Now, Mark Buda is either sarcastic or mad. I think he is pulling your leg
here Bruno.
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Från: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] För Bruno Marchal
Skickat: den 16 juli 2010 16:06
Till: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: Civilization-level quantum suicide
On 16 Jul 2010, at 14:13, Mark Buda wrote:
> I came across this link some time ago and found it interesting:
>
> http://www.paul-almond.com/CivilizationLevelQuantumSuicide.htm
>
> In fact, I believe it is what introduced me to the term "quantum
> suicide". I had been googling something I had been thinking about in
> the shower one day and to my surprise this guy had written a paper
> about it. What an amazing coincidence. My life since then has been an
> increasingly bizarre series of meaningful coincidences. Meaningful in
> a personal way that I can't explain easily. Bruno understands and can
> explain why I can't explain; it's to do with his G and G* logics.
This is on the fringe of authoritative argument.
>
> But the upshot of it is this: I have found out what happens when you
> commit quantum suicide. You discover that you believe a contradiction,
> and that even though nothing about the world has changed, you
> understand the universe.
That seems very weird.
> But you have a hard time explaining it.
> Because you discover that you are, in Bruno's terms, a Lobian machine
> interviewing itself for the laws of physics.
But I am saying this to explain that we can use reason to understand
where the laws of physics come from. Not to mystified people with a
lack of explanation.
> But you can't get the
> laws of physics yourself, even though you have all the answers.
On the contrary: you can. Everyone can. You cannot besure because you
cannot know that you are correct, so the usual doubt of the cartesian
scientist remains. Computationalism explains in detail why any form of
certainty, when made public, is a symptom of non correctness.
> Because you don't care any more - you have a different motivation. You
> understand that since you have all the answers but none of the
> questions,
I don't see any sense here.
> you need to talk to people. You figure out the right people
> to talk to because your intuition guides you, because that's what it's
> for.
>
> There are people all around the world killing themselves and each
> other for crazy reasons. Suicide bombers, for instance. People who
> read stuff about the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and kill themselves
> because they think the end of the world is coming.
2012 is the year of the election in France. The Maya consider their
own prediction as a prediction that some reasonable man will arrive.
They never talk of apocalypse. "2012" is like prohibition: making
money by selling fears.
>
> They're right and wrong, and I understand why, but I can't explain it,
> and Bruno understands why.
I guess I have been unclear at some point. I am just a poor scientist
trying to be honest with myself and the others.
> But all that stuff happening around the
> world is happening for a reason, and it doesn't matter what you - you
> can't stop it. Neither can I. But you can listen to this and think
> about it, and do whatever you feel like doing: you will anyway.
>
> If any of you can help me contact Richard Dawkins and talk to him, I
> can explain all of this.
Why do you want to convince Richard Dawkins? You give him credit.
Actually you do his very own error, because when Dawkins try to
convince the Christians that they are wrong on God, he gives them
credit on their notion of God. No one care about fairy tales, once we
tackle the fundamental question with the scientific (= modest,
hypotheses-based) approach.
> I can explain all of it to anybody if they're
> willing to talk to me. But I have to talk face to face, because it's
> too hard for me, psychologically, to figure out how to put it in
> writing or over the phone, because a lot of human communication is
> non-
> verbal, and there's an evolutionary reason for that which is part of
> the whole thing.
Restrain yourself to communicate what is communicable. And just hope
that the people will figure out by themselves what is not communicable
yet true (like consciousness to take the simplest candidate).
>
> Perhaps I sound mad, but I have a testable prediction: if I don't
> contact Richard Dawkins, sooner or later somebody, somewhere is going
> to be researching the 2012 Mayan calendar thing and be led, by an
> amazing chain of coincidences, to me.
I don't believe in coincidence. Or better I believe coincidences are
just that: coincidences. The brain has an habit to over-interpret
coincidences, and if you search them, you will find more and more, and
you will take the risk of believing anything, that is to become
inconsistent. The prohibition of drugs is based on similar form of
unsound "reasoning".
> And I can explain how t