticism, religion, diverse phylosophies (ontologies) and a vast variety of mixtures among all these and others. To base anything 'upon' consciousness has the prerequisite of such, preceeding (even if reversely denied) the theory in favor FOR the generation of such. We (asumed that we are) are 'thinking' out our theories HOW to think out anything. *If there was never a physical world...* can be asked in a negative connotation only by an extreme solipsist ...*comp and numbers alone created such a universe and then created people to experience it* rather: generated in their experience the idea of 'comp and numbers'? (which is universe-related) AFTER they were created by what they created. ...*how did [such] purposefulness and intentionality get into pure comp? *did it indeed? isn't comp as anything reasonable, deterministic in the sense that relations provide relations? that no relations occur if only unrelated (random?) elements come into play? (Isn't THAT also a human idea by the darn consciousness?) I planed to illustrate my basis and presently developed best own belief system, but it is not of general interest and I don't want to persuade (convert? seduce?) anybody to similar position. Peace! John Mikes On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 9:41 AM, m.a. marty...@bellsouth.net wrote: *Bruno,* * If there was never a physical world to which living creatures adapted after millions of years and which after further eons prompted the evolution of consciousness, do we conclude that comp and numbers alone created such a universe and then created people to experience it...all through the chance combinations of numbers? Are we saying that monkeys on typewriters authored everything we see about us? If so, how did such purposefulness and intentionality get into pure comp? * * marty a.* ** ** ** ** ** ** - Original Message - From: Kelly Harmon harmon...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 3:02 AM Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Since you told me that you accept comp, after all, and do no more oppose it to your view, I think we agree, at least on many things. Indeed you agree with the hypothesis, and your philosophy appears to be a consequence of the hypothesis. Excellent! It remains possible that we have a disagreement concerning the probability, and this has some importance, because it is the use of probability (or credibility) which makes the consequences of comp testable. More in the comment below. So my only problem with the usual view of probability is that it doesn't seem to me to emerge naturally from a platonic theory of conscious. Is your proposal something that would conceivably be arrived at by a rational observer in one of the (supposedly) rare worlds where white rabbits are common? Does it have features that would lead one to predict the absence of white rabbits, or does it just offer a way to explain their absence after the fact? As I mentioned before, assuming computationalism it seems to me that it is theoretically possible to create a computer simulation that would manifest any imaginable conscious entity observing any imaginable world, including schizophrenic beings observing psychedelic realities. So, then further assuming Platonism, all of these strange experiences should exist in Platonia. Along with all possible normal experiences. I don't see any obvious, non-ad hoc mechanism to eliminate or minimize strange experiences relative to normal experiences, and I don't think adding one is justified just for that purpose, or even necessary since an unconstrained platonic theory does have the obvious virtue of saying that there will always be Kellys like myself who have never seen white rabbits. As for your earlier questions about how you should bet, I have two responses. First that there exists a Bruno who will make every possible bet. One particular Bruno will make his bet on a whim, while another Bruno will do so only after long consideration, and yet another will make a wild bet in a fit of madness. Each Bruno will feel like he made a choice, but actually all possible Brunos exist, so all possible bets are made, for all possible subjectively felt reasons. Second, and probably more helpfully, I'll quote this paper (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/04/17/78/manymindsandprobs.doc) by David Papineau, which sounds reasonable to me: But many minds theorists can respond that the logic of statistical inference is just the same on their view
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: What do you thing is the more probable events that you will live which one is the more probable? What is your most rational choice among So if nothing is riding on the outcome of my choice, then it seems rational to choose the option that will make me right in the most futures, which is option 6, white noise. If there's one world for each unique pattern of pixels, then most of those worlds will be white noise worlds, and making the choice that makes me right in the most worlds seems as rational as anything else. Though, if there is something significant riding on whether I choose correctly or not, then I have to decide what is most important to me: minimizing my suffering in the worlds where I'm wrong, or maximizing my gains in the worlds where I'm right. If there isn't significant suffering likely in the losing worlds, then I will be much more likely to base my decision on the observed or calculated probabilities, as Papineau suggests. BUT, if there is significant suffering likely in the worlds where I lose, I might very well focus making a choice that will minimize that suffering. In which case I will generally not base much of my decision on the probabilities, since it is my view that all outcomes occur. However, going a little further, this assumes that I only make one bet. As I mentioned before, I think that I will make all possible bets. So, even if I make the safe suffering-minimizing bet in this branch, I know that in a closely related branch I will make the risky gain-maximizing bet and say to hell with the Kellys in the losing worlds. So I know that even if I make the safe bet, there's another Kelly two worlds over making the risky bet, which will result in a Kelly suffering the consequences of losing over there anyway. So maybe I'll say, screw it, and make the risky bet myself. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Every Kelly in every situation with every history is actualized. So my subjective feeling that I am making choices is irrelevant. Every choice is going to get made, so my choice is really just me taking my place in the continuum of Kellys. And I am asking you, here and now, what do you expect the most probable experience you will feel tomorrow, when I will do that experiment. So to speak of expectations is to appeal to my single world intuitions. But we know that intuition isn't a reliable guide, since there are many aspects of reality that are unintuitive. So I think the fact that I have an intuitive expectation that things will happen a certain way, and only that way, is neither here nor there. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno, I feel very much in tune with your definition of science, so I'll trudge along with Kim as far as the UD allows me to follow the reasoning. m.a. - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 6:59 AM Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? Hi Marty, On 29 May 2009, at 02:32, m.a. wrote: Bruno, Thank you for this detailed reply. May I pose one follow-up question? Is the universal dovetailer some sort of God/Machine that is mathematical like the rest of creation but separate from it and of a higher order of purpose? The universal dovetailer (UD) is a program. A finite piece of code, which, when executed, generates all programs, in all possible programming languages, and which also executes all those programs, by dovetailing on those executions. In that sense the UD is just a program among all programs. When it runs (platonistically or not) it generates itself, and executes itself, an infinity of times. I will explain this in all details to Kim. It is not a trivial subject, and the more you know about the diagonalization technic, the more you are amazed that the UD can exist. But its existence is a consequence of simple axioms defining addition and multiplication of the natural numbers. Its universal character is a consequence of Church's thesis, which is needed for accepting the generality of incompleteness and limitation theorems. If so, is there an explanation for its existence that doesn't exclude a deity? You can explain the existence of the UD without invoking any deity. But this does not exclude any (non naïve or literal) deity. Then, if you are willing to define deities by non turing emulable (mathematical) subject or objects, like actual infinities, then, even machines (like us, with comp) cannot NOT invoke deities when trying to learn some truth about just the numbers and the machines. We need even a transfinite ladder of deities to grasp more and more the machine's abilities. The opposition between science and religion is a red herring. Science is opposed only to authoritative arguments. The confusion comes from the fact that many religions, including some form of atheism, are based on authoritative arguments, apparently as a consequence of their temporal institutionalization. But real, ideal perhaps, science leads only to modesty and respect, especially in regard with fundamental question. Science cannot have definite answers on fundamental questions, it can only enlarge the awe, the astonishment. Science cannot kill the mystery, but it can clean it better and better from the superstitions and the fake mysteries, generally brought by the fear sellers and the egocentric manipulators. If you follow the explanation to Kim, there will be a point where you will understand that science is really what breaks down all possible form of reductive or reductionist explanation. This can explain why the pseudo religious authoritarians are used to fight against science, and against freedom. Comp superficially looks like a reductionism, but it is the most powerful vaccine against reductionism. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Since you told me that you accept comp, after all, and do no more oppose it to your view, I think we agree, at least on many things. Indeed you agree with the hypothesis, and your philosophy appears to be a consequence of the hypothesis. Excellent! It remains possible that we have a disagreement concerning the probability, and this has some importance, because it is the use of probability (or credibility) which makes the consequences of comp testable. More in the comment below. So my only problem with the usual view of probability is that it doesn't seem to me to emerge naturally from a platonic theory of conscious. Is your proposal something that would conceivably be arrived at by a rational observer in one of the (supposedly) rare worlds where white rabbits are common? Does it have features that would lead one to predict the absence of white rabbits, or does it just offer a way to explain their absence after the fact? As I mentioned before, assuming computationalism it seems to me that it is theoretically possible to create a computer simulation that would manifest any imaginable conscious entity observing any imaginable world, including schizophrenic beings observing psychedelic realities. So, then further assuming Platonism, all of these strange experiences should exist in Platonia. Along with all possible normal experiences. I don't see any obvious, non-ad hoc mechanism to eliminate or minimize strange experiences relative to normal experiences, and I don't think adding one is justified just for that purpose, or even necessary since an unconstrained platonic theory does have the obvious virtue of saying that there will always be Kellys like myself who have never seen white rabbits. As for your earlier questions about how you should bet, I have two responses. First that there exists a Bruno who will make every possible bet. One particular Bruno will make his bet on a whim, while another Bruno will do so only after long consideration, and yet another will make a wild bet in a fit of madness. Each Bruno will feel like he made a choice, but actually all possible Brunos exist, so all possible bets are made, for all possible subjectively felt reasons. Second, and probably more helpfully, I'll quote this paper (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/04/17/78/manymindsandprobs.doc) by David Papineau, which sounds reasonable to me: But many minds theorists can respond that the logic of statistical inference is just the same on their view as on the conventional view. True, on their view in any repeated trial all the different possible sequences of results can be observed, and so some attempts to infer the probability from the observed frequency will get it wrong. Still, any particular mind observing any one of these sequences will reason just as the conventional view would recommend: note the frequency, infer that the probability is close to the frequency, and hope that you are not the unlucky victim of an improbable sample. Of course the logic of this kind of statistical inference is itself a matter of active philosophical controversy. But it will be just the same inference on both the many minds and the conventional view. [...] It is worth observing that, on the conventional view, what agents want from their choices are the desired results, rather than that these results be objectively probable (a choice that makes the results objectively probable, but unluckily doesn't produce them, doesn't give you what you want). Given this, there is room to raise the question: why are rational agents well-advised to choose actions that make their desired results objectively probable? Rather surprisingly, is no good answer to this question. (After all, you can't assume you will get what you want if you so choose.) From Pierce on, philosophers have been forced to conclude that it is simply a primitive fact about rational choice that you ought to weight future possibilities according to known objective probabilities in making decisions. The many minds view simply says the same thing. Rational agents ought to choose those actions which will maximize the known objective probability of desired results. As to why they ought to do this, there is no further explanation. This is simply a basic truth about rational choice. [...] I supect that this basic truth actually makes more sense on the many minds view than on the conventional view. For on the conventional view there is a puzzle about the relation between this truth and the further thought that ultimate success in action depends on desired results actually occurring. On the many minds view, by contrast, there is no such further thought, since all possible results occur, desired and undesired, and so no puzzle: in effect there is only one criterion of success in action, namely, maximizing the known objective probability of desired results. However, this is really
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 28/05/2009, at 12:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Also, I will from now on, abandon the term machine for the term number. Relatively to a fixed chosen universal machine, like Robinson arithmetic, such an identification can be done precisely. I will come back on this to my explanation to Kim, if he is still interested, and patient enough ... Am still interested and possessed of infinite patience Kim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno, If there was never a physical world to which living creatures adapted after millions of years and which after further eons prompted the evolution of consciousness, do we conclude that comp and numbers alone created such a universe and then created people to experience it...all through the chance combinations of numbers? Are we saying that monkeys on typewriters authored everything we see about us? If so, how did such purposefulness and intentionality get into pure comp? marty a. - Original Message - From: Kelly Harmon harmon...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 3:02 AM Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Since you told me that you accept comp, after all, and do no more oppose it to your view, I think we agree, at least on many things. Indeed you agree with the hypothesis, and your philosophy appears to be a consequence of the hypothesis. Excellent! It remains possible that we have a disagreement concerning the probability, and this has some importance, because it is the use of probability (or credibility) which makes the consequences of comp testable. More in the comment below. So my only problem with the usual view of probability is that it doesn't seem to me to emerge naturally from a platonic theory of conscious. Is your proposal something that would conceivably be arrived at by a rational observer in one of the (supposedly) rare worlds where white rabbits are common? Does it have features that would lead one to predict the absence of white rabbits, or does it just offer a way to explain their absence after the fact? As I mentioned before, assuming computationalism it seems to me that it is theoretically possible to create a computer simulation that would manifest any imaginable conscious entity observing any imaginable world, including schizophrenic beings observing psychedelic realities. So, then further assuming Platonism, all of these strange experiences should exist in Platonia. Along with all possible normal experiences. I don't see any obvious, non-ad hoc mechanism to eliminate or minimize strange experiences relative to normal experiences, and I don't think adding one is justified just for that purpose, or even necessary since an unconstrained platonic theory does have the obvious virtue of saying that there will always be Kellys like myself who have never seen white rabbits. As for your earlier questions about how you should bet, I have two responses. First that there exists a Bruno who will make every possible bet. One particular Bruno will make his bet on a whim, while another Bruno will do so only after long consideration, and yet another will make a wild bet in a fit of madness. Each Bruno will feel like he made a choice, but actually all possible Brunos exist, so all possible bets are made, for all possible subjectively felt reasons. Second, and probably more helpfully, I'll quote this paper (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/04/17/78/manymindsandprobs.doc) by David Papineau, which sounds reasonable to me: But many minds theorists can respond that the logic of statistical inference is just the same on their view as on the conventional view. True, on their view in any repeated trial all the different possible sequences of results can be observed, and so some attempts to infer the probability from the observed frequency will get it wrong. Still, any particular mind observing any one of these sequences will reason just as the conventional view would recommend: note the frequency, infer that the probability is close to the frequency, and hope that you are not the unlucky victim of an improbable sample. Of course the logic of this kind of statistical inference is itself a matter of active philosophical controversy. But it will be just the same inference on both the many minds and the conventional view. [...] It is worth observing that, on the conventional view, what agents want from their choices are the desired results, rather than that these results be objectively probable (a choice that makes the results objectively probable, but unluckily doesn't produce them, doesn't give you what you want). Given this, there is room to raise the question: why are rational agents well-advised to choose actions that make their desired results objectively probable? Rather surprisingly, is no good answer to this question. (After all, you can't assume you will get what you want if you so choose.) From Pierce on, philosophers have been forced to conclude that it is simply a primitive fact about rational choice that you ought to weight future possibilities according to known objective probabilities in making
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 28 May 2009, at 09:18, Kim Jones wrote: Am still interested and possessed of infinite patience Nice! Soon ! (in the relative platonist way ... :) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 28 May 2009, at 09:02, Kelly Harmon wrote: On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Since you told me that you accept comp, after all, and do no more oppose it to your view, I think we agree, at least on many things. Indeed you agree with the hypothesis, and your philosophy appears to be a consequence of the hypothesis. Excellent! Glad you say so. It remains possible that we have a disagreement concerning the probability, and this has some importance, because it is the use of probability (or credibility) which makes the consequences of comp testable. More in the comment below. So my only problem with the usual view of probability is that it doesn't seem to me to emerge naturally from a platonic theory of conscious. It does not in Platonia-before-Gödel. After Godel we know machines (and even most gods), when they observe they neighborhoods are confronted to many modalities which reflect the gap between truth, intelligibility, observability, sensibility. Rational probabilities, qualia sensibilities, quanta probabilities emerge by the reflection, for each normal universal machine/number, of their personal and collective border of their (abyssal) ignorance. After Godel we know that such an ignorance has a mathematical creative/ productive shape. But just UDA should convince you that probabilities emerge. I will come back on this. Is your proposal something that would conceivably be arrived at by a rational observer in one of the (supposedly) rare worlds where white rabbits are common? White rabbits are never common. When a white rabbit is common and regular, we call it a particle. Today, the problem with comp is that it still could predict a priori too much white rabbits, and not enough particles, to be short ... A priori the universal machine dreams too much ... Does it have features that would lead one to predict the absence of white rabbits, or does it just offer a way to explain their absence after the fact? The UD reasoning has to justify the observation that they are very rare. We have to justify why our neighborhoods seems to obey computable and compressible laws, when we know that below our substitution level we are supported by a continuum of computations. Well, computer science and mathematical logic are promising with that respect. That continuum has a mathematical shape. As I mentioned before, assuming computationalism it seems to me that it is theoretically possible to create a computer simulation that would manifest any imaginable conscious entity observing any imaginable world, including schizophrenic beings observing psychedelic realities. The UD does exactly that. The first price of its universality is that it will not only do that, but it will do that *redundantly*. The redundance is big and unavoidable. The second price is that it will generate (in its platonic static way) non terminating histories, from which a continuum will be projected as viewed from inside. The UD is redundant, like the Mandelbrot set. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6DD1k4BAUgfeature=channel_page It is an impressive zoom on compact representation of a universal dovetailng (most probably) and illustrates the redundancy, and the presence of a rich structure. It is generated by a very little program. So, then further assuming Platonism, all of these strange experiences should exist in Platonia. Along with all possible normal experiences. Yes. But clearly we don't see them, or very rarely. This has to be explained from the general indeterminacy. The special indeterminacy is the indeterminacy in a relative to this cosmos self-duplication à-la Washington/Moscow. The global indeterminacy is you in front of a (material or immaterial, platonic) Universal Dovetailer (UD). Elementary arithmetic defines already a universal dovetailer. I don't see any obvious, non-ad hoc mechanism to eliminate or minimize strange experiences relative to normal experiences, and I don't think adding one is justified just for that purpose, or even necessary since an unconstrained platonic theory does have the obvious virtue of saying that there will always be Kellys like myself who have never seen white rabbits. This explains the Kelly of here and now. But it does not explain where my assurance comes from that the Kelly which I hope will read this mail will still share my history, in which the white rabbit has not made an apparition. Given that you are already idealist, UDA is just UDA1-7, lucky you! UDA1-7 is the explanation where the probabilities (or credibilities) come from, and why they have to be quantum-like unless comp or quantum mechanics are flawed. As for your earlier questions about how you should bet, I have two responses. First that there exists a Bruno who will make every possible bet. One particular Bruno will make his bet on a whim, while another
Re: Consciousness is information?
Marty, On 28 May 2009, at 15:41, m.a. wrote: If there was never a physical world to which living creatures adapted after millions of years and which after further eons prompted the evolution of consciousness, do we conclude that comp and numbers alone created such a universe and then created people to experience it...all through the chance combinations of numbers? Are we saying that monkeys on typewriters authored everything we see about us? If so, how did such purposefulness and intentionality get into pure comp? No, it is not the combination by chance, it is, on the contrary, due to the extreme richness and complexity of the relation between numbers. It makes it possible to take the numbers, when structured by addition and multiplication, as the source of the emerging very long and deep computational histories, themselves filtered, and non trivially restructured, by they possible self-aware universal numbers. No chance is at play there. That is even why you can extract the physical laws and justify why they are laws. Probabilities appears as internal first person modalities because no machine, and thus not us (assuming comp) can ever know in which histories they are. They can know this (betting on comp), and they can infer that they are supported by many histories, leading to a many- world interpretation of arithmetic. Monkeys on typewriter authored all the books, like a counting algorithm. You can say it generates all programs, but it execute none of those programs. The monkeys will generate books describing computation, but never any non trivial computations. The universal dovetailer, and the arithmetical truth (actually a tiny part of it) not only generate all programs, but execute them, in the platonic static sense, but still, the arithmetical true relations defines computations, not just description of computation. Look at the Mandelbrot set link I give to Kelly. There is nothing really random in that structure, yet the more you zoom in, the more intricate the structure appears. You can perhaps intuit that something is evolving there. After Gödel the mathematicians have to abandonthe idea to ever find an unifying complete theory of the numbers with their additive and multiplicative structure. The monkey's type writing is trivial. You cannot faithfully embed computer science in the numbers or in the monkey's typewitting, but you can fully embed computer science in the additive and multiplicative structure of the numbers. It is lawful and unpredictable by complexity and deepness, not by chance and randomness. Monkeys = numbers = not very rich. Universe emerge not from numbers, but from the logical relations among the numbers. That is so rich that there is no TOE for that! Bruno - Original Message - From: Kelly Harmon harmon...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 3:02 AM Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Since you told me that you accept comp, after all, and do no more oppose it to your view, I think we agree, at least on many things. Indeed you agree with the hypothesis, and your philosophy appears to be a consequence of the hypothesis. Excellent! It remains possible that we have a disagreement concerning the probability, and this has some importance, because it is the use of probability (or credibility) which makes the consequences of comp testable. More in the comment below. So my only problem with the usual view of probability is that it doesn't seem to me to emerge naturally from a platonic theory of conscious. Is your proposal something that would conceivably be arrived at by a rational observer in one of the (supposedly) rare worlds where white rabbits are common? Does it have features that would lead one to predict the absence of white rabbits, or does it just offer a way to explain their absence after the fact? As I mentioned before, assuming computationalism it seems to me that it is theoretically possible to create a computer simulation that would manifest any imaginable conscious entity observing any imaginable world, including schizophrenic beings observing psychedelic realities. So, then further assuming Platonism, all of these strange experiences should exist in Platonia. Along with all possible normal experiences. I don't see any obvious, non-ad hoc mechanism to eliminate or minimize strange experiences relative to normal experiences, and I don't think adding one is justified just for that purpose, or even necessary since an unconstrained platonic theory does have the obvious virtue of saying that there will always be Kellys like myself who have never seen white rabbits. As for your earlier questions about how you should bet, I have two
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno, Thank you for this detailed reply. May I pose one follow-up question? Is the universal dovetailer some sort of God/Machine that is mathematical like the rest of creation but separate from it and of a higher order of purpose? If so, is there an explanation for its existence that doesn't exclude a deity? marty a. - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 4:33 PM Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? Marty, On 28 May 2009, at 15:41, m.a. wrote: If there was never a physical world to which living creatures adapted after millions of years and which after further eons prompted the evolution of consciousness, do we conclude that comp and numbers alone created such a universe and then created people to experience it...all through the chance combinations of numbers? Are we saying that monkeys on typewriters authored everything we see about us? If so, how did such purposefulness and intentionality get into pure comp? No, it is not the combination by chance, it is, on the contrary, due to the extreme richness and complexity of the relation between numbers. It makes it possible to take the numbers, when structured by addition and multiplication, as the source of the emerging very long and deep computational histories, themselves filtered, and non trivially restructured, by they possible self-aware universal numbers. No chance is at play there. That is even why you can extract the physical laws and justify why they are laws. Probabilities appears as internal first person modalities because no machine, and thus not us (assuming comp) can ever know in which histories they are. They can know this (betting on comp), and they can infer that they are supported by many histories, leading to a many-world interpretation of arithmetic. Monkeys on typewriter authored all the books, like a counting algorithm. You can say it generates all programs, but it execute none of those programs. The monkeys will generate books describing computation, but never any non trivial computations. The universal dovetailer, and the arithmetical truth (actually a tiny part of it) not only generate all programs, but execute them, in the platonic static sense, but still, the arithmetical true relations defines computations, not just description of computation. Look at the Mandelbrot set link I give to Kelly. There is nothing really random in that structure, yet the more you zoom in, the more intricate the structure appears. You can perhaps intuit that something is evolving there. After Gödel the mathematicians have to abandonthe idea to ever find an unifying complete theory of the numbers with their additive and multiplicative structure. The monkey's type writing is trivial. You cannot faithfully embed computer science in the numbers or in the monkey's typewitting, but you can fully embed computer science in the additive and multiplicative structure of the numbers. It is lawful and unpredictable by complexity and deepness, not by chance and randomness. Monkeys = numbers = not very rich. Universe emerge not from numbers, but from the logical relations among the numbers. That is so rich that there is no TOE for that! Bruno - Original Message - From: Kelly Harmon harmon...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 3:02 AM Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Since you told me that you accept comp, after all, and do no more oppose it to your view, I think we agree, at least on many things. Indeed you agree with the hypothesis, and your philosophy appears to be a consequence of the hypothesis. Excellent! It remains possible that we have a disagreement concerning the probability, and this has some importance, because it is the use of probability (or credibility) which makes the consequences of comp testable. More in the comment below. So my only problem with the usual view of probability is that it doesn't seem to me to emerge naturally from a platonic theory of conscious. Is your proposal something that would conceivably be arrived at by a rational observer in one of the (supposedly) rare worlds where white rabbits are common? Does it have features that would lead one to predict the absence of white rabbits, or does it just offer a way to explain their absence after the fact? As I mentioned before, assuming computationalism it seems to me
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Actually I still have no clue of what you mean by information. Well, I don't think I can say it much better than I did before: In my view, there are ungrounded abstract symbols that acquire meaning via constraints placed on them by their relationships to other symbols. The only grounding comes from the conscious experience that is intrinsic to a particular set of relationships. To repeat my earlier Chalmers quote, Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. It is this subjective experience of information that provides meaning to the otherwise completely abstract platonic symbols. Going a little further: I would say that the relationships between the symbols that make up a particular mental state have some sort of consistency, some regularity, some syntax - so that when these syntactical relationships are combined with the symbols it does make up some sort of descriptive language. A language that is used to describe a state of mind. Here we're well into the realm of semiotics I think. To come back to our disagreement, what is it that a Turing machine does that results in consciousness? It would seem to me that ultimately what a Turing machine does is manipulate symbols according to specific rules. But is it the process of manipulating the symbols that produces consciousness? OR is it the state of the symbols and their relationships with each other AFTER the manipulation which really accounts for consciousness? I say the latter. You seem to be saying the former...or maybe you're saying it's both? As I've mentioned, I think that the symbols which combine to create a mental state can be manipulated in MANY ways. And algorithms just serve as descriptions of these ways. But subjective consciousness is in the states, not in how the states are manipulated. With different probabilities. That is why we are partially responsible of our future. This motivates education and learning, and commenting posts ... In my view, life is just something that we experience. That's it. There's nothing more to life than subjective experience. The feeling of being an active participant, of making decisions, of planning, of choosing, is only that: a feeling. A type of qualia. Okay, it's past my bedtime, I'll do probability tomorrow! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly, Since you told me that you accept comp, after all, and do no more oppose it to your view, I think we agree, at least on many things. Indeed you agree with the hypothesis, and your philosophy appears to be a consequence of the hypothesis. That is all my work is about. Indeed I show you are right in a constructive way, which leads to the testability of the computationalist hypothesis. It remains possible that we have a disagreement concerning the probability, and this has some importance, because it is the use of probability (or credibility) which makes the consequences of comp testable. More in the comment below. Also, I will from now on, abandon the term machine for the term number. Relatively to a fixed chosen universal machine, like Robinson arithmetic, such an identification can be done precisely. I will come back on this to my explanation to Kim, if he is still interested, and patient enough ... On 27 May 2009, at 09:05, Kelly Harmon wrote: On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Actually I still have no clue of what you mean by information. Well, I don't think I can say it much better than I did before: In my view, there are ungrounded abstract symbols that acquire meaning via constraints placed on them by their relationships to other symbols. Exactly. And those constraints makes sense once we make explicit the many universal numbers involved. I will have opportunities to say more on this later. The only grounding comes from the conscious experience that is intrinsic to a particular set of relationships. I agree, but only because I have succeeded to make such a statement utterly precise, and even testable. To repeat my earlier Chalmers quote, Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. Again this is fuzzy, and I think Chalmers is just quoting me with different terms (btw). I prefer to avoid the word information because it has different meaning in science and in everyday talk. Either you use it in the sense of Shannon, or Kolmogorov, or Solomonov, or Solovay or even Landauer (which one precisely?), in which case information = consciousness is as much non sensical than saying consciousness is neuron's firing, or you use it, as I think you do, in the everyday sense of information like when we ask do you know the last information on TV?. In that case information corresponds to what I am used to call first person view, and your identity consciousness = information is correct, and even a theorem with reasonnably fine grained definitions. So we are OK here. It is this subjective experience of information that provides meaning to the otherwise completely abstract platonic symbols. As I said. Going a little further: I would say that the relationships between the symbols that make up a particular mental state have some sort of consistency, some regularity, some syntax - so that when these syntactical relationships are combined with the symbols it does make up some sort of descriptive language. A language that is used to describe a state of mind. Here we're well into the realm of semiotics I think. Here you are even closer to what I say in both UDA and AUDA. No problem. It takes me 30 years of work to explain this succesfully to a part of the experts in those fields, so as to make a PhD thesis from that. Sorry to let you know that this has been already developed in details. My originality is to take computer science seriously when studying computationalism. To come back to our disagreement, what is it that a Turing machine does that results in consciousness? From the third point of view, one universal number relates the 3- informations. From the first person point of view, all universal and particular numbers at once imposes a probability measure on the histories going through the corresponding 1-information. It would seem to me that ultimately what a Turing machine does is manipulate symbols according to specific rules. In the platonic sense, yes. And it concerns 3-information or relative computational states. But is it the process of manipulating the symbols that produces consciousness? No. Nothing, strictly speaking, ever produce consciousness. It will appear to be the unavoidable inside view aspect of numbers in arithmetical platonia. AUDA explains this thanks to the fact that self- consistency belongs to the G* minus G theory. It is the kind of things which a number (machine) can produce as true without being able to communicate it scientifically (prove) to another machine, including itself. OR is it the state of the symbols and their relationships with each other AFTER the manipulation which really accounts for consciousness? Preferably indeed. The manipulations are all existing in the static Platonia. I say the latter. You seem to be saying the
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly wrote: On May 23, 12:54 pm, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Either of these ideas is definite enough that they could actually be implemented (in contrast to many philosophical ideas about consciousness). Once you had implemented the ideas, how would you then know whether consciousness experience had actually been produced, as opposed to the mere appearance of it? If you don't have a way of definitively detecting the hoped for result of consciousness, then how exactly does being implementable really help? You run your test...and then what? It's no different than any theory (including yours). You draw some conclusions about what should happen if it's correct, you try it and you see if your predictions work out. If I program/build my robot a certain way will it seem as conscious as a dog or a chimpanzee or a human? Can I adjust my design to match any of those? Can I change my brain in a certain way and change my experienced consciousness in a predictable way. If so, I place some credence in my theory of consciousness. If not - it's back to the drawing board. Many things are not observed directly. No theory is certain; it may be true but we can never be certain it's true. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 1:54 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: May be you could study the UDA, and directly tell me at which step your theory departs from the comp hyp. Okay, I read over your SANE2004 paper again. From step 1 of UDA: The scanned (read) information is send by traditional means, by mails or radio waves for instance, at Helsinki, where you are correctly reconstituted with ambient organic material. Okay, so this information that is sent by traditional means is really I think where consciousness lives. Though not literally in the physical instantiation of the information. For instance if you were to print out that information in some format, I would NOT point to the large pile of ink-stained paper and say that it was conscious. But would say that the information that is represented by that pile of ink and paper represents, or identifies, or points to a single instant of consciousness. So, what is the information? Well, let's say the data you're transmitting is from a neural scan and consists of a bunch of numbers indicating neural connection weights, chemical concentrations, molecular positions and states, or whatever. I wouldn't even say that this information is the information that is conscious. Instead this information is ultimately an encoding (via the particular way that the brain stores information) of the symbols and the relationships between those symbols that represent your knowledge, beliefs, and memories (all of the information that makes you who you are). (Echoes here of the Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) stuff that I referenced before) From step 8 of UDA: Instead of linking [the pain I feel] at space-time (x,t) to [a machine state] at space-time (x,t), we are obliged to associate [the pain I feel at space-time (x,t)] to a type or a sheaf of computations (existing forever in the arithmetical Platonia which is accepted as existing independently of our selves with arithmetical realism). So instead I would write this as: Instead of linking [the pain I feel] at space-time (x,t) to [a machine state] at space-time (x,t), we are obliged to associate [the pain I feel at space-time (x,t)] to an [informational state] existing forever in Platonia which is accepted as existing independently of ourselves. You have to see that, personally, I don't have a theory other than the assumption that the brain is emulable by a Turing machine I also believe that, but I think that consciousness is in the information represented by the discrete states of the data stored on the Turing machine's tape after each instruction is executed, NOT in the actual execution of the Turing machine. The instruction table of the Turing machine just describes one possible way that a particular sequence of information states could be produced. Execution of the instructions in the action table actually doesn't do anything with respect to the production of consciousness. The output informational states represented by data on tape exists platonically even if the Turing machine program is never run. And therefore the consciousness that goes with those states also exists platonically, even if the Turing machine program is never run. OK. So, now, Kelly, just to understand what you mean by your theory, I have to ask you what your theory predicts in case of self- multiplication. Well, first I'd say there aren't copies of identical information in Platonia. All perceived physical representations all actually point to (similarly to a C-style pointer in programming) the same platonically existing information state. So if there are 1000 identical copies of me in identical mental states, they are really just representations of the same source information state. Piles of atoms aren't conscious. Information is conscious. 1000 identically arranged piles of atoms still represent only a single information state (setting aside putnam mapping issues). The information state is conscious, not the piles of atoms. However, once their experiences diverge so that they are no longer identical, then they are totally seperate and they represent (or point to) seperate, non-overlapping conscious information states. To see where does those probabilities come from, you have to understand that 1) you can be multiplied (that is read, copy (cut) and pasted in Washington AND Moscow (say)), and 2) you are multiplied (by 2^aleph_zero, at each instant, with a comp definition of instant not related in principle with any form of physical time). Well, probability is a tricky subject, right? An interesting quote: Whereas the interpretation of quantum mechanics has only been puzzling us for ~75 years, the interpretation of probability has been doing so for more than 300 years [16, 17]. Poincare [18] (p. 186) described probability as an obscure instinct. In the century that has elapsed since then philosophers have worked hard to lessen the obscurity. However, the result has not been to arrive at any consensus.
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 23 May 2009, at 06:39, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 May 2009, at 18:25, Jason Resch wrote: ... Do you believe if we create a computer in this physical universe that it could be made conscious, But a computer is never conscious, nor is a brain. Only a person is conscious, and a computer or a brain can only make it possible for a person to be conscious relatively to another computer. So your question is ambiguous. It is not my brain which is conscious, it is me who is conscious. By me do you mean some computation in Platonia? I'm wondering what are the implications of your theory for creating artificial consciousness. Since comp starts with the assumption that replacing one's brain with functionally identical units (at some level of detail) will make no discernable difference in your experience, it entails that a computer that functionally replaces your brain is conscious (conscious of being you in fact). So if I want to build a conscious robot from scratch, not by copying someone's brain, what must I do? I don't see the problem, besides the obvious and usual difficulties of artificial intelligence. Actually if you implement a theorem prover for Peano Arithmetic (= Robinson Arithmetic + the induction axioms) I am willing to say that you have build a conscious entity. It is the entity that I interview (thanks to the work of Gödel, Löb and Solovay). The person related to it, which I identify with the knower (obeying to the theaetetical logic of provable(p) p) exist simultaneously in all the possible relative implementations of it in platonia or in UD* (the universal deployment). I mean it is the same for a copy of me, or an intelligent robot build from scratch. Both person exist in an atemporal and aspatial ways in Platonia, and will appear concrete to any entity belonging to some computation where they can manifest themselves. Like numbers. 17 exists in Platonia, but 17 has multiple implementation in many computations in Platonia. I guess I miss something because I don't see any problem here. You may elaborate perhaps. We are in the seven step here. Are you sure you grasp the six preceding steps? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 23 May 2009, at 06:39, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 May 2009, at 18:25, Jason Resch wrote: ... Do you believe if we create a computer in this physical universe that it could be made conscious, But a computer is never conscious, nor is a brain. Only a person is conscious, and a computer or a brain can only make it possible for a person to be conscious relatively to another computer. So your question is ambiguous. It is not my brain which is conscious, it is me who is conscious. By me do you mean some computation in Platonia? I'm wondering what are the implications of your theory for creating artificial consciousness. Since comp starts with the assumption that replacing one's brain with functionally identical units (at some level of detail) will make no discernable difference in your experience, it entails that a computer that functionally replaces your brain is conscious (conscious of being you in fact). So if I want to build a conscious robot from scratch, not by copying someone's brain, what must I do? I don't see the problem, besides the obvious and usual difficulties of artificial intelligence. Actually if you implement a theorem prover for Peano Arithmetic (= Robinson Arithmetic + the induction axioms) I am willing to say that you have build a conscious entity. But why? Why not RA without induction? Is it necessary that there be infinite schema? Since you phrase your answer as I am willing... is it a matter of your intuition or is it a matter of degree of consciousness. Brent It is the entity that I interview (thanks to the work of Gödel, Löb and Solovay). The person related to it, which I identify with the knower (obeying to the theaetetical logic of provable(p) p) exist simultaneously in all the possible relative implementations of it in platonia or in UD* (the universal deployment). I mean it is the same for a copy of me, or an intelligent robot build from scratch. Both person exist in an atemporal and aspatial ways in Platonia, and will appear concrete to any entity belonging to some computation where they can manifest themselves. Like numbers. 17 exists in Platonia, but 17 has multiple implementation in many computations in Platonia. I guess I miss something because I don't see any problem here. You may elaborate perhaps. We are in the seven step here. Are you sure you grasp the six preceding steps? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Okay, below are three passages that I think give a good sense of what I mean by information when I say that consciousness is information. The first is from David Chalmers' Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness. The second is from the SEP article on Semantic Conceptions of Information, and the third is from Symbol Grounding and Meaning: A comparison of High-Dimensional and Embodied Theories of Meaning, by Arthur Glenberg and David Robertson. So I'm looking at these largely from a static, timeless, platonic view. In my view, there are ungrounded abstract symbols that acquire meaning via constraints placed on them by their relationships to other symbols. The only grounding comes from the conscious experience that is intrinsic to a particular set of relationships. To repeat my earlier Chalmers quote, Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. It is this subjective experience of information that provides meaning to the otherwise completely abstract platonic symbols. So I think that something like David Lewis' modal realism is true by virtue of the fact that all possible sets of relationships are realized in Platonia. Note that I don't have Bruno's fear of white rabbits. Assuming that we are typical observers is fine as a starting point, and is a good way to choose between otherwise equivalent explanations, but I don't think it should hold a unilateral veto over our final conclusions. If the most reasonable explanation says that our observations aren't especially typical, then so be it. Not everyone can be typical. I think the final passage from Glenberg and Robertson (from a paper that actually argues against what's being described) gives the best sense of what I have in mind, though obviously I'm extrapolating out quite abit from the ideas presented. Okay, so the passages of interest: -- David Chalmers: The basic principle that I suggest centrally involves the notion of information. I understand information in more or less the sense of Shannon (1948). Where there is information, there are information states embedded in an information space. An information space has a basic structure of difference relations between its elements, characterizing the ways in which different elements in a space are similar or different, possibly in complex ways. An information space is an abstract object, but following Shannon we can see information as physically embodied when there is a space of distinct physical states, the differences between which can be transmitted down some causal pathway. The states that are transmitted can be seen as themselves constituting an information space. To borrow a phrase from Bateson (1972), physical information is a difference that makes a difference. The double-aspect principle stems from the observation that there is a direct isomorphism between certain physically embodied information spaces and certain phenomenal (or experiential) information spaces. From the same sort of observations that went into the principle of structural coherence, we can note that the differences between phenomenal states have a structure that corresponds directly to the differences embedded in physical processes; in particular, to those differences that make a difference down certain causal pathways implicated in global availability and control. That is, we can find the same abstract information space embedded in physical processing and in conscious experience. -- SEP: Information cannot be dataless but, in the simplest case, it can consist of a single datum. A datum is reducible to just a lack of uniformity (diaphora is the Greek word for “difference”), so a general definition of a datum is: The Diaphoric Definition of Data (DDD): A datum is a putative fact regarding some difference or lack of uniformity within some context. [In particular data as diaphora de dicto, that is, lack of uniformity between two symbols, for example the letters A and B in the Latin alphabet.] -- Glenberg and Robertson: Meaning arises from the syntactic combination of abstract, amodal symbols that are arbitrarily related to what they signify. A new form of the abstract symbol approach to meaning affords the opportunity to examine its adequacy as a psychological theory of meaning. This form is represented by two theories of linguistic meaning (that is, the meaning of words, sentences, and discourses), both of which take advantage of the mathematics of high-dimensional spaces. The Hyperspace Analogue to Language (HAL; Burgess Lund, 1997) posits that the meaning of a word is its vector representation in a space based on 140,000 word–word co-occurrences. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA; Landauer Dumais, 1997) posits that the meaning of a word is its vector representation in a space with approximately 300 dimensions derived from a space with many more dimensions. The vector elements found in both theories are just the sort of abstract features that are prototypical in
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 23 May 2009, at 09:08, Brent Meeker wrote: But why? Why not RA without induction? Is it necessary that there be infinite schema? Since you phrase your answer as I am willing... is it a matter of your intuition or is it a matter of degree of consciousness. OK. I could have taken RA. But without the induction axioms, RA is very poor in provability abilities, it has the consciousness of a low animals, if you want. Its provability logic is very weak with respect to self-reference. It cannot prove the arithmetical formula Bp - BBp for any arithmetical p. So it is not even a type 4 reasoner (cf Smullyan's Forever Undecided, see my posts on FU), and it cannot know its own incompleteness. But it can be considered as conscious. It is not self-conscious, like the Lobian machine. Note that Bp - BBp is true *for* RA, but it is not provable *by* RA. Bp - BBp is true for and provable by PA. Smullyan says that PA, or any G reasoner, is self-aware. Of course, consciousness (modeled by consistency) is true for PA and RA, and not provable neither by RA nor PA (incompleteness). But all this is not related to the problem you were talking about, which I still don't understand. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
I missed the meaning of *'conscious'* as applied in this discussion. *If we accept* that it means 'responding to information' ( used in the wides sense: in *responding* there is an *absorption* of the result of an observer moment and *completenig relations thereof* and te *information* as the *absorbed relations*) *then a thermostat is conscious*. Without such clarification Jason's question is elusive. (I may question the term physical universe as well - as the compilation of aspect-slanted figments to explain observations we made in select views by select means (cf. conventional and not-so-conventional science, numbers, Platonist filters, quantum considerations, theological views, etc.) * Then Bruno's response below refers to a *fetish* (person? what is this?) - definitely NOT a computer, but relative to* ANOTHER(?)* computer. *The 'another' points to similarity.* It also reverberates with Jason's *WE*(??) (Is this 'a person', a homunculus, or what?)create a computer further *segregating* the 'fetish' Bruno refers to from 'a computer'. *I don't find it ambiguous: I find it undefined terms clashing in elusive meanings.* Another open spot is the 'conscious robot' that would not become conscious even by copying someone's BRAIN (which is NOT conscious! - as said). We still face the I, the ME *UFO* (considered as 'self'') that DOES but IS NOT. - And - is conscious. Whatever that may mean. Then comes Brent with the reasonable question. I would add: what is necessary for a 'computation in Platonia' to become a person? should it pee? I feel the term Brent asked is still a select artifact ideation, APPLICABLE (maybe) to non-computational domains to make it a person (whatever that may be). It is still not I, the conscious, thinking of it. The 'conscious' ME is different from a computation with denied consciousness - as I read. Replacing the (non-conscious) brain with identical other parts does not impart the missing conscious quality - unless the replacement IS conscious, in which case it is NOT a replacement. It is a exchange to - as Brent correctly points to. (Leaving open the term 'you - conscious' as a deus ex machina quale-addition for the replacement). Just looking through differently colored goggles. John Mikes On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 12:39 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.comwrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 May 2009, at 18:25, Jason Resch wrote: ... Do you believe if we create a computer in this physical universe that it could be made conscious, But a computer is never conscious, nor is a brain. Only a person is conscious, and a computer or a brain can only make it possible for a person to be conscious relatively to another computer. So your question is ambiguous. It is not my brain which is conscious, it is me who is conscious. By me do you mean some computation in Platonia? I'm wondering what are the implications of your theory for creating artificial consciousness. Since comp starts with the assumption that replacing one's brain with functionally identical units (at some level of detail) will make no discernable difference in your experience, it entails that a computer that functionally replaces your brain is conscious (conscious of being you in fact). So if I want to build a conscious robot from scratch, not by copying someone's brain, what must I do? Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 23 May 2009, at 09:35, Kelly Harmon wrote: Okay, below are three passages that I think give a good sense of what I mean by information when I say that consciousness is information. The first is from David Chalmers' Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness. The second is from the SEP article on Semantic Conceptions of Information, and the third is from Symbol Grounding and Meaning: A comparison of High-Dimensional and Embodied Theories of Meaning, by Arthur Glenberg and David Robertson. So I'm looking at these largely from a static, timeless, platonic view. We agree then. Assuming comp we have no choice in the matter here. In my view, there are ungrounded abstract symbols that acquire meaning via constraints placed on them by their relationships to other symbols. Absolutely so. The only grounding comes from the conscious experience that is intrinsic to a particular set of relationships. Exactly. To repeat my earlier Chalmers quote, Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. It is this subjective experience of information that provides meaning to the otherwise completely abstract platonic symbols. I insist on this well before Chalmers. We are agreeing on this. But then you associate consciousness with the experience of information. This is what I told you. I can understand the relation between consciousness and information content. So I think that something like David Lewis' modal realism is true by virtue of the fact that all possible sets of relationships are realized in Platonia. We agree. This is explained in detail in conscience et mécanisme. Comp forces modal realism. AUDA just gives the precise modal logics, extracted from the theory of the self-referentially correct machine. Note that I don't have Bruno's fear of white rabbits. Then you disagree with all reader of David Lewis, including David lewis himself who recognizes this inflation of to many realities as a weakness of its modal realism. My point is that the comp constraints leads to a solution of that problem, indeed a solution close to the quantum Everett solution. But the existence of white rabbits, and thus the correctness of comp remains to be tested. Assuming that we are typical observers is fine as a starting point, and is a good way to choose between otherwise equivalent explanations, but I don't think it should hold a unilateral veto over our final conclusions. If the most reasonable explanation says that our observations aren't especially typical, then so be it. Not everyone can be typical. It is just a question of testing a theory. You seem to say something like if the theory predict that water under fire will typically boil, and that experience does not confirm that typicality (water froze regularly) then it means we are just very unlucky. But then all theories are correct. I think the final passage from Glenberg and Robertson (from a paper that actually argues against what's being described) gives the best sense of what I have in mind, though obviously I'm extrapolating out quite abit from the ideas presented. Okay, so the passages of interest: -- David Chalmers: The basic principle that I suggest centrally involves the notion of information. I understand information in more or less the sense of Shannon (1948). Where there is information, there are information states embedded in an information space. An information space has a basic structure of difference relations between its elements, characterizing the ways in which different elements in a space are similar or different, possibly in complex ways. An information space is an abstract object, but following Shannon we can see information as physically embodied when there is a space of distinct physical states, the differences between which can be transmitted down some causal pathway. The states that are transmitted can be seen as themselves constituting an information space. To borrow a phrase from Bateson (1972), physical information is a difference that makes a difference. The double-aspect principle stems from the observation that there is a direct isomorphism between certain physically embodied information spaces and certain phenomenal (or experiential) information spaces. This can be shown false in Quantum theory without collapse, and more easily with the comp assumption. No problem if you tell me that you reject both Everett and comp. Chalmers seems in some place to accept both Everett and comp, indeed. He explains to me that he stops at step 3. He believes that after a duplication you feel to be simultaneously at the both place, even assuming comp. I think and can argue that this is non sense. Nobody defends this on the list. Are you defending an idea like that? From the same sort of observations that went into the principle of structural coherence, we can note that the differences
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 23 May 2009, at 09:08, Brent Meeker wrote: But why? Why not RA without induction? Is it necessary that there be infinite schema? Since you phrase your answer as I am willing... is it a matter of your intuition or is it a matter of degree of consciousness. OK. I could have taken RA. But without the induction axioms, RA is very poor in provability abilities, it has the consciousness of a low animals, if you want. Its provability logic is very weak with respect to self-reference. It cannot prove the arithmetical formula Bp - BBp for any arithmetical p. So it is not even a type 4 reasoner (cf Smullyan's Forever Undecided, see my posts on FU), and it cannot know its own incompleteness. But it can be considered as conscious. It is not self-conscious, like the Lobian machine. Note that Bp - BBp is true *for* RA, but it is not provable *by* RA. Bp - BBp is true for and provable by PA. Smullyan says that PA, or any G reasoner, is self-aware. Of course, consciousness (modeled by consistency) is true for PA and RA, and not provable neither by RA nor PA (incompleteness). But all this is not related to the problem you were talking about, which I still don't understand. Bruno I think it is related. I'm just trying to figure out the implications of your theory for the problem of creating artificial, conscious intelligences. What I gather from the above is that you think there are degrees of consciousness marked by the ability to prove things. To consider another view, for example, John McCarthy thinks there are degrees of consciousness marked by having narratives created and remembered and meta-narratives. Either of these ideas is definite enough that they could actually be implemented (in contrast to many philosophical ideas about consciousness). I have some reservation about your idea because I know many people that I think are conscious but who couldn't prove even the simplest theorem in PA. Are we to suppose they just have a qualitatively different kind of consciousness? Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 23 May 2009, at 18:54, Brent Meeker wrote: I think it is related. I'm just trying to figure out the implications of your theory for the problem of creating artificial, conscious intelligences. What I gather from the above is that you think there are degrees of consciousness marked by the ability to prove things. Hmm ... It is more a degree of self-reflexivity, or a degree of introspective ability. RA, although universal (in the Church Turing thesis sense) is a *very* weak theorem prover. RA is quite limited in its introspection abilities. I am open to the idea that RA could be conscious, but the interview does not lead to a theory of consciousness. It is not a lobian machine like PA (= RA + induction). Lobianity begins with weaker theory than PA though, somewhere between RA and PA, and Lobianity is persistant, it concerns all sound extensions of PA, even hyperturing extension actually. Also, I don't think I have a theory. I work in a very old theory: mechanism. It is not mine, and I use it because it makes possible to use computer science to prove things. Enough things to show mechanism empirically refutable. For AUDA you need to accept the Theatetical approach to knowledge, all right. I recall that in Smullyan Forever Undecided, which introduces to the logic of self-reference G, a nice hierarchy of reasoners is displayed up to the Lobian machine. To consider another view, for example, John McCarthy thinks there are degrees of consciousness marked by having narratives created and remembered and meta-narratives. Either of these ideas is definite enough that they could actually be implemented (in contrast to many philosophical ideas about consciousness). It is not bad. PA has the meta-narrative ability, and RA lacks it. You can see this in that way. I have some reservation about your idea because I know many people that I think are conscious but who couldn't prove even the simplest theorem in PA. Because they lack the familiarity with the notations, or they have some math trauma, or because they are impatient or not interested. But all human beings, if you motivate them and give them time, can prove all theorems of PA, and, more importantly believe the truth of those theorems. I have to add this last close, because even RA can prove all theorems of PA, given that RA is turing universal. But RA, without becoming PA, cannot really understand the proofs, like the guy in the chinese room can talk chinese, yet cannot understand its talk. It is the place where people easily make a confusion of level similar to Searle confusion (described by Dennett and Hofstadter). I can simulate Einstein's brain, but this does not make me Einstein. On the contrary this makes possible to discuss with Einstein. It is in that sense that RA can simulate PA without becoming PA. Likewise, all theories can simulate all effective theories. PA is probably still very simple compared to any human, except highly mentally disabled person or person in comatose state of course. Are we to suppose they just have a qualitatively different kind of consciousness? I don't think so, but in the entheogen forums people can discuss at infinitum if under such or such plants people experience a qualitatively different kind of consciousness. Given the hardness to just discuss on consciousness you can understand that this is a bit of a premature question. Many estimate that to be conscious is always to be conscious of some qualia. In that case I could argue that even me today has already a qualitatively different kind of consciousness compared with me yesterday. Now, my opinion (which plays no role in the UDA- reasoning) is that consciousness can be qualia independent, and is something qualitatively stable, as opposed to the content of consciousness, which can vary a lot. Now, if you compare RA (non lobian) and PA (lobian), then it is far more possible that they have a different kind of consciousness, and even lives in a different kind of physics, as a consequence. RA could be closer to a universal consciousness notion. It would mean that PA could already be under some illusions ... I don't know. Real hard questions here. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: To repeat my earlier Chalmers quote, Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. It is this subjective experience of information that provides meaning to the otherwise completely abstract platonic symbols. I insist on this well before Chalmers. We are agreeing on this. But then you associate consciousness with the experience of information. This is what I told you. I can understand the relation between consciousness and information content. Information. Information content. H. Well, I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Maybe I don't have a problem with this, but maybe I do. Maybe we're really saying the same thing here, but maybe we're not. Hm. Note that I don't have Bruno's fear of white rabbits. Then you disagree with all reader of David Lewis, including David lewis himself who recognizes this inflation of to many realities as a weakness of its modal realism. My point is that the comp constraints leads to a solution of that problem, indeed a solution close to the quantum Everett solution. But the existence of white rabbits, and thus the correctness of comp remains to be tested. True, Lewis apparently saw it as a cost, BUT not so high a cost as to abandon modal realism. I don't even see it as a high cost, I see it as a logical consequence. Again, it's easy to imagine a computer simulation/virtual reality in which a conscious observer would see disembodied talking heads and flying pigs. So it certainly seems possible for a conscious being to be in a state of observing an unattached talking head. Given that it's possible, why wouldn't it be actual? The only reason to think that it wouldn't be actual is that our external objectively existing physical universe doesn't have physical laws that can lead easily to the existance of such talking heads to be observed. But once you've abandoned the external universe and embraced platonism, then where does the constraint against observing talking heads come from? Assuming platonism, I can explain why I don't see talking heads: because every possible Kelly is realized, and that includes a Kelly who doesn't observe disembodied talking heads and who doesn't know anyone who has ever seen such a head. So given that my observations aren't in conflict with my theory, I don't see a problem. The fact that nothing that I could observe would ever conflict with my theory is also not particularly troubling to me because I didn't arrive at my theory as means of explaining any particular observed fact about the external universe. My theory isn't intended to explain the contingent details of what I observe. It's intended to explain the fact THAT I subjectively observe anything at all. Given that it seems theoretically possible to create a computer simulation that would manifest any imaginable conscious being observing any imaginable world, including schizophrenic beings observing psychodelic realities, I don't see why you are trying to constrain the platonic realities that can be experienced to those that are extremely similar to ours. It is just a question of testing a theory. You seem to say something like if the theory predict that water under fire will typically boil, and that experience does not confirm that typicality (water froze regularly) then it means we are just very unlucky. But then all theories are correct. I say there is no water. There is just our subjective experience of observing water. Trying to constrain a Platonic theory of consciousness so that it matches a particular observed physical reality seems like a mistake to me. Is there a limit to what we could experience in a computer simulated reality? If not, why would there be a limit to what we could experience in Platonia? The double-aspect principle stems from the observation that there is a direct isomorphism between certain physically embodied information spaces and certain phenomenal (or experiential) information spaces. This can be shown false in Quantum theory without collapse, and more easily with the comp assumption. No problem if you tell me that you reject both Everett and comp. Chalmers seems in some place to accept both Everett and comp, indeed. He explains to me that he stops at step 3. He believes that after a duplication you feel to be simultaneously at the both place, even assuming comp. I think and can argue that this is non sense. Nobody defends this on the list. Are you defending an idea like that? I included the Chalmers quote because I think it provides a good image of how abstract information seems to supervene on physical systems. BUT by quoting the passage I'm not saying that I think that this appearance of supervenience is the source of consciousness. I still buy into the putnam mapping view that there is no 1-to-1 mapping from information or computation to any physical system, which
Re: Consciousness is information?
On May 23, 12:54 pm, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Either of these ideas is definite enough that they could actually be implemented (in contrast to many philosophical ideas about consciousness). Once you had implemented the ideas, how would you then know whether consciousness experience had actually been produced, as opposed to the mere appearance of it? If you don't have a way of definitively detecting the hoped for result of consciousness, then how exactly does being implementable really help? You run your test...and then what? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
OK. So, now, Kelly, just to understand what you mean by your theory, I have to ask you what your theory predicts in case of self- multiplication. You have to see that, personally, I don't have a theory other than the assumption that the brain is emulable by a Turing machine, and by brain I mean any portion of my local neighborhood needed for surviving the comp functional substitution. This is the comp hypothesis. Because we are both modal realist(*), and, true, worlds (histories) with white rabbit exists, and from inside are as actual as our present state. But then, I say that, as a consequence of the comp hyp, there is a relative probability or credibility measure on those histories. To see where does those probabilities come from, you have to understand that 1) you can be multiplied (that is read, copy (cut) and pasted in Washington AND Moscow (say)), and 2) you are multiplied (by 2^aleph_zero, at each instant, with a comp definition of instant not related in principle with any form of physical time). What does your theory predicts concerning your expectation in such an experience/experiment. The fact is that your explanation, that we are in an typical universe, because those exist as well, just does not work with the comp hyp. It does not work, because it does not explain why we REMAIN in that typical worlds. It seems to me that, as far as I can put meaning on your view, the probability I will see a white rabbit in two seconds is as great than the probability I will see anything else, and this is in contradiction with the fact. What makes us staying in apparent lawful histories? What does you theory predict about agony and death, from the first person point of view? This is an extreme case where comp is sensibly in opposition with Aristotelian naturalism. May be you could study the UDA, and directly tell me at which step your theory departs from the comp hyp. It has to depart, because you say below that we are in a quantum reality by chance, where the comp hyp explains why we have to be (even after death) in a quantum reality. Bruno (*) Once and for all, when I say I am a modal realist, I really mean this I have an argument showing that the comp theory imposes modal realism. I am really not defending any theory. I am just showing that the comp theory leads to precise and verifiable/refutable facts. I am a logician: all what I show to people is that IF you believe this THEN you have to believe that. It is part of my personal religion that my personal religion is personal and private (and evolvable). On 23 May 2009, at 23:56, Kelly Harmon wrote: On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: To repeat my earlier Chalmers quote, Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. It is this subjective experience of information that provides meaning to the otherwise completely abstract platonic symbols. I insist on this well before Chalmers. We are agreeing on this. But then you associate consciousness with the experience of information. This is what I told you. I can understand the relation between consciousness and information content. Information. Information content. H. Well, I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Maybe I don't have a problem with this, but maybe I do. Maybe we're really saying the same thing here, but maybe we're not. Hm. Note that I don't have Bruno's fear of white rabbits. Then you disagree with all reader of David Lewis, including David lewis himself who recognizes this inflation of to many realities as a weakness of its modal realism. My point is that the comp constraints leads to a solution of that problem, indeed a solution close to the quantum Everett solution. But the existence of white rabbits, and thus the correctness of comp remains to be tested. True, Lewis apparently saw it as a cost, BUT not so high a cost as to abandon modal realism. I don't even see it as a high cost, I see it as a logical consequence. Again, it's easy to imagine a computer simulation/virtual reality in which a conscious observer would see disembodied talking heads and flying pigs. So it certainly seems possible for a conscious being to be in a state of observing an unattached talking head. Given that it's possible, why wouldn't it be actual? The only reason to think that it wouldn't be actual is that our external objectively existing physical universe doesn't have physical laws that can lead easily to the existance of such talking heads to be observed. But once you've abandoned the external universe and embraced platonism, then where does the constraint against observing talking heads come from? Assuming platonism, I can explain why I don't see talking heads: because every possible Kelly is realized, and that includes a Kelly who doesn't observe disembodied talking heads and who
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 21 May 2009, at 12:28, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Hi Bruno. Thanks for the link. As an physicist and computer researcher I have knowledge of some of the fields involved in UDA, but at the first sight I fear that I will have a hard time understanding it. We can do the reasoning step by step if you want. I am not sure why you feel that you have will have an hard time understanding it. Usually people find the 6th first step easy. Some have problem with the idea that comp makes us, in principle, duplicable, and that if we are duplicated we cannot predict the personal outcome of the experience, but up to now, it always appear that it is either a problem of misunderstanding of the distinction between first and third person I give there, or it happens they just dislike or are shocked by that first person indeterminacy, and I agree it is a bit shocking---it already forces some reflexion on personal identity. Some just quit the reasoning at step 3, considering those three steps as a refutation of the computationalist hypothesis That is a form of wishful thinking. I use comp because it is plausible, assumed by many people, and it leads to a deep insight into the nature of what there could be. I am not interested in the question of the truth of comp. Of course I like to criticize invalid argument against comp. Some deduce, invalidly, that I defend comp, but I don't. (as a logician I like to demolish all invalid argument, it appears that comp, (like the domain of the relation between drugs and health), attracts many invalid arguments ... and my subjective experience is the most objective fact that I can reach. t I see what you mean, but the subjective experience, although real and true, and undoubtable, is subjective. It exists as far as you cannot prove to an other that it exists. To communicate you have to bet on tools and on others, and other many doubtable (yet plausible) mind constructions. Hence, qualia are subjective ... Of course. ... and, as such, I cannot assure that you have it. Right. But I'm sure that you have it Thanks God! and therefore that my knowledge of qualia is objective ? Perhaps we have a vocabulary problem. I would say that knowledge is always subjective and never sharable. But we can share beliefs and develop objective theories. As far as they are objective and clear, they are probably false, and we can, and usually do, refute them, so science can progress. A tiny part of science develop some sharable knowledge, which still cannot be communicated as such. It is the hard condition of the consistent entities: they can have develop their internal knowledge only by communicating their doubtable beliefs. With comp fundamental science is akin to a negative theology. As soon we have unified theory we learn it to be false. We learn that Reality is not this, not that, neither this or that, ... Comp provides the simplest explanation, in the form of a simple third person sharable reality (the number) why the Inside Reality has to behave like that. Why it contradicts us all the time. There is a question of taste here. Those who like to believe they can control everything, and search for security, hates such views. Those who like surprises and love let it go, and search for freedom should appreciate. simply for one causal reason: natural selection; Here you are terribly quick. And although I do accept the main line of natural selection as an explanation of our biological history, I am not happy at all with the explanation or absence of explanation of everything needed to have a reality where natural selection can exist. I don't take granted the notion of physical world, nor any physicalist notion of causality. I do agree with many things asserted in physics, but not as an ultimate explanation. The reason I like comp is that it assures us that indeed we have to dig deeper with respect of what we see, observe and measure. Our brains, shaped by very similar genetic programs, share the same architecture and therefore produce very similar phemomenologies. I mostly agree. This follows of course if you admit matter- mind (or better math- matter-mind) math-matter-mind is indeed already far better, and, this makes even more bizarre you fear UDA, because UDA8, the more complex step, is just the step which force to put math at the beginning (even arithmetic, but OK). Now, comp makes matter a subtle first person plural notion, and it will appears that, in such rough description math-mind-matter is more correct. But look, it is still possible that we have something like (with UM = universal machine, and HU = Human): math - UM-mind - Matter- HU-mind But this could mean that our comp level of substitution is very low, and it would be a threat of natural selection. So the picture is a bit more difficult. and admit natural selection as the
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 22 May 2009, at 18:25, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Indeed assuming comp I support Arithmetic - Mind - Matter I could almost define mind by intensional arithmetic: the numbers when studied by the numbers. This does not work because I have to say: the numbers as studied by the numbers relatively to their most probable local universal number, and this is how matter enters in the play: an indeterminacy bearing on an infinity of possible universal machines/numbers. Bruno, I was wondering if there are anyn concrete examples to help clarify what you mean by numbers studied by numbers. Are there things for example, that 31 could know about 6, or are such things only possible with or between very big numbers? Do you remember that the partial computable functions are recursively enumerable? Do you remember the phi_i: computing partial functions from N to N. phi_1, phi_2, phi_3, phi_4, You can associate a computation to a proof in Robinson Arithmetic of a statement like phi_31(6) = 745. The idea is to use the original Robinson Arithmetic as the basic universal machine. A description of a computation would be a representation of that computation in arithmetic. And Robinson arithmetic is already Sigma_1- complete and thus, if there is a computation of phi_31(6) = 745, there will be proof of that fact in Robinson Arithmetic. The difference is really a question of level, and is basically (simplifying a little bit) the difference between the fact that phi_31(6) = 745, is true and provable in RA, and the fact provable(phi_31(6) = 745) is true and provable in RA The numbers involved will not be so great, but can hardly be very little. I still have a confusion as to what you label a computation and a description. A computation is an abstract object. It is what is usually described by a description of a computation. It is a sequence of step of a universal machine. Remember that you can also enumerate the partial computable functions from NXN to N, noted with P capital: Phi_1, Phi_2, Phi_3, Phi_4, Let me say that a number u is universal if Phi_u(x,y) = phi_x(y) for all x and y. x is the number-program, and y is the number-data. By chosing RA as basic system, all those numbers are well defined. It can be shown that there will be an infinity of such universal number u1, u2, u3 ... (enumerable but not recursively enumerable!). A computation is a finite or infinite sequences of step of some u_i on some input x. A description of a (finite piece of) a computation is a nummber code for an arithmetical description of such a computation. The difference between computation and description of a computation is similar to the difference between 1+1=2, and the Gödel number of the formula 1+1 =2. Do you believe if we create a computer in this physical universe that it could be made conscious, But a computer is never conscious, nor is a brain. Only a person is conscious, and a computer or a brain can only make it possible for a person to be conscious relatively to another computer. So your question is ambiguous. It is not my brain which is conscious, it is me who is conscious. My brain appears to make it possible for my consciousness to manifest itself relatively to you. Remember that we are supposed to no more count on the physical supervenience thesis. It remains locally correct to attribute a consciousness through a brain or a body to a person we judged succesfully implemented locally in some piece of matter (like when we say yes to a doctor). But the piece of matter is not the subject of the consciousness. It is only the abstract person or program who is the subject of consciousness. To say a brain is conscious consists in doing Searle's'mistake when he confused levels of computations in the Chinese room, as well seen already by Hofstadter and Dennett in Mind's I. or do you count all appearance of matter to be only a description of a computation and not capable of true computation? appearance of matter is a qualia. It does not describe anything but is a subjective experience, which may correspond to something stable and reflecting the existence of a computation (in Platonia) capable to manifest itself relatively to you. Do you believe that the only real computation exists platonically and this is the only source of conscious experience? Computations and their relative implementations exist only in platonia, yes. But even in Platonia, they exist in multiple relative version, all defined eventually through many multiple relations between numbers. If so I find this confusing, as could there not be multiple levels? But they are multiple levels of computations in Platonia or Arithmetic. Even a huge number of them. That is why we have to take into account the first person indeterminacies. For example would a
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 May 2009, at 18:25, Jason Resch wrote: ... Do you believe if we create a computer in this physical universe that it could be made conscious, But a computer is never conscious, nor is a brain. Only a person is conscious, and a computer or a brain can only make it possible for a person to be conscious relatively to another computer. So your question is ambiguous. It is not my brain which is conscious, it is me who is conscious. By me do you mean some computation in Platonia? I'm wondering what are the implications of your theory for creating artificial consciousness. Since comp starts with the assumption that replacing one's brain with functionally identical units (at some level of detail) will make no discernable difference in your experience, it entails that a computer that functionally replaces your brain is conscious (conscious of being you in fact). So if I want to build a conscious robot from scratch, not by copying someone's brain, what must I do? Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Bruno. Thanks for the link. As an physicist and computer researcher I have knowledge of some of the fields involved in UDA, but at the first sight I fear that I will have a hard time understanding it. and my subjective experience is the most objective fact that I can reach. t I see what you mean, but the subjective experience, although real and true, and undoubtable, is subjective. It exists as far as you cannot prove to an other that it exists. To communicate you have to bet on tools and on others, and other many doubtable (yet plausible) mind constructions. Hence, qualia are subjective and , as such, I cannot assure that you have it. But I'm sure that you have it and therefore that my knowledge of qualia is objective simply for one causal reason: natural selection; Our brains, shaped by very similar genetic programs, share the same architecture and therefore produce very similar phemomenologies. This follows of course if you admit matter- mind (or better math- matter-mind) and admit natural selection as the entropic pump that creates structure and function (and computer structures) in living beings. I know no other testable alternative. I cannot support this Kantian notion consciousness - matter. The problem is that if you are ready to attribute consciousness to a device, by its virtue of simulating digitally a conscious brain at some correct level of description, you will be forced to attribute that consciousness to an infinity of computations already defined by the additive and multiplicative structure of the numbers (by UDA). A quasi direct consequence is that if a machine look at herself below its substitution level, it will build indirect evidences of a flux of many (a continuum) of computational histories (a typical quantum feature, I mean for QM without wave collapse). But comp forces the structure of those many realities (or dreams) to be determined by specifiable number theoretical relations. Those relations are either extensional relations (like in number theory), or intensional relations (like in computer science, where number can also points toward other numbers, and effective set of numbers). It makes computationalism testable. The genral shape of QM confirm it, but cosmogenesis remains troubling ... I cannot understand this until I read your paper, but, just one question ¿what is the nature of the process that reduces local entropy (sculpt chaos, poetically speaking) so that in creates life and intelligence starting from unanimated matter along the arrow of time?. Is it of a mathematical nature; is it some general principle of change? Is it natural selection with some additional principle? I just want to know what your context in relation with mine is. Of course if you support Mind- matter - math, then you mechanism for such evolution should be quite different. The final words that I can say about the hard problem of consciousness is that any conversation with a robot, with the self- module that I described in the previous post, will give answers about qualia indistinguisable from the answers of any of you. He would indeed doubt about if you are indeed robots and he is the only conscious being on earth. Just as any of you may think. Its self module would not say I perceive the green as green because he has this as an standard answer, like a fake Turing test program, but because it can zoom in the details of every leaf, grass etc and verify that the range of ligh frecuencies are in the range of frequencias that a computer programmer assigned to green and a trainer later told him to call it green. He even can have its own philosophical theories about qualia, the self etc. He even may ask himself about the origins of moral and self determination, and even all of this may force him to believe in God. So we must conclude that he have its own qualia and all the attributes of consciousness. in no less degree than I could believe in yours. A priori I have no problem, although I could pretend you have solved only the easy problem. The hard problem is: why do *we* (and not just a robot) have those qualia, if robot can have the same talk and behavior? You have still to explain the nature of the qualia, and why we have to experience them, given that a mechanical explanation seems to make them unnecessary, especially if you invoke Darwinian natural selection. And then, by UDA you have to (re)explain what is matter and how to relate them with the qualia. Eventually matter will appear to be a sort of sharable qualia (or comp is false). Yes I said that this is all that I can say without pretending to solve the problem. That is because the problem qualia is so interesting. But in the absence of natural selection, as I said, I can not be sure if you have such qualia. I cannot be sure either you are zombies or not. In fact the main school of
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Bruno On May 19, 7:37 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: ... UDA is an argument showing that the current paradigmatic chain MATTER = CONSCIOUSNESS = NUMBER is reversed: with comp I can explain too you in details (it is long) that the chain should be NUMBER = CONSCIOUSNESS = MATTER. Some agree already that it could be NUMBER = MATTER = CONSCIOUSNESS, and this indeed is more locally obvious, yet I pretend that comp forces eventually the complete reversal. Do you have any reference where this is developed? I try to be as close to facts as possible, and the most plausible explanation for me, trough natural selection, is that consciousness is a processing device made by natural selection as an adaptation to the physical environment, social environment included. So I support matter- consciousness. Dualism is the result of my subjective experience, and my subjective experience is the most objective fact that I can reach. I cannot support this Kantian notion consciousness - matter. The final words that I can say about the hard problem of consciousness is that any conversation with a robot, with the self- module that I described in the previous post, will give answers about qualia indistinguisable from the answers of any of you. He would indeed doubt about if you are indeed robots and he is the only conscious being on earth. Just as any of you may think. Its self module would not say I perceive the green as green because he has this as an standard answer, like a fake Turing test program, but because it can zoom in the details of every leaf, grass etc and verify that the range of ligh frecuencies are in the range of frequencias that a computer programmer assigned to green and a trainer later told him to call it green. He even can have its own philosophical theories about qualia, the self etc. He even may ask himself about the origins of moral and self determination, and even all of this may force him to believe in God. So we must conclude that he have its own qualia and all the attributes of consciousness. in no less degree than I could believe in yours. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Alberto, On 20 May 2009, at 13:08, Alberto G.Corona wrote: On May 19, 7:37 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: ... UDA is an argument showing that the current paradigmatic chain MATTER = CONSCIOUSNESS = NUMBER is reversed: with comp I can explain too you in details (it is long) that the chain should be NUMBER = CONSCIOUSNESS = MATTER. Some agree already that it could be NUMBER = MATTER = CONSCIOUSNESS, and this indeed is more locally obvious, yet I pretend that comp forces eventually the complete reversal. Do you have any reference where this is developed? I have often explain UDA on this list. There is a very older version in 15 steps, and a more recent in 8 steps. You could search in the archive of this list. Or look at my Sane04 paper: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html You can print the slides. I refer now often to UDA-i with i from 0 to 8, which are the main step of the reasoning. PDF slide UDA is for Universal Dovetailer Argument. The UD provides a concrete base for a reasoning in line with the everything or many worlder open minded philosophy common on this list, especially for the relativist one (where proba are always conditional). UDA is provably available to Universal (in the theoretical computer science sense of Post, Turing, Kleene, Church, ... machine, which leads to a machine version of UDA: AUDA (Arithmetical UDA). UDA is mainly an argument showing that, assuming comp, the mind body problem reduce to the body problem. And AUDA shows a natural path to extract the solution of the body problem by that interview of the universal machine. Much older versions are in French (my PhD actually, and more older paper). See my URL. I try to be as close to facts as possible, and the most plausible explanation for me, trough natural selection, is that consciousness is a processing device made by natural selection as an adaptation to the physical environment, social environment included. This is plausible for most of the human and animal part of consciousness. It is a reasonable local description. But globally a dual version of this has the advantage of explaining how nature itself evolves, from sort of competition and selection of pieces of machine dreams, which are easy to define in arithmetic (assuming comp ...). It is normal that comp depends on the many non trivial results in computer science. A universal machine is itself a rather non obvious notion. So I support matter- consciousness. I could explain why it has to look locally that way, but it can not work in the big picture, unless you make both matter and mind, not just infinite, but very highly infinite ... (just read UDA, I think I have make progress through those explanation on the list). Dualism is the result of my subjective experience, I doubt this can be. I would say it is a result of your experience together with a bet (instinctive or/and rational) in a independent reality. you cannot experience the independent reality. You can experience only the dependent reality, but not as a dependent one, for this you need to bet on the independent one. What makes this diificult is that we make that bet instinctively since birth and beyond. and my subjective experience is the most objective fact that I can reach. I see what you mean, but the subjective experience, although real and true, and undoubtable, is subjective. It exists as far as you cannot prove to an other that it exists. To communicate you have to bet on tools and on others, and other many doubtable (yet plausible) mind constructions. I cannot support this Kantian notion consciousness - matter. The problem is that if you are ready to attribute consciousness to a device, by its virtue of simulating digitally a conscious brain at some correct level of description, you will be forced to attribute that consciousness to an infinity of computations already defined by the additive and multiplicative structure of the numbers (by UDA). A quasi direct consequence is that if a machine look at herself below its substitution level, it will build indirect evidences of a flux of many (a continuum) of computational histories (a typical quantum feature, I mean for QM without wave collapse). But comp forces the structure of those many realities (or dreams) to be determined by specifiable number theoretical relations. Those relations are either extensional relations (like in number theory), or intensional relations (like in computer science, where number can also points toward other numbers, and effective set of numbers). It makes computationalism testable. The genral shape of QM confirm it, but cosmogenesis remains troubling ... The final words that I can say about the hard problem of consciousness is that any conversation with a robot, with the self- module that I described in the previous
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 4:22 PM, George Levy gl...@quantics.net wrote: Kelly Harmon wrote: What if you used a lookup table for only a single neuron in a computer simulation of a brain? Hi Kelly Zombie arguments involving look up tables are faulty because look up tables are not closed systems. They require someone to fill them up. To resolve these arguments you need to include the creator of the look up table in the argument. (Inclusion can be across widely different time periods and spacial location) Indeed! I'm not arguing that the use of look-up tables entails zombie-ism. I was posing a question in response to Jessie's comment: I don't have a problem with the idea that a giant lookup table is just a sort of zombie, since after all the way you'd create a lookup table --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 12:30 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On the contrary, I think it does. First, I think Chalmers idea that vitalists recognized that all that needed explaining was structure and function is revisionist history. They were looking for the animating spirit. It is in hind sight, having found the function and structure, that we've realized that was all the explanation available. Hmmm. I'm not familiar enough with the history of this to argue one way or the other. A quick read through the wikipedia article on vitalism, and some light googling, left me with the impression that most of the argument centered around function. And also the difference between organic and inorganic chemical compounds. Though to the extent that there was something being debated beyond structure and function, I think that Chalmers makes a good point here: There is not even a plausible candidate for a further sort of property of life that needs explaining (leaving aside consciousness itself), and indeed there never was. I'm highlighting the parenthetical leaving aside consciousness itself. SO. Dennett makes one claim. Chalmers makes what I thought was a pretty good rebuttal. I've never seen a counter-response from Dennett on this point, and it's not a historical topic that I know much about. Do you have some special expertise, or a good source that overturns Chalmers rebuttal? Though, comparing what people thought about an entirely different topic 150 years ago to this topic now seems like a clever debating point, but otherwise of iffy relevance. We will eventually be able to make robots that behave as humans do and we will infer, from their behavior, that they are conscious. What about robots (or non-embodied computer programs) that are equally complex but (for whatever design reasons) don't exhibit any human-like behaviors? Will we infer that they are conscious? How will we know which types of complex systems are conscious and which aren't? What is the marker? We'll just know it when we see it? If so, it's only because we have definite knowledge of our own conscious experience, and we're looking for behaviors that we can empathize with. But is empathy reliable? It's certainly exploitable...Kismet for example. So it can generate false positives, but what might it also miss? And we, being their designers, will be able to analyze them and say, Here's what makes R2D2 have conscious experiences of visual perception and here's what makes 3CPO have self awareness relative to humans. I would agree that we could say something definite about the functional aspects, but not about any experiential aspects. Those would have to be taken on faith. For all we know, R2D2 might have a case of blindsight AND Anton-Babinski syndrome...in which case he would react to visual data but have no conscious experience of what he saw (blindsight), BUT would claim that he did experience it (Anton-Babinksi)! We will find that there are many different kinds of conscious and we will be able to invent new ones. How would we know that we had actually invented new ones? What is it like to be a robo-Bat? We will never solve Chalmers hard problem, we'll just realize it's a non-question. Maybe. Time will tell. But even if we all agree that it's a non-question, that wouldn't necessarily mean that we'd be correct in doing so. Well, here's where it gets tricky. Conscious experience is associated with information. I think that's the point in question. However, we all agree that consciousness is associated with, can be identified by, certain behavior. So to say that physical systems are too representationally ambiguous seems to me to beg the question. It is based on assuming that consciousness is information and since the physical representation of information is ambiguous it is inferred that physical representations aren't enough for consciousness. But going back to the basis: Is behavior ambiguous? Sure it is - yet we rely in it to identify consciousness (at least if you don't believe in philosophical zombies). I think the significant point is that consciousness is an attribute of behavior that is relative to an environment. So I think the possibility (conceivability?) of conscious computer simulations is what throws a kink into this line of thought. I'll quote Hans Moravec here: A simulated world hosting a simulated person can be a closed self-contained entity. It might exist as a program on a computer processing data quietly in some dark corner, giving no external hint of the joys and pains, successes and frustrations of the person inside. Inside the simulation events unfold according to the strict logic of the program, which defines the ``laws of physics'' of the simulation. The inhabitant might, by patient experimentation and inference, deduce some representation of the simulation laws, but not the nature or even existence of the simulating
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 6:36 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I agree with your critic of consciousness = information. This is not even wrong, Ouch! Et tu, Bruno??? and Kelly should define what he means by information so that we could see what he really means. Okay, okay! I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but you've backed me into a corner. (ha!) I'll come up with a definition and post it asap. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
That is also my case. I wonder how the materialist hypothesis has advanced in a plausible explanation of consciousness, and I think that this is the right path, and I follow it. But at the deep level, my subjective experience tells me that I must remain dualist. I think however that for evolutionary purposes, the consciousness, being designed by natural selection for keeping an accurate picture of how the others see us, must naturally reject a materialist explanation because this is not an accurate picture. The other people do not see us as a piece of evolved mechanisms, but as moral beings. An adaptive self must be, and is, fiercely dualist, with a strong notion of self autonomy and unit of purpose. So all of us feel that way when not thinking about that. Thus, maybe if ever a robot is made to simulate our behavior must incorporate an inner rejection of materialist explanation about the nature of his higher level circuits, and a vivid notion of subjective experience. That is not difficult at a certain level of technology, to create a central “self” module that receives the filtered, relevant information, plus information of the commands and actions of other decision modules. This self module must be capable of inventing (and that´s the tricky thing) a self centered, socially plausible, moral history that link together such perceptions and such actions. Then, when someone ask him do you have subjective experience, qualia and so on the robot will answer, “of cause, yes, I have a very strong sensation of unity of mind, perception and I´m a moral subject capable of self determination”. Otherwise, he will be inconsistent or non functional as human simulation. By the way, the role of the self process as a creator of self centered histories that are credible for the rest of us, that tend to show a favorable moral image of the self has been checked in different experiments, especially with lobotomized people (that invent two different histories of the same perception-action in each hemisphere). It also explains many mental disorders: compulsive liars and crazy overhyped egos made of fantastic histories (reincarnations of Napoleon) for example. It also explains many effects in social life of sane people. How hard is to achieve objectivity, for example? On May 18, 4:50 am, Kelly Harmon harmon...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Generally I don't think that what we experience is necessarily caused by physical systems. I think that sometimes physical systems assume configurations that shadow, or represent, our conscious experience. But they don't CAUSE our conscious experience. So if we could track the functions of the brain at a fine enough scale, we'd see physical events that didn't have physical causes (ones that were caused by mental events?). No, no, no. I'm not saying that at all. Ultimately I'm saying that if there is a physical world, it's irrelevant to consciousness. Consciousness is information. Physical systems can be interpreted as representing, or storing, information, but that act of storage isn't what gives rise to conscious experience. You're aware of course that the same things were said about the physio/chemical bases of life. You mentioned that point before, as I recall. Dennett made a similar argument against Chalmers, to which Chalmers had what I thought was an effective response: ---http://consc.net/papers/moving.html Perhaps the most common strategy for a type-A materialist is to deflate the hard problem by using analogies to other domains, where talk of such a problem would be misguided. Thus Dennett imagines a vitalist arguing about the hard problem of life, or a neuroscientist arguing about the hard problem of perception. Similarly, Paul Churchland (1996) imagines a nineteenth century philosopher worrying about the hard problem of light, and Patricia Churchland brings up an analogy involving heat. In all these cases, we are to suppose, someone might once have thought that more needed explaining than structure and function; but in each case, science has proved them wrong. So perhaps the argument about consciousness is no better. This sort of argument cannot bear much weight, however. Pointing out that analogous arguments do not work in other domains is no news: the whole point of anti-reductionist arguments about consciousness is that there is a disanalogy between the problem of consciousness and problems in other domains. As for the claim that analogous arguments in such domains might once have been plausible, this strikes me as something of a convenient myth: in the other domains, it is more or less obvious that structure and function are what need explaining, at least once any experiential aspects are left aside, and one would be hard pressed to find a substantial body of people who ever argued otherwise. When it comes to the problem of life, for
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly Harmon wrote: ... So I think the possibility (conceivability?) of conscious computer simulations is what throws a kink into this line of thought. No, that's why I wrote ...relative to an environment. In Moravec's thought experiment the consciousness is relative to simulation. From outside it might many entirely different interpretations, like the stone that calculates everything. Brent I'll quote Hans Moravec here: A simulated world hosting a simulated person can be a closed self-contained entity. It might exist as a program on a computer processing data quietly in some dark corner, giving no external hint of the joys and pains, successes and frustrations of the person inside. Inside the simulation events unfold according to the strict logic of the program, which defines the ``laws of physics'' of the simulation. The inhabitant might, by patient experimentation and inference, deduce some representation of the simulation laws, but not the nature or even existence of the simulating computer. The simulation's internal relationships would be the same if the program were running correctly on any of an endless variety of possible computers, slowly, quickly, intermittently, or even backwards and forwards in time, with the data stored as charges on chips, marks on a tape, or pulses in a delay line, with the simulation's numbers represented in binary, decimal, or Roman numerals, compactly or spread widely across the machine. There is no limit, in principle, on how indirect the relationship between simulation and simulated can be. http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1998/SimConEx.98.html --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 19 May 2009, at 10:13, Kelly Harmon wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 6:36 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I agree with your critic of consciousness = information. This is not even wrong, Ouch! Et tu, Bruno??? Apology. I was a bit rude. and Kelly should define what he means by information so that we could see what he really means. Okay, okay! I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but you've backed me into a corner. (ha!) OK OK. I am glad you are not KO :) I'll come up with a definition and post it asap. After the corner, the terrible trap I am curious about what you will say. The concept of information is more tricky than randomness, meaning and infinity all together. To relate it with consciousness? This makes sense. This makes too much sense ... I think, and that is the problem. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Alberto, On 19 May 2009, at 11:37, Alberto G.Corona wrote: That is also my case. I wonder how the materialist hypothesis has advanced in a plausible explanation of consciousness, and I think that this is the right path, and I follow it. But at the deep level, my subjective experience tells me that I must remain dualist. I am glad you are not an eliminative materialist. But you tell us that you remain a weak-materialist? You believe there is a primary physical or material world, and that physics is the fundamental science. OK? The point of most of my posts here is to explain this does not work, at least once we accept the computationalist hypothesis in the cognitive science. I think however that for evolutionary purposes, the consciousness, being designed by natural selection for keeping an accurate picture of how the others see us, must naturally reject a materialist explanation because this is not an accurate picture. You mean must reject eliminative materialism. I agree with you. All sentient beings do that naturally. The other people do not see us as a piece of evolved mechanisms, but as moral beings. As person, yes. An adaptive self must be, and is, fiercely dualist, with a strong notion of self autonomy and unit of purpose. So all of us feel that way when not thinking about that. Why dualist? Well, I do agree even animals feel themselves implicitly dualist, they believe they are hungry and that food exist. They does not reflect much on the difference between the appearance of substantial food and they first person hungriness. But comp forces us to abandon weak materialism, like I think most of the greek and Indian philosophers already did intuit. The appearance of matter is appearance of something else. The days I believe in comp, I feel myself fiercely monist: I believe, those days, that matter is a construction of the mind. Not the human mind, but the universal machines mind. UDA is an argument showing that the current paradigmatic chain MATTER = CONSCIOUSNESS = NUMBER is reversed: with comp I can explain too you in details (it is long) that the chain should be NUMBER = CONSCIOUSNESS = MATTER. Some agree already that it could be NUMBER = MATTER = CONSCIOUSNESS, and this indeed is more locally obvious, yet I pretend that comp forces eventually the complete reversal. Here I agree with Kelly, and probably some others: idealism, or spiritual/mental/informational/number-theoretical monism is where we go, and have to go, once we bet we can survive with a digital brain. I don't pretend this is obvious, but I have an argument, called UDA. It is a constructive argument, it shows how to explicitly derive the physical laws from a theory of mind (computer science), so that we can test comp empirically, by comparing the physics from comp and the physics from usual observation of our neighborhood. Would the world still look Newtonian, I would never dare to suggest that comp is possible. Thanks to QM, the possibility of comp remains. (And QM's MWI prevent comp from solipsism, in case you worried). Thus, maybe if ever a robot is made to simulate our behavior must incorporate an inner rejection of materialist explanation about the nature of his higher level circuits, and a vivid notion of subjective experience. Note that even physicalist explanations are more and more mathematical, and does never really refer to metaphysical materialism. But such beliefs lives in the background, and when defended leads often to eliminativism (of person), or dualism, which are rarely intelligible, or epiphenomenalism, where consciousness loss its grip to reality. That is not difficult at a certain level of technology, to create a central “self” module that receives the filtered, relevant information, plus information of the commands and actions of other decision modules. This self module must be capable of inventing (and that´s the tricky thing) a self centered, socially plausible, moral history that link together such perceptions and such actions. In our case, we can bet we belong to deep computational histories, which give serious hints. Then, when someone ask him do you have subjective experience, qualia and so on the robot will answer, “of cause, yes, I have a very strong sensation of unity of mind, perception and I´m a moral subject capable of self determination”. Otherwise, he will be inconsistent or non functional as human simulation. This is a bit tautological, but OK. By the way, the role of the self process as a creator of self centered histories that are credible for the rest of us, that tend to show a favorable moral image of the self has been checked in different experiments, especially with lobotomized people (that invent two different histories of the same perception-action in each hemisphere). It also explains many mental disorders: compulsive liars and crazy overhyped
Re: Consciousness is information?
Note also that, by being universal machine, our look-up table are infinite. Bruno Le 18-mai-09, à 03:11, Kelly Harmon a écrit : On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: I don't have a problem with the idea that a giant lookup table is just a sort of zombie, since after all the way you'd create a lookup table for a given algorithmic mind would be to run a huge series of actual simulations of that mind with all possible inputs, creating a huge archive of recordings so that later if anyone supplies the lookup table with a given input, the table just looks up the recording of the occasion in which the original simulated mind was supplied with that exact input in the past, and plays it back. Why should merely replaying a recording of something that happened to a simulated observer in the past contribute to the measure of that observer-moment? I don't believe that playing a videotape of me being happy or sad in the past will increase the measure of happy or sad observer-moments involving me, after all. And Olympia seems to be somewhat similar to a lookup table in that the only way to construct her would be to have already run the regular Turing machine program that she is supposed to emulate, so that you know in advance the order that the Turing machine's read/write head visits different cells, and then you can rearrange the positions of those cells so Olympia will visit them in the correct order just by going from one cell to the next in line over and over again. What if you used a lookup table for only a single neuron in a computer simulation of a brain? So actual calculations for the rest of the brain's neurons are performed, but this single neuron just does lookups into a table of pre-calculated outputs. Would consciousness still be produced in this case? What if you then re-ran the simulation with 10 neurons doing lookups, but calculations still being executed for the rest of the simulated brain? Still consciousness is produced? What if 10% of the neurons are implemented using lookup tables? 50%? 90%? How about all except 1 neuron is implemented via lookup tables, but that 1 neuron's outputs are still calculated from inputs? At what point does the simulation become a zombie? http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Le 17-mai-09, à 12:43, Alberto G.Corona a écrit :
The hard problem may be unsolvable, but I think it would be much more
unsolvable if we don´t fix the easy problem, isn´t?
I think that the hard problem is more easy to solve than the easy
problem.
Indeed it is a theorem in computer science that an (ideally) correct
universal machine which introspects itself (in the usual mathematical
self-referential (Lobian) sense) will discover (not prove, but still
produce as true) many non machine-communicable statements.
AUDA gives a thorough precise theory of qualia, which is Popper
refutable, in the (idealist) sense that the quanta appears as
particular type of sharable first person plural qualia. If it appears
false on quanta, we can abandon that theory of qualia too!
What is cute in AUDA, is that it provides an explanation why the hard
problem of consciousness has to seem hard from the point of view of
the machine. In a sense the hard problem is proved to be unsolvable by
any direct means, but completely meta-solvable.
It relies mainly on the Gödel points where Penrose and Lucas are wrong:
machine *can* access their own incompleteness theorem through local
self-consistency assumptions.
With a clear idea
of the easy problem it is possible to infer something about the hard
problem:
For example, the latter is a product of the former, because we
perceive things that have (or had) relevance in evolutionary terms.
Second, the unitary nature of perception match well with the
evolutionary explanation My inner self is a private reconstruction,
for fitness purposes, of how others see me, as an unit of perception
and purpose, not as a set of processors, motors and sensors, although,
analytically, we are so. Third, the machinery of this constructed
inner self sometimes take control (i.e. we feel ourselves capable of
free will) whenever our acts would impact of the image that others may
have of ourselves.
If these conclusions are all in the easy lever, I think that we have
solved a few of moral and perceptual problems that have puzzled
philosophers and scientists for centuries. Relabeling them as easy
problems the instant after an evolutionary explanation of them has
been aired is preposterous.
Therefore I think that I answer your question: it´s not only
information; It´s about a certain kind of information and their own
processor. The exact nature of this processor that permits qualia is
not known;
I think we know (assuming comp) the exact nature of that processor.
It is an immaterial universal machine. The machine does not need to be
Lobian (as some people think). It needs only to be lobian to be able to
develop by its own this very special theory of qualia and quanta.
I agree with your critic of consciousness = information. This is not
even wrong, and Kelly should define what he means by information so
that we could see what he really means. I suspect Kelly is confusing
information and information content. Information content needs the
(immaterial and atemporal) processing of a universal machine or number.
Not a physical processing, but a processing similar to those in the UD,
or implemented naturally in (a tiny part) of Arithmetic.
that’s true, and it´s good from my point of view, because,
for one side, the unknown is stimulating and for the other,
reductionist explanations for everything, like the mine above, are a
bit frustrating.
I can explain in what sense comp is a vaccine against reductionism, but
you have to be familiar with the UD Argument. Even the physics which
appears cannot be reduced, still less the person. Hmm ..., you still
believe we can have both comp and a primitive material universe, isn't
it?
Computationalism leads to a genuine non trivial and refutable solution
of both the hard problem of matter *and* the hard problem of
consciousness. It preserves the necessity of an irreducible gap between
those things (and other things), but it provides a geometry of that
gap, together with an explanation of the mystery feeling. Of course (in
case you have read some of my older post), the geometry of the gap is
provided by the possible modal semantics of the logic G* \minus G, and
its intensional variants, (all this on the Sigma_1 restriction, to take
into account the comp hyp and the Universal Dovetailer in Arithmetic).
The bad news is that the easy problem of matter and consciousness,
thorugh comp could as well be as diificult as possible. It remains
possible that only very long computation can lead tp present form of
human mind and matter. Computationalism does not just reverse math and
physics, or theology and physics, it reverse hard and easy ...
Eventually everything is reduced to the (deep) mystery of our
understanding of an assertion like N = {0, 1, 2, ...}. But, by
accepting that the expression N = {0, 1, 2, ...} makes sense, we can
explain in all detail why this one is absolutely unsolvable. We cannot
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly Harmon wrote: What if you used a lookup table for only a single neuron in a computer simulation of a brain? Hi Kelly Zombie arguments involving look up tables are faulty because look up tables are not closed systems. They require someone to fill them up. To resolve these arguments you need to include the creator of the look up table in the argument. (Inclusion can be across widely different time periods and spacial location) George --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly Harmon wrote: I think your discussing the functional aspects of consciousness. AKA, the easy problems of consciousness. The question of how human behavior is produced. My question was what is the source of phenomenal consciousness. What is the absolute minimum requirement which must be met in order for conscious experience to exist? So my question isn't HOW human behavior is produced, but instead I'm asking why the mechanistic processes that produce human behavior are accompanied by subjective first person conscious experience. The hard problem. Qualia. I wasn't asking how is it that we do the things we do, or, how did this come about, but instead given that we do these things, why is there a subjective experience associated with doing them. Do you suppose that something could behave just as humans do yet not be conscious, i.e. could there be a philosophical zombie? So none of the things you reference are relevant to the question of whether a computer simulation of a human mind would be conscious in the same way as a real human mind. If a simulation would be, then what are the properties that those to two very dissimilar physical systems have in common that would explain this mutual experience of consciousness? The information processing? Brent On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Alberto G.Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets selected, replicated and selected again. In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in memory for consciousness processing. This is a part of our moral sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment. Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can discover the motivations of others. The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself (this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind. The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we travel we feel a kind of liberation: because the conscious module is made irrelevant outside our social circle, so our more efficient lower level modules take care of our actions --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
The hard problem may be unsolvable, but I think it would be much more unsolvable if we don´t fix the easy problem, isn´t? With a clear idea of the easy problem it is possible to infer something about the hard problem: For example, the latter is a product of the former, because we perceive things that have (or had) relevance in evolutionary terms. Second, the unitary nature of perception match well with the evolutionary explanation My inner self is a private reconstruction, for fitness purposes, of how others see me, as an unit of perception and purpose, not as a set of processors, motors and sensors, although, analytically, we are so. Third, the machinery of this constructed inner self sometimes take control (i.e. we feel ourselves capable of free will) whenever our acts would impact of the image that others may have of ourselves. If these conclusions are all in the easy lever, I think that we have solved a few of moral and perceptual problems that have puzzled philosophers and scientists for centuries. Relabeling them as easy problems the instant after an evolutionary explanation of them has been aired is preposterous. Therefore I think that I answer your question: it´s not only information; It´s about a certain kind of information and their own processor. The exact nature of this processor that permits qualia is not known; that’s true, and it´s good from my point of view, because, for one side, the unknown is stimulating and for the other, reductionist explanations for everything, like the mine above, are a bit frustrating. On May 16, 8:39 pm, Kelly Harmon harmon...@gmail.com wrote: I think your discussing the functional aspects of consciousness. AKA, the easy problems of consciousness. The question of how human behavior is produced. My question was what is the source of phenomenal consciousness. What is the absolute minimum requirement which must be met in order for conscious experience to exist? So my question isn't HOW human behavior is produced, but instead I'm asking why the mechanistic processes that produce human behavior are accompanied by subjective first person conscious experience. The hard problem. Qualia. I wasn't asking how is it that we do the things we do, or, how did this come about, but instead given that we do these things, why is there a subjective experience associated with doing them. So none of the things you reference are relevant to the question of whether a computer simulation of a human mind would be conscious in the same way as a real human mind. If a simulation would be, then what are the properties that those to two very dissimilar physical systems have in common that would explain this mutual experience of consciousness? On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Alberto G.Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets selected, replicated and selected again. In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in memory for consciousness processing. This is a part of our moral sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment. Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can discover the motivations of others. The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself (this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind. The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we
Re: Consciousness is information?
Let me please insert my remarks into this remarkable chain of thoughts below
(my inserts in bold)
John M
On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 2:03 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.comwrote:
Kelly Harmon wrote:
I think your discussing the functional aspects of consciousness. AKA,
the easy problems of consciousness. The question of how human
behavior is produced.
*I believe it is a 'forced artifact' to separate any aspect of a complex
image from the entire 'unit' we like to call 'conscious behavior'. In our
(analytical) view we regard the 'activity' as separate from the initiation
and the process resulting from it through decision(?) AND the assumed
maintaining of the function. *
My question was what is the source of phenomenal consciousness.
What is the absolute minimum requirement which must be met in order
for conscious experience to exist? So my question isn't HOW human
behavior is produced, but instead I'm asking why the mechanistic
processes that produce human behavior are accompanied by subjective
first person conscious experience. The hard problem. Qualia.
*We are 'human' concentrated and slanted in our views. *
*Extending it not only to other 'conscious' animals, but to phenomena in the
so (mis)called 'inanimate' - and reversing our logical habit (see below to
Brent) brings up different questions so far not much discussed. The 'hard
problem' is a separation in the totality of the phenomenon -*
*[from its physical/physiological observation within our so far
outlined figment of viewing the 'physical world' separately and its
reduced, conventional ('scientific') explanations] - *
* into assuming (some) undisclosed other aspects of the same complex. From
'quantized' into some 'qualia'. *
I wasn't asking how is it that we do the things we do, or, how did
this come about, but instead given that we do these things, why is
there a subjective experience associated with doing them.
*And we should exactly ask what you wasn't asking. *
**
Brent: Meeker:
Do you suppose that something could behave just as humans do yet not be
conscious, i.e. could there be a philosophical zombie?
*Once we consider the totality of the phenomenon and do not separate aspects
of th complexity, the zombie becomes a meaningless artifact of the
primitive ways our thinking evolved. *
Kelly:
So none of the things you reference are relevant to the question of
whether a computer simulation of a human mind would be conscious in
the same way as a real human mind. If a simulation would be, then
what are the properties that those to two very dissimilar physical
systems have in common that would explain this mutual experience of
consciousness?
*A fitting computer simulation would include ALL aspects involved - call it
mind AND body, 'physically' observable 'activity' and 'consciousness as
cause' -- but alas, no such thing so far. Our embryonic machine with its
binary algorithms, driven by a switched on (electrically induced) primitive
mechanism can do just that much, within the known segments designed 'in'. *
*What we may call 'qualia' is waiting for some analogue comp, working
simultaneously on all aspects of the phenomena involved (IMO not practical,
since there cannot be a limit drawn in the interrelated totality, beyond
which relations may be irrelevant). *
**
Brent:
The information processing?
*Does that mean a homunculus, that 'processes' the (again separated) aspect
of 'information' into a format that fits our image of the aspectwise
formulated items? *
*What I question is the 'initiation' and 'maintenance' of what we call the
occurrence of phenomena. We do imagine a 'functioning' world where
everything just does occur, observed by itself and in no connection to the
rest of the world. *
*I am looking for 'relations' that 'influence' each other into aspects we
consider as 'different' (from what?) and call such relational
interconnectedness the world. *
*We are far from knowing it all, even further from any 'true' understanding
so we fabricted in our epistemic enrichment over the millennia a stepwise
approach to 'explain' the miracles. *
*Learning of acknowledged(?) relational aspects (call it decisionmaking?)
and realization of ramifications upon such (call it process, function,
activity) is the basis of our (now still reductionistic) physical
worldview. *
*Please excuse my hasty writing in premature ideas I could not detail out or
even justify using inadequate old words that should be relaced by a fitting
vocabulry. ((Alberto (below) even mentions 'memory' - that could as well be
a re-visiting of relations in the a-temporal totality view we coordinate as
a time - space physics)). *
Brent
*John M*
On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Alberto G.Corona agocor...@gmail.com
wrote:
No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that
handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the
driving mechanism towards order in the
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 2:03 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Do you suppose that something could behave just as humans do yet not be conscious, i.e. could there be a philosophical zombie? I think that somewhere there would have to be a conscious experience associated with the production of the behavior, THOUGH the conscious experience might not supervene onto the system producing the behavior in an obvious way. Generally I don't think that what we experience is necessarily caused by physical systems. I think that sometimes physical systems assume configurations that shadow, or represent, our conscious experience. But they don't CAUSE our conscious experience. So a computer simulation of a human brain that thinks it's at the beach would be an example. The computer running the simulation assumes a sequence of configurations that could be interpreted as representing the mental processes of a person enjoying a day at the beach. But I can't see any reason why a bunch of electrons moving through copper and silicon in a particular way would cause that subjective experience of surf and sand. And for similar reasons I don't see why a human brain would either, even if it was actually at the beach, given that it is also just electrons and protons and neutrons.moving in specific ways. It doesn't seem plausible to me that it is the act of being represented in some way by a physical system that produces conscious experience. Though it DOES seem plausible/obvious to me that a physical system going through a sequence of these representations is what produces human behavior. The information processing? Well, I would say information processing, but it seems to me that many different processes could produce the same information. And I would not expect a change in process or algorithm to produce a different subjective experience if the information that was being processed/output remained the same. So for this reason I go with consciousness is information, not consciousness is information processing. Processes just describe ways that different information states CAN be connected, or related, or transformed. But I don't think that consciousness resides in those processes. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 8:07 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: A fitting computer simulation would include ALL aspects involved - call it mind AND body, 'physically' observable 'activity' and 'consciousness as cause' -- but alas, no such thing so far. Our embryonic machine with its binary algorithms, driven by a switched on (electrically induced) primitive mechanism can do just that much, within the known segments designed 'in'. What we may call 'qualia' is waiting for some analogue comp, working simultaneously on all aspects of the phenomena involved (IMO not practical, since there cannot be a limit drawn in the interrelated totality, beyond which relations may be irrelevant). So you're saying that it's not possible, even in principle, to simulate a human brain on a digital computer? But that it would be possible on a massively parallel analog computer? What extra something do you think an analog computer provides that isn't available from a digital computer? Why would it be necessary to run all of the calculations in parallel? 'consciousness as cause' You are saying that consciousness has a causal role, that is additional to the causal structure found in non-conscious physical systems? What leads you to this conclusion? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: I don't have a problem with the idea that a giant lookup table is just a sort of zombie, since after all the way you'd create a lookup table for a given algorithmic mind would be to run a huge series of actual simulations of that mind with all possible inputs, creating a huge archive of recordings so that later if anyone supplies the lookup table with a given input, the table just looks up the recording of the occasion in which the original simulated mind was supplied with that exact input in the past, and plays it back. Why should merely replaying a recording of something that happened to a simulated observer in the past contribute to the measure of that observer-moment? I don't believe that playing a videotape of me being happy or sad in the past will increase the measure of happy or sad observer-moments involving me, after all. And Olympia seems to be somewhat similar to a lookup table in that the only way to construct her would be to have already run the regular Turing machine program that she is supposed to emulate, so that you know in advance the order that the Turing machine's read/write head visits different cells, and then you can rearrange the positions of those cells so Olympia will visit them in the correct order just by going from one cell to the next in line over and over again. What if you used a lookup table for only a single neuron in a computer simulation of a brain? So actual calculations for the rest of the brain's neurons are performed, but this single neuron just does lookups into a table of pre-calculated outputs. Would consciousness still be produced in this case? What if you then re-ran the simulation with 10 neurons doing lookups, but calculations still being executed for the rest of the simulated brain? Still consciousness is produced? What if 10% of the neurons are implemented using lookup tables? 50%? 90%? How about all except 1 neuron is implemented via lookup tables, but that 1 neuron's outputs are still calculated from inputs? At what point does the simulation become a zombie? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Generally I don't think that what we experience is necessarily caused by physical systems. I think that sometimes physical systems assume configurations that shadow, or represent, our conscious experience. But they don't CAUSE our conscious experience. So if we could track the functions of the brain at a fine enough scale, we'd see physical events that didn't have physical causes (ones that were caused by mental events?). No, no, no. I'm not saying that at all. Ultimately I'm saying that if there is a physical world, it's irrelevant to consciousness. Consciousness is information. Physical systems can be interpreted as representing, or storing, information, but that act of storage isn't what gives rise to conscious experience. You're aware of course that the same things were said about the physio/chemical bases of life. You mentioned that point before, as I recall. Dennett made a similar argument against Chalmers, to which Chalmers had what I thought was an effective response: --- http://consc.net/papers/moving.html Perhaps the most common strategy for a type-A materialist is to deflate the hard problem by using analogies to other domains, where talk of such a problem would be misguided. Thus Dennett imagines a vitalist arguing about the hard problem of life, or a neuroscientist arguing about the hard problem of perception. Similarly, Paul Churchland (1996) imagines a nineteenth century philosopher worrying about the hard problem of light, and Patricia Churchland brings up an analogy involving heat. In all these cases, we are to suppose, someone might once have thought that more needed explaining than structure and function; but in each case, science has proved them wrong. So perhaps the argument about consciousness is no better. This sort of argument cannot bear much weight, however. Pointing out that analogous arguments do not work in other domains is no news: the whole point of anti-reductionist arguments about consciousness is that there is a disanalogy between the problem of consciousness and problems in other domains. As for the claim that analogous arguments in such domains might once have been plausible, this strikes me as something of a convenient myth: in the other domains, it is more or less obvious that structure and function are what need explaining, at least once any experiential aspects are left aside, and one would be hard pressed to find a substantial body of people who ever argued otherwise. When it comes to the problem of life, for example, it is just obvious that what needs explaining is structure and function: How does a living system self-organize? How does it adapt to its environment? How does it reproduce? Even the vitalists recognized this central point: their driving question was always How could a mere physical system perform these complex functions?, not Why are these functions accompanied by life? It is no accident that Dennett's version of a vitalist is imaginary. There is no distinct hard problem of life, and there never was one, even for vitalists. In general, when faced with the challenge explain X, we need to ask: what are the phenomena in the vicinity of X that need explaining, and how might we explain them? In the case of life, what cries out for explanation are such phenomena as reproduction, adaptation, metabolism, self-sustenance, and so on: all complex functions. There is not even a plausible candidate for a further sort of property of life that needs explaining (leaving aside consciousness itself), and indeed there never was. In the case of consciousness, on the other hand, the manifest phenomena that need explaining are such things as discrimination, reportability, integration (the functions), and experience. So this analogy does not even get off the ground. -- Though it DOES seem plausible/obvious to me that a physical system going through a sequence of these representations is what produces human behavior. So you're saying that a sequence of physical representations is enough to produce behavior. Right, observed behavior. What I'm saying here is that it seems obvious to me that mechanistic computation is sufficient to explain observed human behavior. If that was the only thing that needed explaining, we'd be done. Mission accomplished. BUT...there's subjective experience that also needs explained, and this is actually the first question that needs answered. All other answers are suspect until subjective experience has been explained. And there must be conscious experience associated with behavior. Well, here's where it gets tricky. Conscious experience is associated with information. But how information is tied to physical systems is a different question. Any physical systems can be interpreted as representing all sorts of things (again, back to Putnam and Searle, one-time pads, Maudlin's Olympia example, Bruno's movie graph
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly Harmon wrote: On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Generally I don't think that what we experience is necessarily caused by physical systems. I think that sometimes physical systems assume configurations that shadow, or represent, our conscious experience. But they don't CAUSE our conscious experience. So if we could track the functions of the brain at a fine enough scale, we'd see physical events that didn't have physical causes (ones that were caused by mental events?). No, no, no. I'm not saying that at all. Ultimately I'm saying that if there is a physical world, it's irrelevant to consciousness. Consciousness is information. Physical systems can be interpreted as representing, or storing, information, but that act of storage isn't what gives rise to conscious experience. You're aware of course that the same things were said about the physio/chemical bases of life. You mentioned that point before, as I recall. Dennett made a similar argument against Chalmers, to which Chalmers had what I thought was an effective response: --- http://consc.net/papers/moving.html Perhaps the most common strategy for a type-A materialist is to deflate the hard problem by using analogies to other domains, where talk of such a problem would be misguided. Thus Dennett imagines a vitalist arguing about the hard problem of life, or a neuroscientist arguing about the hard problem of perception. Similarly, Paul Churchland (1996) imagines a nineteenth century philosopher worrying about the hard problem of light, and Patricia Churchland brings up an analogy involving heat. In all these cases, we are to suppose, someone might once have thought that more needed explaining than structure and function; but in each case, science has proved them wrong. So perhaps the argument about consciousness is no better. This sort of argument cannot bear much weight, however. Pointing out that analogous arguments do not work in other domains is no news: the whole point of anti-reductionist arguments about consciousness is that there is a disanalogy between the problem of consciousness and problems in other domains. As for the claim that analogous arguments in such domains might once have been plausible, this strikes me as something of a convenient myth: in the other domains, it is more or less obvious that structure and function are what need explaining, at least once any experiential aspects are left aside, and one would be hard pressed to find a substantial body of people who ever argued otherwise. When it comes to the problem of life, for example, it is just obvious that what needs explaining is structure and function: How does a living system self-organize? How does it adapt to its environment? How does it reproduce? Even the vitalists recognized this central point: their driving question was always How could a mere physical system perform these complex functions?, not Why are these functions accompanied by life? It is no accident that Dennett's version of a vitalist is imaginary. There is no distinct hard problem of life, and there never was one, even for vitalists. In general, when faced with the challenge explain X, we need to ask: what are the phenomena in the vicinity of X that need explaining, and how might we explain them? In the case of life, what cries out for explanation are such phenomena as reproduction, adaptation, metabolism, self-sustenance, and so on: all complex functions. There is not even a plausible candidate for a further sort of property of life that needs explaining (leaving aside consciousness itself), and indeed there never was. In the case of consciousness, on the other hand, the manifest phenomena that need explaining are such things as discrimination, reportability, integration (the functions), and experience. So this analogy does not even get off the ground. -- On the contrary, I think it does. First, I think Chalmers idea that vitalists recognized that all that needed explaining was structure and function is revisionist history. They were looking for the animating spirit. It is in hind sight, having found the function and structure, that we've realized that was all the explanation available. And I expect the same thing will happen with consciousness. We will eventually be able to make robots that behave as humans do and we will infer, from their behavior, that they are conscious. And we, being their designers, will be able to analyze them and say, Here's what makes R2D2 have conscious experiences of visual perception and here's what makes 3CPO have self awareness relative to humans. We will find that there are many different kinds of conscious and we will be able to invent new ones. We will never solve Chalmers hard problem, we'll just realize it's a non-question. Though it DOES seem plausible/obvious to me that a physical
Re: Consciousness is information?
No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets selected, replicated and selected again. In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in memory for consciousness processing. This is a part of our moral sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment. Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can discover the motivations of others. The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself (this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind. The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we travel we feel a kind of liberation: because the conscious module is made irrelevant outside our social circle, so our more efficient lower level modules take care of our actions --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
I think your discussing the functional aspects of consciousness. AKA, the easy problems of consciousness. The question of how human behavior is produced. My question was what is the source of phenomenal consciousness. What is the absolute minimum requirement which must be met in order for conscious experience to exist? So my question isn't HOW human behavior is produced, but instead I'm asking why the mechanistic processes that produce human behavior are accompanied by subjective first person conscious experience. The hard problem. Qualia. I wasn't asking how is it that we do the things we do, or, how did this come about, but instead given that we do these things, why is there a subjective experience associated with doing them. So none of the things you reference are relevant to the question of whether a computer simulation of a human mind would be conscious in the same way as a real human mind. If a simulation would be, then what are the properties that those to two very dissimilar physical systems have in common that would explain this mutual experience of consciousness? On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Alberto G.Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets selected, replicated and selected again. In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in memory for consciousness processing. This is a part of our moral sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment. Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can discover the motivations of others. The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself (this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind. The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we travel we feel a kind of liberation: because the conscious module is made irrelevant outside our social circle, so our more efficient lower level modules take care of our actions --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Jesse, On 15 May 2009, at 06:32, Jesse Mazer wrote: Maudlin shows that you can reduce almost arbitrarily the amount of physical activity for running any computation, and keep their computational genuineness through the use of inert material. So the isomorphism you introduce vanish on the original Olympia (Pre- olympia). Olympia *is* Pre-Olympia + Klara (the inert (for the computation PI) machinery needed for the counterfactuals) OK? Olympia run the computation PI. But what do you mean when you say the isomorphism vanishes? Do you mean that the causal structure of pre-Olympia would *not* be isomorphic to the causal structure of the original Turing machine that pre-Olympia was supposed to imitate (according to the definition of causal structure in terms of logical relations between propositions about the system's state at different moments)? Yes. When I assume physical supervenience, for the benefit of the refutation. Olympia, relatively to me, implements Alice (or PI), Pre- Olypia does not. I would say yes to a doctor if he gives me an Olympia brain, no if he gives me pre-Olympia! That is what I mean by the vansihing of the causal isomorphism. Of course my goal, when I say yes to the doctor, is to preserve my consciousness, and my ability to manifest it in the normal (most probable) histories. My consciousness is already in plato heaven, so what I need here are the right dispositional devices. If so, that would mean that regular Olympia (pre-Olympia + Klara) wouldn't have a causal structure isomorphic to the Turing machine either, since I was defining causal structure solely in terms of propositions about events that *do* occur in the system's history, meaning the extra counterfactual conditions provided by Klara are irrelevant to Olympia's causal structure, so Olympia's causal structure would be the same as pre-Olympia's. Right. But Maudlin manages to show that Olympia can have an empty causal structure, and that you have to say yes to the doctor when he proposes to substitute your brain by nothing. Personally I conceive propositions only in a net of related propositions by theories or models. The causal structure is mainly given by axioms and inference or computation rules, or by a (mathematical) semantics (model). You can't separate a proposition from other propositions like you can't separate a number from the other numbers. I guess you would say that the movie-graph (the movie of the filmed active boolean graph corresponding to Alice's dream) would vehiculate Alice's dream. I can agree if you call the causal structure the computation corresponding to the local events lending to that graph, but then you have abandon the real time physical supervenience thesis already (or comp). It is a very subtle and complex point here, we can go back on this later. If that's the case, why can't we postulate that consciousness supervenes on causal structure, since causal structure is after all part of the physical world? The point is that you can realize any computation with any causal structure in that sense. Maudlin's construction explains well that the Klaras, or the *material* for the counterfactuals are a read herring as far as giving a role in the logical relations describing a computation. And not just the material one! Any choice of a particular universal system cannot work, you have to take them all. You can then choose the simplest one (+ and *) to retrieve those who define observable realities from the point of view of universal machines. In fact one could say that physics is *only* concerned with causality in the sense of lawlike relations between propositions about observations, since the laws of physics tell us nothing about what particles or fields or wavefunctions really are, only about how they interact with one another and how they can be used to predict the outcomes measurements. So if we say consciousness supervenes on causal structure, then Olympia would not qualify as an instantiation of the observer-moments that the original Turing machine instantiated, in much the same way that a lookup table wouldn't qualify. I don't see that at all. Olympia is just a crazy implementation of an algorithm, but it is correct on all inputs. Its resemblance with a look-up table is local, finite, and does not change Olympia's semantics. If such a change makes a change, I would no more say yes to a doctor. My consciousness would depend on the nature of the implementation. I don't have a problem with the idea that a giant lookup table is just a sort of zombie, Look-up table contains the counterfactuals. I am not sure that a giant look-up up table can be considered as a zombie. The problem is that such a look-up table would be gigantic and hard to address. Also, its origin, relatively to me, would need a strange history.
Re: Consciousness is information?
Stathis, I agree halfway with you and expected something (maybe more). Do you mean the others are zombies? not ME (you, etc. 1st pers). I take it one step further, the fun (I agree) includes a satisfaction that here is a bunch of really smart guys and I can tell them something in their profession they may respond to - even if I am outside of their learned profession - which is not so 'practical'. Mental narcissism? * Somebody made an 'expert' list, collecting opinions for open concepts in a statistical evaluation of what the majority of experts think. Of course I objected: scientific identification is NO democratic voting matter, if 100 so called 'experts' voice an opinion I may still represent the right one in a single-vote different position. Thanks for your input John M On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/5/13 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com: Bruno, merci pour le nom Jean Cocteau. J'ai voulu montrer que je semble vivant. I told my young bride of 61 years (originally economist, but follows all the plaisantries I speculate on) about the assumptions you guys speculate on and connect to assumptions of assumptions, Torgny the zombie, Stephen Leibnitz' Monads, you numbers, others Q-immortality/suicide and partial teleportation at the level of highest science - and she asked - (because she believes in her love that I am into all that, - understanding): What do you guys hope to achieve by all this speculation? I replied: it's getting late, let's go to sleep. Well??? (I believe this is the most meaningful word in English) Mainly it's just fun; but it's also profoundly important from a practical point of view if, for example, other people are zombies or we are all immortal (in a non-living-dead sort of way), no? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
2009/5/15 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com: Stathis, I agree halfway with you and expected something (maybe more). Do you mean the others are zombies? not ME (you, etc. 1st pers). I don't think others are zombies, but it is interesting nevertheless to consider the possibility. I take it one step further, the fun (I agree) includes a satisfaction that here is a bunch of really smart guys and I can tell them something in their profession they may respond to - even if I am outside of their learned profession - which is not so 'practical'. Mental narcissism? Yes, on some mailing lists people try to score points and show how smart they are but on this one, that doesn't seem to happen so much. Somebody made an 'expert' list, collecting opinions for open concepts in a statistical evaluation of what the majority of experts think. Of course I objected: scientific identification is NO democratic voting matter, if 100 so called 'experts' voice an opinion I may still represent the right one in a single-vote different position. That's true, but scientific consensus must count for *something*. If I have no idea about a subject it is more likely I will get the right answer from an expert than from a random person. But of course, experts cannot always be right, and historically many things that scientists have believed even unanimously have turned out to be wrong. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Consciousness is information?
Hi Bruno, I meant to reply to this earlier: From: marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 14:45:13 +0200 On 30 Apr 2009, at 18:29, Jesse Mazer wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 29 Apr 2009, at 23:30, Jesse Mazer wrote: But I'm not convinced that the basic Olympia machine he describes doesn't already have a complex causal structure--the causal structure would be in the way different troughs influence each other via the pipe system he describes, noting the motion of the armature. But Maudlin succeed in showing that in its particular running history, *that* causal structure is physically inert. Or it has mysterious influence not related to the computation. Maudlin only showed that *if* you define causal structure in terms of counterfactuals, then the machinery that ensures the proper counterfactuals might be physically inert. But if you reread my post at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg16244.html you can see that I was trying to come up with a definition of the causal structure of a set of events that did *not* depend on counterfactuals...look at these two paragraphs from that post, particular the first sentence of the first paragraph and the last sentence of the second paragraph: It seems to me that there might be ways of defining causal structure which don't depend on counterfactuals, though. One idea I had is that for any system which changes state in a lawlike way over time, all facts about events in the system's history can be represented as a collection of propositions, and then causal structure might be understood in terms of logical relations between propositions, given knowledge of the laws governing the system. As an example, if the system was a cellular automaton, one might have a collection of propositions like cell 156 is colored black at time-step 36, and if you know the rules for how the cells are updated on each time-step, then knowing some subsets of propositions would allow you to deduce others (for example, if you have a set of propositions that tell you the states of all the cells surrounding cell 71 at time-step 106, in most cellular automata that would allow you to figure out the state of cell 71 at the subsequent time-step 107). If the laws of physics in our universe are deterministic than you should in principle be able to represent all facts about the state of the universe at all times as a giant (probably infinite) set of propositions as well, and given knowledge of the laws, knowing certain subsets of these propositions would allow you to deduce others. Causal structure could then be defined in terms of what logical relations hold between the propositions, given knowledge of the laws governing the system. Perhaps in one system you might find a set of four propositions A, B, C, D such that if you know the system's laws, you can see that AB imply C, and D implies A, but no other proposition or group of propositions in this set of four are sufficient to deduce any of the others in this set. Then in another system you might find a set of four propositions X, Y, Z and W such that WZ imply Y, and X implies W, but those are the only deductions you can make from within this set. In this case you can say these two different sets of four propositions represent instantiations of the same causal structure, since if you map W to A, Z to B, Y to C, and D to X then you can see an isomorphism in the logical relations. That's obviously a very simple causal structure involving only 4 events, but one might define much more complex causal structures and then check if there was any subset of events in a system's history that matched that structure. And the propositions could be restricted to ones concerning events that actually did occur in the system's history, with no counterfactual propositions about what would have happened if the system's initial state had been different. For a Turing machine running a particular program the propositions might be things like at time-step 35 the Turing machine's read/write head moved to memory cell #82 and at time-step 35 the Turing machine had internal state S3 and at time-step 35 memory cell #82 held the digit 1. I'm not sure whether the general rules for how the Turing machine's internal state changes from one step to the next should also be included among the propositions, my guess is you'd probably need to do so in order to ensure that different computations had different causal structures according to the type of definition above...so, you might have a proposition expressing a rule like if the Turing machine is in internal state S3 and its read/write head detects the digit 1, it changes the digit in that cell to a 0 and moves 2 cells to the left, also changing its internal state to S5. Then this set of four propositions would be sufficient to deduce some other propositions about
Re: Consciousness is information?
Jason, thanks for your reply. Those BIG questions? IMO: typical SO WHAT ones. AND if we know? There is one (practical?) point though: knowing some 'right(?)' answer will reduce our danger to succumb to underhanded assumptions that mostly involve pressure to do what otherwise we wouldn't do. (Like killing the religiously 'infidel', or a gynecologist, and the like. Pay our church-tax and vote as the pastor/political leader said) And the truth? whose? we live in our 1-pov's mini-solipsism, limited to our own perceived reality plus the genetic- and experience- formed ways to interpret what we got as enrichment in the epistemic cognitive inventory and call it 'truth'. Any further learned information is stored(?) as interpreted into our own ways. No two persons have identical knowledge, belief, or thinking. John M On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 10:17 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: John, Great question I am glad you asked it. I think I was driven to this list because of big questions, especially those which most people seem to believe are unanswerable. Questions such as: Where did this universe come from? Why are we here and why am I me? Is there a God? What is responsible for consciousness? What is time? Is there life after death? Etc. After much reading and thought I am now mostly satisfied with the answers I have arrived at, and keeping up with this list and the issues people raise on various topics helps me to keep updating my models of reality to hopefully become more correct. I think it is good mental exercise to ponder the questions people on this list raise, and despite all the disagreement, chains of assumptions, and inability to test many of the conjectures I think this list is slowly making progress toward truth. Jason On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 3:42 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Bruno, merci pour le nom Jean Cocteau. J'ai voulu montrer que je semble vivant. I told my young bride of 61 years (originally economist, but follows all the plaisantries I speculate on) about the assumptions you guys speculate on and connect to assumptions of assumptions, Torgny the zombie, Stephen Leibnitz' Monads, you numbers, others Q-immortality/suicide and partial teleportation at the level of highest science - and she asked - (because she believes in her love that I am into all that, - understanding): What do you guys hope to achieve by all this speculation? I replied: it's getting late, let's go to sleep. Well??? (I believe this is the most meaningful word in English) John M On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Hi John, On 11 May 2009, at 22:49, John Mikes wrote: who was that French poet who made puns after death? ... A french poet said, after he died (!) : friends, pretend only to cry because poet pretends only to dye. (Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poètes font semblant de mourrir). It is Jean Cocteau. In Le Testament d'Orphée. A movie, made by Jean Cocteau, where he plays the role of the dying poet. I am not entirely sure of the total correctness of the quote. It could be Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poètes ne font que semblant d'être mort. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
John, On 12 May 2009, at 22:42, John Mikes wrote: (because she believes in her love that I am into all that, - understanding): What do you guys hope to achieve by all this speculation? I think there is a difference between speculating on the truth on some theories, and trying just to make as clear as possible those theories so that we can derive some observable consequences, so that we can make a test to luckily be able to abandon an erroneous speculation/ theory. And normally UDA shows that we cannot be consistent and still speculate on primary substance and on mechanism simultaneously, like we tend to do since a long time. And AUDA shows a way to test mechanism indeed. I don't like too much the word speculation, because it can be used pejoratively, and people, when attributing it to you, believes that you are making some new extraordinary assumption, when, personally, I try to show the amazing things arrive already quickly with very simple common assumption believed by almost everybody (that our bodies obeys computable laws). Comp is a speculation, but it is far less speculative than any non- comp theory, which has to postulate actual infinities in the mind. Of course on this list we are ambitious in the spectrum of what we want to figure out. It is fundamental research. But many are just modestly searching. I guess most knows that theories are just ways to put some light on some part of the unknown, so that we can continue the exploration. What we hope? No more no less than those who have put Hubble in space. We hope to see big and beautiful things. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
2009/5/13 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com: Bruno, merci pour le nom Jean Cocteau. J'ai voulu montrer que je semble vivant. I told my young bride of 61 years (originally economist, but follows all the plaisantries I speculate on) about the assumptions you guys speculate on and connect to assumptions of assumptions, Torgny the zombie, Stephen Leibnitz' Monads, you numbers, others Q-immortality/suicide and partial teleportation at the level of highest science - and she asked - (because she believes in her love that I am into all that, - understanding): What do you guys hope to achieve by all this speculation? I replied: it's getting late, let's go to sleep. Well??? (I believe this is the most meaningful word in English) Mainly it's just fun; but it's also profoundly important from a practical point of view if, for example, other people are zombies or we are all immortal (in a non-living-dead sort of way), no? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Torgny, I come from Stockholm, Sweden. I was constructed by my parents. In reality I think that all humans are zombies, but because I am a polite person, I do not tell the other zombies that they are zombies. I do not want to hurt the other zombies by telling them the truth. I guess you know that Sweden is the main country of Snus, that delicious oral tobacco product. Now, if there is one thing easy to imitate, for a zombie, is the discrete enjoyment of snus. But why would ever a zombie discretely fake for itself the pleasure of consuming snus. I can understand a young zombie fakes smoking cigarette, with the goal of faking faking being an adult, but why would an adult zombie ever fake, alone, at home, snusing some tobacco? Here I use the belgo-african Makla Ifrikia, cheaper and stronger. I t helped me to quit smoking (tobacco). I enjoy it, and although I cannot prove it to you, I don't fake the enjoyment . Nobody can even see that pure first person pleasure. Very useful for consuming tobacco in public place, where it is forbidden almost everywhere nowadays. Surely you are joking, mister zombie, Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi John, On 11 May 2009, at 22:49, John Mikes wrote: who was that French poet who made puns after death? ... A french poet said, after he died (!) : friends, pretend only to cry because poet pretends only to dye. (Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poètes font semblant de mourrir). It is Jean Cocteau. In Le Testament d'Orphée. A movie, made by Jean Cocteau, where he plays the role of the dying poet. I am not entirely sure of the total correctness of the quote. It could be Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poètes ne font que semblant d'être mort. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno Marchal skrev: On 08 May 2009, at 19:15, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: On 07 May 2009, at 18:29, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Yes it is right. There is no infinity of natural numbers. But the natural numbers are UNLIMITED, you can construct as many natural numbers as you want. But how many numbers you construct, the number of numbers will always be finite. You can never construct an infinite number of natural numbers. This is no more ultrafinitism. Just the usal finitism or intuitionism. It seems I recall you have had a stronger view on this point. Ontologically I am neutral on this question. With comp I don't need any actual infinity in the third person ontology. Infinities are not avoidable from inside, at least when the inside view begins some self-reflexion studies. I was an ultrafinitist before, but I have changed my mind. Excellent. The ability of changing its mind is a wonderful gift. It was the Mathematical Universe that made me change my mind: Earlier I was convinced that the number of time steps in the universe was explicitely finite, that time goes in a circle. But the Mathematical Universe says that all mathematically possible universes exists. And it is possible to construct an EXPANDING universe, where you have a simple rule stating that the status of a space-time point is a combination of the statuses of the neighboring space-time points in the previous time point. In this universe there will never happen that the same space will be repeated at a later time, because the space consists of more space points at the later time. So in that case the universe is UNLIMITED, it will never stop, but continue for ever... -- Torgny Tholerus --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno, merci pour le nom Jean Cocteau. J'ai voulu montrer que je semble vivant. I told my young bride of 61 years (originally economist, but follows all the plaisantries I speculate on) about the assumptions you guys speculate on and connect to assumptions of assumptions, Torgny the zombie, Stephen Leibnitz' Monads, you numbers, others Q-immortality/suicide and partial teleportation at the level of highest science - and she asked - (because she believes in her love that I am into all that, - understanding): What do you guys hope to achieve by all this speculation? I replied: it's getting late, let's go to sleep. Well??? (I believe this is the most meaningful word in English) John M On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Hi John, On 11 May 2009, at 22:49, John Mikes wrote: who was that French poet who made puns after death? ... A french poet said, after he died (!) : friends, pretend only to cry because poet pretends only to dye. (Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poètes font semblant de mourrir). It is Jean Cocteau. In Le Testament d'Orphée. A movie, made by Jean Cocteau, where he plays the role of the dying poet. I am not entirely sure of the total correctness of the quote. It could be Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poètes ne font que semblant d'être mort. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
John, Great question I am glad you asked it. I think I was driven to this list because of big questions, especially those which most people seem to believe are unanswerable. Questions such as: Where did this universe come from? Why are we here and why am I me? Is there a God? What is responsible for consciousness? What is time? Is there life after death? Etc. After much reading and thought I am now mostly satisfied with the answers I have arrived at, and keeping up with this list and the issues people raise on various topics helps me to keep updating my models of reality to hopefully become more correct. I think it is good mental exercise to ponder the questions people on this list raise, and despite all the disagreement, chains of assumptions, and inability to test many of the conjectures I think this list is slowly making progress toward truth. Jason On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 3:42 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Bruno, merci pour le nom Jean Cocteau. J'ai voulu montrer que je semble vivant. I told my young bride of 61 years (originally economist, but follows all the plaisantries I speculate on) about the assumptions you guys speculate on and connect to assumptions of assumptions, Torgny the zombie, Stephen Leibnitz' Monads, you numbers, others Q-immortality/suicide and partial teleportation at the level of highest science - and she asked - (because she believes in her love that I am into all that, - understanding): What do you guys hope to achieve by all this speculation? I replied: it's getting late, let's go to sleep. Well??? (I believe this is the most meaningful word in English) John M On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Hi John, On 11 May 2009, at 22:49, John Mikes wrote: who was that French poet who made puns after death? ... A french poet said, after he died (!) : friends, pretend only to cry because poet pretends only to dye. (Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poètes font semblant de mourrir). It is Jean Cocteau. In Le Testament d'Orphée. A movie, made by Jean Cocteau, where he plays the role of the dying poet. I am not entirely sure of the total correctness of the quote. It could be Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poètes ne font que semblant d'être mort. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno, who was that French poet who made puns after death? JohnM On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 08 May 2009, at 19:15, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: On 07 May 2009, at 18:29, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: you are human, all right? I look exactly as a human. When you look at me, you will not be able to know if I am a human or a zombie, because I behave exacly like a human. So you believe that human are not zombie, and you agree that you are not human. Where do you come from? Vega? Centaur? I come from Stockholm, Sweden. I was constructed by my parents. In reality I think that all humans are zombies, but because I am a polite person, I do not tell the other zombies that they are zombies. I do not want to hurt the other zombies by telling them the truth. Truth? you mean your theory. As far as I know, you may be a zombie, although I believe that you are conscious and only believe you are a zombie. Or you could suffer from a sort of radical blindsight, making you belief you lack consciousness. You should perhaps consult. And I appreciate very much your attempt to be polite, and your willingness to not hurt other ... zombie. but you should not worry, because if we are zombie, we will only fake being hurt, you know. *A french poet* *said, after he died (!)* : friends, pretend only to cry because poet pretends only to dye. *(Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poêtes font semblant de mourrir). * truncated --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Quentin Anciaux skrev: Hi, 2009/5/8 Torgny Tholerus tor...@dsv.su.se: I was an ultrafinitist before, but I have changed my mind. Now I accept that you can say that the natural numbers are unlimited. I only deny actual infinities. The set of all natural numbers are always finite, but you can always increase the set of all natural number by adding more natural numbers to it. Then it's not the set of *all* natural numbers. You do nothing by adding a number... you don't create numbers by writing them down, you don't invent properties about them, it's absurd... especially for a zombie. What do you mean by *all*? How do you define *all*? Can you give a definition that is not a circular definition? -- Torgny --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 08 May 2009, at 19:15, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: On 07 May 2009, at 18:29, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: you are human, all right? I look exactly as a human. When you look at me, you will not be able to know if I am a human or a zombie, because I behave exacly like a human. So you believe that human are not zombie, and you agree that you are not human. Where do you come from? Vega? Centaur? I come from Stockholm, Sweden. I was constructed by my parents. In reality I think that all humans are zombies, but because I am a polite person, I do not tell the other zombies that they are zombies. I do not want to hurt the other zombies by telling them the truth. Truth? you mean your theory. As far as I know, you may be a zombie, although I believe that you are conscious and only believe you are a zombie. Or you could suffer from a sort of radical blindsight, making you belief you lack consciousness. You should perhaps consult. And I appreciate very much your attempt to be polite, and your willingness to not hurt other ... zombie. but you should not worry, because if we are zombie, we will only fake being hurt, you know. A french poet said, after he died (!) : friends, pretend only to cry because poet pretends only to dye. (Faites semblant de pleurer mes amis puisque les poêtes font semblant de mourrir). Yes it is right. There is no infinity of natural numbers. But the natural numbers are UNLIMITED, you can construct as many natural numbers as you want. But how many numbers you construct, the number of numbers will always be finite. You can never construct an infinite number of natural numbers. This is no more ultrafinitism. Just the usal finitism or intuitionism. It seems I recall you have had a stronger view on this point. Ontologically I am neutral on this question. With comp I don't need any actual infinity in the third person ontology. Infinities are not avoidable from inside, at least when the inside view begins some self- reflexion studies. I was an ultrafinitist before, but I have changed my mind. Excellent. The ability of changing its mind is a wonderful gift. Now I accept that you can say that the natural numbers are unlimited. I only deny actual infinities. I can deny them ontologically, and with comp, their existence is absolutely undecidable. yet they are also unavoidable on the epistemological planes, once we search truth. The set of all natural numbers are always finite, Of course, but you mean constructed natural number. You stay at the 1-pov. I have no problem for translating. but you can always increase the set of all natural number by adding more natural numbers to it. Life will be harder. An ordinary computer can never be arithmetically unsound. ? (this seems to me plainly false, unless you mean perfect for ordinary. But computers can be as unsound as you and me. There is no vaccine against soundness: all computers can be unsound soo or later. there is no perfect computer. Most gods are no immune, you have to postulate the big unnameable One and be very near to It, to have some guaranty ... if any ... OK, I misunderstood what you meant by unsound, I thougth you meant something like unlogical. But now I see that you mean something like irrational. And I sure am irrational. By unsound I meant that you believe in some false arithmetical proposition. But trivially so, and by using intuitionist arithmetic, and modal logics, you could make your point. I do not want to be tortured, I behave as if I try to avoid that as strongly as I can. Because I behave in this way, I answer no to your question, because that answer will decrease the probability of you torturing me. Do you realize that to defend your point you are always in the obligation, when talking about any first person notion, like consciousness, fear, desire, to add I behave like . But if you can do that successfully you will make me doubt that you are a zombie. Or ... do you think a zombie could eventually find a correct theory of consciousness, so that he can correctly fake consciousness, and delude the humans? An intelligent zombie can correctly fake consciousness, and I am an intelligent zombie. How could a zombie know that he correctly fake consciousness? 3) Do you have any sort-of feeling, insight, dreams, impression, sensations, subjective or mental life, ... ? I behave as if I have sort-of feelings, I behave as if I have insights, I behave as if I have dreams, I behave as if I have impressions, I behave as if I have sensations, I behave as if I have a subjective or mental life, ... As I said. But if you know that, I mean if you can behave like if you were knowing that, it would mean that such words do have some meaning for you. How can you know that you are not conscious? Why do you behave like
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 07 May 2009, at 18:29, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: On 06 May 2009, at 11:35, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: Someone unconscious cannot doubt either ... (A zombie can only fake doubts) Yes, you are right. I can only fake doubts... I suspect you are faking faking doubts, but of course I cannot provide any argument. I mean it is hard for me to believe that you are a zombie, still less a zombie conscious to be a zombie! I am a zombie that behaves AS IF it knows that it is a zombie. OK. Meaning you don't know that you are zombie. But you know nothing. It is a good thing to link consciousness and knowledge. When you say yes to the doctor, we assume the yes is related to the belief that you will survive. This means you believe that you will not loose consciousness, not become a zombie, nor will you loose (by assumption) your own consciousness, by becoming someone else you can't identify with. I can say yes to the doctor, because it will not be any difference for me, I will still be a zombie afterwards... I don't know if you do this to please me, but you illustrate quite well the Löbian consciousness theory. Indeed the theory says that consciousness can be very well approximated logically by consistency. So a human (you are human, all right? I look exactly as a human. When you look at me, you will not be able to know if I am a human or a zombie, because I behave exacly like a human. So you believe that human are not zombie, and you agree that you are not human. Where do you come from? Vega? Centaur? ) who says I am a zombie, means I am not conscious, which can mean I am not consistent. By Gödel's second theorem, you remain consistent(*), but you loose arithmetical soundness, which is quite coherent with your ultrafinitism. If I remember well, you don't believe that there is an infinity of natural numbers, right? Yes it is right. There is no infinity of natural numbers. But the natural numbers are UNLIMITED, you can construct as many natural numbers as you want. But how many numbers you construct, the number of numbers will always be finite. You can never construct an infinite number of natural numbers. This is no more ultrafinitism. Just the usal finitism or intuitionism. It seems I recall you have had a stronger view on this point. Ontologically I am neutral on this question. With comp I don't need any actual infinity in the third person ontology. Infinities are not avoidable from inside, at least when the inside view begins some self- reflexion studies. We knew already you are not arithmetically sound. Nevertheless it is amazing that you pretend that you are a zombie. This confirms, in the lobian frame, that you are a zombie. I doubt all ultrafinitists are zombie, though. It is coherent with what I tell you before: I don't think a real ultrafinitist can know he/she is an ultrafinitist. No more than a zombie can know he is a zombie, nor even give any meaning to a word like zombie. My diagnostic: you are a consistent, but arithmetically unsound, Löbian machine. No problem. An ordinary computer can never be arithmetically unsound. ? (this seems to me plainly false, unless you mean perfect for ordinary. But computers can be as unsound as you and me. There is no vaccine against soundness: all computers can be unsound soo or later. there is no perfect computer. Most gods are no immune, you have to postulate the big unnameable One and be very near to It, to have some guaranty ... if any ... So I am not arithmetically unsound. I am build by a finite number of atoms, and the atoms are build by a finite number of elementary parts. (And these elementary parts are just finite mathematics...) The inconsistency of this follows from the seven step. You are always under the spell of the galois Connexion between what you can be here and now and the space of possibilities there and elsewhere. The more you are 3-finite, the more you are 1-infinite. That is why you are quite coherent by saying that you are a zombie. Zombies lack first personhood. There are not many zombies around me, still fewer argue that they are zombie, so I have some questions for you, if I may. 1) Do you still answer yes to the doctor if he proposes to substitute your brain by a sponge? If the sponge behaves exactly in the same way as my current brain, then it will be OK. Why do you care about you behavior? This remains unclear for me. Well, you will tell me that you behave like if you were caring, but that you don't really care ... 2) Do humans have the right to torture zombie? Does an ordinary computer have the right to do anything? I don't think a computer has the right to cross a red stop, nor does a computer have the right to smoke salvia in my country. Now that you ask, I am not sure. If I am arrest for having some
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno Marchal skrev: On 07 May 2009, at 18:29, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: you are human, all right? I look exactly as a human. When you look at me, you will not be able to know if I am a human or a zombie, because I behave exacly like a human. So you believe that human are not zombie, and you agree that you are not human. Where do you come from? Vega? Centaur? I come from Stockholm, Sweden. I was constructed by my parents. In reality I think that all humans are zombies, but because I am a polite person, I do not tell the other zombies that they are zombies. I do not want to hurt the other zombies by telling them the truth. Yes it is right. There is no infinity of natural numbers. But the natural numbers are UNLIMITED, you can construct as many natural numbers as you want. But how many numbers you construct, the number of numbers will always be finite. You can never construct an infinite number of natural numbers. This is no more ultrafinitism. Just the usal finitism or intuitionism. It seems I recall you have had a stronger view on this point. Ontologically I am neutral on this question. With comp I don't need any actual infinity in the third person ontology. Infinities are not avoidable from inside, at least when the inside view begins some self- reflexion studies. I was an ultrafinitist before, but I have changed my mind. Now I accept that you can say that the natural numbers are unlimited. I only deny actual infinities. The set of all natural numbers are always finite, but you can always increase the set of all natural number by adding more natural numbers to it. An ordinary computer can never be arithmetically unsound. ? (this seems to me plainly false, unless you mean perfect for ordinary. But computers can be as unsound as you and me. There is no vaccine against soundness: all computers can be unsound soo or later. there is no perfect computer. Most gods are no immune, you have to postulate the big unnameable One and be very near to It, to have some guaranty ... if any ... OK, I misunderstood what you meant by unsound, I thougth you meant something like unlogical. But now I see that you mean something like irrational. And I sure am irrational. I do not want to be tortured, I behave as if I try to avoid that as strongly as I can. Because I behave in this way, I answer no to your question, because that answer will decrease the probability of you torturing me. Do you realize that to defend your point you are always in the obligation, when talking about any first person notion, like consciousness, fear, desire, to add I behave like . But if you can do that successfully you will make me doubt that you are a zombie. Or ... do you think a zombie could eventually find a correct theory of consciousness, so that he can correctly fake consciousness, and delude the humans? An intelligent zombie can correctly fake consciousness, and I am an intelligent zombie. 3) Do you have any sort-of feeling, insight, dreams, impression, sensations, subjective or mental life, ... ? I behave as if I have sort-of feelings, I behave as if I have insights, I behave as if I have dreams, I behave as if I have impressions, I behave as if I have sensations, I behave as if I have a subjective or mental life, ... As I said. But if you know that, I mean if you can behave like if you were knowing that, it would mean that such words do have some meaning for you. How can you know that you are not conscious? Why do you behave like if you are conscious, and then confess to us that you are not. Why don't you behave like if you were not conscious. Should not a zombie defend the idea that he is conscious, if he behaves like if he was conscious. If you ask me if I am conscious, I will reply yes. But I am so intelligent that I can look at myself from the outside, and then I understand why I behave like I do. I can see that all my behaviour is explained by chemical reactions in my brain, and there is no more than that. So when I talk about myself on the meta level, then I can say that I have no consciousness. But most people are not intelligent enough to realize that. -- Torgny Tholerus --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi, 2009/5/8 Torgny Tholerus tor...@dsv.su.se: Bruno Marchal skrev: On 07 May 2009, at 18:29, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: you are human, all right? I look exactly as a human. When you look at me, you will not be able to know if I am a human or a zombie, because I behave exacly like a human. So you believe that human are not zombie, and you agree that you are not human. Where do you come from? Vega? Centaur? I come from Stockholm, Sweden. I was constructed by my parents. In reality I think that all humans are zombies, but because I am a polite person, I do not tell the other zombies that they are zombies. I do not want to hurt the other zombies by telling them the truth. If we are zombie... you cannot hurt us, a zombie can't be hurt, a zombie is a thing, a zombie is totally like a rock from it's inner live pov. A zombie can't think, a zombie can't behave like from its point of view because a zombie has no point of view. Yes it is right. There is no infinity of natural numbers. But the natural numbers are UNLIMITED, you can construct as many natural numbers as you want. But how many numbers you construct, the number of numbers will always be finite. You can never construct an infinite number of natural numbers. This is no more ultrafinitism. Just the usal finitism or intuitionism. It seems I recall you have had a stronger view on this point. Ontologically I am neutral on this question. With comp I don't need any actual infinity in the third person ontology. Infinities are not avoidable from inside, at least when the inside view begins some self- reflexion studies. I was an ultrafinitist before, but I have changed my mind. Now I accept that you can say that the natural numbers are unlimited. I only deny actual infinities. The set of all natural numbers are always finite, but you can always increase the set of all natural number by adding more natural numbers to it. Then it's not the set of *all* natural numbers. You do nothing by adding a number... you don't create numbers by writing them down, you don't invent properties about them, it's absurd... especially for a zombie. An ordinary computer can never be arithmetically unsound. ? (this seems to me plainly false, unless you mean perfect for ordinary. But computers can be as unsound as you and me. There is no vaccine against soundness: all computers can be unsound soo or later. there is no perfect computer. Most gods are no immune, you have to postulate the big unnameable One and be very near to It, to have some guaranty ... if any ... OK, I misunderstood what you meant by unsound, I thougth you meant something like unlogical. But now I see that you mean something like irrational. And I sure am irrational. You're not, remember you're a zombie hence there is no *you*. I do not want to be tortured, I behave as if I try to avoid that as strongly as I can. Because I behave in this way, I answer no to your question, because that answer will decrease the probability of you torturing me. Do you realize that to defend your point you are always in the obligation, when talking about any first person notion, like consciousness, fear, desire, to add I behave like . But if you can do that successfully you will make me doubt that you are a zombie. Or ... do you think a zombie could eventually find a correct theory of consciousness, so that he can correctly fake consciousness, and delude the humans? An intelligent zombie can correctly fake consciousness, and I am an intelligent zombie. A zombie is not intelligent, a zombie simply isn't. There is no consciousness in a zombie by definition, so a zombie is not and can't be anything. 3) Do you have any sort-of feeling, insight, dreams, impression, sensations, subjective or mental life, ... ? I behave as if I have sort-of feelings, I behave as if I have insights, I behave as if I have dreams, I behave as if I have impressions, I behave as if I have sensations, I behave as if I have a subjective or mental life, ... As I said. But if you know that, I mean if you can behave like if you were knowing that, it would mean that such words do have some meaning for you. How can you know that you are not conscious? Why do you behave like if you are conscious, and then confess to us that you are not. Why don't you behave like if you were not conscious. Should not a zombie defend the idea that he is conscious, if he behaves like if he was conscious. If you ask me if I am conscious, I will reply yes. But I am so intelligent You're not, you are a zombie. There is no you. that I can look at myself from the outside, You can't, you have no self. and then I understand why I behave like I do. I can see that all my behaviour is You can't, there is no you and you can't see anything, you are a zombie. explained by chemical reactions in my brain, and there is no more than that. So when I talk about
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 06 May 2009, at 11:35, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: Something conscious cannot doubt about the existence of its consciousness, I think, although it can doubt everything else it can be conscious *about*. It is the unprovable (but coverable) fixed point of Descartes systematic doubting procedure (this fit well with the self-reference logics, taking consciousness as consistency). Someone unconscious cannot doubt either ... (A zombie can only fake doubts) Yes, you are right. I can only fake doubts... I suspect you are faking faking doubts, but of course I cannot provide any argument. I mean it is hard for me to believe that you are a zombie, still less a zombie conscious to be a zombie! We live on the overlap of a subjective un-sharable certainty (the basic first person knowledge) and an objective doubtful but sharable possible reality (the third person belief). To keep 3-comp, and to abandon consciousness *is* the correct materialist step, indeed. But you cannot keep 1-comp(*) then, because it is defined by reference to consciousness. When you say yes to the doctor, we assume the yes is related to the belief that you will survive. This means you believe that you will not loose consciousness, not become a zombie, nor will you loose (by assumption) your own consciousness, by becoming someone else you can't identify with. I can say yes to the doctor, because it will not be any difference for me, I will still be a zombie afterwards... I don't know if you do this to please me, but you illustrate quite well the Löbian consciousness theory. Indeed the theory says that consciousness can be very well approximated logically by consistency. So a human (you are human, all right?) who says I am a zombie, means I am not conscious, which can mean I am not consistent. By Gödel's second theorem, you remain consistent(*), but you loose arithmetical soundness, which is quite coherent with your ultrafinitism. If I remember well, you don't believe that there is an infinity of natural numbers, right? We knew already you are not arithmetically sound. Nevertheless it is amazing that you pretend that you are a zombie. This confirms, in the lobian frame, that you are a zombie. I doubt all ultrafinitists are zombie, though. It is coherent with what I tell you before: I don't think a real ultrafinitist can know he/she is an ultrafinitist. No more than a zombie can know he is a zombie, nor even give any meaning to a word like zombie. My diagnostic: you are a consistent, but arithmetically unsound, Löbian machine. No problem. There are not many zombies around me, still fewer argue that they are zombie, so I have some questions for you, if I may. 1) Do you still answer yes to the doctor if he proposes to substitute your brain by a sponge? 2) Do humans have the right to torture zombie? 3) Do you have any sort-of feeling, insight, dreams, impression, sensations, subjective or mental life, ... ? 4) Does the word pain have a meaning for you? In particular, what if the doctor, who does not know that you are a zombie, proposes to you a cheaper artificial brain, but warning you that it produces often unpleasant hard migraine? Still saying yes? Bruno (*) For example: Peano Arithmetic + Peano Arithmetic is inconsistent gives a consistent theory. If not, Peano Arithmetic + Peano Arithmetic is inconsistent would prove 0=1, and thus PA would prove ~(provable Peano Arithmetic is inconsistent ), and thus PA would prove its own consistency, contradicting Gödel II. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno Marchal skrev: On 06 May 2009, at 11:35, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: Someone unconscious cannot doubt either ... (A zombie can only fake doubts) Yes, you are right. I can only fake doubts... I suspect you are faking faking doubts, but of course I cannot provide any argument. I mean it is hard for me to believe that you are a zombie, still less a zombie conscious to be a zombie! I am a zombie that behaves AS IF it knows that it is a zombie. When you say yes to the doctor, we assume the yes is related to the belief that you will survive. This means you believe that you will not loose consciousness, not become a zombie, nor will you loose (by assumption) your own consciousness, by becoming someone else you can't identify with. I can say yes to the doctor, because it will not be any difference for me, I will still be a zombie afterwards... I don't know if you do this to please me, but you illustrate quite well the Löbian consciousness theory. Indeed the theory says that consciousness can be very well approximated logically by consistency. So a human (you are human, all right? I look exactly as a human. When you look at me, you will not be able to know if I am a human or a zombie, because I behave exacly like a human. ) who says I am a zombie, means I am not conscious, which can mean I am not consistent. By Gödel's second theorem, you remain consistent(*), but you loose arithmetical soundness, which is quite coherent with your ultrafinitism. If I remember well, you don't believe that there is an infinity of natural numbers, right? Yes it is right. There is no infinity of natural numbers. But the natural numbers are UNLIMITED, you can construct as many natural numbers as you want. But how many numbers you construct, the number of numbers will always be finite. You can never construct an infinite number of natural numbers. We knew already you are not arithmetically sound. Nevertheless it is amazing that you pretend that you are a zombie. This confirms, in the lobian frame, that you are a zombie. I doubt all ultrafinitists are zombie, though. It is coherent with what I tell you before: I don't think a real ultrafinitist can know he/she is an ultrafinitist. No more than a zombie can know he is a zombie, nor even give any meaning to a word like zombie. My diagnostic: you are a consistent, but arithmetically unsound, Löbian machine. No problem. An ordinary computer can never be arithmetically unsound. So I am not arithmetically unsound. I am build by a finite number of atoms, and the atoms are build by a finite number of elementary parts. (And these elementary parts are just finite mathematics...) There are not many zombies around me, still fewer argue that they are zombie, so I have some questions for you, if I may. 1) Do you still answer yes to the doctor if he proposes to substitute your brain by a sponge? If the sponge behaves exactly in the same way as my current brain, then it will be OK. 2) Do humans have the right to torture zombie? Does an ordinary computer have the right to do anything? I do not want to be tortured, I behave as if I try to avoid that as strongly as I can. Because I behave in this way, I answer no to your question, because that answer will decrease the probability of you torturing me. 3) Do you have any sort-of feeling, insight, dreams, impression, sensations, subjective or mental life, ... ? I behave as if I have sort-of feelings, I behave as if I have insights, I behave as if I have dreams, I behave as if I have impressions, I behave as if I have sensations, I behave as if I have a subjective or mental life, ... 4) Does the word pain have a meaning for you? In particular, what if the doctor, who does not know that you are a zombie, proposes to you a cheaper artificial brain, but warning you that it produces often unpleasant hard migraine? Still saying yes? No, I will say no in this case, because I avoid things that causes pain. I have an avoiding center in my brain, and when this center in my brain is stimulated, then my behavior will be to avoid those things that causes this center to be stimulated. Stimulating this center will cause me to say: I feel pain. -- Torgny Tholerus --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Consciousness is information?
Perhaps apropos. Common let's do de zombie rock All around de zombie block http://www.dailypaul.com/node/90682 -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com]on Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 11:10 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? On 06 May 2009, at 11:35, Torgny Tholerus wrote: Bruno Marchal skrev: Something conscious cannot doubt about the existence of its consciousness, I think, although it can doubt everything else it can be conscious *about*. It is the unprovable (but coverable) fixed point of Descartes systematic doubting procedure (this fit well with the self-reference logics, taking consciousness as consistency). Someone unconscious cannot doubt either ... (A zombie can only fake doubts) Yes, you are right. I can only fake doubts... I suspect you are faking faking doubts, but of course I cannot provide any argument. I mean it is hard for me to believe that you are a zombie, still less a zombie conscious to be a zombie! We live on the overlap of a subjective un-sharable certainty (the basic first person knowledge) and an objective doubtful but sharable possible reality (the third person belief). To keep 3-comp, and to abandon consciousness *is* the correct materialist step, indeed. But you cannot keep 1-comp(*) then, because it is defined by reference to consciousness. When you say yes to the doctor, we assume the yes is related to the belief that you will survive. This means you believe that you will not loose consciousness, not become a zombie, nor will you loose (by assumption) your own consciousness, by becoming someone else you can't identify with. I can say yes to the doctor, because it will not be any difference for me, I will still be a zombie afterwards... I don't know if you do this to please me, but you illustrate quite well the Löbian consciousness theory. Indeed the theory says that consciousness can be very well approximated logically by consistency. So a human (you are human, all right?) who says I am a zombie, means I am not conscious, which can mean I am not consistent. By Gödel's second theorem, you remain consistent(*), but you loose arithmetical soundness, which is quite coherent with your ultrafinitism. If I remember well, you don't believe that there is an infinity of natural numbers, right? We knew already you are not arithmetically sound. Nevertheless it is amazing that you pretend that you are a zombie. This confirms, in the lobian frame, that you are a zombie. I doubt all ultrafinitists are zombie, though. It is coherent with what I tell you before: I don't think a real ultrafinitist can know he/she is an ultrafinitist. No more than a zombie can know he is a zombie, nor even give any meaning to a word like zombie. My diagnostic: you are a consistent, but arithmetically unsound, Löbian machine. No problem. There are not many zombies around me, still fewer argue that they are zombie, so I have some questions for you, if I may. 1) Do you still answer yes to the doctor if he proposes to substitute your brain by a sponge? 2) Do humans have the right to torture zombie? 3) Do you have any sort-of feeling, insight, dreams, impression, sensations, subjective or mental life, ... ? 4) Does the word pain have a meaning for you? In particular, what if the doctor, who does not know that you are a zombie, proposes to you a cheaper artificial brain, but warning you that it produces often unpleasant hard migraine? Still saying yes? Bruno (*) For example: Peano Arithmetic + Peano Arithmetic is inconsistent gives a consistent theory. If not, Peano Arithmetic + Peano Arithmetic is inconsistent would prove 0=1, and thus PA would prove ~(provable Peano Arithmetic is inconsistent ), and thus PA would prove its own consistency, contradicting Gödel II. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Bruno Marchal skrev: Something conscious cannot doubt about the existence of its consciousness, I think, although it can doubt everything else it can be conscious *about*. It is the unprovable (but coverable) fixed point of Descartes systematic doubting procedure (this fit well with the self-reference logics, taking consciousness as consistency). Someone unconscious cannot doubt either ... (A zombie can only fake doubts) Yes, you are right. I can only fake doubts... We live on the overlap of a subjective un-sharable certainty (the basic first person knowledge) and an objective doubtful but sharable possible reality (the third person belief). To keep 3-comp, and to abandon consciousness *is* the correct materialist step, indeed. But you cannot keep 1-comp(*) then, because it is defined by reference to consciousness. When you say yes to the doctor, we assume the yes is related to the belief that you will survive. This means you believe that you will not loose consciousness, not become a zombie, nor will you loose (by assumption) your own consciousness, by becoming someone else you can't identify with. I can say yes to the doctor, because it will not be any difference for me, I will still be a zombie afterwards... -- Torgny Tholerus --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 04 May 2009, at 13:31, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/5/4 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: ... It seems to me that we agree that physical supervenience leads to many absurdities. Is your argument purely academical, or do you think it can be used to prevent the conclusion that physics has to be explained by the purely mathematical notion of most probable computation as seen from inside, among the 2^aleph_0 computations going through the current states, in UD* or in arithmetic? I agree with you. I am not terribly happy with the conclusion, because it seems so weird. The only way out is, as you say, if comp is false: the mind is not Turing emulable, or (even weirder, perhaps incoherent) there is no such thing as consciousness at all. Something conscious cannot doubt about the existence of its consciousness, I think, although it can doubt everything else it can be conscious *about*. It is the unprovable (but coverable) fixed point of Descartes systematic doubting procedure (this fit well with the self-reference logics, taking consciousness as consistency). Someone unconscious cannot doubt either ... (A zombie can only fake doubts) We live on the overlap of a subjective un-sharable certainty (the basic first person knowledge) and an objective doubtful but sharable possible reality (the third person belief). To keep 3-comp, and to abandon consciousness *is* the correct materialist step, indeed. But you cannot keep 1-comp(*) then, because it is defined by reference to consciousness. When you say yes to the doctor, we assume the yes is related to the belief that you will survive. This means you believe that you will not loose consciousness, not become a zombie, nor will you loose (by assumption) your own consciousness, by becoming someone else you can't identify with. OK, I think. Thanks for taking the time to reply! You are welcome, Bruno (*) (usual comp is a 1-comp, 3-comp is MEC-DIG-BEH in CM, for Digital Behaviorist Mechanism in french, in a part translated by Kim on the list recently) http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Hi Bruno and Members, The comment that is made below seems to only involve a single consciousness and an exterior reality. Could we not recover a very similar situation if we consider the 1-PoV and 3-PoV relation to hold to some degree over a multitude of consciouness (plurality). In the plurality case, the objective doubtful but sharable possible reality would be composed of a large intersection of sorts of 3-PoV aspects that can be recognized by or mapped to a statistical or generic notion of a 1-PoV. No? Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 1:33 PM Subject: Re: Consciousness is information? snip Something conscious cannot doubt about the existence of its consciousness, I think, although it can doubt everything else it can be conscious *about*. It is the unprovable (but coverable) fixed point of Descartes systematic doubting procedure (this fit well with the self-reference logics, taking consciousness as consistency). Someone unconscious cannot doubt either ... (A zombie can only fake doubts) We live on the overlap of a subjective un-sharable certainty (the basic first person knowledge) and an objective doubtful but sharable possible reality (the third person belief). To keep 3-comp, and to abandon consciousness *is* the correct materialist step, indeed. But you cannot keep 1-comp(*) then, because it is defined by reference to consciousness. When you say yes to the doctor, we assume the yes is related to the belief that you will survive. This means you believe that you will not loose consciousness, not become a zombie, nor will you loose (by assumption) your own consciousness, by becoming someone else you can't identify with. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: With just arithmetic, when we stop to postulate a primitive or ontological material world, all primitive ad-hocness is removed, given that the existing internal interpretations are all determined, with their relative frequency, by addition and multiplication rules, and physics will be defined by the (absolute) probability of relative computations (here = probability of relative number theoretical relations. Bruno, In other posts I have seen you mention that the rule of succession is not enough, that addition and multiplication are needed. Why is it that it stops at multiplication, and not exponentiation or tetration? Is it enough to say some form of iteration + succession are required? (e.g. a for loop with succession gives addition, a for loop with addition yields multiplication, etc.) Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 05 May 2009, at 22:31, Jason Resch wrote: On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: With just arithmetic, when we stop to postulate a primitive or ontological material world, all primitive ad-hocness is removed, given that the existing internal interpretations are all determined, with their relative frequency, by addition and multiplication rules, and physics will be defined by the (absolute) probability of relative computations (here = probability of relative number theoretical relations. Bruno, In other posts I have seen you mention that the rule of succession is not enough, that addition and multiplication are needed. Why is it that it stops at multiplication, and not exponentiation or tetration? Is it enough to say some form of iteration + succession are required? (e.g. a for loop with succession gives addition, a for loop with addition yields multiplication, etc.) Jason It is due to the fact that, when formalized (in first order logic, say) Turing Universality begins with addition and multiplication (you don't even need succession). Then you can define exponentiation, tetration, etc. All partial recursive function can then be defined. Succession + addition, or succession + multiplication, are not Turing Universal, and leads indeed to decidable theories. For the ontology we need no more than a universal system. it determines the universal dovetailing. For the epistemology we need succession, addition, multiplication and the axioms of induction. This gives a notion of universal system together with its internal self-aware substructures played by the Lobian machine and their consistent extensions (the believer in induction), simulated by the universal systems. Those internal machines will develop far beyond simple induction though. The general internal view (the first person plenitude) is not axiomatisable. Iteration and succession? I don't think so. You need induction. With induction it is Turing Universal, but not without, I think. It could depend how you formalized the iteration rule, but without induction and staying in first order logic, that would astonish me. The crazy thing, not so simple to prove, is that even without induction, addition + multiplication is Turing universal. You bypass the role of induction by defining finite sequence through Gödel bata function and an ingenuous use of the Chinese Lemma. Far easier to prove, without induction, is that addition+multiplication +exponentiation is Turing universal, but thanks to Godel' beta function you can eliminate exponentiation. If you know Godel's original Godel's numbering you can guess why. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
2009/5/4 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: in the same way a message is obscured if encoded with a one-time pad that is subsequently destroyed and forgotten. In fact, even with the store-bought computer the computation is obscured if there are no intelligent beings around who can understand it. Not at all. If the computer evaluate fact(4), even alone in a room, the probability it gives 24 is one, in a verifiable way by a third person. With or without physicalism we accept the idea that the physical neighborhood is locally Turing universal, and does interpret the computation of 4. Sure, the computer is evaluating fact(4) even when no-one can understand it, but it is obscured because no-one can understand it. An intelligent person who has never seen a computer before may eventually figure it out, and computers are as a broad generalisation designed to follow understandable patterns in their architecture, just as written languages are designed (or evolve) to follow recognisable patterns. But what if fact(4) is a military secret, and the engineers deliberately tried to make the internal workings of the machine as convoluted as possible, so that it looks like random activity to anyone lacking the design specifications? This would be the equivalent of taking a written message and encoding it so that it looks like random letters; with the right key, any message can be encoded to look like any given string (of similar or greater length). Are you saying that obscuring the workings of the computer in this way would be impossible? It seems to me that we agree that physical supervenience leads to many absurdities. Is your argument purely academical, or do you think it can be used to prevent the conclusion that physics has to be explained by the purely mathematical notion of most probable computation as seen from inside, among the 2^aleph_0 computations going through the current states, in UD* or in arithmetic? I agree with you. I am not terribly happy with the conclusion, because it seems so weird. The only way out is, as you say, if comp is false: the mind is not Turing emulable, or (even weirder, perhaps incoherent) there is no such thing as consciousness at all. With you argument, the movie-graph is conscious. But is all consciousness at once, not just the consciousness corresponding to the filmed boolean graph. This not change the problem measure in any way. It makes the primitive physicalness idea even more absurd. It seems to me that your point just recall that in Platonia, there are complex sequence of universal machine which can interpret any computation, including the empty one, as being any other computations. But this is akin to white rabbits (from the probability pov) and akin to the fact that, with its terrible redundancy and free imagination, the UD generates also conspirator interpretations. With just arithmetic, when we stop to postulate a primitive or ontological material world, all primitive ad-hocness is removed, given that the existing internal interpretations are all determined, with their relative frequency, by addition and multiplication rules, and physics will be defined by the (absolute) probability of relative computations (here = probability of relative number theoretical relations. to be a finite piece of computation is decidable even in very tiny fragment of arithmetic, and this can be used to avoid any starting ambiguity. This is made possible through Church thesis, and it eventually forces us to realize that a rock is the result of an infinity of computation, and the rock we see a crude local average, but comp makes it possible that a rock implements all computations to, but only by an explicit call to a sequence of universal machine in Platonia. Meaning; there is no room for providing an explanative power (both for mind and matter) to the notion of primitive substance and primitive substancial incarnated laws. Due to the failure of logicism we need numbers or combinators and primitive immaterial laws to agree on, like addition and multiplication, or lambda abstraction and application, etc. The measure does not depend on which first universal system you choose, by non completely trivial application of computer science. And to use a primitive quantum computer for a primitive physics is treachery with respect to the comp mind body problem. OK? OK, I think. Thanks for taking the time to reply! -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 03 May 2009, at 17:09, John Mikes wrote: I would like to go along with Maudlin's point emphasized in Bruno's text below, adding that causal structure is restricted to the limited model of which we CAN choose likely 'causes' within our perceived reality, while the unlimited possibilities include wider 'intrusions' of domains 'beyond our present epistemic cognitive inventory'. So the most likely cause - although applicable to a 'physical role' (which as well is figmentous) - is limited. In congruence - I think - with Bruno's words below. Bruno's: ...the description, although containing the genuine information is just not a computation at all... (AMEN!) continued, however by: ...It miss the logical relation between the steps, made possible by the universal machine... still does not - DO - those 'steps' neither OPERATE the machine. Looks like we want to 'assume' that if there is a possibility, it is also done. Yes. It is the trade mark of all everythingers and many worlders. Be them quantum or arithmetical many states/worlds/histories. relative existence = relative consistence. Actual consciousness = inside view of possible existence. Now is as well yesterday from the point of view of yesterday than tomorrow from the point of view of tomorrow, if ever. The everything idea is that such an indexical approach is conceptually simpler, and should be favored for Occam-like related reason. But it is neither assume in comp (my point) nor in (quantum mechanics, Everett-Deutsch point). Indeed any rememorable here and now depends on the statistical interference on the many many many elsewhere. It is not an assumption, it is a consequence of the theory. You can change the theory by adding selection principles, but this is really cutting off everything that does not fit our wishful thinking. It is like when Niels Bohr says Quantum mechanics is false in the classical macroscopic world, when applying QM to Niels Borh explains why Niels Bohr (and all of us) can experience a third person plural collapse despite the SWE prevent the need for it to happen really. I am looking at the physical creator (haha) ... still looking for Aristotle initial motor (haha). keeping the contraption moving and us in it. Not to speak about 'making it'. (Deus ex machina?) No worry, assuming comp, it is Machina ex Deus. Machines can already prove that as far as they are consistent, something which is not a machine, and which is not even nameable (arithmetical truth) transcends them (Tarski, Askanas). I have also discovered recently (and this has been proved by my student/friend the little genius (Eric Vandenbuscche)), that some false beliefs can enlarge the true provability spectrum. It is almost like de Bono said, according to Kim, it could be logical to be illogical, in some situation. But as I said to Kim, this belongs probably to the corona G* minus G, the space of the unspeakable. (Note that I fall myself in the same trap if I suggest this should be a reason to abandon prescriptive talk, yet, assuming comp, I can justify caution with such prescriptive talk, this because I talk explicitly on Machines and I talk on (ideally correct) Humans only through the comp HYPOTHESIS). Once all is there and moving, everything is fine. I salute the ...infinitely many such relations, ... that gives me the idea of a 'physical' supervenience in terms of a restrictive Occam, cutting off everything that dos not fit into our goals. Just say No doctor. No problem. We are just studying consequences of an hypothesis. But I think the comp hypothesis is the less reductionist view possible concerning the possible first person points of view. The little and simple has more degree of freedom than the complexe and sophisticate. I tend to believe comp is even a vaccine against major forms of reductionism. States seem to be identified by our limited views. Third person conceived states are indeed identify with finite descriptions of a (probably deep and complex) computational states (notion relative to the choice of a universal machine). But then first person states, as conceivable by first persons, are very complex and variable things with non trivial connectedness, and dependence on non nameable continuum (and thus a relative measure problem). But machine can prove their own relative (to consistency, to the existence of a reality) incompleteness theorem, and this introduces many deep nuances between all the possible variant of Theaetetus knowledge theories, up to the quasi Aristotelian (naturalist) theory of matter by Plotinus. I can't wait listening more to that humble universal machine ... 'course, today, it is still hard work: Gödel, Löb, Feferman, Smullyan, ..., but Solovay makes a progress by providing shortcuts: the modal systems G and G*. I feel that both the referred Maudlin-text and Jesse's
Re: Consciousness is information?
2009/5/3 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: I think that if you take a real forest with birds, here and there, you can interpret some behavior as NAND or NOR, but you will not succeed ever in finding the computation of factorial(5). But you can interpret *any* behaviour as a NAND gate, in an ad hoc fashion. It doesn't even need to be consistent from moment. On a Tuesday 3 birds landing could stand for 1 while on a Wednesday 3 birds landing could stand for 0, and on a Saturday it could stand for 1 again. In this way you could take the physical activity carried out by a store-bought computer calculating factorial(5) and map it onto the forest with the birds. Of course, this won't give you the answer to factorial(5) unless you already have the answer, but that just means that the computation is obscured, in the same way a message is obscured if encoded with a one-time pad that is subsequently destroyed and forgotten. In fact, even with the store-bought computer the computation is obscured if there are no intelligent beings around who can understand it. So, if the computation supervenes on the activity of the store-bought computer without regard for whether any external observer is around to understand, then it also supervenes on the activity of the forest with the birds. Other possibilities are that the computation supervenes on physical activity only when an external observer understands it (which poses difficulties for a closed virtual reality with its own conscious observers), or that the computation does not supervene on physical activity at all. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
Stathis, and listers, I cannot help: I read the text. (Not always, sometimes it seems too obtuse for me even to 'read' it). The Subject? ( Consciousness = information ) what happens to that darn 'information'? Oops, 'you' are AWARE of it!? Meaning: you *DO* something with it (to be - become? aware). Who By what factor (energy, process, function, etc.)? By what (who's??) initiation? Oops: by *computation of course. * Refer all the above questions to 'computation and add: who (what?) is providing the computer? (St.: store-bought computer - is it a binary embryonic, or a more advanced one, maybe an (unlimited!) analogue - whatver that may be). Or: forget all those questions and live happily in Wunderland. The nature of an applicable INFORMATION is still undecided. The 'bit' has to be part of a program to make sense (to have 'meaning' - another term to be questioned.) Maybe in a conscious software? (robotic?) *Information and its meaning* are concept (observer?) related. I am hung up on 'having a computer' and 'computation' (available?) that still does not *DO *the computation, not even *operate* the computer. And please, say 'energy' only, if you can tell what it is (not what it does or how it can be measured). And the construct(?) that includes it all. I am also hung up with 'function' (activity) and the 'observer' (self, I) what seems to be so natural in the nth level consequence using them. John M ** On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 3:00 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/5/3 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: I think that if you take a real forest with birds, here and there, you can interpret some behavior as NAND or NOR, but you will not succeed ever in finding the computation of factorial(5). But you can interpret *any* behaviour as a NAND gate, in an ad hoc fashion. It doesn't even need to be consistent from moment. On a Tuesday 3 birds landing could stand for 1 while on a Wednesday 3 birds landing could stand for 0, and on a Saturday it could stand for 1 again. In this way you could take the physical activity carried out by a store-bought computer calculating factorial(5) and map it onto the forest with the birds. Of course, this won't give you the answer to factorial(5) unless you already have the answer, but that just means that the computation is obscured, in the same way a message is obscured if encoded with a one-time pad that is subsequently destroyed and forgotten. In fact, even with the store-bought computer the computation is obscured if there are no intelligent beings around who can understand it. So, if the computation supervenes on the activity of the store-bought computer without regard for whether any external observer is around to understand, then it also supervenes on the activity of the forest with the birds. Other possibilities are that the computation supervenes on physical activity only when an external observer understands it (which poses difficulties for a closed virtual reality with its own conscious observers), or that the computation does not supervene on physical activity at all. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
I would like to go along with Maudlin's point emphasized in Bruno's text below, adding that causal structure is restricted to the limited model of which we *CAN *choose likely 'causes' within our perceived reality, while the unlimited possibilities include wider 'intrusions' of domains 'beyond our present epistemic cognitive inventory'. So the most likely *cause *- although applicable to a 'physical role' (which as well is figmentous) - is limited. In congruence - I think - with Bruno's words below. Bruno's: ...the description, although containing the genuine information is just not a computation at all... (AMEN!) continued, however by: ...It miss the logical relation between the steps, made possible by the universal machine... still does not *- DO - * those 'steps' neither *OPERATE* the machine. Looks like we want to 'assume' that if there is a possibility, it is also done. I am looking at the physical creator (haha) keeping the contraption moving and us in it. Not to speak about 'making it'. (Deus ex machina?) Once all is there and moving, everything is fine. I salute the ...infinitely many such relations, ... that gives me the idea of a 'physical' supervenience in terms of a restrictive Occam, cutting off everything that dos not fit into our goals. *States* seem to be identified by our limited views. I feel that both the referred Maudlin-text and Jesse's comment are on the static side, as 'descriptive', while I can presume into Bruno's relations some sort of a functional (operative) relation that would lend some dynamism (action?) into the descriptional stagnancy. I still did not detect: *HOW?* John M On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Maudlin's point is that the causal structure has no physical role, so if you maintain the association of consciousness with the causal, actually computational structure, you have to abandon the physical supervenience. Or you reintroduce some magic, like if neurons have some knowledge of the absence of some other neurons, to which they are not related, during some computations. But read the movie graph which shows the same thing without going through the question of the counterfactuals. If you believe that consciousness supervene on the physical implementation, or even just one universal machine computation, then you will associate consciousness to a description of that computation. but the description, although containing the genuine information is just not a computation at all. It miss the logical relation between the steps, made possible by the universal machine. So you can keep on with mechanism only by associating consciousness with the logical, immaterial, relation between the states. from inside they are infinitely many such relations, and this means the physical has to supervene on the sum of those relations as seen from inside. By Church thesis and self-reference logic, they have a non trivial, redundant, structure. Bruno On 29 Apr 2009, at 21:16, Jesse Mazer wrote: Bruno wrote: On 29 Apr 2009, at 00:25, Jesse Mazer wrote: and I think it's also the idea behind Maudlin's Olympia thought experiment as well. Maudlin's Olympia, or the Movie Graph Argument are completely different. Those are arguments showing that computationalism is incompatible with the physical supervenience thesis. They show that consciousness are not related to any physical activity at all. Together with UDA1-7, it shows that physics has to be reduced to a theory of consciousness based on a purely mathematical (even arithmetical) theory of computation, which exists by Church Thesis. The movie graph argument was originally only a tool for explaining how difficult the mind-body problem is, once we assume mechanism. OK, I hadn't been able to find Maudlin's paper online, but I finally located a pdf copy in a post from this list at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg07657.html ...now that I read it I see the argument is distinct from Chalmers' Does a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton, although they are thematically similar in that they both deal with difficulties in defining what it means for a given physical system to implement a given computation. Chalmers' idea was that the idea of a rock implementing every possible computer program could be avoided if we defined an implementation in terms of counterfactuals, but Maudlin argues that this contradicts the supervenience thesis which says that the presence or absence of inert, causally isolated objects cannot effect the presence or absence of phenomenal states associated with a system, since two systems may have different counterfactual structures merely by virtue of an inert subsystem in one which *would have* become active if the initial state of the system had been slightly different. It seems to me that there might be ways of defining causal structure which don't depend on counterfactuals,
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 03 May 2009, at 09:00, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/5/3 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: I think that if you take a real forest with birds, here and there, you can interpret some behavior as NAND or NOR, but you will not succeed ever in finding the computation of factorial(5). But you can interpret *any* behaviour as a NAND gate, in an ad hoc fashion. It doesn't even need to be consistent from moment. On a Tuesday 3 birds landing could stand for 1 while on a Wednesday 3 birds landing could stand for 0, and on a Saturday it could stand for 1 again. But this makes sense only relatively to a stable universal machine in which you can encode what you are telling me. In this way you could take the physical activity carried out by a store-bought computer calculating factorial(5) and map it onto the forest with the birds. All right, I see your point, you take any physical activity, and then an ad hoc sequence of universal machine which interpret each piece of birds behavior into a computation of fact(24). That sequence should be capable to be infinite and the birds behavior have to resume more and more complex problem dues to the adhocness of the representations. The complexity of the sequence of universal machine will grow exponentially. Hmm. perhaps. Again this will change nothing, After all, the UD does generate *all* implementation of all computations including your very complex (to encode) interpretation of rocks and forest. Of course, this won't give you the answer to factorial(5) unless you already have the answer, but that just means that the computation is obscured, It is obscured and blurred relatively to its most probable histories. In normal physics (normal in the Gauss meaning) you cannot count on those computations. It would be like saying you win the lottery given that you have the right numbers, in disorder, but after all you can read them in the right order, and someone in Platonia does read them in that different order. I could still disagree because, as you seem to accept, such physical implementation can reduce to zero the needed amount of physical activity, and an interpretation of your computation of the factorial of 4, in the rock, will be made by an actual computation of 24 by a real universal machine which does not need to be physical, in platonia, and which has a lot of imagination in front of the rock. You need something like this, for your argument to go through, but this *is* mainly the comp supervenience. So what you show is that indeed, we don't need, or cannot use in any genuine sense a primitive notion of physical activity to build a notion of supervenience. Yet I think that the notion of interpretation is more constrained that just invoking some ad hoc sequence of platonist universal interpreters. At some level, we must bet on just one, if only to be able to talk (even to talk to oneself). in the same way a message is obscured if encoded with a one-time pad that is subsequently destroyed and forgotten. In fact, even with the store-bought computer the computation is obscured if there are no intelligent beings around who can understand it. Not at all. If the computer evaluate fact(4), even alone in a room, the probability it gives 24 is one, in a verifiable way by a third person. With or without physicalism we accept the idea that the physical neighborhood is locally Turing universal, and does interpret the computation of 4. If I put a computer evaluating Stathis here and now, under your substitution level, then, despite the computer being alone in the room, the probability that you are where you feel you are (here and now) or in that room is 1/2 (accepting the usual probability). Cf step 5. You will not say yes doctor, but only if you take a permanent look on my working artificial brain. The point of comp is that some program can observe themselves (at some level). And this can be made mathematically precise (by Kleene second recursion theorem). Accpeting your interpretation of the rock, The probability that you are in the rocks, relatively to you here and now, is 0,001, given that you have to wait the UD generates that immensely long sequences of more and more complex ad hoc universal interpreters. So, if the computation supervenes on the activity of the store-bought computer without regard for whether any external observer is around to understand, then it also supervenes on the activity of the forest with the birds. You illustrate well that the only question which makes sense is the question of which most probable computation bears us, or which more probable universal machine or number executes us. What you say is that the UD will generate stupid program interpreting the empty input like if it was a code for fact(4). Other possibilities are that the computation supervenes on physical activity
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 29, 2:26 am, russell standish li...@hpcoders.com.au wrote: What extra information do you have in mind? I'd gladly update my priors with anything I can lay my hands on. So changes to neural structure and the concentrations of various chemicals within neurons and around neural synapses is known to change conscious experience in humans. Ants have neurons that work along similar lines as human neurons. Surely this must affect the probability that is assigned to the question of whether ants are able to experience things like pain in a similar way that humans do. It certainly seems to me to be significant. So how does this extra information show up in your assessment of ant consciousness? Again, it seems to me that SSA arguments are better than nothing. But their usefulness fades quickly as more sources of data become available. They might be a good first stab at answering a question, but ideally will never be the final word. For instance, why would I believe your argument over something like this: Fish Feel Pain, Study Finds When you hook a fish, does it hurt? Yes, a new study suggests. Some researchers have previously concluded that fish react to painful stimuli without actually feeling pain in the conscious way humans do. In the new study, researchers gave morphine to one group of fish, and injected the other group with a placebo (saline). Then the fish were treated to burning sensations that were expected to be painful but which did not damage any fish tissue. Both groups reacted the same, by wriggling. However, the fish that had been on morphine later went on about business as if nothing had happened. The fish that had gotten the saline were wary after the test. They acted with defensive behaviors, indicating wariness, or fear and anxiety, said Joseph Garner, an assistant professor at Purdue University. The experiment shows that fish do not only respond to painful stimuli with reflexes, but change their behavior also after the event, said Janicke Nordgreen, a doctoral student in the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science. Together with what we know from experiments carried out by other groups, this indicates that the fish consciously perceive the test situation as painful and switch to behaviors indicative of having been through an aversive experience. A study last month indicated that crabs feel pain, too. Garner and Nordgreen published their results in the online version of the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science. Garner figures the morphine blocked the experience of pain, but not behavioral responses to the heat stimulus itself, either because the responses were reflexive or because the morphine blocked the experience of pain, but not the experience of an unusual stimulus. If you think back to when you have had a headache and taken a painkiller, the pain may go away, but you can still feel the presence or discomfort of the headache, Garner said. The goldfish that did not get morphine experienced this painful, stressful event. Then two hours later, they turned that pain into fear like we do, Garner said. To me, it sounds an awful lot like how we experience pain. Then again, scientist don't fully understand pain in humans. It is felt when electrical signals are sent from nerve endings to your brain, which in turn can release painkillers called endorphins and generate physical and emotional reactions. The details remain unclear, which his why so many people suffer chronic pain with no relief. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 30 Apr 2009, at 18:29, Jesse Mazer wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 29 Apr 2009, at 23:30, Jesse Mazer wrote: But I'm not convinced that the basic Olympia machine he describes doesn't already have a complex causal structure--the causal structure would be in the way different troughs influence each other via the pipe system he describes, not in the motion of the armature. But Maudlin succeed in showing that in its particular running history, *that* causal structure is physically inert. Or it has mysterious influence not related to the computation. Maudlin only showed that *if* you define causal structure in terms of counterfactuals, then the machinery that ensures the proper counterfactuals might be physically inert. But if you reread my post at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg16244.html you can see that I was trying to come up with a definition of the causal structure of a set of events that did *not* depend on counterfactuals...look at these two paragraphs from that post, particular the first sentence of the first paragraph and the last sentence of the second paragraph: It seems to me that there might be ways of defining causal structure which don't depend on counterfactuals, though. One idea I had is that for any system which changes state in a lawlike way over time, all facts about events in the system's history can be represented as a collection of propositions, and then causal structure might be understood in terms of logical relations between propositions, given knowledge of the laws governing the system. As an example, if the system was a cellular automaton, one might have a collection of propositions like cell 156 is colored black at time- step 36, and if you know the rules for how the cells are updated on each time-step, then knowing some subsets of propositions would allow you to deduce others (for example, if you have a set of propositions that tell you the states of all the cells surrounding cell 71 at time-step 106, in most cellular automata that would allow you to figure out the state of cell 71 at the subsequent time-step 107). If the laws of physics in our universe are deterministic than you should in principle be able to represent all facts about the state of the universe at all times as a giant (probably infinite) set of propositions as well, and given knowledge of the laws, knowing certain subsets of these propositions would allow you to deduce others. Causal structure could then be defined in terms of what logical relations hold between the propositions, given knowledge of the laws governing the system. Perhaps in one system you might find a set of four propositions A, B, C, D such that if you know the system's laws, you can see that AB imply C, and D implies A, but no other proposition or group of propositions in this set of four are sufficient to deduce any of the others in this set. Then in another system you might find a set of four propositions X, Y, Z and W such that WZ imply Y, and X implies W, but those are the only deductions you can make from within this set. In this case you can say these two different sets of four propositions represent instantiations of the same causal structure, since if you map W to A, Z to B, Y to C, and D to X then you can see an isomorphism in the logical relations. That's obviously a very simple causal structure involving only 4 events, but one might define much more complex causal structures and then check if there was any subset of events in a system's history that matched that structure. And the propositions could be restricted to ones concerning events that actually did occur in the system's history, with no counterfactual propositions about what would have happened if the system's initial state had been different. For a Turing machine running a particular program the propositions might be things like at time-step 35 the Turing machine's read/ write head moved to memory cell #82 and at time-step 35 the Turing machine had internal state S3 and at time-step 35 memory cell #82 held the digit 1. I'm not sure whether the general rules for how the Turing machine's internal state changes from one step to the next should also be included among the propositions, my guess is you'd probably need to do so in order to ensure that different computations had different causal structures according to the type of definition above...so, you might have a proposition expressing a rule like if the Turing machine is in internal state S3 and its read/write head detects the digit 1, it changes the digit in that cell to a 0 and moves 2 cells to the left, also changing its internal state to S5. Then this set of four propositions would be sufficient to deduce some other propositions about the history of this computation,
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 30 Apr 2009, at 19:39, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 30 Apr 2009, at 15:49, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Marchal wrote That is weird. I think that you believe that a rock implements computations, because you believe a computation can be decomposed in tiny computations, but this is not true, you need much more. You need a universal machine which links and complexify the states in a precise way. Some alive beings do some computations (like some flowers compute tiny part of the Fibonacci function). But again, this is sophisticated and took time to appear. Waves do analog computations, hardly universal digital one, or only when put in some very special condition. Interesting and rich computations are relatively rare and exceptional until they self-multiplied, like amoebas. Does the universe compute its states? Open problem, but most probably not, given that the universe appearance emerge from a statistic bearing on a infinite set of (finite and infinite) computations. How is the evolution of the wave function of the universe or of a flower not a computation? For a reason similar to the fact that there is no algorithm capable of predicting if you will see an electron up or down when prepared in the state up+down. But comp makes the wave itself resulting from apparent (for the 1-person) arithmetical collapses. Nor do I believe the filmed movie graph do any computation, it read a description of one, but does not link them logically in real time. Today, genetical systems, brains, and computer (human or engineered) do concrete computations. But that seems like introducing a magic similar to the magic of physical existence, except now it is the magic of computational connection. Ok, but the magic of computational connection can be entirely reduce to the magic of succession, addition and multiplication of positive integers. And it is magic, but it is a magic which explains why it has to be a magic. A TOE which does not postulate the natural numbers is a TOE without natural numbers. We have to assume the numbers, they cannot be reduced to anything simpler/ Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 01 May 2009, at 17:02, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/5/1 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: That is, you can't say that the rock implements one computation but not another. I don't think it implements any computations. I could accept some tiny apparition of tiny pieces of of tiny automata, but nothing big or sophisticated. Some very special crystals perhaps, no doubt, but those are, then, computer. If your computer has to interact with the external world then that imposes some constraints on what counts as an implementation of a computation. OK. Although you could say: if your computer has to interact with another computer then But OK. It is important, not for the rise of consciousness, but for its relative stability with respect to some notion of first person splral. It is important for having local measure. But without this constraint you are free to interpret any activity as any computation. I don't see why. Simple activity could correspond to simple computation (I can agree with this). But any complex computation will require some gobal connectness among the many simple activity. Especially the long and deep (in Bennett sense) computations. You could pick three trees and, observing the movement of birds on and off the trees, interpret this as a logic gate. Three birds land on the first tree, and that's a zero input. Two birds alight from the second tree, that's a zero input also. Three birds land on the third tree, that's a one output. A minute later, five birds alight from the first tree, one bird lands on the second tree and two birds land on the third tree, which is interpreted as two one inputs giving a zero output. Looks like it might be a a NAND gate! Not very useful, of course, but is there any reason why my interpretation is wrong, or why the birds flying around won't give rise to whatever consciousness is associated with the operation of the logic gate? Somehow you make my point, because I am willing to say that you are right, ONCE assuming the supervenience thesis. But your conclusion, that anything computation supervenes on any physical activity, including the empty one, is what I definitely consider as an absurdity, and is the reason why, keeping comp, I abandon the physical supervenience thesis, and eventually the very idea of primitive physical stuff. A computation is just like they are defined in mathematical books on computation: it is a global logical relation capable of sustaining non trivial relations among abstract items. Consider Ned Block's Chinese People Computer. You can (logically, not ethically of course) program the people of China so that each chinese, just by doing very simple mails, participate into a giant computation emulating Einstein' brain, say. The consciousness of Einstein will rely on the global organization of the information handled by all chineses, not on the physical activity of such or such particular person. Of course, this line ends up accepting that from the point of view of Einstein it is just undecidable if he is a brain in a vat, a body in a hospital, or an abstract (but relatively rare and sophisticate) pattern in Platonia, and then the comp 1 person indeterminacy leads to a rich non trivial relative state interpretation of Arithmetic. I think that if you take a real forest with birds, here and there, you can interpret some behavior as NAND or NOR, but you will not succeed ever in finding the computation of factorial(5). Even the universal dovetailer has to wait (in its own step-time) billions of billions of steps before getting something as interesting as the factorial functions. For Einstein's brain the UD will already take a ridiculously long time (well beyond anything physically observable) before getting its simulation. Even if you decide to no more interact with the external world, you will not say yes to a doctor who propose you a rock in place of your brain. This is beacuse the probability, ven and especially from your first person point of view, that the many NAND (that the rock could perhaps emulates indeed) arrange themselves into a Papaioannou healthy mind's state is null? You could survive in some possible world, but not through the rock computational power. If ever you survive with the rock, the probability that you will be dumb or disable will be far greater. But you are right, those who believes in both comp and physical supervenience have to attach all consciousness to all physical activity, and then they does not need comp anymore and everything become trivial. You get a Kelly sort of physics which predict everything. I prefer to keep the mathematically coherent and sound comp, and forget physical supervenience. Even more so when you realize that the math for comp will explain the appearance of rocks and particles without assuming any metaphysical naturalism. Bruno
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 01 May 2009, at 19:36, Jesse Mazer wrote: I found a paper on the Mandelbrot set and computability, I understand very little but maybe Bruno would be able to follow it: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.CC/0604003 The same author has a shorter outline or slides for a presentation on this subject at http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/cie06/files/d37/PHP_MandelbrotCiE2006Swansea_Jul2006.pdf and at the end he asks the question If M (Mandelbrot set) not Q- computable, can the Halting Problem be reduced to determining membership of (intersection of M and Q^2), i.e. how powerful a 'hypercomputer' is the Mandelbrot set? I believe Q^2 here just refers to the set of all possible pairs of rational numbers. Maybe by reducing the Halting Problem he means that for any Turing machine + input, there might be some rule that would translate it into a pair of rational numbers such that the computation will halt iff the pair is included in the Mandelbrot set? Whatever he means, it sounds like he's saying it's an open question... Thanks! Very interesting. It confirms my feeling that the result Blum, Smale and Shub cannot really help to figure out if the digital Mandelbrot Set is a compact form of a universal dovetaling ... or the exponential complex would already be one Hmm Another way to digitalize the M set would be to consider its digital, ste by step enlargement on the Gaussian Integers (n + mi, n, m in Z). I will study those papers, soon or later. I really love the Mandelbrot set. Look at this beautiful musical zoom by Ubermari0: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgM3XJmH768feature=channel_page Look at this new very impressive zoom by Phaumann, with a 10^333 enlargement, in an hard to compute part of the M-set! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6DD1k4BAUgfeature=channel_page You can see that the computations is deep in Bennett sense, like most object in nature plausibly: it is both very involved and sophisticated yet incredibly redundant, and it is itself the product of a very tiny algorithm. It can be used in practice to compress data. Bruno Jason wrote: On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The mathematical Universal Dovetailer, the splashed universal Turing Machine, the rational Mandelbrot set, or any creative sets in the sense of Emil Post, does all computations. Really all, with Church thesis. This is a theorem in math. The rock? Show me just the 30 first steps of a computation of square-root(2). ... Bruno, I am interested about your statement regarding the Mandelbrot set implementing all computations, could you elaborate on this? Thank you, Jason http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The mathematical Universal Dovetailer, the splashed universal Turing Machine, the rational Mandelbrot set, or any creative sets in the sense of Emil Post, does all computations. Really all, with Church thesis. This is a theorem in math. The rock? Show me just the 30 first steps of a computation of square-root(2). ... Bruno, I am interested about your statement regarding the Mandelbrot set implementing all computations, could you elaborate on this? Thank you, Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Consciousness is information?
I found a paper on the Mandelbrot set and computability, I understand very little but maybe Bruno would be able to follow it: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.CC/0604003 The same author has a shorter outline or slides for a presentation on this subject at http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/cie06/files/d37/PHP_MandelbrotCiE2006Swansea_Jul2006.pdf and at the end he asks the question If M (Mandelbrot set) not Q-computable, can the Halting Problem be reduced to determining membership of (intersection of M and Q^2), i.e. how powerful a 'hypercomputer' is the Mandelbrot set? I believe Q^2 here just refers to the set of all possible pairs of rational numbers. Maybe by reducing the Halting Problem he means that for any Turing machine + input, there might be some rule that would translate it into a pair of rational numbers such that the computation will halt iff the pair is included in the Mandelbrot set? Whatever he means, it sounds like he's saying it's an open question... Jesse On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The mathematical Universal Dovetailer, the splashed universal Turing Machine, the rational Mandelbrot set, or any creative sets in the sense of Emil Post, does all computations. Really all, with Church thesis. This is a theorem in math. The rock? Show me just the 30 first steps of a computation of square-root(2). ... Bruno, I am interested about your statement regarding the Mandelbrot set implementing all computations, could you elaborate on this? Thank you, Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
