Re: The free will function
On Feb 27, 10:11 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 25, 10:50 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 25, 6:32 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 24, 8:22 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 23, 10:24 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation I don't know what you mean by subject to. They may well not be able to arrive at the actual facts beyond the simulation at all. Which is why they can't call them actual facts. To them, the simulation is the only facts. They do not exist outside of the simulation. But they are wrong about all that, or there is no sense to the claim that they are sims ITFP They are right about that. If I am a sim running on a computer somewhere, it doesn't matter to me at all where that is because I can never get our of this sim here to get to the world of the computer out there. That certain things don'tn matter to you doesn't change any facts. That would be true if I were aware of the fact but didn't care, but in this case there is no possibility of my ever being aware of it. Facts outside of our own universe can't be considered as facts to us unless they impact us in some way. But you are already doing that. You are putting forward it's all a simulation as a fact that is just true and not necessarily knowable to us possible sims. That may be intended as some sort of reductio ad absurdum of the simulation hypothesis. I don't know if it is. That is one of the many things that aren't clear. If all of humanity died off and you are an ant crawling on a microwave oven, the 'fact' that it 'is' a microwave oven is not relevant. That doens't mean it isn't a fact. You are supposing it is in order to set up the scenario. It is consistent to say it is an objective, absolute facts that there are objective, absolute facts. It is not consistent to say there are no objective facts, everything is just true to of for a subject and offfer in support of that just such an objective fact. The world has lost the capacity to define that object in that way, and it now is a hard flat surface for ants to crawl on. I am not a sim to myself of course, but if someone can pause the program, put horns on my head and start it again, it is because to them, I am a simulation. But that is an observation that *depends* on truth having a transcendent and objective nature. If truth is just what seems to you to be true, then they have the truth, as does every lunatic. You could make a simulation where the simulation changes to fit the delusions of a lunatic. You could even make them all lunatics and make their consciousness completely solipsistic. So? To in that simulated universe, lunacy would be truth. Luncacy might be believed. Not the same thing. Not if you take comp and simulation seriously. I don't, so I agree, truth is more than local simulation, but comp does not agree. Any fantasy which can be rendered arithmetically could be a valid universe to live in under comp. But Comp/SH doesn't have the implication that the nature of truth itself keeps changing. You can state Comp/SH by saying it is an objective fact that most subjective perceptions are of simulated worlds, and most subjects hold fasle beliefs. You are importing your own subjectivist epistemology into Comp/SH. It is not native to it. If you want to critique Comp, you need to show there is something wrong with *it's* claim, not yours! I recommend using publically accessble language to enhance communication, not to discover new facts. I would rather enhance the content of the communication than the form. If the form renders the content inaccessible, what's the point? Because comp hasn't been around long enough to have traditions. That doesn't answer the question. You are proceding as if the meaning of a word *always* changes in different contexts. It does Says who? Why do you think it doesn't? Don't shift the burden. You are making the extraordinary claim. I'm not making an extraordinary claim, I'm pointing out that perception cannot be reproduced What has pecerption to do with it? We were discussing meaning. precisely since is is context dependent. If it were not the case, it would be possible to say the same word over and over forever and never grow tired of doing that. Boredom does not indicate shifts of meaning. Every moment of our lives has unique semantic content exclusive to us. That does not mean that individual words are always changing meaning. You can have constantly changing compounds of stable elements. No man ever steps in the same river twice. - Heraclitus Do you mean the same
Re: The free will function
On Feb 29, 4:56 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 27, 10:11 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation I don't know what you mean by subject to. They may well not be able to arrive at the actual facts beyond the simulation at all. Which is why they can't call them actual facts. To them, the simulation is the only facts. They do not exist outside of the simulation. But they are wrong about all that, or there is no sense to the claim that they are sims ITFP They are right about that. If I am a sim running on a computer somewhere, it doesn't matter to me at all where that is because I can never get our of this sim here to get to the world of the computer out there. That certain things don'tn matter to you doesn't change any facts. That would be true if I were aware of the fact but didn't care, but in this case there is no possibility of my ever being aware of it. Facts outside of our own universe can't be considered as facts to us unless they impact us in some way. But you are already doing that. You are putting forward it's all a simulation as a fact that is just true and not necessarily knowable to us possible sims. Yes, the fact of it being a simulation is not true for the observers being simulated under comp. The reality that you simulate is their actual reality. That may be intended as some sort of reductio ad absurdum of the simulation hypothesis. I don't know if it is. That is one of the many things that aren't clear. Yes, it is. My point is that MWI is no less wishful thinking than Creationism. If all of humanity died off and you are an ant crawling on a microwave oven, the 'fact' that it 'is' a microwave oven is not relevant. That doens't mean it isn't a fact. It's not a fact to anyone who is alive. If you add the idea that only insects and plants will ever live anywhere, then it has no meaning to say it is a fact. You are supposing it is in order to set up the scenario. It is consistent to say it is an objective, absolute facts that there are objective, absolute facts. It is not consistent to say there are no objective facts, everything is just true to of for a subject and offfer in support of that just such an objective fact. I don't offer an objective fact, I offer a naturalistic scenario to point out that 'facts' are experiential invariance and nothing more. The world has lost the capacity to define that object in that way, and it now is a hard flat surface for ants to crawl on. I am not a sim to myself of course, but if someone can pause the program, put horns on my head and start it again, it is because to them, I am a simulation. But that is an observation that *depends* on truth having a transcendent and objective nature. If truth is just what seems to you to be true, then they have the truth, as does every lunatic. You could make a simulation where the simulation changes to fit the delusions of a lunatic. You could even make them all lunatics and make their consciousness completely solipsistic. So? To in that simulated universe, lunacy would be truth. Luncacy might be believed. Not the same thing. Not if you take comp and simulation seriously. I don't, so I agree, truth is more than local simulation, but comp does not agree. Any fantasy which can be rendered arithmetically could be a valid universe to live in under comp. But Comp/SH doesn't have the implication that the nature of truth itself keeps changing. What is a simulation if not a matrix of internally consistent propositions that can be changed? You can state Comp/SH by saying it is an objective fact that most subjective perceptions are of simulated worlds, and most subjects hold fasle beliefs. You are importing your own subjectivist epistemology into Comp/SH. It is not native to it. If you want to critique Comp, you need to show there is something wrong with *it's* claim, not yours! No, because Comp has no capacity to understand what is wrong with its claim. Comp is inherently circular and can only prove itself regardless of any absurdities that arise from it in the real world. Comp exists in its own theoretical bubble which realism cannot penetrate. It is up to us living human beings to seize the reigns of sentience directly and not be seduced by this one narrow tradition of logical puzzle solving into forsaking the myriad of other channels of sense we have access to. Comp is like a black and white TV demanding that color be proved on its terms. I recommend using publically accessble language to enhance communication, not to discover new facts. I would rather enhance the content of the
Re: The free will function
On Feb 27, 6:40 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: On 27.02.2012 17:47 John Clark said the following: On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.comwrote: There is no simulation of red. Red is only red. But red itself is a simulation. Electromagnetic waves a length of 700 nanometers can produce the quale red in the minds of most (but not all) human beings if it enters their eye, so the red quale simulates (represents) the location and intensity of 700 nanometer electromagnetic radiation. But red can stand for other things that have nothing to do with light; go into a pitch dark room and close your eyes and apply gentle pressure to your closed eyelid, you often see splotches of red. So in this case the red quale simulates (represents) the location and intensity of pressure. You may want look at synaesthetes for whom red could appears for example when they hear a word blue. You can certainly claim that in this case sound waves simulate red but then the question is what the intensity of 700 nanometer electromagnetic radiation has to do with this. Also I believe that one feels red not only with 700 nanometer wavelength but with other combinations of wavelengths as well. This is not one to one. Even more so if your depart from vision and consider other senses, such as taste and smell. There is no simple chemical property that corresponds to sweet, bitter, etc. -- 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: The free will function
On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: There is no simulation of red. Red is only red. But red itself is a simulation. Electromagnetic waves a length of 700 nanometers can produce the quale red in the minds of most (but not all) human beings if it enters their eye, so the red quale simulates (represents) the location and intensity of 700 nanometer electromagnetic radiation. But red can stand for other things that have nothing to do with light; go into a pitch dark room and close your eyes and apply gentle pressure to your closed eyelid, you often see splotches of red. So in this case the red quale simulates (represents) the location and intensity of pressure. Who we are is like that. Us-ness. I see, ... Us-ness. Well I'm glad you cleared that up. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 27.02.2012 17:47 John Clark said the following: On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.comwrote: There is no simulation of red. Red is only red. But red itself is a simulation. Electromagnetic waves a length of 700 nanometers can produce the quale red in the minds of most (but not all) human beings if it enters their eye, so the red quale simulates (represents) the location and intensity of 700 nanometer electromagnetic radiation. But red can stand for other things that have nothing to do with light; go into a pitch dark room and close your eyes and apply gentle pressure to your closed eyelid, you often see splotches of red. So in this case the red quale simulates (represents) the location and intensity of pressure. You may want look at synaesthetes for whom red could appears for example when they hear a word blue. You can certainly claim that in this case sound waves simulate red but then the question is what the intensity of 700 nanometer electromagnetic radiation has to do with this. Also I believe that one feels red not only with 700 nanometer wavelength but with other combinations of wavelengths as well. This is not one to one. Evgenii Who we are is like that. Us-ness. I see, ... Us-ness. Well I'm glad you cleared that up. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 25, 10:50 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 25, 6:32 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 24, 8:22 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 23, 10:24 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation I don't know what you mean by subject to. They may well not be able to arrive at the actual facts beyond the simulation at all. Which is why they can't call them actual facts. To them, the simulation is the only facts. They do not exist outside of the simulation. But they are wrong about all that, or there is no sense to the claim that they are sims ITFP They are right about that. If I am a sim running on a computer somewhere, it doesn't matter to me at all where that is because I can never get our of this sim here to get to the world of the computer out there. That certain things don'tn matter to you doesn't change any facts. That would be true if I were aware of the fact but didn't care, but in this case there is no possibility of my ever being aware of it. Facts outside of our own universe can't be considered as facts to us unless they impact us in some way. If all of humanity died off and you are an ant crawling on a microwave oven, the 'fact' that it 'is' a microwave oven is not relevant. The world has lost the capacity to define that object in that way, and it now is a hard flat surface for ants to crawl on. I am not a sim to myself of course, but if someone can pause the program, put horns on my head and start it again, it is because to them, I am a simulation. But that is an observation that *depends* on truth having a transcendent and objective nature. If truth is just what seems to you to be true, then they have the truth, as does every lunatic. You could make a simulation where the simulation changes to fit the delusions of a lunatic. You could even make them all lunatics and make their consciousness completely solipsistic. So? To in that simulated universe, lunacy would be truth. Luncacy might be believed. Not the same thing. Not if you take comp and simulation seriously. I don't, so I agree, truth is more than local simulation, but comp does not agree. Any fantasy which can be rendered arithmetically could be a valid universe to live in under comp. I recommend using publically accessble language to enhance communication, not to discover new facts. I would rather enhance the content of the communication than the form. If the form renders the content inaccessible, what's the point? Because comp hasn't been around long enough to have traditions. That doesn't answer the question. You are proceding as if the meaning of a word *always* changes in different contexts. It does Says who? Why do you think it doesn't? Don't shift the burden. You are making the extraordinary claim. I'm not making an extraordinary claim, I'm pointing out that perception cannot be reproduced precisely since is is context dependent. If it were not the case, it would be possible to say the same word over and over forever and never grow tired of doing that. Every moment of our lives has unique semantic content exclusive to us. No man ever steps in the same river twice. - Heraclitus Do you mean the same thing today when you talk about having 'fun' as you did when you were in third grade? I am not disputing that some meanings change in some contexts. Why would any meanings be immune from that? It;s true outside the game as well. Whatever you are trying to say. it is a poor analogy. You might try asking if you are really the top hat in Monopoly, or Throngar the Invincible in DD Those make the same point as well. Is it true that you are the top hat in Monopoly? If not then Monopoly is not a very strong simulation - which it isn't. A full immersion virtual DD campaign? That would be a stronger simulation and you could not so easily say that you aren't Throngar. Especially if you played him for a living...and changed your name legally...and got plastic surgery. At what point do you become Throngar? If there is any meaning to the word simulation, then it is never actual. That's simplistic. The whole point of a simulation is that is is as if it were actual in some sense. A flight simulator provides an actual experience that can seem like flying an actual plane. If you are on a plane where the pilot dies, do you ask the guy who has logged 1 hours on flight simulators to fly the plane or do you say they have no actual experience? That's irrelevant. Why? You said simulation is never actual, and I give you an example of how simulation can have consequences as if it were
Re: The free will function
Couple of Free Will studies: Laypersons' belief in free will may foster a sense of thoughtful reflection and willingness to exert energy, thereby promoting helpfulness and reducing aggression, and so disbelief in free will may make behavior more reliant on selfish, automatic impulses and therefore less socially desirable. Three studies tested the hypothesis that disbelief in free will would be linked with decreased helping and increased aggression. In Experiment 1, induced disbelief in free will reduced willingness to help others. Experiment 2 showed that chronic disbelief in free will was associated with reduced helping behavior. In Experiment 3, participants induced disbelief in free will caused participants to act more aggressively than others. Although the findings do not speak to the existence of free will, the current results suggest that disbelief in free will reduces helping and increases aggression. http://psp.sagepub.com/content/35/2/260.short also: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18684016/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/study-hints-fruit-flies-have-free-will/#.T0wpVHlUF8E A spark of free will may exist in even the tiny brain of the humble fruit fly, based on new findings that could shed light on the nature and evolution of free will in humans. Future research delving further into free will could lead to more advanced robots, scientists added. The result, joked neurobiologist Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin, could be world robot domination. Seriously though, Brembs said that programming robots with aspects of free will may lead to more realistic and probably even more efficient behavior, which could be decisive in truly autonomous robots needed for planetary exploration. Better understanding aspects of free will in humans also could aid in the treatment of mental disorders where people face problems controlling how they feel, think or act, such as depression, obsessive- compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa, schizophrenia or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Brembs told LiveScience. For centuries, the question of whether or not humans possess free will — and thus control their own actions — has been a source of hot debate. Free will is essentially an oxymoron — we would not consider it 'will' if it were completely random and we would not consider it 'free' if it were entirely determined, Brembs said. In other words, nobody would ascribe responsibility to one's actions if they were entirely the result of random coincidence. On the other hand, if one's actions were completely determined by outside factors such that no alternative existed, no one would hold that person responsible for them. We speculate that if free will exists, it is in this middle ground between randomness and determinism that is currently not well understood or characterized, said mathematical biologist George Sugihara at the University of California at San Diego. Insects and other animals are often seen just as very complex robots, Brembs said, for which behavior is determined solely by reactions to the outside world. When scientists observe animals responding in different ways to the same outside cues, such variations are typically attributed to random errors in a complex brain, he said. Not just random Brembs and his colleagues reasoned that if fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) were simply reactive robots entirely determined by their environment, in completely featureless rooms they should move completely randomly. To investigate this idea, the international team of researchers glued the insects to small copper hooks in completely uniform white surroundings, a kind of visual sensory deprivation tank. These flies could still beat their wings and attempt to turn. A plethora of increasingly sophisticated computer analyses revealed that the way the flies turned back and forth over time was far from random. Instead, there appeared to be a function in the fly brain which evolved to generate spontaneous variations in the behavior, Sugihara said. Specifically, their behavior seemed to match up with a mathematical algorithm called Levy's distribution, commonly found in nature. Flies use this procedure to find meals, as do albatrosses, monkeys and deer. Scientists have found similar patterns in the flow of e-mails, letters and money, and in the paintings of Jackson Pollock, Brembs said. These strategies in flies appear to arise spontaneously and do not result from outside cues, according to findings detailed in Wednesday's issue of the journal PLoS ONE. This makes their behavior seem to lie somewhere between completely random and purely determined, and could form the biological foundation for what we experience as free will, Sugihara added. This function appears to be common to many other animals. Brembs said that even a fly brain possesses a function which makes it easier to imagine a brain that creates the impression of free will.
Re: The free will function
On 25 Feb 2012, at 20:01, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/25/2012 4:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 24 Feb 2012, at 22:59, acw wrote: On 2/24/2012 12:59, David Nyman wrote: On 24 February 2012 11:52, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: I look at it like this, there's 3 notions: Mind (consciousness, experience), (Primitive) Matter, Mechanism. Those 3 notions are incompatible, but we have experience of all 3, mind is the sum of our experience and thus is the most direct thing possible, even if non-communicable, matter is what is directly inferred from our experience (but we don't know if it's the base of everything) and mechanism which means our experience is lawful (following rules). By induction we build mechanistic (mathematical) models of matter. We can't really avoid any of the 3: one is primary, the other is directly sensible, the other can be directly inferred. However, there are many thought experiments that illustrate that these notions are incompatible - you can have any 2 of them, but never all 3. Take away mind and you have eliminative materialism - denying the existence of mind to save primary matter and its mechanistic appearence. (This tends to be seen as a behavioral COMP). Too bad this is hard to stomach because all our theories are learned through our experiences, thus it's a bit self-defeating. Take away primitive matter and you have COMP and other platonic versions where matter is a mathematical shadow. Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside. This is disliked by those that wish matter was more fundamental or that it allows too many fantasies into reality (even if low-measure). Take away mechanism and you get some magical form of matter which cannot obey any rules - not even all possible rules Nice summary. You say Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside, which is essentially how Bruno puts it. However, this must still fall short of an identity claim - i.e. it seems obvious that mind is no more identical to math or computation than it is to matter, unless that relation is to be re-defined as categorically different. Math and mind are still distinct, though correlated. Do you think that such a duality can still be subsumed in some sort of neutral monism? Obviously not all computations have minds like ours associated with them. I'm not sure if identity is the right claim, but I'm not sure there's much to gain by adding extra indirection layers - it's not that consciousness is associated with some scribbles on a piece of paper, it's associated with some abstract truths and we could say that 3p-wise those truths look like some specific structure we can talk about (using pen and paper or computers), but at the same time, that that abstract structure does have some sensory experience associated with it. Other structure might represent some machines implementing some partial local physics. In that way it's neutral monist. We could try to keep experience separate and supervening on arithmetical truth, but I'm not sure if there's anything to gain by introducing such a dualism - it might make epistemological sense, but I'm not sure it makes sense ontologically. I'm rather unsure of such a move myself, I wonder what Bruno's opinion is on this. I think that we don't have to introduce an ontological dualism, because the dualism is unavoidable from the machine points of view, if you agree to 1) model belief (by ideally arithmetically and self-referentially correct machine) by Gödel's provability. I can provide many reason to do that, even if it oversimplifies the problem. The interesting things is that it leads to an already very complex machine's theology. We might take it as a toy theology, but then all theories are sort of toys. 2) to accept that S4 (or T, = S4 without Bp - BBp) provides the best axiomatic theories for knowledge. Then it can be shown that the modality (Bp p) gives a notion of knowledge, i.e. (Bp p) obeys S4, even a stronger S4Grz theory. The relevant results here are that G* proves that Bp is equivalent with Bp p, but G does not prove that, and so, this is a point where the divine intellect (G*), the believer (G) and the kower (soul) Bp p, will completely differ, and this will account for a variety of dualism, unavoidable for the machine. So yes, this is neutral monism. The TOE is just arithmetic, and the definition above explains why, at the least, the machine will behaves as if dualism was true for her ... until she bet on comp and understand the talk of her own G*, without making the error of taking that talk for granted (because she cannot know, nor believe, nor even explictly express that she is correct). Hope this might help, but if you want I can explain more on G, G*, S4Grz, and the Z and X logics. Those are not logic invented to solve problems, like in analytical philosophy, but
Re: The free will function
On 2/26/2012 12:27 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 25 Feb 2012, at 20:01, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/25/2012 4:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 24 Feb 2012, at 22:59, acw wrote: On 2/24/2012 12:59, David Nyman wrote: On 24 February 2012 11:52, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: I look at it like this, there's 3 notions: Mind (consciousness, experience), (Primitive) Matter, Mechanism. Those 3 notions are incompatible, but we have experience of all 3, mind is the sum of our experience and thus is the most direct thing possible, even if non-communicable, matter is what is directly inferred from our experience (but we don't know if it's the base of everything) and mechanism which means our experience is lawful (following rules). By induction we build mechanistic (mathematical) models of matter. We can't really avoid any of the 3: one is primary, the other is directly sensible, the other can be directly inferred. However, there are many thought experiments that illustrate that these notions are incompatible - you can have any 2 of them, but never all 3. Take away mind and you have eliminative materialism - denying the existence of mind to save primary matter and its mechanistic appearence. (This tends to be seen as a behavioral COMP). Too bad this is hard to stomach because all our theories are learned through our experiences, thus it's a bit self-defeating. Take away primitive matter and you have COMP and other platonic versions where matter is a mathematical shadow. Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside. This is disliked by those that wish matter was more fundamental or that it allows too many fantasies into reality (even if low-measure). Take away mechanism and you get some magical form of matter which cannot obey any rules - not even all possible rules Nice summary. You say Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside, which is essentially how Bruno puts it. However, this must still fall short of an identity claim - i.e. it seems obvious that mind is no more identical to math or computation than it is to matter, unless that relation is to be re-defined as categorically different. Math and mind are still distinct, though correlated. Do you think that such a duality can still be subsumed in some sort of neutral monism? Obviously not all computations have minds like ours associated with them. I'm not sure if identity is the right claim, but I'm not sure there's much to gain by adding extra indirection layers - it's not that consciousness is associated with some scribbles on a piece of paper, it's associated with some abstract truths and we could say that 3p-wise those truths look like some specific structure we can talk about (using pen and paper or computers), but at the same time, that that abstract structure does have some sensory experience associated with it. Other structure might represent some machines implementing some partial local physics. In that way it's neutral monist. We could try to keep experience separate and supervening on arithmetical truth, but I'm not sure if there's anything to gain by introducing such a dualism - it might make epistemological sense, but I'm not sure it makes sense ontologically. I'm rather unsure of such a move myself, I wonder what Bruno's opinion is on this. I think that we don't have to introduce an ontological dualism, because the dualism is unavoidable from the machine points of view, if you agree to 1) model belief (by ideally arithmetically and self-referentially correct machine) by Gödel's provability. I can provide many reason to do that, even if it oversimplifies the problem. The interesting things is that it leads to an already very complex machine's theology. We might take it as a toy theology, but then all theories are sort of toys. 2) to accept that S4 (or T, = S4 without Bp - BBp) provides the best axiomatic theories for knowledge. Then it can be shown that the modality (Bp p) gives a notion of knowledge, i.e. (Bp p) obeys S4, even a stronger S4Grz theory. The relevant results here are that G* proves that Bp is equivalent with Bp p, but G does not prove that, and so, this is a point where the divine intellect (G*), the believer (G) and the kower (soul) Bp p, will completely differ, and this will account for a variety of dualism, unavoidable for the machine. So yes, this is neutral monism. The TOE is just arithmetic, and the definition above explains why, at the least, the machine will behaves as if dualism was true for her ... until she bet on comp and understand the talk of her own G*, without making the error of taking that talk for granted (because she cannot know, nor believe, nor even explictly express that she is correct). Hope this might help, but if you want I can explain more on G, G*, S4Grz, and the Z and X logics. Those are not logic invented to solve problems, like in analytical philosophy, but unavoidable
Re: The free will function
On 26 Feb 2012, at 20:37, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/26/2012 12:27 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 25 Feb 2012, at 20:01, Stephen P. King wrote: snip Likewize Bp Dt, and Bp Dt p, are other important variants. I will say more when I get more time, but by searching 'S4Grz' or 'hypostase' in the archive you might find the many explanations I already give. See my papers and the reference therein. Ask precise question when you don't understand, so I can help. Thank you for this brief set of remarks. I would like to see an elaboration of the Löbian entity such that we can see the means by which the 1p content is encoded. The first person content are not encoded, they are just true belief, or correct inference with respect to plausible local universal numbers. A brain does not create a person, it helps a person to manifest herself with respect to other universal numbers (some being person themselves, and others might be less clear). Can, for example, we include a free or atomic boolean algebra in a Löbian entity? Algebraically Löbian machines can be handled by diagonalizable algebra (that is boolean algebra endowed with a transformation operator verifying the Löbian axioms, the fixed point property. But what the machine can observe is non boolean, and cannot, I presume be extended in a Boolean reality. It is an open problem if all coherent dreams could define a unique physical reality. I doubt it. I would also appreciate your comments on this paper by Barry Cooper: http://www1.maths.leeds.ac.uk/~pmt6sbc/preprints/rome.paper.pdf Here is its Abstract: Amongst the huge literature concerning emergence, reductionism and mech- anism, there is a role for analysis of the underlying mathematical constraints. Much of the speculation, confusion, controversy and descriptive verbiage might be clari fied via suitable modelling and theory. The key ingredients we bring to this project are the mathematical notions of defi nability and invariance, a computability theoretic framework in a real-world context, and within that, the modelling of basic causal environments via Turing's 1939 notion of interac- tive computation over a structure described in terms of reals. Useful outcomes are: a re finement of what one understands to be a causal relationship, includ- ing non-mechanistic, irreversible causal relationships; an appreciation of how the mathematically simple origins of incomputability in defi nable hierarchies are materialized in the real world; and an understanding of the powerful ex- planatory role of current computability theoretic developments. Interesting, but still not taking into account the comp mind-body problem, or the comp first person indeterminacy. Might say more on this later. It would have been nice I (re)discovered that paper soon, but many thanks :) Please also see http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jrl/Research/laplace1.pdf which contains many of the same questions that I have been asking but expressed in a more formal and erudite manner. You cannot ask to read 50 pages long technical pages at each paragraph, and guess what are your non understing of the UDA is from that. It looks like not too bad material though, but does not really address the question we are discussing here. I am still not seeing how you define the philosophical terms that you are using, as the way that you are using words, such as dualism and monism are inconsistent with their usage by others in philosophy. I use them in the sense of the wiki you did provide to me. Neutral monism, in the philosophy of mind consists in explaining mind and matter, and the relation between, in term of something else. Yes, but I see numbers as belonging to the category of mental content and thus not capable of forming a neutral something else. But this is basically, with all my respect, a mistake. You confuse the theory of numbers, with the meta and psychological theory (which assumes much more things) of how humans mentally handle the numbers. Unless you make clear your ontology, and what is your theory, or initial theory, you might just beg the question. It is not a question of true or false, but understanding a reasoning. You have to go through the thought experiment until you have the aha! OTOH, if we stick to your consideration that minds are only the 1p associated with true beliefs. then your argument that COMP is a neutral monism is consistent modulo finite considerations. I think that considerations of 3p spoils this neutrality (the Laplace draft paper above touches on this), but let us see what happens in our discussions. OK. If your theory is scientific, the something else must be clearly specifiable, that is itself described by a reasonable theory, so that the explanation of mind and body from it makes (sharable) sense. With comp, in short, a TOE is
Re: The free will function
On 24 Feb 2012, at 22:59, acw wrote: On 2/24/2012 12:59, David Nyman wrote: On 24 February 2012 11:52, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: I look at it like this, there's 3 notions: Mind (consciousness, experience), (Primitive) Matter, Mechanism. Those 3 notions are incompatible, but we have experience of all 3, mind is the sum of our experience and thus is the most direct thing possible, even if non-communicable, matter is what is directly inferred from our experience (but we don't know if it's the base of everything) and mechanism which means our experience is lawful (following rules). By induction we build mechanistic (mathematical) models of matter. We can't really avoid any of the 3: one is primary, the other is directly sensible, the other can be directly inferred. However, there are many thought experiments that illustrate that these notions are incompatible - you can have any 2 of them, but never all 3. Take away mind and you have eliminative materialism - denying the existence of mind to save primary matter and its mechanistic appearence. (This tends to be seen as a behavioral COMP). Too bad this is hard to stomach because all our theories are learned through our experiences, thus it's a bit self-defeating. Take away primitive matter and you have COMP and other platonic versions where matter is a mathematical shadow. Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside. This is disliked by those that wish matter was more fundamental or that it allows too many fantasies into reality (even if low-measure). Take away mechanism and you get some magical form of matter which cannot obey any rules - not even all possible rules Nice summary. You say Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside, which is essentially how Bruno puts it. However, this must still fall short of an identity claim - i.e. it seems obvious that mind is no more identical to math or computation than it is to matter, unless that relation is to be re-defined as categorically different. Math and mind are still distinct, though correlated. Do you think that such a duality can still be subsumed in some sort of neutral monism? Obviously not all computations have minds like ours associated with them. I'm not sure if identity is the right claim, but I'm not sure there's much to gain by adding extra indirection layers - it's not that consciousness is associated with some scribbles on a piece of paper, it's associated with some abstract truths and we could say that 3p-wise those truths look like some specific structure we can talk about (using pen and paper or computers), but at the same time, that that abstract structure does have some sensory experience associated with it. Other structure might represent some machines implementing some partial local physics. In that way it's neutral monist. We could try to keep experience separate and supervening on arithmetical truth, but I'm not sure if there's anything to gain by introducing such a dualism - it might make epistemological sense, but I'm not sure it makes sense ontologically. I'm rather unsure of such a move myself, I wonder what Bruno's opinion is on this. I think that we don't have to introduce an ontological dualism, because the dualism is unavoidable from the machine points of view, if you agree to 1) model belief (by ideally arithmetically and self-referentially correct machine) by Gödel's provability. I can provide many reason to do that, even if it oversimplifies the problem. The interesting things is that it leads to an already very complex machine's theology. We might take it as a toy theology, but then all theories are sort of toys. 2) to accept that S4 (or T, = S4 without Bp - BBp) provides the best axiomatic theories for knowledge. Then it can be shown that the modality (Bp p) gives a notion of knowledge, i.e. (Bp p) obeys S4, even a stronger S4Grz theory. The relevant results here are that G* proves that Bp is equivalent with Bp p, but G does not prove that, and so, this is a point where the divine intellect (G*), the believer (G) and the kower (soul) Bp p, will completely differ, and this will account for a variety of dualism, unavoidable for the machine. So yes, this is neutral monism. The TOE is just arithmetic, and the definition above explains why, at the least, the machine will behaves as if dualism was true for her ... until she bet on comp and understand the talk of her own G*, without making the error of taking that talk for granted (because she cannot know, nor believe, nor even explictly express that she is correct). Hope this might help, but if you want I can explain more on G, G*, S4Grz, and the Z and X logics. Those are not logic invented to solve problems, like in analytical philosophy, but unavoidable nuances brought by the provably correct self-reference logic of machines in theoretical
Re: The free will function
Hi Marty, On 25 Feb 2012, at 01:51, marty684 wrote: Why should probability depend on us; on what we 'know or cannot know' ? On what is 'observable' to us? It seems to me that you are defining probability by that which is relative to our 'actual states'. Why can't we inhabit a seeminglyprobablistic part of an infinite, determined universe ? But that is the case. If you define the reality by a tiny part of arithmetic (equivalent with the UD), you have a deterministic structure, which from our points of view will look indeterministic. The probability are relative to us, because we are the one doing the experience. Suppose you decide to throw a coin. To predict what will happen to you you have to look at all the computation accessing the computational state you have when throwing the coin, and infer what will happen from a measure on the continuations. I'm delighted to learn that I understood you after all. Thanks for this further clarification. You are welcome. Read UDA, and ask question for each step, in case of problem, so we might single out the precise point where you don't succeed to grasp why comp put probabilities, or credibilities, uncertainties, in front of everything. UDA1-7 is enough to get this. UDA-8 is needed only for the more subtle immateriality point implied by computationalism. My attempts to read UDA were never successful. Sorry. May be you have a problem with my english. Please, begin by the step one, on page 4 of sane04, read it, and tell me precisely what you don't understand in the step 1. I might need to re-explain comp to you, or you can glance its definition on page 2. When you will grasp step 1, we will be able to go to the 2th step, and so one. Bruno I don't have a problem with your english. I have a problem with the logical complexity of your work. It is not simple, but not *that* difficult either (I mean UDA, AUDA needs a background in logic which is not so well taught). Also I no longer remember where to find the text you're referring to. Warmest wishes, marty You can find the paper, and the unique slide to easily remember the different steps here: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html 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: The free will function
Thanks, I'll give it another shot. All the best, marty a. From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, February 25, 2012 5:05:35 AM Subject: Re: The free will function Hi Marty, On 25 Feb 2012, at 01:51, marty684 wrote: Why should probability depend on us; on what we 'know or cannot know' ? On what is 'observable' to us? It seems to me that you are defining probability by that which is relative to our 'actual states'. Why can't we inhabit a seeminglyprobablistic part of an infinite, determined universe ? But that is the case. If you define the reality by a tiny part of arithmetic (equivalent with the UD), you have a deterministic structure, which from our points of view will look indeterministic. The probability are relative to us, because we are the one doing the experience. Suppose you decide to throw a coin. To predict what will happen to you you have to look at all the computation accessing the computational state you have when throwing the coin, and infer what will happen from a measure on the continuations. I'm delighted to learn that I understood you after all. Thanks for this further clarification. You are welcome. Read UDA, and ask question for each step, in case of problem, so we might single out the precise point where you don't succeed to grasp why comp put probabilities, or credibilities, uncertainties, in front of everything. UDA1-7 is enough to get this. UDA-8 is needed only for the more subtle immateriality point implied by computationalism. My attempts to read UDA were never successful. Sorry. May be you have a problem with my english. Please, begin by the step one, on page 4 of sane04, read it, and tell me precisely what you don't understand in the step 1. I might need to re-explain comp to you, or you can glance its definition on page 2. When you will grasp step 1, we will be able to go to the 2th step, and so one. Bruno I don't have a problem with your english. I have a problem with the logical complexity of your work. It is not simple, but not *that* difficult either (I mean UDA, AUDA needs a background in logic which is not so well taught). Also I no longer remember where to find the text you're referring to. Warmest wishes, marty You can find the paper, and the unique slide to easily remember the different steps here: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html 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. -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 24, 8:22 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 23, 10:24 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation I don't know what you mean by subject to. They may well not be able to arrive at the actual facts beyond the simulation at all. Which is why they can't call them actual facts. To them, the simulation is the only facts. They do not exist outside of the simulation. But they are wrong about all that, or there is no sense to the claim that they are sims ITFP They are right about that. If I am a sim running on a computer somewhere, it doesn't matter to me at all where that is because I can never get our of this sim here to get to the world of the computer out there. I am not a sim to myself of course, but if someone can pause the program, put horns on my head and start it again, it is because to them, I am a simulation. But that is an observation that *depends* on truth having a transcendent and objective nature. If truth is just what seems to you to be true, then they have the truth, as does every lunatic. You could make a simulation where the simulation changes to fit the delusions of a lunatic. You could even make them all lunatics and make their consciousness completely solipsistic. So? To in that simulated universe, lunacy would be truth. I recommend using publically accessble language to enhance communication, not to discover new facts. I would rather enhance the content of the communication than the form. If the form renders the content inaccessible, what's the point? Because comp hasn't been around long enough to have traditions. That doesn't answer the question. You are proceding as if the meaning of a word *always* changes in different contexts. It does Says who? Why do you think it doesn't? Do you mean the same thing today when you talk about having 'fun' as you did when you were in third grade? Did that meaning change specifically at some point? Are meanings hovering around somewhere unchanging until some dictionary is updated? Not a bad thing, just not my thing. I don't do word definitions. I don't believe in them. Have you never seen a dictionary? I believe in dictionaries, but not definitions. I believe in movie critics but I don't believe that their opinions about movies are objectively true. I might agree with them, but that doesn't mean that it is possible for an opinion to be authoritatively definitive. Again, that is disbelief in a certain kind of definition. That's your opinion of the definition of definition. It;s true outside the game as well. Whatever you are trying to say. it is a poor analogy. You might try asking if you are really the top hat in Monopoly, or Throngar the Invincible in DD Those make the same point as well. Is it true that you are the top hat in Monopoly? If not then Monopoly is not a very strong simulation - which it isn't. A full immersion virtual DD campaign? That would be a stronger simulation and you could not so easily say that you aren't Throngar. Especially if you played him for a living...and changed your name legally...and got plastic surgery. At what point do you become Throngar? If there is any meaning to the word simulation, then it is never actual. That's simplistic. The whole point of a simulation is that is is as if it were actual in some sense. A flight simulator provides an actual experience that can seem like flying an actual plane. If you are on a plane where the pilot dies, do you ask the guy who has logged 1 hours on flight simulators to fly the plane or do you say they have no actual experience? The problem we keep running into is that you assume something... simulations exist...and then refuse to follow throught the consequences. No, you just aren't getting the overall concept of relativism. Comp claims that computation is all that is required for consciousness. This is what opens up a nonsense thesis about simulations having relative reality. I understand that is not the way it works. Consciousness is not emulable, only extendible. There is no simulation of red. Red is only red. Who we are is like that. Us-ness. Are you 1Z? Figurative is the word to focus on. Subjectivity is figurative. Meaning, perception, sensation...all figurative. Literal is the antithesis that is objectivity. But not actually supernatural at all, if he is a geek with BO and dandruff. That is the point you are missing. But the simulated beings can never access that information about their creator, so how can it be true for them? It can be true because it is true. Without some way to sense it or it's truth, that means nothing to us. You have already assumed soemthing like that when you made the initial assumption that the simulation is a
Re: The free will function
On 2/25/2012 4:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 24 Feb 2012, at 22:59, acw wrote: On 2/24/2012 12:59, David Nyman wrote: On 24 February 2012 11:52, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: I look at it like this, there's 3 notions: Mind (consciousness, experience), (Primitive) Matter, Mechanism. Those 3 notions are incompatible, but we have experience of all 3, mind is the sum of our experience and thus is the most direct thing possible, even if non-communicable, matter is what is directly inferred from our experience (but we don't know if it's the base of everything) and mechanism which means our experience is lawful (following rules). By induction we build mechanistic (mathematical) models of matter. We can't really avoid any of the 3: one is primary, the other is directly sensible, the other can be directly inferred. However, there are many thought experiments that illustrate that these notions are incompatible - you can have any 2 of them, but never all 3. Take away mind and you have eliminative materialism - denying the existence of mind to save primary matter and its mechanistic appearence. (This tends to be seen as a behavioral COMP). Too bad this is hard to stomach because all our theories are learned through our experiences, thus it's a bit self-defeating. Take away primitive matter and you have COMP and other platonic versions where matter is a mathematical shadow. Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside. This is disliked by those that wish matter was more fundamental or that it allows too many fantasies into reality (even if low-measure). Take away mechanism and you get some magical form of matter which cannot obey any rules - not even all possible rules Nice summary. You say Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside, which is essentially how Bruno puts it. However, this must still fall short of an identity claim - i.e. it seems obvious that mind is no more identical to math or computation than it is to matter, unless that relation is to be re-defined as categorically different. Math and mind are still distinct, though correlated. Do you think that such a duality can still be subsumed in some sort of neutral monism? Obviously not all computations have minds like ours associated with them. I'm not sure if identity is the right claim, but I'm not sure there's much to gain by adding extra indirection layers - it's not that consciousness is associated with some scribbles on a piece of paper, it's associated with some abstract truths and we could say that 3p-wise those truths look like some specific structure we can talk about (using pen and paper or computers), but at the same time, that that abstract structure does have some sensory experience associated with it. Other structure might represent some machines implementing some partial local physics. In that way it's neutral monist. We could try to keep experience separate and supervening on arithmetical truth, but I'm not sure if there's anything to gain by introducing such a dualism - it might make epistemological sense, but I'm not sure it makes sense ontologically. I'm rather unsure of such a move myself, I wonder what Bruno's opinion is on this. I think that we don't have to introduce an ontological dualism, because the dualism is unavoidable from the machine points of view, if you agree to 1) model belief (by ideally arithmetically and self-referentially correct machine) by Gödel's provability. I can provide many reason to do that, even if it oversimplifies the problem. The interesting things is that it leads to an already very complex machine's theology. We might take it as a toy theology, but then all theories are sort of toys. 2) to accept that S4 (or T, = S4 without Bp - BBp) provides the best axiomatic theories for knowledge. Then it can be shown that the modality (Bp p) gives a notion of knowledge, i.e. (Bp p) obeys S4, even a stronger S4Grz theory. The relevant results here are that G* proves that Bp is equivalent with Bp p, but G does not prove that, and so, this is a point where the divine intellect (G*), the believer (G) and the kower (soul) Bp p, will completely differ, and this will account for a variety of dualism, unavoidable for the machine. So yes, this is neutral monism. The TOE is just arithmetic, and the definition above explains why, at the least, the machine will behaves as if dualism was true for her ... until she bet on comp and understand the talk of her own G*, without making the error of taking that talk for granted (because she cannot know, nor believe, nor even explictly express that she is correct). Hope this might help, but if you want I can explain more on G, G*, S4Grz, and the Z and X logics. Those are not logic invented to solve problems, like in analytical philosophy, but unavoidable nuances brought by the provably correct self-reference logic of machines in theoretical computer science.
Re: The free will function (errata)
On 2/25/2012 2:01 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/25/2012 4:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 24 Feb 2012, at 22:59, acw wrote: On 2/24/2012 12:59, David Nyman wrote: On 24 February 2012 11:52, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: I look at it like this, there's 3 notions: Mind (consciousness, experience), (Primitive) Matter, Mechanism. Those 3 notions are incompatible, but we have experience of all 3, mind is the sum of our experience and thus is the most direct thing possible, even if non-communicable, matter is what is directly inferred from our experience (but we don't know if it's the base of everything) and mechanism which means our experience is lawful (following rules). By induction we build mechanistic (mathematical) models of matter. We can't really avoid any of the 3: one is primary, the other is directly sensible, the other can be directly inferred. However, there are many thought experiments that illustrate that these notions are incompatible - you can have any 2 of them, but never all 3. Take away mind and you have eliminative materialism - denying the existence of mind to save primary matter and its mechanistic appearence. (This tends to be seen as a behavioral COMP). Too bad this is hard to stomach because all our theories are learned through our experiences, thus it's a bit self-defeating. Take away primitive matter and you have COMP and other platonic versions where matter is a mathematical shadow. Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside. This is disliked by those that wish matter was more fundamental or that it allows too many fantasies into reality (even if low-measure). Take away mechanism and you get some magical form of matter which cannot obey any rules - not even all possible rules Nice summary. You say Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside, which is essentially how Bruno puts it. However, this must still fall short of an identity claim - i.e. it seems obvious that mind is no more identical to math or computation than it is to matter, unless that relation is to be re-defined as categorically different. Math and mind are still distinct, though correlated. Do you think that such a duality can still be subsumed in some sort of neutral monism? Obviously not all computations have minds like ours associated with them. I'm not sure if identity is the right claim, but I'm not sure there's much to gain by adding extra indirection layers - it's not that consciousness is associated with some scribbles on a piece of paper, it's associated with some abstract truths and we could say that 3p-wise those truths look like some specific structure we can talk about (using pen and paper or computers), but at the same time, that that abstract structure does have some sensory experience associated with it. Other structure might represent some machines implementing some partial local physics. In that way it's neutral monist. We could try to keep experience separate and supervening on arithmetical truth, but I'm not sure if there's anything to gain by introducing such a dualism - it might make epistemological sense, but I'm not sure it makes sense ontologically. I'm rather unsure of such a move myself, I wonder what Bruno's opinion is on this. I think that we don't have to introduce an ontological dualism, because the dualism is unavoidable from the machine points of view, if you agree to 1) model belief (by ideally arithmetically and self-referentially correct machine) by Gödel's provability. I can provide many reason to do that, even if it oversimplifies the problem. The interesting things is that it leads to an already very complex machine's theology. We might take it as a toy theology, but then all theories are sort of toys. 2) to accept that S4 (or T, = S4 without Bp - BBp) provides the best axiomatic theories for knowledge. Then it can be shown that the modality (Bp p) gives a notion of knowledge, i.e. (Bp p) obeys S4, even a stronger S4Grz theory. The relevant results here are that G* proves that Bp is equivalent with Bp p, but G does not prove that, and so, this is a point where the divine intellect (G*), the believer (G) and the kower (soul) Bp p, will completely differ, and this will account for a variety of dualism, unavoidable for the machine. So yes, this is neutral monism. The TOE is just arithmetic, and the definition above explains why, at the least, the machine will behaves as if dualism was true for her ... until she bet on comp and understand the talk of her own G*, without making the error of taking that talk for granted (because she cannot know, nor believe, nor even explictly express that she is correct). Hope this might help, but if you want I can explain more on G, G*, S4Grz, and the Z and X logics. Those are not logic invented to solve problems, like in analytical philosophy, but unavoidable nuances brought by the provably correct self-reference
Re: The free will function
On Feb 25, 6:32 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 24, 8:22 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 23, 10:24 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation I don't know what you mean by subject to. They may well not be able to arrive at the actual facts beyond the simulation at all. Which is why they can't call them actual facts. To them, the simulation is the only facts. They do not exist outside of the simulation. But they are wrong about all that, or there is no sense to the claim that they are sims ITFP They are right about that. If I am a sim running on a computer somewhere, it doesn't matter to me at all where that is because I can never get our of this sim here to get to the world of the computer out there. That certain things don'tn matter to you doesn't change any facts. I am not a sim to myself of course, but if someone can pause the program, put horns on my head and start it again, it is because to them, I am a simulation. But that is an observation that *depends* on truth having a transcendent and objective nature. If truth is just what seems to you to be true, then they have the truth, as does every lunatic. You could make a simulation where the simulation changes to fit the delusions of a lunatic. You could even make them all lunatics and make their consciousness completely solipsistic. So? To in that simulated universe, lunacy would be truth. Luncacy might be believed. Not the same thing. I recommend using publically accessble language to enhance communication, not to discover new facts. I would rather enhance the content of the communication than the form. If the form renders the content inaccessible, what's the point? Because comp hasn't been around long enough to have traditions. That doesn't answer the question. You are proceding as if the meaning of a word *always* changes in different contexts. It does Says who? Why do you think it doesn't? Don't shift the burden. You are making the extraordinary claim. Do you mean the same thing today when you talk about having 'fun' as you did when you were in third grade? I am not disputing that some meanings change in some contexts. It;s true outside the game as well. Whatever you are trying to say. it is a poor analogy. You might try asking if you are really the top hat in Monopoly, or Throngar the Invincible in DD Those make the same point as well. Is it true that you are the top hat in Monopoly? If not then Monopoly is not a very strong simulation - which it isn't. A full immersion virtual DD campaign? That would be a stronger simulation and you could not so easily say that you aren't Throngar. Especially if you played him for a living...and changed your name legally...and got plastic surgery. At what point do you become Throngar? If there is any meaning to the word simulation, then it is never actual. That's simplistic. The whole point of a simulation is that is is as if it were actual in some sense. A flight simulator provides an actual experience that can seem like flying an actual plane. If you are on a plane where the pilot dies, do you ask the guy who has logged 1 hours on flight simulators to fly the plane or do you say they have no actual experience? That's irrelevant. The problem we keep running into is that you assume something... simulations exist...and then refuse to follow throught the consequences. No, you just aren't getting the overall concept of relativism. I understand it, but don;t agree with it. Comp claims that computation is all that is required for consciousness. This is what opens up a nonsense thesis about simulations having relative reality. I understand that is not the way it works. Consciousness is not emulable, only extendible. There is no simulation of red. Red is only red. Who we are is like that. Us-ness. Are you 1Z? Figurative is the word to focus on. Subjectivity is figurative. Meaning, perception, sensation...all figurative. Literal is the antithesis that is objectivity. But not actually supernatural at all, if he is a geek with BO and dandruff. That is the point you are missing. But the simulated beings can never access that information about their creator, so how can it be true for them? It can be true because it is true. Without some way to sense it or it's true that means nothing to us. It means something to non-relativists You have already assumed soemthing like that when you made the initial assumption that the simulation is a simulation. It may not be *knowable* to them, but that doesn't change the *meaning* of truth. The meaning of truth anticipate MWI. The two concepts may
Re: The free will function
On 2/21/2012 02:27, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 20, 2:53 pm, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 18:37, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 20, 10:32 am, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 13:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: .. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. If those observers are generally intelligent and capable of Turing-equivalent computation, they might theorize about many things, true or not. Just like we do, and just like we can't know if we're right. Right, but true = a true reflection of the simulation. If I make a simulation where I regularly stop the program and make miraculous changes, then the most intelligent observers might rightly conclude that there is an omnipotent entity capable of performing miracles. That would be the truth of that simulation. They might end up with a simulation hypothesis being more plausible than pure chance if there was evidence for it, such as non-reducible high-level behavior indicating intelligence and not following any obvious lower-level physical laws. However, 'omnipotent' is not the right word here. I already explained why before - in COMP, you can always escape the simulation, even if this is not always obvious from the 3p of the one doing the simulation. Escape it maybe to a universal arithmetic level, but I still can't get out of the software and into the world of the hardware. There is only apparent hardware in an arithmetical ontology. Which means that it can indeed escape to a world of apparent hardware outside of *your* control. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. That's more difficult than you'd think. In COMP, you identify local physics and your body with an infinity of lower-level machines which happen to be simulating *you* correctly (where *you* would be the structures required for your mind to work consistently). A simulation of a digital physics universe may implement some such observers *once* or maybe multiple times if you go for the extra effort, but never in *all* the cases (which are infinite). As long as it happens in any universe under MWI, then there must be an infinity of variations stemming from that universe, and under the anthropic principle, there is always a chance that you are living in a simulation within one such universe. I was just assuming COMP, which is a bit wider than MWI, but should contain a variant compatible with it. In COMP, it's highly likely you're living in a simulation, but you're also living in more primitive forms (such as directly in the UD) - your 1p is contained in an infinity of machines. You would only care if some of those happen to be a simulation if the one doing the simulation modifies the program/data or entangles it with his history, or merely provides a continuation for you in his world, however any such continuations in digital physics interventionist simulations would be low-measure. Whether you care or not is a different issue from whether or not you can tell the difference if you did want to. I don't see how one could tell the difference. However, what I was talking about is that if experiencing your modifications has a 1/n probability and the probability of continuing to experience for a next moment would be 1/n^m, and the next moment 1/n^m^m and so on, for very large n and m, it might not really matter from the perspective of most your SIMs. If such a programmer decides to intervene in his simulation, that wouldn't affect all the other machines implementing said simulation and said observers(for example in arithmetic or in some UD running somewhere), That depends entirely on what kind of intervention the programmer chooses. If she wants to make half of the population turn blue, she can, and then when the sim is turned back on, everyone gasps and proclaims a miracle of Biblical proportions. I wasn't talking about the multiple observers in the simulation, but merely that an observer, with which we identify with his 1p is implemented by an infinity of machines (!), only some part of that correspond to someone simulating them. If someone decides to modify the simulation at some point, then only a small fraction of those 1p's would diverge from the usual local laws-of-physics and becme entangled with the laws of those doing the simulation - such continuations would be low-measure. How does that apply to my example though? Are you saying I can't turn everyone
Re: The free will function
On 24 February 2012 11:52, acw a...@lavabit.com wrote: I look at it like this, there's 3 notions: Mind (consciousness, experience), (Primitive) Matter, Mechanism. Those 3 notions are incompatible, but we have experience of all 3, mind is the sum of our experience and thus is the most direct thing possible, even if non-communicable, matter is what is directly inferred from our experience (but we don't know if it's the base of everything) and mechanism which means our experience is lawful (following rules). By induction we build mechanistic (mathematical) models of matter. We can't really avoid any of the 3: one is primary, the other is directly sensible, the other can be directly inferred. However, there are many thought experiments that illustrate that these notions are incompatible - you can have any 2 of them, but never all 3. Take away mind and you have eliminative materialism - denying the existence of mind to save primary matter and its mechanistic appearence. (This tends to be seen as a behavioral COMP). Too bad this is hard to stomach because all our theories are learned through our experiences, thus it's a bit self-defeating. Take away primitive matter and you have COMP and other platonic versions where matter is a mathematical shadow. Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside. This is disliked by those that wish matter was more fundamental or that it allows too many fantasies into reality (even if low-measure). Take away mechanism and you get some magical form of matter which cannot obey any rules - not even all possible rules Nice summary. You say Mind becomes how some piece of abstract math feels from the inside, which is essentially how Bruno puts it. However, this must still fall short of an identity claim - i.e. it seems obvious that mind is no more identical to math or computation than it is to matter, unless that relation is to be re-defined as categorically different. Math and mind are still distinct, though correlated. Do you think that such a duality can still be subsumed in some sort of neutral monism? David On 2/21/2012 02:27, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 20, 2:53 pm, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 18:37, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 20, 10:32 am, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 13:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: .. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. If those observers are generally intelligent and capable of Turing-equivalent computation, they might theorize about many things, true or not. Just like we do, and just like we can't know if we're right. Right, but true = a true reflection of the simulation. If I make a simulation where I regularly stop the program and make miraculous changes, then the most intelligent observers might rightly conclude that there is an omnipotent entity capable of performing miracles. That would be the truth of that simulation. They might end up with a simulation hypothesis being more plausible than pure chance if there was evidence for it, such as non-reducible high-level behavior indicating intelligence and not following any obvious lower-level physical laws. However, 'omnipotent' is not the right word here. I already explained why before - in COMP, you can always escape the simulation, even if this is not always obvious from the 3p of the one doing the simulation. Escape it maybe to a universal arithmetic level, but I still can't get out of the software and into the world of the hardware. There is only apparent hardware in an arithmetical ontology. Which means that it can indeed escape to a world of apparent hardware outside of *your* control. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. That's more difficult than you'd think. In COMP, you identify local physics and your body with an infinity of lower-level machines which happen to be simulating *you* correctly (where *you* would be the structures required for your mind to work consistently). A simulation of a digital physics universe may implement some such observers *once* or maybe multiple times if you go for the extra effort, but never in *all* the cases (which are infinite). As long as it happens in any universe under MWI, then there must be an infinity of variations stemming from that universe, and under the anthropic principle, there is always a chance that you are living in a
Re: The free will function
On Feb 23, 10:24 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation I don't know what you mean by subject to. They may well not be able to arrive at the actual facts beyond the simulation at all. Which is why they can't call them actual facts. To them, the simulation is the only facts. They do not exist outside of the simulation. But they are wrong about all that, or there is no sense to the claim that they are sims ITFP But that is an observation that *depends* on truth having a transcendent and objective nature. If truth is just what seems to you to be true, then they have the truth, as does every lunatic. You could make a simulation where the simulation changes to fit the delusions of a lunatic. You could even make them all lunatics and make their consciousness completely solipsistic. So? I recommend using publically accessble language to enhance communication, not to discover new facts. I would rather enhance the content of the communication than the form. If the form renders the content inaccessible, what's the point? Because comp hasn't been around long enough to have traditions. That doesn't answer the question. You are proceding as if the meaning of a word *always* changes in different contexts. It does Says who? Not a bad thing, just not my thing. I don't do word definitions. I don't believe in them. Have you never seen a dictionary? I believe in dictionaries, but not definitions. I believe in movie critics but I don't believe that their opinions about movies are objectively true. I might agree with them, but that doesn't mean that it is possible for an opinion to be authoritatively definitive. Again, that is disbelief in a certain kind of definition. It;s true outside the game as well. Whatever you are trying to say. it is a poor analogy. You might try asking if you are really the top hat in Monopoly, or Throngar the Invincible in DD Those make the same point as well. Is it true that you are the top hat in Monopoly? If not then Monopoly is not a very strong simulation - which it isn't. A full immersion virtual DD campaign? That would be a stronger simulation and you could not so easily say that you aren't Throngar. Especially if you played him for a living...and changed your name legally...and got plastic surgery. At what point do you become Throngar? If there is any meaning to the word simulation, then it is never actual. The problem we keep running into is that you assume something... simulations exist...and then refuse to follow throught the consequences. Are you 1Z? Figurative is the word to focus on. Subjectivity is figurative. Meaning, perception, sensation...all figurative. Literal is the antithesis that is objectivity. But not actually supernatural at all, if he is a geek with BO and dandruff. That is the point you are missing. But the simulated beings can never access that information about their creator, so how can it be true for them? It can be true because it is true. You have already assumed soemthing like that when you made the initial assumption that the simulation is a simulation. It may not be *knowable* to them, but that doesn't change the *meaning* of truth. There's all the difference in the world between independent of specific hardware and independent of any hardware Yes. Neither of them indicate materialism within simulation though. So what? If you assume the need for physical hardware at the bottom of the stack, then consc. is not non-physical. It is relative to the inside of the simulation. Pac-Man's universe is non-physical (though it has physical themes). So what? That's still all illusion and delusion. if the sim is running on silicon, what does it matter that it seems not to be from the inside? If you meant there is no such thing as finally authoritative definition, you should have said so. If you meant there are too many definitions, not zero definitions, you should have said so. What I said is that I don't believe in definitions at all. But when asked to defend that claim, you switch to a different claim--that you don't believe in final, authoritative definitions. A legal dictionary? A theological dictionary? Language doesn't come from dictionaries. No. dictionaries reflect the shared meaning that communication depends on. They reflect the meaning, they don't provide the meaning. So? You offer idiosyncratic meaning sinstead of using the accepted ones, woth the consequence that ohther people don;t unnderstand you. You seem to understand me. Are you not people? I actually don't understand a lot of what you say at all. It's not that simple. We can communicate very successfully in all kinds of non-verbal ways. How do we use non verbal communication on Usenet?
Re: The free will function
On 23 Feb 2012, at 15:12, marty684 wrote: From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, February 23, 2012 4:48:10 AM Subject: Re: The free will function On 22 Feb 2012, at 18:17, marty684 wrote: Bruno, If everything is made of numbers (as in COMP) Nothing is made of. Everything appears in the mind of Universal numbers relatively to universal numbers, with hopefully reasonable relative statistics. Think about a dream. If you dream that you drink coffee, you can understand that such a coffee is not made of anything. The experience of coffee is due to some computation in your brain. With the big picture apparently implied by comp, even the brain is like that dreamed coffee: it is not made of anything. It is only locally made of things due to the infinitely many computations generating your actual state. The matrix metaphore, or the Galouye simulacron metaphore is not so bad. And we don't need more than the numbers + addition and multiplication to get an initial dreaming immaterial machinery. Thanks for this vivid clarification. But... Read UDA. You might understand that if we are machine (numbers relative to other numbers), then we cannot knowwhich machine we are, nor which computations supports us, among an infinity of them. Everything observablebecomes probabilistic. The probability bears on the infinitely many computations going through your actual state (that's why they are relative). Why should probability depend on us; on what we 'know or cannot know' ? On what is 'observable' to us? It seems to me that you are defining probability by that which is relative to our 'actual states'. Why can't we inhabit a seeminglyprobablistic part of an infinite, determined universe ? But that is the case. If you define the reality by a tiny part of arithmetic (equivalent with the UD), you have a deterministic structure, which from our points of view will look indeterministic. The probability are relative to us, because we are the one doing the experience. Suppose you decide to throw a coin. To predict what will happen to you you have to look at all the computation accessing the computational state you have when throwing the coin, and infer what will happen from a measure on the continuations. (If you've been over this before, please refer me to the relevant posts, thanks.) marty a. Read UDA, and ask question for each step, in case of problem, so we might single out the precise point where you don't succeed to grasp why comp put probabilities, or credibilities, uncertainties, in front of everything. UDA1-7 is enough to get this. UDA-8 is needed only for the more subtle immateriality point implied by computationalism. My attempts to read UDA were never successful. Sorry. May be you have a problem with my english. Please, begin by the step one, on page 4 of sane04, read it, and tell me precisely what you don't understand in the step 1. I might need to re-explain comp to you, or you can glance its definition on page 2. When you will grasp step 1, we will be able to go to the 2th step, and so one. 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: The free will function
From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, February 24, 2012 11:58:51 AM Subject: Re: The free will function On 23 Feb 2012, at 15:12, marty684 wrote: From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, February 23, 2012 4:48:10 AM Subject: Re: The free will function On 22 Feb 2012, at 18:17, marty684 wrote: Bruno, If everything is made of numbers (as in COMP) Nothing is made of. Everything appears in the mind of Universal numbers relatively to universal numbers, with hopefully reasonable relative statistics. Think about a dream. If you dream that you drink coffee, you can understand that such a coffee is not made of anything. The experience of coffee is due to some computation in your brain. With the big picture apparently implied by comp, even the brain is like that dreamed coffee: it is not made of anything. It is only locally made of things due to the infinitely many computations generating your actual state. The matrix metaphore, or the Galouye simulacron metaphore is not so bad. And we don't need more than the numbers + addition and multiplication to get an initial dreaming immaterial machinery. Thanks for this vivid clarification. But... Read UDA. You might understand that if we are machine (numbers relative to other numbers), then we cannot knowwhich machine we are, nor which computations supports us, among an infinity of them. Everything observablebecomes probabilistic. The probability bears on the infinitely many computations going through your actual state (that's why they are relative). Why should probability depend on us; on what we 'know or cannot know' ? On what is 'observable' to us? It seems to me that you are defining probability by that which is relative to our 'actual states'. Why can't we inhabit a seeminglyprobablistic part of an infinite, determined universe ? But that is the case. If you define the reality by a tiny part of arithmetic (equivalent with the UD), you have a deterministic structure, which from our points of view will look indeterministic. The probability are relative to us, because we are the one doing the experience. Suppose you decide to throw a coin. To predict what will happen to you you have to look at all the computation accessing the computational state you have when throwing the coin, and infer what will happen from a measure on the continuations. I'm delighted to learn that I understood you after all. Thanks for this further clarification. Read UDA, and ask question for each step, in case of problem, so we might single out the precise point where you don't succeed to grasp why comp put probabilities, or credibilities, uncertainties, in front of everything. UDA1-7 is enough to get this. UDA-8 is needed only for the more subtle immateriality point implied by computationalism.May be you have a problem with my english. Please, begin by the step one, on page 4 of sane04, read it, and tell me precisely what you don't understand in the step 1. I might need to re-explain comp to you, or you can glance its definition on page 2. My attempts to read UDA were never successful. Sorry. When you will grasp step 1, we will be able to go to the 2th step, and so one. Bruno I don't have a problem with your english. I have a problem with the logical complexity of your work. Also I no longer remember where to find the text you're referring to. Warmest wishes, marty http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 22 Feb 2012, at 18:17, marty684 wrote: Bruno, If everything is made of numbers (as in COMP) Nothing is made of. Everything appears in the mind of Universal numbers relatively to universal numbers, with hopefully reasonable relative statistics. Think about a dream. If you dream that you drink coffee, you can understand that such a coffee is not made of anything. The experience of coffee is due to some computation in your brain. With the big picture apparently implied by comp, even the brain is like that dreamed coffee: it is not made of anything. It is only locally made of things due to the infinitely many computations generating your actual state. The matrix metaphore, or the Galouye simulacron metaphore is not so bad. And we don't need more than the numbers + addition and multiplication to get an initial dreaming immaterial machinery. which can express states to an arbitrary degree of precision, is there any room for chance or probability? There is ONLY room for probability. The whole physics is made into a probability calculus. And if so, how do they arise? Read UDA. You might understand that if we are machine (numbers relative to other numbers), then we cannot know which machine we are, nor which computations supports us, among an infinity of them. Everything observable becomes probabilistic. The probability bears on the infinitely many computations going through your 'actual' state (that's why they are relative). (If you've been over this before, please refer me to the relevant posts, thanks.) marty a. Read UDA, and ask question for each step, in case of problem, so we might single out the precise point where you don't succeed to grasp why comp put probabilities, or credibilities, uncertainties, in front of everything. UDA1-7 is enough to get this. UDA-8 is needed only for the more subtle immateriality point implied by computationalism. 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: The free will function
From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, February 23, 2012 4:48:10 AM Subject: Re: The free will function On 22 Feb 2012, at 18:17, marty684 wrote: Bruno, If everything is made of numbers (as in COMP) Nothing is made of. Everything appears in the mind of Universal numbers relatively to universal numbers, with hopefully reasonable relative statistics. Think about a dream. If you dream that you drink coffee, you can understand that such a coffee is not made of anything. The experience of coffee is due to some computation in your brain. With the big picture apparently implied by comp, even the brain is like that dreamed coffee: it is not made of anything. It is only locally made of things due to the infinitely many computations generating your actual state. The matrix metaphore, or the Galouye simulacron metaphore is not so bad. And we don't need more than the numbers + addition and multiplication to get an initial dreaming immaterial machinery. Thanks for this vivid clarification. But... Read UDA. You might understand that if we are machine (numbers relative to other numbers), then we cannot know which machine we are, nor which computations supports us, among an infinity of them.Everything observable becomes probabilistic. The probability bears on the infinitely many computations going throughyour actual state (that's why they are relative). Why should probability depend on us; on what we 'know or cannot know' ? On what is 'observable' to us? It seems to me that you are defining probability by that which is relative to our 'actual states'. Why can't we inhabit a seemingly probablistic part of an infinite, determined universe ? (If you've been over this before, please refer me to the relevant posts, thanks.) marty a. Read UDA, and ask question for each step, in case of problem, so we might single out the precise point where you don't succeed to grasp why comp put probabilities, or credibilities, uncertainties, in front of everything. UDA1-7 is enough to get this. UDA-8 is needed only for the more subtle immateriality point implied by computationalism. My attempts to read UDA were never successful. Sorry. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 21, 10:41 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 21, 5:41 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: You are conflating the levels (as Bruno always tells me). The simulation has no access to extra-simulatory information, it is a complete sub-universe. It's logic is the whole truth which the inhabitants can only believe in or disbelieve to the extent which the simulation allows them that capacity. If the programmer wants all of his avatars to believe with all their hearts that there is a cosmic muffin controlling their universe, she has only to set the cosmic muffin belief subroutine = true for all her subjects. Read again. I didn't say no sim could have such-and-such an opinion, I said it would not be true. Your standard of truth appears to exclude any simulated content. No, my definition of truth just doens't change to something else when considering simulated contexts. Opinions can be right or wrong but the reality is that a programmer has omnipotent power over the conditions within the program. She may be a programmer, but she can make her simulation subjects think or experience whatever she wants them to. She may think of herself as their goddess, but she can appear to them as anything or nothing. Her power over them remains true and factually real. Same problem. Same linguistic literalism. You say that like its a bad thing. , it may make false but plausible beliefs in gods likely, but it cannot make supernatural gods inevitable because all the ingredients in it are natural or artificial. That has almost nothing to do with my argument. You are off in dictionary land. The fact remains that comp, rather than disallowing gods, makes it impossible to know if a Matrix Lord/Administrator has control over aspects of your life. That is a fact, when expressed properly. No, that is not at all an equivlaent claim. There may be no extension of magnetic monopole, but it is a meaningful concept. Supernatural can be meaningful if you want it to be, but in comp all it means is meta-programmatic or meta-simulation. Says who? I don't have to accept that the meaning of supernatural has to exchange to ensure that there are N0 supernatural entities. I can stick to the traditional meaning, and regard it as unpopulated and extensionless. What traditional meaning does 'supernatural' have in Comp? Why assume it has a non tradtional one. Why do I have to accept your linguistic preferences but you deny me the same right? Because we can communicate if we stick to accepted meanings, and communiction breaks down if you have a free hand to use invented meanings. It has no mystical charge. It is not what is impossible by the logic of the MWI universe, only what is impossible by the programmed logic of the UM-Sub Universes. Your argument is based on confusing the levels. If I force you to stay within the logic of comp, you have no argument. Apart from ...my argument. As given. Your argument now seems to be a word definition argument. You say that like its a bad thing. That why I said it from the start. Computational simulations can define anything as being natural or supernatural. And they may or may not be right. Opionion does not trump truth. The opinion of the programmer *is* truth to the programmed. It still isn't truth. As soon as you add a to or for clause, you are actually talking about opinion, even if you are using the *word* truth. If I score a point in a game is that the truth that I scored a point? Is anything in a game 'true' in your definition? Yes It is true that a game is being played, not just true-for-the- layers. Likewise, the simulation hypothesis requires simulation to be actually true and not just true-for. That's what makes them God. Being supernatural makes an entity god. And not just supernatural to or for someone. You are aware that there are many definitions for the word god. You are aware they broadly support what I amsaying, eg God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. --WP It seems like you have one particular one in mind which reads - whatever is the opposite of what Craig says it is. No. Huh? You could run it on vacuum tubes if you want. Or a stadium full of people holding up colored cards. The matter doesn't matter. What matters is that there is always some matter. I have never seen a simulation run on arithmetic. I absolutely agree. I'm talking about how comp sees it. Bruno;s comp. This is what comp is - functionalism. Functionalism isn't usually immaterialitic. A universe run on formula rather than stuff. I disagree with comp. I see stuff and formula as one half of a dialectic with self and experience. A cartoon is a simulation. A puppet show is a simulation. See? I say MWI could have all kinds of Gods (in
Re: The free will function
On Feb 23, 11:18 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 21, 10:41 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 21, 5:41 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: You are conflating the levels (as Bruno always tells me). The simulation has no access to extra-simulatory information, it is a complete sub-universe. It's logic is the whole truth which the inhabitants can only believe in or disbelieve to the extent which the simulation allows them that capacity. If the programmer wants all of his avatars to believe with all their hearts that there is a cosmic muffin controlling their universe, she has only to set the cosmic muffin belief subroutine = true for all her subjects. Read again. I didn't say no sim could have such-and-such an opinion, I said it would not be true. Your standard of truth appears to exclude any simulated content. No, my definition of truth just doens't change to something else when considering simulated contexts. That's because you aren't taking the simulation seriously. You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation. In comp though, it's all simulation. The only truly universal truths are arithmetic ones. Arithmetic doesn't care if it makes Gods or Administrators. Opinions can be right or wrong but the reality is that a programmer has omnipotent power over the conditions within the program. She may be a programmer, but she can make her simulation subjects think or experience whatever she wants them to. She may think of herself as their goddess, but she can appear to them as anything or nothing. Her power over them remains true and factually real. Same problem. Same linguistic literalism. You say that like its a bad thing. Not a bad thing, just an inappropriate thing for talking about fantasy simulations. Pipe fittings maybe, or legal analysis, but you are not going to find the secrets of consciousness by pointing at a dictionary. , it may make false but plausible beliefs in gods likely, but it cannot make supernatural gods inevitable because all the ingredients in it are natural or artificial. That has almost nothing to do with my argument. You are off in dictionary land. The fact remains that comp, rather than disallowing gods, makes it impossible to know if a Matrix Lord/Administrator has control over aspects of your life. That is a fact, when expressed properly. How would you express it? No, that is not at all an equivlaent claim. There may be no extension of magnetic monopole, but it is a meaningful concept. Supernatural can be meaningful if you want it to be, but in comp all it means is meta-programmatic or meta-simulation. Says who? I don't have to accept that the meaning of supernatural has to exchange to ensure that there are N0 supernatural entities. I can stick to the traditional meaning, and regard it as unpopulated and extensionless. What traditional meaning does 'supernatural' have in Comp? Why assume it has a non tradtional one. Because comp hasn't been around long enough to have traditions. Why do I have to accept your linguistic preferences but you deny me the same right? Because we can communicate if we stick to accepted meanings, and communiction breaks down if you have a free hand to use invented meanings. Just the opposite. Communication breaks down if you tie my hands to express new ideas in their native terms. Should discussions about early automotive horsepower been limited to literal horses? It has no mystical charge. It is not what is impossible by the logic of the MWI universe, only what is impossible by the programmed logic of the UM-Sub Universes. Your argument is based on confusing the levels. If I force you to stay within the logic of comp, you have no argument. Apart from ...my argument. As given. Your argument now seems to be a word definition argument. You say that like its a bad thing. Not a bad thing, just not my thing. I don't do word definitions. I don't believe in them. That why I said it from the start. Computational simulations can define anything as being natural or supernatural. And they may or may not be right. Opionion does not trump truth. The opinion of the programmer *is* truth to the programmed. It still isn't truth. As soon as you add a to or for clause, you are actually talking about opinion, even if you are using the *word* truth. If I score a point in a game is that the truth that I scored a point? Is anything in a game 'true' in your definition? Yes It is true that a game is being played, not just true-for-the- layers. Likewise, the simulation hypothesis requires simulation to be actually true and not just true-for. That was not my question. I asked if I score a point in a
Re: The free will function
On Feb 23, 7:43 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 23, 11:18 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 21, 5:41 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: You are conflating the levels (as Bruno always tells me). The simulation has no access to extra-simulatory information, it is a complete sub-universe. It's logic is the whole truth which the inhabitants can only believe in or disbelieve to the extent which the simulation allows them that capacity. If the programmer wants all of his avatars to believe with all their hearts that there is a cosmic muffin controlling their universe, she has only to set the cosmic muffin belief subroutine = true for all her subjects. Read again. I didn't say no sim could have such-and-such an opinion, I said it would not be true. Your standard of truth appears to exclude any simulated content. No, my definition of truth just doens't change to something else when considering simulated contexts. That's because you aren't taking the simulation seriously. Or because I am taking truth seriously. You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation I don't know what you mean by subject to. They may well not be able to arrive at the actual facts beyond the simulation at all. But that is an observation that *depends* on truth having a transcendent and objective nature. If truth is just what seems to you to be true, then they have the truth, as does every lunatic. . In comp though, it's all simulation. The only truly universal truths are arithmetic ones. That only arithmetic truth is truly true is not an arithmetic truth. But is is, as you put it, unviersal. Same problem. Same linguistic literalism. You say that like its a bad thing. Not a bad thing, just an inappropriate thing for talking about fantasy simulations. No. Fantasy can be expressed in literal language. In fact, it is better to do so, since the reader does not have to deal with the communicative double whammy of of weird ideas expressed in a weird way. Pipe fittings maybe, or legal analysis, but you are not going to find the secrets of consciousness by pointing at a dictionary. I recommend using publically accessble language to enhance communication, not to discover new facts. That has almost nothing to do with my argument. You are off in dictionary land. The fact remains that comp, rather than disallowing gods, makes it impossible to know if a Matrix Lord/Administrator has control over aspects of your life. That is a fact, when expressed properly. How would you express it? Not using the word god What traditional meaning does 'supernatural' have in Comp? Why assume it has a non tradtional one. Because comp hasn't been around long enough to have traditions. That doesn't answer the question. You are proceding as if the meaning of a word *always* changes in different contexts. Because we can communicate if we stick to accepted meanings, and communiction breaks down if you have a free hand to use invented meanings. Just the opposite. Communication breaks down if you tie my hands to express new ideas in their native terms. Should discussions about early automotive horsepower been limited to literal horses? That;s a poor example. Horsepower is literallty the power of one horse. Your argument now seems to be a word definition argument. You say that like its a bad thing. Not a bad thing, just not my thing. I don't do word definitions. I don't believe in them. Have you never seen a dictionary? Yes It is true that a game is being played, not just true-for-the- layers. Likewise, the simulation hypothesis requires simulation to be actually true and not just true-for. That was not my question. I asked if I score a point in a game, is that the truth that I scored a point. It;s true outside the game as well. Whatever you are trying to say. it is a poor analogy. You might try asking if you are really the top hat in Monopoly, or Throngar the Invincible in DD You are aware they broadly support what I amsaying, eg God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. --WP Since we are talking about simulations within a universe, the creator of that simulation is the overseer of the simulated universe and therefore 'supernatural' relative to the simulated beings in that universe. This is the crucial point you are overlooking. # But not actually supernatural at all, if he is a geek with BO and dandruff. That is the point you are missing. I absolutely agree. I'm talking about how comp sees it. Bruno;s comp. I think that all forms of comp consider the simulation independent from the specific hardware it runs on ( There's all the difference in the world between independent of specific hardware and independent of any
Re: The free will function
On Feb 23, 7:43 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 23, 11:18 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? This is your argument, not mine. My whole point is that God becomes natural, and inevitable under MWI + Comp. My point is that that argument requires the meaning of god to change, and, since language us public, you don't get to change it unilaterally. It changes a little every time you use it. There's an important difference between it changes and I am going to change it. Not for me. Then you are wrong. That's how words work. That is one side of the picture. Shared meaning is the other. That's what I'm saying, meaning is shared in between the lines. It doesn't rely on adhering to linguistic conventions strictly. between the lines is a vague, meaningless metaphor. Common meaning. OTOH, literallu is adhering to linguistic convention. I don't know how to get accross to you that it is about WHAT THE WORD GOD MEANS. I don't argue about what words mean. No: you don;t pay attention to the issue and so end up miscommunicating and talking past people. That happens with some people and not with others. Who have you succeeded in explaining yourself to? Different ways of thinking use words differently. I'm never trying to talk past people, I didn't suggest it was literal. We can invent as many words for it as we want, but none will be any more or less appropriate than God. Says who? Who doesn't say? Me. Why though? Because God has implications about who created the whole Shebang, and not just about which fallibel entity is able to lord it over even more fallible ones in the next layer down. Matrix Lord is fine though. -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 23, 3:51 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That's because you aren't taking the simulation seriously. Or because I am taking truth seriously. Seriously and literally are two different things. You are thinking that because you know it's a simulation it means that the observers within are subject to truths outside of the simulation I don't know what you mean by subject to. They may well not be able to arrive at the actual facts beyond the simulation at all. Which is why they can't call them actual facts. To them, the simulation is the only facts. They do not exist outside of the simulation. But that is an observation that *depends* on truth having a transcendent and objective nature. If truth is just what seems to you to be true, then they have the truth, as does every lunatic. You could make a simulation where the simulation changes to fit the delusions of a lunatic. You could even make them all lunatics and make their consciousness completely solipsistic. . In comp though, it's all simulation. The only truly universal truths are arithmetic ones. That only arithmetic truth is truly true is not an arithmetic truth. But is is, as you put it, unviersal. Universal only means that it is maximally common, not that it absolute or cannot be changed. In some MWI universe I might be able to make a simulation in which linguistic truth is fundamental instead and arithmetic truth is not universal. It could be populated by parrots who can't do math for shit but talk up a storm. Same problem. Same linguistic literalism. You say that like its a bad thing. Not a bad thing, just an inappropriate thing for talking about fantasy simulations. No. Fantasy can be expressed in literal language. In fact, it is better to do so, since the reader does not have to deal with the communicative double whammy of of weird ideas expressed in a weird way. Or it could lead to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiMD12xKOig Pipe fittings maybe, or legal analysis, but you are not going to find the secrets of consciousness by pointing at a dictionary. I recommend using publically accessble language to enhance communication, not to discover new facts. I would rather enhance the content of the communication than the form. That has almost nothing to do with my argument. You are off in dictionary land. The fact remains that comp, rather than disallowing gods, makes it impossible to know if a Matrix Lord/Administrator has control over aspects of your life. That is a fact, when expressed properly. How would you express it? Not using the word god Ohh, ok. My point in that though is to show how god is really no different from an administrator of a simulation that you are part of, and that such a simulation is inevitable under comp. What traditional meaning does 'supernatural' have in Comp? Why assume it has a non tradtional one. Because comp hasn't been around long enough to have traditions. That doesn't answer the question. You are proceding as if the meaning of a word *always* changes in different contexts. It does. It even changes within the same same context contextsince no two contexts are really completely the same. Meaning isn't an object. It has no fixed structure, it is figurative. Because we can communicate if we stick to accepted meanings, and communiction breaks down if you have a free hand to use invented meanings. Just the opposite. Communication breaks down if you tie my hands to express new ideas in their native terms. Should discussions about early automotive horsepower been limited to literal horses? That;s a poor example. Horsepower is literallty the power of one horse. When you get done shoving 200 of them into a Honda, let me know so I can see what literal horses look like. There is no such thing as the literal power of a horse. It is an second order logic - a figure which we use to represent a non-literal constellation of physical measures. Your argument now seems to be a word definition argument. You say that like its a bad thing. Not a bad thing, just not my thing. I don't do word definitions. I don't believe in them. Have you never seen a dictionary? I believe in dictionaries, but not definitions. I believe in movie critics but I don't believe that their opinions about movies are objectively true. I might agree with them, but that doesn't mean that it is possible for an opinion to be authoritatively definitive. Yes It is true that a game is being played, not just true-for-the- layers. Likewise, the simulation hypothesis requires simulation to be actually true and not just true-for. That was not my question. I asked if I score a point in a game, is that the truth that I scored a point. It;s true outside the game as well. Whatever you are trying to say. it is a poor analogy. You might try asking if you are really the top hat in
Re: The free will function
On Feb 23, 3:57 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 23, 7:43 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 23, 11:18 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? This is your argument, not mine. My whole point is that God becomes natural, and inevitable under MWI + Comp. My point is that that argument requires the meaning of god to change, and, since language us public, you don't get to change it unilaterally. It changes a little every time you use it. There's an important difference between it changes and I am going to change it. Not for me. Then you are wrong. No, I'm just in control of my own expression. I don't need permission alter it. That's how words work. That is one side of the picture. Shared meaning is the other. That's what I'm saying, meaning is shared in between the lines. It doesn't rely on adhering to linguistic conventions strictly. between the lines is a vague, meaningless metaphor. not at all. it is a tremendously successful and ubiquitous metaphor. It's in no way vague. It specifies precisely that communication is carried by the figurative gaps between words, not merely by the lines on the page. You have to connect the dots, figure it out, get to the point, see what they mean, etc. Common meaning. OTOH, literallu is adhering to linguistic convention. I don't know how to get accross to you that it is about WHAT THE WORD GOD MEANS. I don't argue about what words mean. No: you don;t pay attention to the issue and so end up miscommunicating and talking past people. That happens with some people and not with others. Who have you succeeded in explaining yourself to? I get almost entirely positive feedback from my blogs. It's only here and places like this where people complain. Different ways of thinking use words differently. I'm never trying to talk past people, I didn't suggest it was literal. You mean intentional? See - I was able to read in between the lines and see what you meant. Without a dictionary. We can invent as many words for it as we want, but none will be any more or less appropriate than God. Says who? Who doesn't say? Me. Why though? Because God has implications about who created the whole Shebang, and not Maybe to you. I didn't grow up in a religious family. 'God' has always been a creepy pyramid scheme to me. Besides, the Matrix Lord is the creator of simworld. just about which fallibel entity is able to lord it over even more fallible ones in the next layer down. Matrix Lord is fine though. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 21 Feb 2012, at 17:53, meekerdb wrote: On 2/21/2012 7:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Negative amplitude of probability comes from the formula p-[]p satisfied by the sigma_1 arithmetical sentences (that is the UD). How does that work? By using a theorem of Goldblatt which shows that: MQL proves A iff B proves t(A), MQL being a Minimal form of Quantum Logic and B being the Brouwersche modal logic, with axioms [ ](A-B) - ([ ]A - [ ]B), [ ]A - A, A-[ ]A, and the Modus Ponens rule + the necessitation rule. and the translation t(A) given by t(p) = [ ] p p atomic t(A B) = t(A) t(B) t(~A) = [ ] ~t(A) So B models an quantum orthologic, a bit like S4, or S4Grz, are known to model Intuitionist Logic. Now, the UD is modeled by the restriction of the arithmetical realisation of modal logic to the Sigma_1 arithmetical sentences, for which it can be shown that [ ](p-q) - ([ ]p - [ ]q), [ ]p - p, p- [ ]p, that is the axioms of B, when [ ]p is the result of the material hypostases translation, which I sum up often by Bp Dt (but which is really given by a translation like above). The MP rule is sound, but we lose the necessitation rule. Nevertheless we obtain still a quantum logic by using the reverse-Goldblatt translation, leading to an arithmetical interpretation of a sort of quantum logic, and this where the UDA shows we need to find the elementary logic of the yes/no observable in the comp physical reality. That was the first step in the verification that the comp physics fit empirical physics. Others have followed (orthomodularity, a violation of a Bell type of inequality). Unfortunately the translation of those nested modal operators (with many [ ]) makes the algorith intractable for more interesting physical formula. Hard to explain this without being technical, but more is said in sane04 and some other papers in my url. 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: The free will function
On 21 Feb 2012, at 19:26, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/21/2012 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 17:02, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 3:32 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Now comp makes almost all (not any) UMs' physics identical. That is not a weak assumption. In CTM, there is just physics, not one physics for each UTM, ? That's exactly what I am saying above. No it's the opposite. One global physics is a weaker, simpler ontology than multiple solipsistic physicses. I show that the CTM theory entais that physics is the same for all Löbian entity (machine or not), so that we canb derive physics from machine's introspection. The general shape is given by a relative sum on all computations. It depends for each machine to the competition between infinities of machines. Negative amplitude of probability comes from the formula p-[]p satisfied by the sigma_1 arithmetical sentences (that is the UD). Without this I would have already conclude that comp and/or the classical theory of knowledge is refuted. Does this introspection manifest all possible means of generating the appearance of other minds? The introspection is needed only to recognize and assess other minds, not for their generation. All the possible minds are already alive from arithmetic (even just sigma_1 arithmetic). It will be simpler for you to find a flaw in MGA than trying to define matter, I think. 1) a little does not equal none I don't use this. In MGA I use the fact that Physical Supervenience Thesis (PST) entails that consciousness need to be attributed to *arbitrary physical activity, including none, and that is absurd for comp+PS. If you don't see this, quote the passage, and let us discuss it really in detail. Could it be that the no physical activity mode of computational implementation is some kind of at infinity extrapolation, i.e. it is in principle achievable but only in some infinite limit? If this is true that we might have a chance of capturing a Gaussian measure in the finite approximation of this limit, otherwise the measure would vanish as one would have to included the non-constructable cases of computation. To much unclear for me. Sorry. Maudlin, and me, does not reduce the physical activity to show it unnecessary, we show it non relevant with respect to the computations. The Gaussian measure on the distinguishable 1-person states, comes from the iterated self-duplication, which shows that the resulting people can recognize at each step of the iteration the Pascal triangle partitioning, and the Gaussian measure is the limit of all such partitioning for the infinite iteration. It is the same reasoning, in Everett QM, to explain how a beam splitters is working. 2) redefine computation so that comptuational states must be causally connected. define causally, and tell me in which theory you work. Usually, when we implement a computation physically, or in any UMs, we just manage to implement the arithmetical causality in terms of the UMs capacity to link the computational states. Without this, the concept of implementation would not make sense. This is very weak reasoning as the notion of causation that you are using, based of the truth of Sigma_1 sentences, is contingent on the mathematical axioms that are chosen. On the contrary, Church thesis makes it independent of the choice of any formal system. 3) Given a choice between materalism and CTM, keep materialism, a la Maudlin. [CTM implies ~MAT] is equivalent with [MAT implies ~CTM]. You are not giving a refutation, but a rephrasing of a (partial) result. --- I comment some other posts by you: Shouldn't we open up our mind? John Mikes Maybe all multiversal theories are wrong and there is one univese. Is your mind open to that? Sure. But then QM and CTM are both false. The point is a point of reasoning, validity, not of conviction or truth. We know that QM is true modulo the experiments done so far. Testing CTM is difficult as we would have to show a non-computable physical process to falsify it. It is enough to compare empirical physics with the comp-physics. If it differs, we have a string evidence that we, whatever we are, are the non computational element. Up to now, QM fits with the comp-physics, which already make quasi obvious most of the quantum weirdness. Consideration of computational intractability, e.g. the NP-Complete problem is a hint but you do not seem to be interested in looking there. :-( NP concerns tractability issue, not the insolubility used in the derivation of physics. On Feb 20, 7:43 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 14:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: How do you know? Comp says we can't know whether we are artificial simulation or not. I am sorry, but I think this is false. I would
Re: The free will function
Bruno, If everything is made of numbers (as in COMP) which can express states to an arbitrary degree of precision, is there any room for chance or probability? And if so, how do they arise? (If you've been over this before, please refer me to the relevant posts, thanks.) marty a. -- 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: The free will function
On 2/22/2012 17:17, marty684 wrote: Bruno, If everything is made of numbers (as in COMP) which can express states to an arbitrary degree of precision, is there any room for chance or probability? And if so, how do they arise? (If you've been over this before, please refer me to the relevant posts, thanks.) marty a. There's an immense amount of chance (indeterminacy) from the 1st person perspective of the machine. Read the UDA (in Bruno's SANE2004 paper). The simplest example is the third step of the UDA. If someone makes 2 duplicate instances/copies of their selves (possible if brain admits a digital substitution level), we can expect to be either one or the other copy, with 1/2 probability. It's fairer than a classical coin toss, and likely the origin of the quantum nature of reality (see rest of UDA). -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 20, 7:43 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 14:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: How do you know? Comp says we can't know whether we are artificial simulation or not. I am sorry, but I think this is false. I would say that comp says that we are in infinitely many simulations at once, from a third person point of view on the first person points of view. This leads to verifiable (empirically) constraints. With comp we are in a complex matrix whose existence is deducible from the existence of universal numbers, whose existence is deducible from numbers and their two fist basic simple laws of + and *. Of course, Platonism/AR cannot be deduced mathematically: it is ontology. Both. What would be the meaning of any form of computationalism without the notion of computational realism? Peter alludes to the fact that most materialist ignores the incompatibility between comp and weak materialism, including physicalism. There is no such incompatibility. It is mutual redundancy, not mutual contradiction. What BM calls incompatibility actually hinges on Occams Razor, and O's R cuts both ways: AR/Platonism is redundant given materialism. -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 20, 6:37 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 20, 10:32 am, acw a...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 13:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: .. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. If those observers are generally intelligent and capable of Turing-equivalent computation, they might theorize about many things, true or not. Just like we do, and just like we can't know if we're right. Right, but true = a true reflection of the simulation. No. True = true of unsimulated reality. If I make a simulation where I regularly stop the program and make miraculous changes, then the most intelligent observers might rightly conclude that there is an omnipotent entity They can only wrongly conclude that since you are not omnipotent. -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 20, 5:38 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. But then why did you say There is something that prevents infinite nonsense universes? How did you find this out, did you somehow check on every one of those infinite number of Many Worlds to see? John K Clark Good question. CW doesn't seem to be subject to the same epistemic contraints as the rest of us. Maybe he IS God! -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 20, 1:45 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological control means god or supernaural You don't have to agree, but if you are being honest you would have to admit that it's irrational. If I can stop your universe, make changes to your mind, your memory, your environment, the laws of your universe and then start it back up, how does that not make me your God? You are natural. How do you know? Comp says we can't know whether we are artificial simulation or not. That doens't make you supernatural. You can fire a horse through the air usign a giant catapuilt, but I don't have to agree it's Pegasus. No but you have to agree that it is possible to believe that it is a Pegasus The ability to beieve falsehoods has no interesting implications. and that is all that is required. But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. So? Is appearance reality? That is what comp says. Bruno;s theory or the Computational Theory of Mind. Both. Nonsense. CTM is a scientific theory. What would be the meaning of any form of computationalism without the notion of computational realism? What do you mean by computational realism? The simulation is reality as far as the simulatees are concerned. And if they are wrong, it still isn't the real reality. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong, the simulation is still their reality. their reality=appearance=/= reality. Pac Man could believe that he is Bugs Bunny but the possibility of that belief is generated by the simulation logic behind Pac Man. For Pac Man, the Pac Man game is the real reality. That is what comp is all about - proving that our experience of the universe is indistinguishable from a simulation of that same experience. But it it is in reality simulated, it is in reality simulated, and our reality is delusional. You seem to be arguing appearance=reality on the premise that opinion=truth. Not at all. I think that you are injecting that because you need me to be wrong. Comp implies that appearance is not the whole reality, but the possibility of an appearance arises from the whole reality, which is in fact a logical program. That is uncontentious. It is also not what you are saying elsewhere. Appearances may not reflect the truest level of the simulation, but appearances all reflect some believable representation of the simulation's function. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. Can't a red pill be programmed in? If you know yourself to be natural, you cannot regard your creations as supernatural. The denizens of a sim might regard their programmer as God, but he knows better. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. ANd I am saying that is fallacious. CTM, MWI and AP are all sceintific princples with no room for the supernatural. SInce gods are supernatural by definition, no belief in a god arising in such circumsntances is *correct*, be it every so persuasive. Did say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean poisonous. Poisonous is a term with a more literal meaning. 'Natural' has no place in MWI, comp, or the anthropic principle. I'm surprised that you would use it. I thought most people here were on board with comp's view that silicon machines could be no less natural as conscious agents than living organisms. What we are arguing about is the supernatural. No. What you are arguing about is the supernatural. What I am arguing about are gods Gods are supernatural by definition. (entities with absolute superiority or omnipotence over the subordinate entities who inhabit the simulations they create) and their inevitability in MWI. That's superbeings, not gods. You do not rescue the supernatural by rendering the natural meaningless. Why not? Because, if the one is meaningless, so is the other. Besides, as I keep saying, I am not trying to rescue the supernatural, I am pointing out that God is not supernatural at all, it is an accurate description of the relationship between the programmer and the programmed. Gods are superntarual by definition. You can no more provide evidecne of a natural god than of a married bachelor. I don't know. Who? You. No, you have
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 8:52 pm, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2012/2/20 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com He said and I quote and emphasis: Now comp makes **almost all** (not any) UMs' physics identical. Note that there will still be an infinite variety of HP/WR physics even if it is a small subset of the whole. -- 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: The free will function
2012/2/21 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com On Feb 20, 8:52 pm, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2012/2/20 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com He said and I quote and emphasis: Now comp makes **almost all** (not any) UMs' physics identical. Note that there will still be an infinite variety of HP/WR physics even if it is a small subset of the whole. Sure but it must be of low measure... and this is compatible with QM. Quentin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- 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: The free will function
On 2/21/2012 5:41 AM, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 1:45 pm, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological control means god or supernaural You don't have to agree, but if you are being honest you would have to admit that it's irrational. If I can stop your universe, make changes to your mind, your memory, your environment, the laws of your universe and then start it back up, how does that not make me your God? You are natural. How do you know? Comp says we can't know whether we are artificial simulation or not. That doens't make you supernatural. Hi Craig, I think that you are missing a point here. COMP is showing us how there is no inherent bias on what we can believe ourselves to be, thus it is throwing open the options. This is a good with with regards to Free Will for without the multiplicity of options or alternatives there is no choice. We just would be one thing and there would be no debate on free will. You can fire a horse through the air usign a giant catapuilt, but I don't have to agree it's Pegasus. No but you have to agree that it is possible to believe that it is a Pegasus The ability to beieve falsehoods has no interesting implications. False, Semantics is said to only be possible because we can lie, i.e. if we cannot lie then we cannot tell truths either. See Umberto Echo's Semiotics Theory http://books.google.com/books?id=RaFrIAAJq=lie#search_anchor pg. 7. and that is all that is required. But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. So? Is appearance reality? That is what comp says. Bruno;s theory or the Computational Theory of Mind. Both. Nonsense. CTM is a scientific theory. It is scientific if it is falsifiable. Is it? What would be the meaning of any form of computationalism without the notion of computational realism? What do you mean by computational realism? The belief that what is real is what is computable or expressible with enumerable recursive functions. The simulation is reality as far as the simulatees are concerned. And if they are wrong, it still isn't the real reality. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong, the simulation is still their reality. their reality=appearance=/= reality. This is really a debate about Realism, no? Pac Man could believe that he is Bugs Bunny but the possibility of that belief is generated by the simulation logic behind Pac Man. For Pac Man, the Pac Man game is the real reality. That is what comp is all about - proving that our experience of the universe is indistinguishable from a simulation of that same experience. But it it is in reality simulated, it is in reality simulated, and our reality is delusional. It is delusion only if there are alternative realities against which we can judge the validity of such statements as what I am experiencing at this moment is not real. You seem to be arguing appearance=reality on the premise that opinion=truth. Not at all. I think that you are injecting that because you need me to be wrong. Comp implies that appearance is not the whole reality, but the possibility of an appearance arises from the whole reality, which is in fact a logical program. That is uncontentious. It is also not what you are saying elsewhere. Appearances may not reflect the truest level of the simulation, but appearances all reflect some believable representation of the simulation's function. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. Can't a red pill be programmed in? No, as that would render the entire edifice of alternatives impossible and thus not even conceivable. If you know yourself to be natural, you cannot regard your creations as supernatural. The denizens of a sim might regard their programmer as God, but he knows better. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. ANd I am saying that is fallacious. CTM, MWI and AP are all sceintific princples with no room for the supernatural. SInce gods are supernatural by definition, no belief in a god arising in such circumsntances is *correct*, be it every so persuasive. Would A.C. Clarck's dictum have an answer to this all sufficiently advanced technology appears to be magic? Did say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean poisonous. Poisonous is a term with a more literal
Re: The free will function
On 20 Feb 2012, at 17:02, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 3:32 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 09:59, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 6:52 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 05:20, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Comp says that any UM's experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right? Computaionalism or Bruno's comp? We have already discussed this. Comp, as I use it, is a much weaker hypothesis than most forms of CTM, ? given that comp allows the substitution level to be arbitrarily low, and is based on the notion of generalized brain. So comp's logical consequences are automatically lifted on all forms of CTM, which presuppose some high subst. level. Now comp makes almost all (not any) UMs' physics identical. That is not a weak assumption. In CTM, there is just physics, not one physics for each UTM, ? That's exactly what I am saying above. No it's the opposite. One global physics is a weaker, simpler ontology than multiple solipsistic physicses. I show that the CTM theory entais that physics is the same for all Löbian entity (machine or not), so that we canb derive physics from machine's introspection. The general shape is given by a relative sum on all computations. It depends for each machine to the competition between infinities of machines. Negative amplitude of probability comes from the formula p-[]p satisfied by the sigma_1 arithmetical sentences (that is the UD). Without this I would have already conclude that comp and/or the classical theory of knowledge is refuted. and there is a physical hardware platform at level 0. A level 0 that nobody has ever seen, nor even defined or use in physics. Occam;s razor says we should assume what we see is level 0. Occam razor says that we must not assume ontologicaly what we can explain phenomenologically. That why QM + Occam = MWI = QM without collapse. With CTM, we have that the theory of everything is arithmetic, for it explains why and how numbers, relatively to other numbers develop stable and persistent beliefs and knowledge about quanta and qualia. And which comp shows to be the bullet preventing progress in fundamental cognitive science. Computationalism is just epistemologically incompatible with materialism (weak materialism). According to a string of controversial arguments. You have already acknowledge that there is no error in UDA1-7, I never said anything of the kind. I asked you, after a summing up of the argument, and we got into a long conversation on step 8 only. I debunked earlier critics of the step 0 (the definition of comp) because you asserted it was platonist, when I insist that it is only realist on arithmetic, and this means that we just agree with the validity of (A V ~A) for arithmetical sentences. and when I asked you about the UDA-8 (MGA), you did not mention an error, but make a confession of faith in Primitive Matter instead. Then I asked you to define it, and I am still waiting for a reply making sense. Not according to computationalists, 99% of whom have have never questioned computers and brains are made of matter. Give me definition and proof. Physicists acknowledge the fuzziness of the notion of matter, even with the MWI, even more with any candidate for marrying GR and QM. Not being able to define matter and disbelieving in it are two very different issues. I am OK with this. For example consciousness, reality, truth, etc. are all concept which are intuitively not definable, and have been proved to be not definable in the comp (meta) theory, and in the machines' discourse (that is formally). But primitive matter is different. Not only we cannot define it, but we cannot experiment with it, we cannot experience it, nor find any use of the notion in physics, nor even mention of it. It is only a vague everyday-like extrapolation from our animal experience. In occident, science is born from taking some distance from such kind of idea. Given more than 2000 years of not being able to solve the mind body problem, we should not take it for granted, at the least. It is true that almost all computationalist philosophers believe in matter, but they are unaware of both computer science and of the UDA reasoning. Lucky them. The UDA argument rests on Platonism. Oh no! You are coming back with this? I already answer this by asking you to prove this. To show me where in the paper I assume Platonism. The Platonism comes from the conclusion. I use only the minimal amount of arithmetical realism to give sense to Church thesis. Nothing else. Non Patonists are fully entitled to disregard it. Others might wish to treat it as a reductio of Platonism. This is philosophical nonsense. COMP + the usual occam used in
Re: The free will function
On 21 Feb 2012, at 14:03, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2012/2/21 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com On Feb 20, 8:52 pm, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2012/2/20 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com He said and I quote and emphasis: Now comp makes **almost all** (not any) UMs' physics identical. Note that there will still be an infinite variety of HP/WR physics even if it is a small subset of the whole. Sure but it must be of low measure... and this is compatible with QM. Yes. With QM without collapse, there are also infinite varieties of HP/ WR first person (even plural) realities. But they are relatively rare, and when plural, they are very unstable. The probability to get there is something like 1/big number, and the probability to stay there is (1/bib number)^big number. --Why do you build each week a lottery ticket, given that you have never won? --Oh, I continue to play *every week* because my goal is to win ten times in a row ... :) Bruno Quentin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- 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 . 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: The free will function
On 2/21/2012 5:43 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: I think that you are missing a point here. COMP is showing us how there is no inherent bias on what we can believe ourselves to be, thus it is throwing open the options. This is a good with with regards to Free Will for without the multiplicity of options or alternatives there is no choice. Options implies one-or-the-other. All the theories based on COMP and MWI assume there is no choice and everything happens. 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: The free will function
On 2/21/2012 7:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Negative amplitude of probability comes from the formula p-[]p satisfied by the sigma_1 arithmetical sentences (that is the UD). How does that work? 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: The free will function
On 2/21/2012 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 17:02, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 3:32 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 09:59, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 6:52 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 05:20, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Comp says that any UM's experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right? Computaionalism or Bruno's comp? We have already discussed this. Comp, as I use it, is a much weaker hypothesis than most forms of CTM, ? given that comp allows the substitution level to be arbitrarily low, and is based on the notion of generalized brain. So comp's logical consequences are automatically lifted on all forms of CTM, which presuppose some high subst. level. Now comp makes almost all (not any) UMs' physics identical. That is not a weak assumption. In CTM, there is just physics, not one physics for each UTM, ? That's exactly what I am saying above. No it's the opposite. One global physics is a weaker, simpler ontology than multiple solipsistic physicses. I show that the CTM theory entais that physics is the same for all Löbian entity (machine or not), so that we canb derive physics from machine's introspection. The general shape is given by a relative sum on all computations. It depends for each machine to the competition between infinities of machines. Negative amplitude of probability comes from the formula p-[]p satisfied by the sigma_1 arithmetical sentences (that is the UD). Without this I would have already conclude that comp and/or the classical theory of knowledge is refuted. Does this introspection manifest all possible means of generating the appearance of other minds? and there is a physical hardware platform at level 0. A level 0 that nobody has ever seen, nor even defined or use in physics. Occam;s razor says we should assume what we see is level 0. Occam razor says that we must not assume ontologicaly what we can explain phenomenologically. That why QM + Occam = MWI = QM without collapse. With CTM, we have that the theory of everything is arithmetic, for it explains why and how numbers, relatively to other numbers develop stable and persistent beliefs and knowledge about quanta and qualia. And which comp shows to be the bullet preventing progress in fundamental cognitive science. Computationalism is just epistemologically incompatible with materialism (weak materialism). According to a string of controversial arguments. You have already acknowledge that there is no error in UDA1-7, I never said anything of the kind. I asked you, after a summing up of the argument, and we got into a long conversation on step 8 only. I debunked earlier critics of the step 0 (the definition of comp) because you asserted it was platonist, when I insist that it is only realist on arithmetic, and this means that we just agree with the validity of (A V ~A) for arithmetical sentences. and when I asked you about the UDA-8 (MGA), you did not mention an error, but make a confession of faith in Primitive Matter instead. Then I asked you to define it, and I am still waiting for a reply making sense. Not according to computationalists, 99% of whom have have never questioned computers and brains are made of matter. Give me definition and proof. Physicists acknowledge the fuzziness of the notion of matter, even with the MWI, even more with any candidate for marrying GR and QM. Not being able to define matter and disbelieving in it are two very different issues. I am OK with this. For example consciousness, reality, truth, etc. are all concept which are intuitively not definable, and have been proved to be not definable in the comp (meta) theory, and in the machines' discourse (that is formally). But primitive matter is different. Not only we cannot define it, but we cannot experiment with it, we cannot experience it, nor find any use of the notion in physics, nor even mention of it. It is only a vague everyday-like extrapolation from our animal experience. In occident, science is born from taking some distance from such kind of idea. Given more than 2000 years of not being able to solve the mind body problem, we should not take it for granted, at the least. It is true that almost all computationalist philosophers believe in matter, but they are unaware of both computer science and of the UDA reasoning. Lucky them. The UDA argument rests on Platonism. Oh no! You are coming back with this? I already answer this by asking you to prove this. To show me where in the paper I assume Platonism. The Platonism comes from the conclusion. I use only the minimal amount of arithmetical realism to give sense to Church thesis. Nothing else. Non Patonists are fully entitled to disregard it. Others
Re: The free will function
On 2/21/2012 11:45 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 2/21/2012 5:43 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: I think that you are missing a point here. COMP is showing us how there is no inherent bias on what we can believe ourselves to be, thus it is throwing open the options. This is a good with with regards to Free Will for without the multiplicity of options or alternatives there is no choice. Options implies one-or-the-other. All the theories based on COMP and MWI assume there is no choice and everything happens. Brent Hi Brent, Your assertion is true but irrelevant because the agency aspect of choice does not span all of the happenings simultaneously. We have a notion of free will because we cannot be conscious of all the superposed possibilities. The point is that we can conveive multiple possibility from which we can imagine making a choice. Ben Goertzel's paper, found here http://www.google.com/url?sa=trct=jq=%22hyperset+models+of+self%2C+Will+and+Reflective+consciousness%22source=webcd=1ved=0CCEQFjAAurl=http%3A%2F%2Fgoertzel.org%2Fconsciousness%2Fconsciousness_paper.pdfei=t-NDT4m_O5CUtwft1tyaBQusg=AFQjCNGPbt16jLOtezl_8Cg0vfBxcOYdhwcad=rja, explains this quite well IMHO. Onward! Stephen -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 21, 5:21 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 6:37 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Right, but true = a true reflection of the simulation. No. True = true of unsimulated reality. Where is there unsimulated reality in comp? If I make a simulation where I regularly stop the program and make miraculous changes, then the most intelligent observers might rightly conclude that there is an omnipotent entity They can only wrongly conclude that since you are not omnipotent. Those who I find doubting my omnipotence will find that there are more important things than not being wrong. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 21, 5:41 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: You are natural. How do you know? Comp says we can't know whether we are artificial simulation or not. That doens't make you supernatural. Why would I be? I'm not the administrator of a virtual universe. You can fire a horse through the air usign a giant catapuilt, but I don't have to agree it's Pegasus. No but you have to agree that it is possible to believe that it is a Pegasus The ability to beieve falsehoods has no interesting implications. Why not? Fiction is arguably the basis for all culture. I'm not talking about that though, I'm referring to comp's view of epistemology. That's the whole question is whether the truths of our universe are as true as any to us. and that is all that is required. But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. So? Is appearance reality? That is what comp says. Bruno;s theory or the Computational Theory of Mind. Both. Nonsense. CTM is a scientific theory. What does that have to do with it's conception of in-simulation epistemology? What would be the meaning of any form of computationalism without the notion of computational realism? What do you mean by computational realism? That the reality within any simulation derives from computation rather than material substance. The simulation is reality as far as the simulatees are concerned. And if they are wrong, it still isn't the real reality. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong, the simulation is still their reality. their reality=appearance=/= reality. What is reality without an appearance? If the only world I know is not my reality, then what is it? Pac Man could believe that he is Bugs Bunny but the possibility of that belief is generated by the simulation logic behind Pac Man. For Pac Man, the Pac Man game is the real reality. That is what comp is all about - proving that our experience of the universe is indistinguishable from a simulation of that same experience. But it it is in reality simulated, it is in reality simulated, and our reality is delusional. It's simulated from our perspective, but from inside the simulation it's the only reality there is - according to comp. Of course I disagree with comp. You seem to be arguing appearance=reality on the premise that opinion=truth. Not at all. I think that you are injecting that because you need me to be wrong. Comp implies that appearance is not the whole reality, but the possibility of an appearance arises from the whole reality, which is in fact a logical program. That is uncontentious. It is also not what you are saying elsewhere. I'm giving you the comp version. I don't subscribe to it personally, so I have no reason to talk about it elsewhere. Appearances may not reflect the truest level of the simulation, but appearances all reflect some believable representation of the simulation's function. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. Can't a red pill be programmed in? Not unless you are already a being outside the simulation who is participating vicariously. Different than being a native entity born within a simulation. If you know yourself to be natural, you cannot regard your creations as supernatural. The denizens of a sim might regard their programmer as God, but he knows better. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. ANd I am saying that is fallacious. CTM, MWI and AP are all sceintific princples with no room for the supernatural. SInce gods are supernatural by definition This is just begging the question and arguing from authority. Your claim is that the word 'scientific' wards off the supernatural and that alone makes anything that anyone decides is supernatural impossible. I'm telling you that because 1. comp makes godlike influence over a simulation possible 2. MWI makes such influence and simulations inevitable 3. AP makes the relative numbers of MWI universes with godlike simulation influence irrelevant. 4. comp makes it impossible to tell whether such influence is physics or extra-simulation intervention from inside the sim. Therefore, whatever your reality, if you believe Comp and AP, then you could be in a simulation subject to godlike intervention. , no belief in a god arising in such circumsntances is *correct*, be it every so persuasive. Are you saying that a belief can only be true if it
Re: The free will function
On Feb 21, 8:03 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 21, 5:21 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 6:37 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Right, but true = a true reflection of the simulation. No. True = true of unsimulated reality. Where is there unsimulated reality in comp? As ever, that depends what you mean by comp. CTM doens't require anything to be simulated at all. in Bruno;s Platonic COMP, the unsimulated reailty is a Plato's heaven full of numbers. If I make a simulation where I regularly stop the program and make miraculous changes, then the most intelligent observers might rightly conclude that there is an omnipotent entity They can only wrongly conclude that since you are not omnipotent. Those who I find doubting my omnipotence will find that there are more important things than not being wrong. Well, you're not simulating me, so i remain unpersuaded. -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 21, 10:41 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 21, 5:41 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: How do you know? Comp says we can't know whether we are artificial simulation or not. That doens't make you supernatural. Why would I be? I'm not the administrator of a virtual universe. You would not be supernatural if you were. The ability to beieve falsehoods has no interesting implications. Why not? Fiction is arguably the basis for all culture. Only it arguably isn't, because without the fiction/fact distinction, science would not be science. I'm not talking about that though, I'm referring to comp's view of epistemology. Comp has to justify itself in the face of epistemology not vice versa. That's the whole question is whether the truths of our universe are as true as any to us. Both. Nonsense. CTM is a scientific theory. What does that have to do with it's conception of in-simulation epistemology? The issue is whether Bruno's Comp = science's CTM. Since CTM requires nothing to be simulated, and has no epistemoloogical implications, the two are not the same. What would be the meaning of any form of computationalism without the notion of computational realism? What do you mean by computational realism? That the reality within any simulation derives from computation rather than material substance. OK. Then the answer to What would be the meaning of any form of computationalism without the notion of computational realism? would be something like There is a real reality, containing humans and their brains, and human the human mind is like software running on the hardware of the real physical brain, and that is the Computational Theory of Mind. The simulation is reality as far as the simulatees are concerned. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong, the simulation is still their reality. their reality=appearance=/= reality. What is reality without an appearance? If the only world I know is not my reality, then what is it? The answer is supplied by the Simulation Hypothesis, the Deception Hypothesis, etc. if you world is simulated, then reality is the place where and means wheresby it is being simulatd. The Simulation Hypothesis--which you call comp-- is a claim about reality. To claim that what you know is not reality because it is simulated is to claim something else is reality. But it it is in reality simulated, it is in reality simulated, and our reality is delusional. It's simulated from our perspective, but from inside the simulation it's the only reality there is - according to comp.r False. It is not the Only Reality There Is Accoding to Comp, because there hypothses state that there is a ground level... the lab where the sim is running (or Platonia in Bruno's case). Not at all. I think that you are injecting that because you need me to be wrong. Comp implies that appearance is not the whole reality, but the possibility of an appearance arises from the whole reality, which is in fact a logical program. That is uncontentious. It is also not what you are saying elsewhere. I'm giving you the comp version. I don't subscribe to it personally, so I have no reason to talk about it elsewhere. You have given me two versions of comp. It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. Can't a red pill be programmed in? Not unless you are already a being outside the simulation who is participating vicariously. Prove that. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. ANd I am saying that is fallacious. CTM, MWI and AP are all sceintific princples with no room for the supernatural. SInce gods are supernatural by definition This is just begging the question and arguing from authority. No, it is valid analytical apriori argument. Your claim is that the word 'scientific' wards off the supernatural and that alone makes anything that anyone decides is supernatural impossible. I'm telling you that because 1. comp makes godlike influence over a simulation possible Godlike only in a delusional sense. 2. MWI makes such influence and simulations inevitable not necessarily. Depends on the flavour. 3. AP makes the relative numbers of MWI universes with godlike simulation influence irrelevant. 4. comp makes it impossible to tell whether such influence is physics or extra-simulation intervention from inside the sim. Yep. and impossible to tell--epistemic inaccessibility-- still doens't mean there is no fact of the matter. You assume absolute, transcendent facts when you
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 6:52 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 05:20, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Comp says that any UM's experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right? Computaionalism or Bruno's comp? We have already discussed this. Comp, as I use it, is a much weaker hypothesis than most forms of CTM, given that comp allows the substitution level to be arbitrarily low, and is based on the notion of generalized brain. So comp's logical consequences are automatically lifted on all forms of CTM, which presuppose some high subst. level. Now comp makes almost all (not any) UMs' physics identical. That is not a weak assumption. In CTM, there is just physics, not one physics for each UTM, and there is a physical hardware platform at level 0. Computationalism is just epistemologically incompatible with materialism (weak materialism). According to a string of controversial arguments. Not according to computationalists, 99% of whom have have never questioned computers and brains are made of matter. We could say that comp makes the notion of primitive matter supernatural. 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: The free will function
On 2/20/2012 13:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: .. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. If those observers are generally intelligent and capable of Turing-equivalent computation, they might theorize about many things, true or not. Just like we do, and just like we can't know if we're right. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. That's more difficult than you'd think. In COMP, you identify local physics and your body with an infinity of lower-level machines which happen to be simulating *you* correctly (where *you* would be the structures required for your mind to work consistently). A simulation of a digital physics universe may implement some such observers *once* or maybe multiple times if you go for the extra effort, but never in *all* the cases (which are infinite). If such a programmer decides to intervene in his simulation, that wouldn't affect all the other machines implementing said simulation and said observers(for example in arithmetic or in some UD running somewhere), however a small part of the simulations containing observers will now be only implemented by the physics of the upper programmer's universe (and become entangled with them), possibly meaning a reduction in measure, however the probability of ending up in such a simulation is very low and as time passes it becomes less and less likely that said observers would keep on remaining in that simulation - if they die or malfunction (that's just one example), there will be continuations for them which are no longer supported by the upper programmer's physics. There can never be correct worship of some Matrix Lord/Administrator/... as they are not what is responsible for such observers being conscious, at best such programmers are only responsible for finding some particular program and increasing its measure with respect to the programmer's universe. Of course, if such a programmer wants to lift some beings from his simulation to run in his universe, he could do that and those would be valid continuations for the being living in that simulation. Running a physics simulation is akin to looking into a window, not to an act of universe creation, even if it may look like that from the simulator's perspective. Did say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean poisonous. Poisonous is a term with a more literal meaning. 'Natural' has no place in MWI, comp, or the anthropic principle. I'm surprised that you would use it. I thought most people here were on board with comp's view that silicon machines could be no less natural as conscious agents than living organisms. What we are arguing about is the supernatural. No. What you are arguing about is the supernatural. What I am arguing about are gods (entities with absolute superiority or omnipotence over the subordinate entities who inhabit the simulations they create) and their inevitability in MWI. Except there is no omnipotence. The default meaning of the word is inconsistent, thus it's an impossible property. You can't change the truth of mathematical sentences. Physical omnipotence? Possible, but as I said before, it's very low probability to find yourself in an universe ruled by an interventionist god, at least in COMP, due to 1p-indeterminacy. For such a god to have complete control over you, he'd have toto handle all counterfactuals, which is not possible due to Rice's theorem. The only thing such a being can do is feel like he is in control when he modifies a simulation, he can't control all possible continuations observers in his simulation can take. If he wants to more directly affect them, he'd have to be on an even footing them with - in the same universe or in a simulation in which he has more direct participation, and then he'd no longer be omnipotent. You do not rescue the supernatural by rendering the natural meaningless. Why not? Besides, as I keep saying, I am not trying to rescue the supernatural, I am pointing out that God is not supernatural at all, it is an accurate description of the relationship between the programmer and the programmed. Yes, but for a 'programmed' to have an 1p, it has to be an ensemble of computations, yours being just a few finite ones in an infinite ensemble. Even if one can be confused/tricked for a finite amount of time about this, you can never be confused forever. Why do you think the programmer's reality
Re: The free will function
On 20 Feb 2012, at 09:59, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 6:52 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 05:20, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Comp says that any UM's experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right? Computaionalism or Bruno's comp? We have already discussed this. Comp, as I use it, is a much weaker hypothesis than most forms of CTM, ? given that comp allows the substitution level to be arbitrarily low, and is based on the notion of generalized brain. So comp's logical consequences are automatically lifted on all forms of CTM, which presuppose some high subst. level. Now comp makes almost all (not any) UMs' physics identical. That is not a weak assumption. In CTM, there is just physics, not one physics for each UTM, ? That's exactly what I am saying above. and there is a physical hardware platform at level 0. A level 0 that nobody has ever seen, nor even defined or use in physics. And which comp shows to be the bullet preventing progress in fundamental cognitive science. Computationalism is just epistemologically incompatible with materialism (weak materialism). According to a string of controversial arguments. You have already acknowledge that there is no error in UDA1-7, and when I asked you about the UDA-8 (MGA), you did not mention an error, but make a confession of faith in Primitive Matter instead. Then I asked you to define it, and I am still waiting for a reply making sense. Not according to computationalists, 99% of whom have have never questioned computers and brains are made of matter. Give me definition and proof. Physicists acknowledge the fuzziness of the notion of matter, even with the MWI, even more with any candidate for marrying GR and QM. It is true that almost all computationalist philosophers believe in matter, but they are unaware of both computer science and of the UDA reasoning. They are just following Aristotle metaphysics, which is itself a regression to the pre-platonist time, which extrapolated naturally from our animal sensations and survival programs or engrams. Anyway, argument of majority have zero value in science. It will be simpler for you to find a flaw in MGA than trying to define matter, I think. I thought you did eventually grasp the point. Please make yours clearer. If you have a precise physicalist theory compatible with comp you should be able to find an invalid step in UDA. Bruno We could say that comp makes the notion of primitive matter supernatural. 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 . 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: The free will function
On Feb 20, 3:32 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 09:59, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 6:52 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Feb 2012, at 05:20, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Comp says that any UM's experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right? Computaionalism or Bruno's comp? We have already discussed this. Comp, as I use it, is a much weaker hypothesis than most forms of CTM, ? given that comp allows the substitution level to be arbitrarily low, and is based on the notion of generalized brain. So comp's logical consequences are automatically lifted on all forms of CTM, which presuppose some high subst. level. Now comp makes almost all (not any) UMs' physics identical. That is not a weak assumption. In CTM, there is just physics, not one physics for each UTM, ? That's exactly what I am saying above. No it's the opposite. One global physics is a weaker, simpler ontology than multiple solipsistic physicses. and there is a physical hardware platform at level 0. A level 0 that nobody has ever seen, nor even defined or use in physics. Occam;s razor says we should assume what we see is level 0. And which comp shows to be the bullet preventing progress in fundamental cognitive science. Computationalism is just epistemologically incompatible with materialism (weak materialism). According to a string of controversial arguments. You have already acknowledge that there is no error in UDA1-7, I never said anything of the kind. and when I asked you about the UDA-8 (MGA), you did not mention an error, but make a confession of faith in Primitive Matter instead. Then I asked you to define it, and I am still waiting for a reply making sense. Not according to computationalists, 99% of whom have have never questioned computers and brains are made of matter. Give me definition and proof. Physicists acknowledge the fuzziness of the notion of matter, even with the MWI, even more with any candidate for marrying GR and QM. Not being able to define matter and disbelieving in it are two very different issues. It is true that almost all computationalist philosophers believe in matter, but they are unaware of both computer science and of the UDA reasoning. Lucky them. The UDA argument rests on Platonism. Non Patonists are fully entitled to disregard it. Others might wish to treat it as a reductio of Platonism. They are just following Aristotle metaphysics, which is itself a regression to the pre-platonist time, which extrapolated naturally from our animal sensations and survival programs or engrams. Whatever. Anyway, argument of majority have zero value in science. The majority get to define meanings. What they mean by computationalism is 180 degrees aways from what your mean. You should choose another word. It will be simpler for you to find a flaw in MGA than trying to define matter, I think. 1) a little does not equal none 2) redefine computation so that comptuational states must be causally connected. 3) Given a choice between materalism and CTM, keep materialism, a la Maudlin. -- 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: The free will function
On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: If the physicists at CERN announced that all life including human life was created by the Klogknee Field but didn't even attempt to explain how it had done this miraculous thing would you be satisfied? I wouldn't be. They will name it the Higgs instead, and then you will be satisfied. That is a foolish remark. The Higgs, if it exists, can't even explain gravity much less life or mathematics or why God exists or why there is something rather than nothing. Species = life. Nothing in the Origin of Species pertains to anything outside of biology. I don't see your point. And by the way, Lee Smolin has a very interesting cosmological theory involving many worlds, Darwin's ideas, and black holes. God isn't a theory, it is a character in a story. Yes, and the Hebrew god Yahweh in the old testament is the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. It does not address explanation, it specifically makes explanation irrelevant in favor of identification with the miraculous. Yes, and that is the reason religion is so evil, or at least the most important reason. Like it or not Not. religion is the universal dynamo which generates civilization. Religion certainly played a important part in the history of civilization, so have intestinal parasites. if we literally believe that all we are is molecular processes, Shakespeare's life work is a finite sequence of ASCII characters and there is no doubt about that, but that's not the only way to describe what his life's work is. One way to describe what we are is that we are what a finite amalgamation of molecular processes do, but that's not the only way to describe what we are. And if you literally believe that all you are is a immaterial soul why would that make you feel better and get you out of this sad existential funk of yours? then there could be no reason to prefer any one set of processes or outcomes over another. I don't follow, those very molecular processes cause you to prefer one outcome over another. There would be no difference between one opinion and another or one person and another. There would be if there were differences in those molecular processes between one individual and another, and of course in the real world there always are differences. I don't see that it would be a problem for God to make physics Great, so how did He do it? I'm all ears! Let there be Physics! Don't be obtuse, bullshit explanations like that allowed religion to get a foothold in unthinking people. I want a real explanation. I want to know how God made physics. I also want to know why God always existed rather than always not existed. You misunderstand the purpose of religion. It isn't supposed to explain anything I see, religion isn't supposed to make sense, In that it is successful. And they try to peddle the idea that the more ridiculous your beliefs are the more virtuous you are because that means the more faith you must have. And faith, they want you to accept as being obvious without even thinking about it, is a good thing. it is supposed to unify human beings More people have been murdered for religious reasons that any other single cause, to a common sense and motive for political purposes. So you think religion is a useful lie. I disagree, I find nothing useful in it. Religion is a parasite, its a virus of the mind. randomness becomes another name for God. Yet another example of someone willing to abandon the idea of God but not the 3 letter word G-O-D. Huh? We can call it R-A-N-D-O-M-N-E-S-S if you prefer. Thank you, I do much prefer that because otherwise when I say I don't believe in God people will think I don't believe in randomness. If God, or any other word, can mean anything at all then the word is of no use to anyone at all. There is something that prevents infinite nonsense universes I have no way of knowing if infinite nonsense universes exist or not. It is symmetry and relation. Sensitivity. Being. Experience. This is a very good example of a very bad explanation. It would be far better and certainly more honest to simply say I don't understand why the world is the way it is nor does anybody else. And the worst part is if you keep repeating bullshit explanations like this eventually you might actually start to believe it when you really don't, and that is a recipe for stagnation. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. But then why did you say There is something that prevents infinite nonsense universes? How did you find this out, did you somehow check on every one of those infinite number of Many Worlds to see? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 4:48 pm, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Peter, why do you think - if there are indeed many universes - that they are identical and like ours? It isn't a question of what I think. There are different multiversal theories. Some say all the universes are bound by a set of physical laws, some say otherwise. As a matter of fact: what would you call a universe? the image of the 2012 cosmology (or 1879?) I believe there is more to the cosmos than so far experienced. I try to give room for additional info. And: universes (whatever they may be) are not restricted to that ONE pattern we - sort of - pretend to know about. Shouldn't we open up our mind? John Mikes Maybe all multiversal theories are wrong and there is one univese. Is your mind open to that? -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 20, 10:32 am, acw a...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 13:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: .. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. If those observers are generally intelligent and capable of Turing-equivalent computation, they might theorize about many things, true or not. Just like we do, and just like we can't know if we're right. Right, but true = a true reflection of the simulation. If I make a simulation where I regularly stop the program and make miraculous changes, then the most intelligent observers might rightly conclude that there is an omnipotent entity capable of performing miracles. That would be the truth of that simulation. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. That's more difficult than you'd think. In COMP, you identify local physics and your body with an infinity of lower-level machines which happen to be simulating *you* correctly (where *you* would be the structures required for your mind to work consistently). A simulation of a digital physics universe may implement some such observers *once* or maybe multiple times if you go for the extra effort, but never in *all* the cases (which are infinite). As long as it happens in any universe under MWI, then there must be an infinity of variations stemming from that universe, and under the anthropic principle, there is always a chance that you are living in a simulation within one such universe. If such a programmer decides to intervene in his simulation, that wouldn't affect all the other machines implementing said simulation and said observers(for example in arithmetic or in some UD running somewhere), That depends entirely on what kind of intervention the programmer chooses. If she wants to make half of the population turn blue, she can, and then when the sim is turned back on, everyone gasps and proclaims a miracle of Biblical proportions. however a small part of the simulations containing observers will now be only implemented by the physics of the upper programmer's universe (and become entangled with them), Not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that the programmer of Pac Man can't reprogram it for zero gravity? Or for a Non-Euclidean Salvador Dali melting clock wormhole version? What effect would a physical universe have on a simulated universe if comp were true, beyond impacting the ability of the simulation to function as intended? possibly meaning a reduction in measure, however the probability of ending up in such a simulation is very low and as time passes it becomes less and less likely that said observers would keep on remaining in that simulation - if they die or malfunction (that's just one example), there will be continuations for them which are no longer supported by the upper programmer's physics. The observers would have no capacity to detect continuity errors unless they were given that functionality. Pac Man doesn't know if I hack in there and turn the cherries to a turnip. There can never be correct worship of some Matrix Lord/Administrator/... as they are not what is responsible for such observers being conscious, at best such programmers are only responsible for finding some particular program and increasing its measure with respect to the programmer's universe. Of course, if such a programmer wants to lift some beings from his simulation to run in his universe, he could do that and those would be valid continuations for the being living in that simulation. Running a physics simulation is akin to looking into a window, not to an act of universe creation, even if it may look like that from the simulator's perspective. With the right tools and drugs, your brain will prove to you that you are a shoe, and you will believe it. If had the capacity to stop, start, and edit your experience, I could make that belief last the rest of your life and make the universe you experience validate that belief. It would therefore be as true for you as anything has ever been true for anyone.This is the unavoidable implication of comp. I of course think it's false because experience cannot be simulated. Computation supervenes on experience, not the other way around. We use computation, our brains use computation, but it is experiences they are computing, not numbers. Did say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean poisonous. Poisonous is a term with a more literal
Re: The free will function
On 20 Feb 2012, at 14:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology. It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in MWI. I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological control means god or supernaural You don't have to agree, but if you are being honest you would have to admit that it's irrational. If I can stop your universe, make changes to your mind, your memory, your environment, the laws of your universe and then start it back up, how does that not make me your God? You are natural. How do you know? Comp says we can't know whether we are artificial simulation or not. I am sorry, but I think this is false. I would say that comp says that we are in infinitely many simulations at once, from a third person point of view on the first person points of view. This leads to verifiable (empirically) constraints. With comp we are in a complex matrix whose existence is deducible from the existence of universal numbers, whose existence is deducible from numbers and their two fist basic simple laws of + and *. Bruno You can fire a horse through the air usign a giant catapuilt, but I don't have to agree it's Pegasus. No but you have to agree that it is possible to believe that it is a Pegasus, and that is all that is required. If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. So? Is appearance reality? That is what comp says. Bruno;s theory or the Computational Theory of Mind. Both. What would be the meaning of any form of computationalism without the notion of computational realism? Peter alludes to the fact that most materialist ignores the incompatibility between comp and weak materialism, including physicalism. This shows just the gap between computer scientist, philosopher of mind, and physicists, together with the usual authoritative dogma in the field. The simulation is reality as far as the simulatees are concerned. And if they are wrong, it still isn't the real reality. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong, the simulation is still their reality. Not really. Peter is right, here. The physical reality is not a simulation, unless we discover that it violate the material modal logical (arithmetically based) hypostases. Pac Man could believe that he is Bugs Bunny but the possibility of that belief is generated by the simulation logic behind Pac Man. For Pac Man, the Pac Man game is the real reality. That is what comp is all about - proving that our experience of the universe is indistinguishable from a simulation of that same experience. You miss the first person indeterminacy. From the first person perspective, viewed in the theory from some third person point of view, the subject 'belongs' to an infinite set of computations, which ask for compromise between the little numbers and the big numbers. You seem to be arguing appearance=reality on the premise that opinion=truth. Not at all. I think that you are injecting that because you need me to be wrong. Comp implies that appearance is not the whole reality, but the possibility of an appearance arises from the whole reality, which is in fact a logical program. Hmm... reality will be the result of the indeterminacy. We can bet, thanks to QM, and quasi-already comp, on a first person sharable winning computation sheaf. Appearances may not reflect the truest level of the simulation, but appearances all reflect some believable representation of the simulation's function. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. Comp confront each machine with reality, all the time. But then there is the reality of lies, and this has to be taken into account, but with comp, there is a sense to say that the reality cannot lie to you. Just extract comp from arithmetic, and compare it with your local reality. Roughly speaking, if it differ, it means that you are not at stage 0 of the comp reality, you are relatively failed, but this you can be aware of. Comp makes the physically real more real, and more
Re: The free will function
On 2/20/2012 18:37, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 20, 10:32 am, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 13:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.comwrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.comwrote: .. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. If those observers are generally intelligent and capable of Turing-equivalent computation, they might theorize about many things, true or not. Just like we do, and just like we can't know if we're right. Right, but true = a true reflection of the simulation. If I make a simulation where I regularly stop the program and make miraculous changes, then the most intelligent observers might rightly conclude that there is an omnipotent entity capable of performing miracles. That would be the truth of that simulation. They might end up with a simulation hypothesis being more plausible than pure chance if there was evidence for it, such as non-reducible high-level behavior indicating intelligence and not following any obvious lower-level physical laws. However, 'omnipotent' is not the right word here. I already explained why before - in COMP, you can always escape the simulation, even if this is not always obvious from the 3p of the one doing the simulation. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. That's more difficult than you'd think. In COMP, you identify local physics and your body with an infinity of lower-level machines which happen to be simulating *you* correctly (where *you* would be the structures required for your mind to work consistently). A simulation of a digital physics universe may implement some such observers *once* or maybe multiple times if you go for the extra effort, but never in *all* the cases (which are infinite). As long as it happens in any universe under MWI, then there must be an infinity of variations stemming from that universe, and under the anthropic principle, there is always a chance that you are living in a simulation within one such universe. I was just assuming COMP, which is a bit wider than MWI, but should contain a variant compatible with it. In COMP, it's highly likely you're living in a simulation, but you're also living in more primitive forms (such as directly in the UD) - your 1p is contained in an infinity of machines. You would only care if some of those happen to be a simulation if the one doing the simulation modifies the program/data or entangles it with his history, or merely provides a continuation for you in his world, however any such continuations in digital physics interventionist simulations would be low-measure. If such a programmer decides to intervene in his simulation, that wouldn't affect all the other machines implementing said simulation and said observers(for example in arithmetic or in some UD running somewhere), That depends entirely on what kind of intervention the programmer chooses. If she wants to make half of the population turn blue, she can, and then when the sim is turned back on, everyone gasps and proclaims a miracle of Biblical proportions. I wasn't talking about the multiple observers in the simulation, but merely that an observer, with which we identify with his 1p is implemented by an infinity of machines (!), only some part of that correspond to someone simulating them. If someone decides to modify the simulation at some point, then only a small fraction of those 1p's would diverge from the usual local laws-of-physics and becme entangled with the laws of those doing the simulation - such continuations would be low-measure. however a small part of the simulations containing observers will now be only implemented by the physics of the upper programmer's universe (and become entangled with them), Not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that the programmer of Pac Man can't reprogram it for zero gravity? Or for a Non-Euclidean Salvador Dali melting clock wormhole version? What effect would a physical universe have on a simulated universe if comp were true, beyond impacting the ability of the simulation to function as intended? What I'm saying is that if those observers within the simulation have 1p's (if COMP is true), then they are implemented by infinitely many simulations, only a few corresponding to your particular Matrix Lord, thus the probability that the ML would affect them is very low, however not null. In the sense that if you were in such a world, and someone happened to be simulating your physics and then suddenly decided
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 2:48 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Sorry, I resend this because there was a little mistake: On 20 Feb 2012, at 14:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology. It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in MWI. I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological control means god or supernaural You don't have to agree, but if you are being honest you would have to admit that it's irrational. If I can stop your universe, make changes to your mind, your memory, your environment, the laws of your universe and then start it back up, how does that not make me your God? You are natural. How do you know? Comp says we can't know whether we are artificial simulation or not. I am sorry, but I think this is false. I would say that comp says that we are in infinitely many simulations at once, from a third person point of view on the first person points of view. This leads to verifiable (empirically) constraints. How does that relate to the issue of simulation though? Any internally consistent simulation is verifiable within the simulation. Are you saying there is a way to see through all simulations and know the ultimate host universe? With comp we are in a complex matrix whose existence is deducible from the existence of universal numbers, whose existence is deducible from numbers and their two fist basic simple laws of + and *. Ok, but if I am running on an Apple 6000 computer in a furniture store in Teaneck, NJ, how are + and * going to help me know where that is? Even if I could, how would I know that New Jersey wasn't just part of the simulation? You can fire a horse through the air usign a giant catapuilt, but I don't have to agree it's Pegasus. No but you have to agree that it is possible to believe that it is a Pegasus, and that is all that is required. If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. So? Is appearance reality? That is what comp says. Bruno;s theory or the Computational Theory of Mind. Both. What would be the meaning of any form of computationalism without the notion of computational realism? Peter alludes to the fact that most materialist ignores the incompatibility between comp and weak materialism, including physicalism. This shows just the gap between computer scientist, philosopher of mind, and physicists, together with the usual authoritative dogma in the field. That's all beside the point though. My argument is simple. If comp is true, then programmers are, in a sense, gods. The simulation is reality as far as the simulatees are concerned. And if they are wrong, it still isn't the real reality. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong, the simulation is still their reality. Not really. Peter is right, here. The physical reality is not a simulation, unless we discover that it violate the material modal logical (arithmetically based) hypostases. What does that mean for the universe which I live in that runs on the Apple computer in New Jersey? I'm saying that my reality is whatever Skyrim Matrix program that is the world I interact with but now you seem to be saying that my physical reality is the physical inside of the computer? Or is it New Jersey? Pac Man could believe that he is Bugs Bunny but the possibility of that belief is generated by the simulation logic behind Pac Man. For Pac Man, the Pac Man game is the real reality. That is what comp is all about - proving that our experience of the universe is indistinguishable from a simulation of that same experience. You miss the first person indeterminacy. From the first person perspective, viewed in the theory from some third person point of view, the subject 'belongs' to an infinite set of computations, which ask for compromise between the little numbers and the big numbers. Sorry, I don't understand how that relates to my point, nor do I understand how infinite computations collectively decide to become a set, ask for compromises, or take ownership of a subject. You seem to be arguing appearance=reality on the premise that opinion=truth. Not at all. I think that you are injecting that because you need me to be wrong. Comp implies that appearance is not the whole reality, but the possibility of an
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 2:53 pm, acw a...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 18:37, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 20, 10:32 am, acwa...@lavabit.com wrote: On 2/20/2012 13:45, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 11:57 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.comwrote: On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.comwrote: .. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter if they believe in the simulation or not, the belief itself is only possible because of the particular reality generated by the program. Comp precludes the possibility of contacting any truer reality than the simulation. If those observers are generally intelligent and capable of Turing-equivalent computation, they might theorize about many things, true or not. Just like we do, and just like we can't know if we're right. Right, but true = a true reflection of the simulation. If I make a simulation where I regularly stop the program and make miraculous changes, then the most intelligent observers might rightly conclude that there is an omnipotent entity capable of performing miracles. That would be the truth of that simulation. They might end up with a simulation hypothesis being more plausible than pure chance if there was evidence for it, such as non-reducible high-level behavior indicating intelligence and not following any obvious lower-level physical laws. However, 'omnipotent' is not the right word here. I already explained why before - in COMP, you can always escape the simulation, even if this is not always obvious from the 3p of the one doing the simulation. Escape it maybe to a universal arithmetic level, but I still can't get out of the software and into the world of the hardware. Our Gods may know better too. What I am saying is that Comp + MWI + Anthropic principle guarantees an infinite number of universes in which some entity can program machines to worship them *correctly* as *their* Gods. That's more difficult than you'd think. In COMP, you identify local physics and your body with an infinity of lower-level machines which happen to be simulating *you* correctly (where *you* would be the structures required for your mind to work consistently). A simulation of a digital physics universe may implement some such observers *once* or maybe multiple times if you go for the extra effort, but never in *all* the cases (which are infinite). As long as it happens in any universe under MWI, then there must be an infinity of variations stemming from that universe, and under the anthropic principle, there is always a chance that you are living in a simulation within one such universe. I was just assuming COMP, which is a bit wider than MWI, but should contain a variant compatible with it. In COMP, it's highly likely you're living in a simulation, but you're also living in more primitive forms (such as directly in the UD) - your 1p is contained in an infinity of machines. You would only care if some of those happen to be a simulation if the one doing the simulation modifies the program/data or entangles it with his history, or merely provides a continuation for you in his world, however any such continuations in digital physics interventionist simulations would be low-measure. Whether you care or not is a different issue from whether or not you can tell the difference if you did want to. If such a programmer decides to intervene in his simulation, that wouldn't affect all the other machines implementing said simulation and said observers(for example in arithmetic or in some UD running somewhere), That depends entirely on what kind of intervention the programmer chooses. If she wants to make half of the population turn blue, she can, and then when the sim is turned back on, everyone gasps and proclaims a miracle of Biblical proportions. I wasn't talking about the multiple observers in the simulation, but merely that an observer, with which we identify with his 1p is implemented by an infinity of machines (!), only some part of that correspond to someone simulating them. If someone decides to modify the simulation at some point, then only a small fraction of those 1p's would diverge from the usual local laws-of-physics and becme entangled with the laws of those doing the simulation - such continuations would be low-measure. How does that apply to my example though? Are you saying I can't turn everyone blue in my sim? That they wouldn't be impressed? I don't get it. however a small part of the simulations containing observers will now be only implemented by the physics of the upper programmer's universe (and become entangled with them), Not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that the programmer of Pac Man can't reprogram it for zero gravity? Or for a Non-Euclidean Salvador Dali melting clock wormhole version? What effect would a physical universe have on a simulated
Re: The free will function
John, On 18 Feb 2012, at 22:54, John Mikes wrote: A bit from 'outside the box': the 'religious' ideas emerged from the 'awe' how very ancient apes looked at the world. It went through innumerable changes to reach a tribe with writing skills and the Bible was established saving positive attitudes of the Super Naturals (whatever THEY were) as 'Good Lord' FOR ME. (Some polytheistics also included vile characteristics, but never mind that). In Mono (or almost mono) it is MY GOD who I ask to destroy MY enemies - and HeSheIt does it. My enemy, however asks (the same?) God to destroy ME and HIS GOOD LORD does just that. Over the past 5000+ years the 5000+th version of such Scriptures still attracts faithful. Surprisingly well educated and reasonably smart people still take such hearsay for basic knowledge. YES. The reason is probably that we are still under 1500 years of making the field taboo. (it is normal, for making it taboo permits easily the control of majorities by minorities. It makes social sense). As we got smarter, That's what *we* think. I'm not sure of that. (But that's another topic). We do accumulate discoveries and tools, though. the main questions concentrated on Creation and Teleology. With all the mental training we underwent we still have no better image than the bearded old man in a white nightgown? Fairy tales for adults. I propose a different image: The World (Everything) is an Infinite Complexity. I would prefer, with Plotinus, Utter Simplicity. I can argue that comp just gives that. God is arithmetical truth, and that is really the Pythagorean Simplicity. It is almost magically simple, for the concept can be understood by everyone (except perhaps philosophers). Yet, it rejoins your idea of Infinite Complexity, because this is how the simple arithmetical truth can only appear from the point of view of the number or machine living inside it. Never mind how it occurred, it is WAY beyond our mental capabilities even to imagine it. Right. (Well I can't know that, but it is meta-right, which I will define by implied by comp). I will use the prefix meta- to mean implied by the comp hypothesis. Some features transpired into human minds (=mental functions we apply by our tool - the brain) and Homo rounded it up continually into a MODEL of the TOTAL, explaining ALL questionable features from WITHIN it. And then you have the bombs. The universal numbers, which makes arithmetical truth beyond the grasp of our (machine) theories. We meta- discover that we, the machines, can only scratch the surface of even just arithmetical truth. Creative bombs, not destructive bombs, but they put mess by adding complexity by their attempts to understand. It will still take time before the humans stop trying to name the ONE. Indeed. The 'Infinite Complexity' includes more and we have no access to the 'beyond our model' features, nor how they (their relations?) may be 'organized', - BUT there is an easy way: we imagine it in OUR ways, i.e. anthropocentrically as 'processing topics'. (They may be completely different, relations of aspects, or even descriptions beyond our present vocabulary.) The irrationalists do this, or anyone pretending to know the truth. Such 'imaging' (?) makes the debate about 'name' or 'idea' of 'G-O- D' baseless and superfluous. The comp GOD, that is arithmetical truth, is not nameable by the machine, and it is a key feature of their theology. The comp theology is consistent by remaining scientific. It does not assert any truth, but consequences of a very strong hypothesis: comp. There are some idioms in the discussion I don't care about: 'Random' - if such exists, we have no physical (or other observed) order to establish. Comp implies first person randomness, by the many embedding of the iterated self-duplications in arithmetic, more easily seen in the UD (The tiny Sigma_1 part of arithmetic). 'Evolution': every change occurs within the feasibility of the 'givens' - some survive, some don't. This is relative, it might be that some survive here, some survive else where. We don't know, but comp, like QM, are everything-type of theories, with the indexical actualisation of all possibilities (relative arithmetical consistencies), so it favors the idea that not surviving might not be a realist first person option. Despite the third person appearances, which makes indeed making believe to some machine that they evolve. Occasional snapshots of our science don't even detect the completely unsuccessful. 'Free Will': cousin of 'random', we, as products of the Infinite Complexity have circumstances to live within and cannot even 'decide' outside the givens. Some such decisions are conscious, some are not. Etc. I really enjoyed the dicussion Me to :) Best, Bruno John Mikes On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 1:35 PM, John Clark
Re: The free will function
On Feb 18, 1:35 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: It's not trying to explain how God did it though, it gets around that by collapsing all whats and hows into a single overarching Who and Why. Exactly, religion takes everything we don't understand and puts it into a box, it then writes God on a label and sticks it on the box and decrees that the problem is now solved. This is progress? I didn't say it was progress. I'm explaining the symmetry of anthropomorphism and mechanemorphism as incomplete cosmologies rooted in natural cognitive bias, not arguing for one over the other. Progress is transcending the bias, or understanding how its modulation is a tool. If the physicists at CERN announced that all life including human life was created by the Klogknee Field but didn't even attempt to explain how it had done this miraculous thing would you be satisfied? I wouldn't be. They will name it the Higgs instead, and then you will be satisfied. I would be too, because I assume they know what they are doing, not because it has been proved to me in some kind of logically satisfying way. When Charles Darwin wrote his book in 1859 he didn't just say Evolution is the key to understanding life he explained how, he explained how it could lead to the origin of species; and that's why he was the greatest scientist who ever lived and that is the difference between science and religion. Species = life. Nothing in the Origin of Species pertains to anything outside of biology. I don't know what your opinion of the greatness of Darwin is supposed to add. Darwin was great, as was Newton, Descartes, Bacon, Einstein, etc. All of them stood on the shoulders of earlier giants of natural philosophy, theology, and religion. Science is the flowering of religion, not the antidote. The mechanemorphic model is certainly a tremendous improvement over the anthropmorphic but it is still half wrong. [...] The biggest problem for me with the God idea is that it is arbitrarily humanoid. I don't dislike the God theory because of anthropomorphism, although I'm not a big fan of long white beards myself I feel than any being should have a right to facial hair if He fancies that sort of thing. The reason I dislike the God theory is that it explains absolutely nothing. God isn't a theory, it is a character in a story. It does not address explanation, it specifically makes explanation irrelevant in favor of identification with the miraculous. It make be the case that this particular story winds up freeing up resources in the wandering, wondering primitive mind, allowing focus on political organization and unleashing crusading energies into the culture. Religion is a political technology. It is a weapon as powerful and useful as early flint knapped knives. We have better knives now, and more advanced tools and weapons, but they all share the original DNA of religion; applied storytelling - sensemaking. Like it or not, religion is the universal dynamo which generates civilization. Science is a product of civilization. No paleolithic Charles Darwin would have stood a chance to convince a bunch of illiterates to build a laboratory or a school. Popular support requires passionate subjective identification. Sex, horror, torture, supernatural characters, etc. This is who we are. Not logical machines. If we were to take the worldview of mechanism literally, we would have no idea who we were, nor would we care. I don't know what this means. It means that if we literally believe that all we are is molecular processes, then there could be no reason to prefer any one set of processes or outcomes over another. There would be no difference between one opinion and another or one person and another. We would be empty puppets of circumstance, completely alienated from ourselves, other people, and nature. I don't see that it would be a problem for God to make physics Great, so how did He do it? I'm all ears! Let there be Physics! I can make a castle out of sand, so God can make a universe out of physics I don't know about you but I can explain how I made a castle out of sand, so why can't God do what I can. I don't think that you can explain how 'you' can do anything in the first place. How do you fire your neurons to move your hand to scoop the sand? If' you're puzzled how something as marvelous and complex as X came to be and someone tells you that Y made it but cannot even begin to explain how it did so and also cannot explain how Y came to be in the first place then that explanation has not really rendered you any the wiser. It's often said that science can't explain everything and that's true, but religion can't explain ANYTHING. You misunderstand the purpose of religion. It isn't supposed to explain anything, it is supposed to unify human beings to a common sense and motive for political purposes. You are assuming
Re: The free will function
On Feb 18, 5:36 pm, Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 19, 4:52 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 18, 5:36 pm, Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. Craig QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 19, 4:52 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 18, 5:36 pm, Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. Craig QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create AI beings which we have power over to stop, start, and reprogram them as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? Comp says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 2/19/2012 5:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? In MWI the infinite universes all still the same physics and so the same statistics. No event can be *known* to be supernatural; but a very improbable event is still very improbable. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. And you could be a simulation of a brain in a vat that has just fluctuated into existence as a Boltzmann brain. This is different from a universe in a multiverse. It is also cognitively unstable; i.e. there is no way to act as if it's true. Brent Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? But we are natural so they would be wrong. The Goa'uld are false gods! -- Stargate, passim. Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. Craig Appearance =/= reality. -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 19, 8:29 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 2/19/2012 5:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? In MWI the infinite universes all still the same physics and so the same statistics. No event can be *known* to be supernatural; but a very improbable event is still very improbable. Improbable is meaningless with the anthropic principle. The set of MWI universes with Gods would have the same physics and statistics as the rest of the MWI universes, but within these MWIGs the UMs which the Gods have learned to build and program would have the physics of the Gods' choosing since the UMs are actually living in a nested virtual universe. What you suggest in saying that no event can be known to be supernatural is the same as saying that all video games would have to have the same basic rules. It's an arbitrary deus ex machina to plug the hole in the two theories, which, if both were true, clearly make the certain epistemology of primitive physics in any universe by it's inhabitants inaccessible. The only way out of it that I can see is to acknowledge that it is possible for 'sense' to transcend logic and therefore at least indirectly access a level of primitive truth through physics, which is exactly what multisense realism predicts. This corresponds to our ordinary experience of implicit 'seems like' epistemology which makes our perceptions specular participation in a real human world rather than a solipsistic simulation. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. And you could be a simulation of a brain in a vat that has just fluctuated into existence as a Boltzmann brain. This is different from a universe in a multiverse. Yes, but I'm saying that through comp, we cannot know that we are in a universe at all. We could be programs in someone else's universe, and our arithmetic and logic the meaningless hallucinations of a brain simulation that makes us feel our logic makes sense by stimulating the corresponding regions of our brains with the appropriate virtual chemistry. It is also cognitively unstable; i.e. there is no way to act as if it's true. In a comp simulation, there is no truth, only internal consistency, which could be easily simulated by disabling the ability to detect continuity errors. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 19, 8:36 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology. It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in MWI. If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. It doesn't matter who you call 'natural'. Now who is arguing a special case for natively evolved consciousness? The Goa'uld are false gods! -- Stargate, passim. If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them. Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses. If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us. As long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not? They become the second class citizens that I am criticized for suggesting. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. Appearance =/= reality. I agree, but comp does not. In comp, reality is only deep appearance. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 2/19/2012 7:16 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 8:29 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 2/19/2012 5:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Zpeterdjo...@yahoo.comwrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? In MWI the infinite universes all still the same physics and so the same statistics. No event can be *known* to be supernatural; but a very improbable event is still very improbable. Improbable is meaningless with the anthropic principle. The set of MWI universes with Gods would have the same physics and statistics as the rest of the MWI universes, but within these MWIGs the UMs which the Gods have learned to build and program would have the physics of the Gods' choosing since the UMs are actually living in a nested virtual universe. What you suggest in saying that no event can be known to be supernatural is the same as saying that all video games would have to have the same basic rules. No all MWI have the same basic rules. MWI is an interpretation of quantum mechanics, which supplies the basic rules. It's an arbitrary deus ex machina to plug the hole in the two theories, which, if both were true, clearly make the certain epistemology of primitive physics in any universe by it's inhabitants inaccessible. The only way out of it that I can see is to acknowledge that it is possible for 'sense' to transcend logic Transcend logic means what? Logic is just the consistency of a set of propositions under an inference rule. Perception is some else entirely. and therefore at least indirectly access a level of primitive truth through physics, which is exactly what multisense realism predicts. This corresponds to our ordinary experience of implicit 'seems like' epistemology which makes our perceptions specular participation in a real human world rather than a solipsistic simulation. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. And you could be a simulation of a brain in a vat that has just fluctuated into existence as a Boltzmann brain. This is different from a universe in a multiverse. Yes, but I'm saying that through comp, we cannot know that we are in a universe at all. We could be programs in someone else's universe, and our arithmetic and logic the meaningless hallucinations of a brain simulation that makes us feel our logic makes sense by stimulating the corresponding regions of our brains with the appropriate virtual chemistry. It is also cognitively unstable; i.e. there is no way to act as if it's true. In a comp simulation, there is no truth, only internal consistency, which could be easily simulated by disabling the ability to detect continuity errors. In a simulation there's no need for internal consistency either. Which is why there's no way to act as if it's true...so it's epistemologically and practically irrelevant. Brent Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 3:35 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 8:36 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology. It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in MWI. I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological control means god or supernaural If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. So? Is appearance reality? It doesn't matter who you call 'natural'. It matters a great deal what you call anything. Did say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean poisonous. Now who is arguing a special case for natively evolved consciousness? I don't know. Who? The Goa'uld are false gods! -- Stargate, passim. If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them. To me= appearance =/= reality Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses. If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us. So? I never said that could no be apparently omnopotent control of a VM. I said it doesn't fit the defintition of supernatural. As long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not? There is a conceptual distinction between the natural and the supernatural in MWI and computaitonl multiverses, and such that the extension of the concept superntatural could likely be empty. They become the second class citizens that I am criticized for suggesting. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. Appearance =/= reality. I agree, but comp does not. In comp, reality is only deep appearance. Oh good grief. In comp, reality is the lab where the simulation is running. -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: What you suggest in saying that no event can be known to be supernatural is the same as saying that all video games would have to have the same basic rules. No all MWI have the same basic rules. MWI is an interpretation of quantum mechanics, which supplies the basic rules. But who says that we live in a primitive MWI universe and not a UM-WMI simulation with simulated quantum mechanics? Comp says that any UM's experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right? It's an arbitrary deus ex machina to plug the hole in the two theories, which, if both were true, clearly make the certain epistemology of primitive physics in any universe by it's inhabitants inaccessible. The only way out of it that I can see is to acknowledge that it is possible for 'sense' to transcend logic Transcend logic means what? Logic is just the consistency of a set of propositions under an inference rule. Perception is some else entirely. Consistency, sets, propositions, inference, and rules all supervene upon sense. Sense includes logic, conscious perception, implicit presumptions, etc. It means that sense must, on some level see through comp to a primitive universal realism or else Gods can exist. and therefore at least indirectly access a level of primitive truth through physics, which is exactly what multisense realism predicts. This corresponds to our ordinary experience of implicit 'seems like' epistemology which makes our perceptions specular participation in a real human world rather than a solipsistic simulation. Our idea of quantum could simply be the virtual quantum of the simulation furnished to us by our programmers...who appear to us as arithmetic Gods because they wish to. And you could be a simulation of a brain in a vat that has just fluctuated into existence as a Boltzmann brain. This is different from a universe in a multiverse. Yes, but I'm saying that through comp, we cannot know that we are in a universe at all. We could be programs in someone else's universe, and our arithmetic and logic the meaningless hallucinations of a brain simulation that makes us feel our logic makes sense by stimulating the corresponding regions of our brains with the appropriate virtual chemistry. It is also cognitively unstable; i.e. there is no way to act as if it's true. In a comp simulation, there is no truth, only internal consistency, which could be easily simulated by disabling the ability to detect continuity errors. In a simulation there's no need for internal consistency either. Which is why there's no way to act as if it's true...so it's epistemologically and practically irrelevant. I didn't say there was a need for internal consistency. I said that internal consistency is the closest epistemology possible to truth within a comp simulation. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Comp says that any UM's experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right? Computaionalism or Bruno's comp? -- 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: The free will function
On 2/20/2012 03:35, Craig Weinberg wrote: If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them. I think you might be misunderstanding COMP. In COMP, your 1p is mostly identified with some true arithmetical sentences, some such sentences may talk about some particular physics being implemented by some UMs. If someone else runs an UM which partially computes your local physics (it's provably impossible to do so for the entire history tree of some observer), then they are merely observing some computation, sort of like looking into a window to your universe. If they chose to intervene, they would be entangling the computations of a copy-of-you with their own, however the chance of being in such a computation becomes astronomically lower. COMP makes being in an universe/simulation controlled by interventionist gods a very low probability event. Also, the longer the simulation + arbitrary changes keep going on, the lower the chance that you won't just end up in a version where nobody is changing your computations (what's simpler? program A ran by UM or program A ran by UM ran by UM2 ran by ...). There is however one way for such a god (a better term I heard used for such a being would be a Matrix Lord) to make his actions more likely to be experienced by you: simulate 'you'(as copied from his earlier digital physics simulation) in his own world. Also, COMP makes pure digital physics less likely locally, and false globally. Also, if said Matrix Lord decided to kill himself in his level of reality, he might have some unusual continuations over which he has no control over, same would be for the observer within his simulation. COMP makes any interventionist god's interventions very less likely to be experienced and in the limit, an observer will always escape such control. The main idea is to look at all possible consistent continuations within the UD, not just at what's possible within some local digital physics. Also, if there is nothing supernatural that can be experienced by an observer with a computable body: it's all somewhere in the UD, which itself is in arithmetic. However, if the observer's body is not computable, things are weirder, but that's non-COMP. Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses. If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us. As long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not? They become the second class citizens that I am criticized for suggesting. Controlling the content of the tape means that the UM no longer runs that one particular program that it was running, but something else entangled with your own computations (so UM0 becomes UM1 running modified UM0). Omnipotence is non-sense if it claims to change the consequences of the Church-Turing Thesis. CTT is either false or true, it can't be changed on a whim. Also, consciousness isn't associated with the physical state of the tape: MGA shows that it's not the case. It's associated with abstract computations which may also be contained in a physical body, although the notion of the physical itself becomes rather abstract. -- 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: The free will function
On Feb 19, 10:59 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 3:35 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 8:36 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology. It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in MWI. I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological control means god or supernaural You don't have to agree, but if you are being honest you would have to admit that it's irrational. If I can stop your universe, make changes to your mind, your memory, your environment, the laws of your universe and then start it back up, how does that not make me your God? If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. So? Is appearance reality? That is what comp says. The simulation is reality as far as the simulatees are concerned. Appearances may not reflect the truest level of the simulation, but appearances all reflect some believable representation of the simulation's function. It doesn't matter who you call 'natural'. It matters a great deal what you call anything. It would if the word natural had some relevant meaning, but even in food labeling, that term is notoriously vague. Natural means anything that exists. Natural plastic comes from natural petrochemicals. Did say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean poisonous. Poisonous is a term with a more literal meaning. 'Natural' has no place in MWI, comp, or the anthropic principle. I'm surprised that you would use it. I thought most people here were on board with comp's view that silicon machines could be no less natural as conscious agents than living organisms. Now who is arguing a special case for natively evolved consciousness? I don't know. Who? You. The Goa'uld are false gods! -- Stargate, passim. If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them. To me= appearance =/= reality No. To me = my reality. The causes and conditions upon which my existence supervenes. If my programmer can make a Bengal tiger appear or disappear in my living room, then he is God in reality. This is what comp says. Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses. If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us. So? I never said that could no be apparently omnopotent control of a VM. I said it doesn't fit the defintition of supernatural. That's why I say in MWI + Comp + Anthropic principle, there would inevitably be an infinite number of universes in which simulations exist with citizens to whom God is real and natural. There would also be infinite MWI UM sub-universes where God is supernatural, sub- universes where Gods are aliens, pirates, beercans, Pokemon, etc. As long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not? There is a conceptual distinction between the natural and the supernatural in MWI and computaitonl multiverses, and such that the
Re: The free will function
On Feb 20, 4:41 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 10:59 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 3:35 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 8:36 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Feb 20, 1:08 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 2:19 pm, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Why not? There could an infinite number of the Many Worlds with all kinds of Gods. QM based MWI woildn't suggest that the supernatural occurs in any universe. Are you familiar with Tegmark's classification? Why would Gods be supernatural? Why would bachelors be married? That's begging the question. There is no logical basis to claim that the word supernatural precludes omnipotent control over machines from being an inevitable outcome of MWI. Supernatural is folk terminology. It has no relevance in determining phenomenological possibility in MWI. I don;t have to agree that essentiallytechnological control means god or supernaural You don't have to agree, but if you are being honest you would have to admit that it's irrational. If I can stop your universe, make changes to your mind, your memory, your environment, the laws of your universe and then start it back up, how does that not make me your God? You are natural. You can fire a horse through the air usign a giant catapuilt, but I don't have to agree it's Pegasus. If comp is true, then when we create AI beings over which we will have power to stop, start, and reprogram their minds as well as their perceived universes, who will we be to them other than Gods? But we are natural so they would be wrong. They wouldn't and couldn't know they were wrong though. So? Is appearance reality? That is what comp says. Bruno;s theory or the Computational Theory of Mind. The simulation is reality as far as the simulatees are concerned. And if they are wrong, it still isn't the real reality. You seem to be arguing appearance=reality on the premise that opinion=truth. Appearances may not reflect the truest level of the simulation, but appearances all reflect some believable representation of the simulation's function. Believable falsehoods are falsehoods and convincing illusions still aren't reality It doesn't matter who you call 'natural'. It matters a great deal what you call anything. It would if the word natural had some relevant meaning, but even in food labeling, that term is notoriously vague. Natural means anything that exists. Natural plastic comes from natural petrochemicals. If you know yourself to be natural, you cannot regard your creations as supernatural. The denizens of a sim might regard their programmer as God, but he knows better. Did say those mushrooms were nutiritios? Silly me, i mean poisonous. Poisonous is a term with a more literal meaning. 'Natural' has no place in MWI, comp, or the anthropic principle. I'm surprised that you would use it. I thought most people here were on board with comp's view that silicon machines could be no less natural as conscious agents than living organisms. What we are arguing about is the supernatural. You do not rescue the supernatural by rendering the natural meaningless. Now who is arguing a special case for natively evolved consciousness? I don't know. Who? You. No, you have misunderstood. The Goa'uld are false gods! -- Stargate, passim. If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them. To me= appearance =/= reality No. To me = my reality. The causes and conditions upon which my existence supervenes. If my programmer can make a Bengal tiger appear or disappear in my living room, then he is God in reality. No he isn;t, because reality is where the sim is running and there he is just a programmer. This is what comp says. What do you mean by comp. Computationalism says that we have no way of knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3 classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes. In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said to be supernatural? There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses. If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control the content of it's
Re: The free will function
On 20 Feb 2012, at 05:20, 1Z wrote: On Feb 20, 4:10 am, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Feb 19, 10:57 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Comp says that any UM's experience is indistinguishable from primitive physics, right? Computaionalism or Bruno's comp? We have already discussed this. Comp, as I use it, is a much weaker hypothesis than most forms of CTM, given that comp allows the substitution level to be arbitrarily low, and is based on the notion of generalized brain. So comp's logical consequences are automatically lifted on all forms of CTM, which presuppose some high subst. level. Now comp makes almost all (not any) UMs' physics identical. Computationalism is just epistemologically incompatible with materialism (weak materialism). We could say that comp makes the notion of primitive matter supernatural. 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: The free will function
On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: It's not trying to explain how God did it though, it gets around that by collapsing all whats and hows into a single overarching Who and Why. Exactly, religion takes everything we don't understand and puts it into a box, it then writes God on a label and sticks it on the box and decrees that the problem is now solved. This is progress? If the physicists at CERN announced that all life including human life was created by the Klogknee Field but didn't even attempt to explain how it had done this miraculous thing would you be satisfied? I wouldn't be. When Charles Darwin wrote his book in 1859 he didn't just say Evolution is the key to understanding life he explained how, he explained how it could lead to the origin of species; and that's why he was the greatest scientist who ever lived and that is the difference between science and religion. The mechanemorphic model is certainly a tremendous improvement over the anthropmorphic but it is still half wrong. [...] The biggest problem for me with the God idea is that it is arbitrarily humanoid. I don't dislike the God theory because of anthropomorphism, although I'm not a big fan of long white beards myself I feel than any being should have a right to facial hair if He fancies that sort of thing. The reason I dislike the God theory is that it explains absolutely nothing. If we were to take the worldview of mechanism literally, we would have no idea who we were, nor would we care. I don't know what this means. I don't see that it would be a problem for God to make physics Great, so how did He do it? I'm all ears! I can make a castle out of sand, so God can make a universe out of physics I don't know about you but I can explain how I made a castle out of sand, so why can't God do what I can. If' you're puzzled how something as marvelous and complex as X came to be and someone tells you that Y made it but cannot even begin to explain how it did so and also cannot explain how Y came to be in the first place then that explanation has not really rendered you any the wiser. It's often said that science can't explain everything and that's true, but religion can't explain ANYTHING. I don't see that the universe has any particular preference for simplicity over complexity, it seems to make good use of both. Yes but explanations do have a preference for simplicity over complexity; that's what a explanation is, describing something we don't understand in terms of something we do understand. You must understand that spirituality is an anthropological universal: we have never, ever come in contact with any culture which does not have spiritual concepts. And what things have all those millenniums of spirituality produced? 1) Lots and lots of fancy tombs built with backbreaking effort by people who would have preferred to be doing something else. 2) Some good paintings. 3) Poetry that nobody reads if they're not teaching or taking a class in it. 4) Ridiculous philosophy. 5) Lots and lots of cadavers manufactured in bloody holy wars. This cannot be brushed aside I think I just did. randomness becomes another name for God. Yet another example of someone willing to abandon the idea of God but not the 3 letter word G-O-D. Causality magically appears from randomness. Why? I don't know, but I do know that given enough time even astronomically unlikely things will happen, in fact they will happen a infinite number of times if infinity is at your disposal. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
A bit from 'outside the box': the 'religious' ideas emerged from the 'awe' how very ancient apes looked at the world. It went through innumerable changes to reach a tribe with writing skills and the Bible was established saving positive attitudes of the Super Naturals (whatever THEY were) as 'Good Lord' FOR ME. (Some polytheistics also included vile characteristics, but never mind that). In Mono (or almost mono) it is MY GOD who I ask to destroy MY enemies - and HeSheIt does it. My enemy, however asks (the same?) God to destroy ME and HIS GOOD LORD does just that. Over the past 5000+ years the 5000+th version of such Scriptures still attracts faithful. Surprisingly well educated and reasonably smart people still take such hearsay for basic knowledge. As we got smarter, the main questions concentrated on Creation and Teleology. With all the mental training we underwent we still have no better image than the bearded old man in a white nightgown? I propose a different image: The World (Everything) is an Infinite Complexity. Never mind how it occurred, it is WAY beyond our mental capabilities even to imagine it. Some features transpired into human minds (=mental functions we apply by our tool - the brain) and Homo rounded it up continually into a MODEL of the TOTAL, explaining ALL questionable features from WITHIN it. The 'Infinite Complexity' includes more and we have no access to the 'beyond our model' features, nor how they (their relations?) may be 'organized', - BUT there is an easy way: we imagine it in OUR ways, i.e. anthropocentrically as 'processing topics'. (They may be completely different, relations of aspects, or even descriptions beyond our present vocabulary.) Such 'imaging' (?) makes the debate about 'name' or 'idea' of 'G-O-D' baseless and superfluous. There are some idioms in the discussion I don't care about: 'Random' - if such exists, we have no physical (or other observed) order to establish. 'Evolution': every change occurs within the feasibility of the 'givens' - some survive, some don't. Occasional snapshots of our science don't even detect the completely unsuccessful. 'Free Will': cousin of 'random', we, as products of the Infinite Complexity have circumstances to live within and cannot even 'decide' outside the givens. Some such decisions are conscious, some are not. Etc. I really enjoyed the dicussion John Mikes On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 1:35 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: It's not trying to explain how God did it though, it gets around that by collapsing all whats and hows into a single overarching Who and Why. Exactly, religion takes everything we don't understand and puts it into a box, it then writes God on a label and sticks it on the box and decrees that the problem is now solved. This is progress? If the physicists at CERN announced that all life including human life was created by the Klogknee Field but didn't even attempt to explain how it had done this miraculous thing would you be satisfied? I wouldn't be. When Charles Darwin wrote his book in 1859 he didn't just say Evolution is the key to understanding life he explained how, he explained how it could lead to the origin of species; and that's why he was the greatest scientist who ever lived and that is the difference between science and religion. The mechanemorphic model is certainly a tremendous improvement over the anthropmorphic but it is still half wrong. [...] The biggest problem for me with the God idea is that it is arbitrarily humanoid. I don't dislike the God theory because of anthropomorphism, although I'm not a big fan of long white beards myself I feel than any being should have a right to facial hair if He fancies that sort of thing. The reason I dislike the God theory is that it explains absolutely nothing. If we were to take the worldview of mechanism literally, we would have no idea who we were, nor would we care. I don't know what this means. I don't see that it would be a problem for God to make physics Great, so how did He do it? I'm all ears! I can make a castle out of sand, so God can make a universe out of physics I don't know about you but I can explain how I made a castle out of sand, so why can't God do what I can. If' you're puzzled how something as marvelous and complex as X came to be and someone tells you that Y made it but cannot even begin to explain how it did so and also cannot explain how Y came to be in the first place then that explanation has not really rendered you any the wiser. It's often said that science can't explain everything and that's true, but religion can't explain ANYTHING. I don't see that the universe has any particular preference for simplicity over complexity, it seems to make good use of both. Yes but explanations do have a preference for simplicity over complexity; that's what a explanation is, describing something we
Re: The free will function
It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Everything is deterministic and known ahead of time for all time. However, if in a Single World Interpretation SWI, a single quantum state is selected in each particle interaction to become physical (based it seems on information), then there may be a need for some sort of consciousness to make that selection. If so then that consciousness controls every particle interaction and we may rightly call it god. Note that SWI allows for free will and hence morality that MWI lacks. Richard On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 4:54 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: A bit from 'outside the box': the 'religious' ideas emerged from the 'awe' how very ancient apes looked at the world. It went through innumerable changes to reach a tribe with writing skills and the Bible was established saving positive attitudes of the Super Naturals (whatever THEY were) as 'Good Lord' FOR ME. (Some polytheistics also included vile characteristics, but never mind that). In Mono (or almost mono) it is MY GOD who I ask to destroy MY enemies - and HeSheIt does it. My enemy, however asks (the same?) God to destroy ME and HIS GOOD LORD does just that. Over the past 5000+ years the 5000+th version of such Scriptures still attracts faithful. Surprisingly well educated and reasonably smart people still take such hearsay for basic knowledge. As we got smarter, the main questions concentrated on Creation and Teleology. With all the mental training we underwent we still have no better image than the bearded old man in a white nightgown? I propose a different image: The World (Everything) is an Infinite Complexity. Never mind how it occurred, it is WAY beyond our mental capabilities even to imagine it. Some features transpired into human minds (=mental functions we apply by our tool - the brain) and Homo rounded it up continually into a MODEL of the TOTAL, explaining ALL questionable features from WITHIN it. The 'Infinite Complexity' includes more and we have no access to the 'beyond our model' features, nor how they (their relations?) may be 'organized', - BUT there is an easy way: we imagine it in OUR ways, i.e. anthropocentrically as 'processing topics'. (They may be completely different, relations of aspects, or even descriptions beyond our present vocabulary.) Such 'imaging' (?) makes the debate about 'name' or 'idea' of 'G-O-D' baseless and superfluous. There are some idioms in the discussion I don't care about: 'Random' - if such exists, we have no physical (or other observed) order to establish. 'Evolution': every change occurs within the feasibility of the 'givens' - some survive, some don't. Occasional snapshots of our science don't even detect the completely unsuccessful. 'Free Will': cousin of 'random', we, as products of the Infinite Complexity have circumstances to live within and cannot even 'decide' outside the givens. Some such decisions are conscious, some are not. Etc. I really enjoyed the dicussion John Mikes On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 1:35 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: It's not trying to explain how God did it though, it gets around that by collapsing all whats and hows into a single overarching Who and Why. Exactly, religion takes everything we don't understand and puts it into a box, it then writes God on a label and sticks it on the box and decrees that the problem is now solved. This is progress? If the physicists at CERN announced that all life including human life was created by the Klogknee Field but didn't even attempt to explain how it had done this miraculous thing would you be satisfied? I wouldn't be. When Charles Darwin wrote his book in 1859 he didn't just say Evolution is the key to understanding life he explained how, he explained how it could lead to the origin of species; and that's why he was the greatest scientist who ever lived and that is the difference between science and religion. The mechanemorphic model is certainly a tremendous improvement over the anthropmorphic but it is still half wrong. [...] The biggest problem for me with the God idea is that it is arbitrarily humanoid. I don't dislike the God theory because of anthropomorphism, although I'm not a big fan of long white beards myself I feel than any being should have a right to facial hair if He fancies that sort of thing. The reason I dislike the God theory is that it explains absolutely nothing. If we were to take the worldview of mechanism literally, we would have no idea who we were, nor would we care. I don't know what this means. I don't see that it
Re: The free will function
On 2/18/2012 2:36 PM, Richard Ruquist wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Everything is deterministic and known ahead of time for all time. However, if in a Single World Interpretation SWI, a single quantum state is selected in each particle interaction to become physical (based it seems on information), then there may be a need for some sort of consciousness to make that selection. Just so it's made randomly in accordance with the Born rule. If so then that consciousness controls every particle interaction and we may rightly call it god. If you're really, really attached to those three letters. An attachment which only seems explicable if you want to drag in the baggage of all the despotic monomanical tyrants-in-the-sky that people have sacrificed to over the millenia (c.f. Graveyard of the Gods H.L. Mencken). Note that SWI allows for free will and hence morality that MWI lacks. Such free will should be observable as a violation of the Born rule somewhere in brains. 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: The free will function
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 5:50 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 2/18/2012 2:36 PM, Richard Ruquist wrote: It is with some trepidation that I enter into this discussion, but I would like to suggest that if MWI is true, where MWI is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is where every quantum state in every particle interaction is realized in one parallel world/universe or another, then there is no need for a god. Everything is deterministic and known ahead of time for all time. However, if in a Single World Interpretation SWI, a single quantum state is selected in each particle interaction to become physical (based it seems on information), then there may be a need for some sort of consciousness to make that selection. Just so it's made randomly in accordance with the Born rule. RDR: Actually it seems not completely random. For example take the double slit experiment. As more and more particles are detected the pattern fills out in accordance with the theoretical wave function interference pattern. So it seems as though there is some memory of the previous detections rather than complete randomness. But that may just be heuristic on my part. snip -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 a Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: if comp is true, no God is needed. It's just an arithmetic machine. Even if it's not true God is STILL not needed, that is to say the God hypothesis is of no help whatsoever in understanding anything; it makes no attempt at explaining HOW God does things nor does it explain how and why God came to be. All it does is kick everything we don't understand upstairs and say further investigations into these matters are off limits. No explanation at all is preferable to a explanation that just makes things worse and adds a pointless layer of complication. There is no disgrace in saying in a loud clear voice I don't know, but counterproductive pseudo-explanations are a disgrace. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 17, 12:57 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 a Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: if comp is true, no God is needed. It's just an arithmetic machine. Even if it's not true God is STILL not needed, that is to say the God hypothesis is of no help whatsoever in understanding anything; it makes no attempt at explaining HOW God does things nor does it explain how and why God came to be. How and why did evolution or physics or statistical laws come to be? How is that really different from the God hypothesis? All it does is kick everything we don't understand upstairs and say further investigations into these matters are off limits. And physics does the same by kicking everything downstairs to simple mechanisms. No explanation at all is preferable to a explanation that just makes things worse and adds a pointless layer of complication. There is no disgrace in saying in a loud clear voice I don't know, but counterproductive pseudo-explanations are a disgrace. Quantum physics and computationalism may be doing exactly that right now. Our chasing ever more insubstantial chains of logical causality may be entirely misguided. At some point it may be necessary to realize that the universe cannot be understood by relying exclusively on the knowable, but we may have no choice but to investigate choice itself. We may know and not know it. It may seem like we don't know, but in a sense, we already know. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 17 Feb 2012, at 18:57, John Clark wrote: On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 a Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: if comp is true, no God is needed. It's just an arithmetic machine. Even if it's not true God is STILL not needed, that is to say the God hypothesis is of no help whatsoever in understanding anything; it makes no attempt at explaining HOW God does things nor does it explain how and why God came to be. All it does is kick everything we don't understand upstairs and say further investigations into these matters are off limits. No explanation at all is preferable to a explanation that just makes things worse and adds a pointless layer of complication. There is no disgrace in saying in a loud clear voice I don't know, but counterproductive pseudo- explanations are a disgrace. I see you defend the conception of God given by the Christians. I use the term God in the pre-christian sense of the Platonists. It is basically the truth we are searching, whatever it is. If someone's religion is that the ultimate explanation is a physical primitive universe, then God = that primary physical universe. It remain a God, in the sense that you need an act of faith to believe in it. (As opposed to the physical reality, primary or not, that we believe in because we live it). That God can be shown not exist if comp is true, and the one with the white barb is not very plausible too. But, at least for little machine, the notion of arithmetical truth seems to obey many reasonable axiom for God, notably: - It is responsible for the existence of mind and matter, - the machine cannot describe it in its own language, yet can conceive approximation, - the machine cannot avoid it in any circumstances, but without any means to prove it. When atheists asserts that God does not exist, they mean the Christian God does not exist, and they behave as pseudo-scientist by taking for granted their own God, hiding the act of faith they are doing in their theories. Comaore to platonism, atheism is a variety of christianism. They share the God MATTER, and they share the notion of GOD, even if they disagree on their existence, on which a scientist can only be agnostic. Then, even the jewish, muslims and christians are full of theologians having been good thinkers, and perhaps good experiencer, and having developed reasonable things, despite the risk to hurt the susceptibility of the local dangerous power who pervert the initial meaning of the word and questions. I am not even sure that the roman christianism has any relation with the christianism in between 0 and 500. In fact those who ridicule theology, are those who confined it in the hand of the charlatans. That prevents any progress. 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: The free will function
On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: How and why did evolution or physics or statistical laws come to be? How is that really different from the God hypothesis? Neither can explain why there is something rather than nothing, but the Evolution theory can explain how Evolution did what it did. However the God theory can NOT explain how God did what he did. And explaining how physics and statistical laws came to be is very very hard, but the God theory must do something even harder, explain how the thing that made physics and statistical laws came to be. And physics does the same by kicking everything downstairs to simple mechanisms. Yes, SIMPLE mechanism. Kicking things downstairs is exactly what a good theory should do, using the simple to explain the complex. The God hypothesis does the opposite and uses the complex to explain the simple and that does no good at all, far better would be a truthful I don't know. Quantum physics and computationalism may be doing exactly that right now. Our chasing ever more insubstantial chains of logical causality may be entirely misguided. There doesn't seem to be any may be about it, chains of causality are not infinity long, eventually they stop and you will reach randomness. At some point it may be necessary to realize that the universe cannot be understood by relying exclusively on the knowable, Maybe, but then the universe is not knowable period. If it takes something you can never know to understand the universe then obviously you will never understand the universe; and the God hypothesis is still totally useless. but we may have no choice but to investigate choice itself. But there is nothing to investigate, there is no great mystery about choice, it's either causal or random. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 2/17/2012 11:17 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 17, 12:57 pm, John Clarkjohnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 a Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: if comp is true, no God is needed. It's just an arithmetic machine. Even if it's not true God is STILL not needed, that is to say the God hypothesis is of no help whatsoever in understanding anything; it makes no attempt at explaining HOW God does things nor does it explain how and why God came to be. How and why did evolution or physics or statistical laws come to be? See Lawrence Krause The Universe from Nothing and Vic Stenger The Comprehensible Cosmos How is that really different from the God hypothesis? It makes good predictions. It doesn't come with a lot of medieval baggage: like God wants you to kill people who won't worship Him. All it does is kick everything we don't understand upstairs and say further investigations into these matters are off limits. And physics does the same by kicking everything downstairs to simple mechanisms. The difference is we can get to the stuff downstairs and test our stories and use the ones that work. No explanation at all is preferable to a explanation that just makes things worse and adds a pointless layer of complication. There is no disgrace in saying in a loud clear voice I don't know, but counterproductive pseudo-explanations are a disgrace. Quantum physics and computationalism may be doing exactly that right now. Our chasing ever more insubstantial chains of logical causality may be entirely misguided. At some point it may be necessary to realize that the universe cannot be understood by relying exclusively on the knowable, So we'll rely on understanding the unknowable? Brent Religion: the daughter of Fear and Hope, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary -- 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: The free will function
On 2/17/2012 12:01 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Feb 2012, at 18:57, John Clark wrote: On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 a Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com mailto:whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: if comp is true, no God is needed. It's just an arithmetic machine. Even if it's not true God is STILL not needed, that is to say the God hypothesis is of no help whatsoever in understanding anything; it makes no attempt at explaining HOW God does things nor does it explain how and why God came to be. All it does is kick everything we don't understand upstairs and say further investigations into these matters are off limits. No explanation at all is preferable to a explanation that just makes things worse and adds a pointless layer of complication. There is no disgrace in saying in a loud clear voice I don't know, but counterproductive pseudo-explanations are a disgrace. I see you defend the conception of God given by the Christians. I use the term God in the pre-christian sense of the Platonists. It is basically the truth we are searching, whatever it is. If someone's religion is that the ultimate explanation is a physical primitive universe, then God = that primary physical universe. It remain a God, in the sense that you need an act of faith to believe in it. (As opposed to the physical reality, primary or not, that we believe in because we live it). That God can be shown not exist if comp is true, and the one with the white barb is not very plausible too. But, at least for little machine, the notion of arithmetical truth seems to obey many reasonable axiom for God, notably: - It is responsible for the existence of mind and matter, - the machine cannot describe it in its own language, yet can conceive approximation, - the machine cannot avoid it in any circumstances, but without any means to prove it. When atheists asserts that God does not exist, they mean the Christian God does not exist, and they behave as pseudo-scientist by taking for granted their own God, hiding the act of faith they are doing in their theories. Comaore to platonism, atheism is a variety of christianism. They share the God MATTER, and they share the notion of GOD, even if they disagree on their existence, on which a scientist can only be agnostic. You seem to think you know a lot about a-theists. Brent Then, even the jewish, muslims and christians are full of theologians having been good thinkers, and perhaps good experiencer, and having developed reasonable things, despite the risk to hurt the susceptibility of the local dangerous power who pervert the initial meaning of the word and questions. I am not even sure that the roman christianism has any relation with the christianism in between 0 and 500. In fact those who ridicule theology, are those who confined it in the hand of the charlatans. That prevents any progress. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.1913 / Virus Database: 2112/4815 - Release Date: 02/17/12 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 17, 3:59 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: How and why did evolution or physics or statistical laws come to be? How is that really different from the God hypothesis? Neither can explain why there is something rather than nothing, but the Evolution theory can explain how Evolution did what it did. However the God theory can NOT explain how God did what he did. It's not trying to explain how God did it though, it gets around that by collapsing all whats and hows into a single overarching Who and Why. This is what the universe looks like when you completely anthropomorphize it. Mechanism (which evolution does not universalize to the entire universe) is the contrary thesis: All whos and whys are collapsed into whats and hows, leaving you with a completely de- anthropomorphized (or mechanemorphic) model of the universe. The mechanemorphic model is certainly a tremendous improvement over the anthropmorphic but it is still half wrong. The only reason it's better is because empiricism takes the who and why for granted rather than eliminates it, whereas anthropomorphism is ignorant of the the what and how. It is only through empiricism's development as an extension of natural philosophy/Hermetical alchemy that these principles are incorporated to begin with. If we were to take the worldview of mechanism literally, we would have no idea who we were, nor would we care. And explaining how physics and statistical laws came to be is very very hard, but the God theory must do something even harder, explain how the thing that made physics and statistical laws came to be. I don't see that it would be a problem for God to make physics (I can make a castle out of sand, so God can make a universe out of physics), but the question of why would be more of a problem. The biggest problem for me with the God idea is that it is arbitrarily humanoid. The universe is not very human friendly so it doesn't make much sense. And physics does the same by kicking everything downstairs to simple mechanisms. Yes, SIMPLE mechanism. Kicking things downstairs is exactly what a good theory should do, using the simple to explain the complex. Unless the thing you want to explain cannot really be reduced in some sense but can be in another. I don't see that the universe has any particular preference for simplicity over complexity, it seems to make good use of both. The God hypothesis does the opposite and uses the complex to explain the simple and that does no good at all, far better would be a truthful I don't know. We can only say that in the luxury of hindsight. You are a product of 20th century empiricism. Your senses are atrophied and conditioned into a stoic logical focus. This is nothing like the universe of your ancestors, who for thousands of years existed in direct communication (or so they assumed) with their environment. You must understand that spirituality is an anthropological universal: we have never, ever come in contact with any culture which does not have spiritual concepts. This cannot be brushed aside, nor should it be assumed to validate religion. What I think the universality of spirituality means is that our first natural impulse to relate to the universe is to treat it like we treat ourselves...only more so. This is why the gods are all human superlatives: God of Strength, Beauty, Wisdom, etc. Monotheism is that principle amplified to it's ultimate extreme. No tribe wanders out of the desert saying 'I don't know what I am or how the universe works, but I wonder if there is a microscopic double helix inside each of my trillion cells of my body replicating according to abstract symmetrical principles'. 'I don't know' is new. It's very very important, but only because beneath the 'I don't know' is an implicit 'I know that I don't know' or 'I know that what I think I know might be false'. Without that underlying sense, the confidence to know that even though you don't know you might be able to figure it out, you have nothing. Science is measured faith, faith diffracted through the the suspension of blind faith and with it's opposite: methodical, measured curiosity. Quantum physics and computationalism may be doing exactly that right now. Our chasing ever more insubstantial chains of logical causality may be entirely misguided. There doesn't seem to be any may be about it, chains of causality are not infinity long, eventually they stop and you will reach randomness. Then randomness becomes another name for God. It is the result of the same function run in reverse. Causality magically appears from randomness. Why? At some point it may be necessary to realize that the universe cannot be understood by relying exclusively on the knowable, Maybe, but then the universe is not knowable period. If it takes something you can never know to understand the universe then obviously you will never
Re: The free will function
On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I see you defend the conception of God given by the Christians. By God I mean an omnipotent being that created all the matter and energy in the universe, and logic and mathematics and morality and everything else; when I want to talk about a concept other than that I use a different word than God. I use the term God in the pre-christian sense of the Platonists. It is basically the truth we are searching, whatever it is. I see, so if I seek to know who was the 13'th president of the United States then Millard Fillmore is God. You can certainly redefine the word God to mean anything you like, you can redefine it so only a fool would not believe in it, but I don't see the point. This proves what I have often said, many people are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the 3 letter word God. If I redefine the symbol 5 to mean 4 then 2+2=5 is a true statement, but doing so would cause needless confusion. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
Another comment on the paper: arXiv:1202.3395v1 [physics.hist-ph} Ronald On Feb 15, 10:27 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: can a virtual typhoon makes you wet? I don't know, it depends on whether you are in the same level of reality as the typhoon. I do know for certain that a real typhoon can't make the laws of physics wet because they exist at different levels, although I don't really have a way of determining if the storm is real or not, all I can do is tell if its at the same level as me or not. I can also say that some things behave much the same regardless of what level they are in, things like arithmetic and logic and consciousness. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 14 Feb 2012, at 23:33, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 14, 3:41 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 14 Feb 2012, at 20:39, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 14, 7:56 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 12 Feb 2012, at 15:22, Craig Weinberg wrote: All computers are as dumb as anything could be. Any computer will run the same loop over and over forever if you program them to do that. It's not because you can program's them to being slavingly dumb to do a thing *that's the only thing they can do*, that's a program mean. That's what being dumb is - not being able to figure out how to do anything else than what you already do. But is that not what you do, and vindicate, by telling us that you don't want to study the work of other people, or that you cannot assume comp if only just for the sake of reasoning? My goal is not to be intelligent or to be interested in every idea, it is to explore the implications of this particular set of ideas. You write well, but I'm afraid that you have to develop your learning ability, and it is only by exploring the implications of different set of ideas that you will learn the difference between arguing and advertizing an opinion. A superficial survey of the total set of ideas is what I'm after. I was an anthropology major. I'm not trying to understand the customs and truths of any particular culture, I'm trying to see through all cultures to the underlying universals. A lot of your comment are preventing the meaning of trying to discuss further because you beg the question systematically. In a sense you are saying that comp cannot be true, because your know that your opinion is the correct one. We can't argue then. I'm saying that comp does the same thing, as does every religion and philosophy. They are all different ways of making sense of the universe and the self. All I'm doing is looking at what they all have in common - sense. That is not what I am doing. On the contrary I wish the philosophy and religion adopt the standard of science, which is modest hypothetical communication, without *ever* claiming the truth, but trying valid reasoning in hypothetical frames. It is the only way to progress. But science doesn't put itself in the hypothetical frame - which is fine for specific inquiries, but inquiries into consciousness in general or the cosmos as a whole have to include science itself, it's assumptions, it's origins and motives. Yes. But it is science only as far as we present the theory in clear hypothetical way. The rest is pseudo-religion or insanity. There was progress before science, so it is not true that it is the only way to progress. Science itself may be just the beginning. I like to say that science has begin, in Occident, in -500, and has ended in +500. Thanks to the jews and arabs, the half of science has come back in the enlightenment period. The so-called exact one, so that the political power can continue his fear business selling by using the inexact results of the inexact sciences. That's cool for the bandits. In the East, science has begin earlier, and disappear later, but the situation is not much brilliant. I don't believe in science, but only in scientific attitude, which is mainly modesty, brought by the understanding that any public knowledge is conjectural. Scientific statements are beliefs, which means that they are open to be refuted, indeed they ask only for that. Intelligence is the ability to make sense of any given context and to potentially transcend it, I can agree, although then even human might have a limited intelligence, as humans cannot a priori transcend all context, or you are making a gros assumption on humans. Again a new assumption in an already very long and fuzzy list. I'm not assuming humans have unlimited intelligence. We are smart monkeys in some ways and really dumb in others. which is why it can't be programmed or simulated (but it can be imitated trivially for specific functions). And now a big assumption on machine, which is already refuted by the diagonalization routine. Comp automatically refutes challenges to comp. It does so in the only way that makes sense in comp terms - by showing that logic compels us to accept it's evidence. On the contrary. Comp leads to a counter-intuitive view of reality, doubly so for Aristotelians, and it does not ask to accept its evidence, but only for its refutation. You get it all wrong, Craig. That's what I'm saying is that it is reverse psychology. Comp seduces with humility. It is the ultimate anthropomorphism to see the entire cosmos as completely real except for our own experience which is somehow completely illusory yet has ability to precisely understand its own illusory reasoning. Instead of the special child of God, we become the insignificant consequence of an immense non-god. No. It is the complete contrary.
Re: The free will function
On Feb 16, 12:10 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Yes. But it is science only as far as we present the theory in clear hypothetical way. The rest is pseudo-religion or insanity. Or it could expand the scope of science. There was progress before science, so it is not true that it is the only way to progress. Science itself may be just the beginning. I like to say that science has begin, in Occident, in -500, and has ended in +500. Thanks to the jews and arabs, the half of science has come back in the enlightenment period. The so-called exact one, so that the political power can continue his fear business selling by using the inexact results of the inexact sciences. That's cool for the bandits. In the East, science has begin earlier, and disappear later, but the situation is not much brilliant. I don't believe in science, but only in scientific attitude, which is mainly modesty, brought by the understanding that any public knowledge is conjectural. Scientific statements are beliefs, which means that they are open to be refuted, indeed they ask only for that. In this area though, I want science to even be modest about it's modesty. We can't be sure what attitudes are appropriate for approaching the ultimate mysteries. I find that if we include all attitudes, they form a high quality symmetry with a lot of obvious correlation as well as a lot of subtlety and nuance. Through that symmetry we can see that modesty is not a neutral statement, it is a subject-neutralizing bias. This voyeuristic perspective is ideal for studying objects, but only when those objects do not include ourselves. We should understand that we may not be able to find ourselves in a microscope, any my view explains why that is probably the case. Who we are is rooted in idiosyncratic identity as well as generic process. You can't get one from the other. They are opposite sides of the same thing. Intelligence is the ability to make sense of any given context and to potentially transcend it, I can agree, although then even human might have a limited intelligence, as humans cannot a priori transcend all context, or you are making a gros assumption on humans. Again a new assumption in an already very long and fuzzy list. I'm not assuming humans have unlimited intelligence. We are smart monkeys in some ways and really dumb in others. which is why it can't be programmed or simulated (but it can be imitated trivially for specific functions). And now a big assumption on machine, which is already refuted by the diagonalization routine. Comp automatically refutes challenges to comp. It does so in the only way that makes sense in comp terms - by showing that logic compels us to accept it's evidence. On the contrary. Comp leads to a counter-intuitive view of reality, doubly so for Aristotelians, and it does not ask to accept its evidence, but only for its refutation. You get it all wrong, Craig. That's what I'm saying is that it is reverse psychology. Comp seduces with humility. It is the ultimate anthropomorphism to see the entire cosmos as completely real except for our own experience which is somehow completely illusory yet has ability to precisely understand its own illusory reasoning. Instead of the special child of God, we become the insignificant consequence of an immense non-god. No. It is the complete contrary. Comp de-anthropomorphizes, for if the cosmos is a building of the mind, it is not a building of the human mind, but of the mind of all universal numbers. Right, but that is what I'm saying. De-anthropomorphizing the universe (or mechanemorphizing) is anthropomorphism by reverse psychology. It is to assume that we are capable of escaping our own perceptual bias entirely and see ourselves clearly as nothing very special. It is the ultimate conceit. Our view of the cosmos is so great that we must humble even ourselves before it. This is only possible to do if we psychologically withdraw from our mortality and identify with pure transparency itself. To see the universe as X, we must become non-X; a generic voyeur position unique in all the cosmos - an all doubting, all powerless non-entity. This becomes a problem when you add consciousness into the cosmos. We jump to the conclusion that it is possible for an observation to be universalized - for truths and perceptions to exist independently of a concrete subject. We should instead be more modest about this, deconstruct our assumptions about universality and try it the other way - with subjectivity and objectivity being part of the same finite experiential sense. The entire cosmos is seen as unreal (primitively) but our experience of it are not illusory, once we understand that they don't refer to anything primitively physical. Only the last point is basically correct. Yes, we are not a special child of God. It depends on us to get closer, but we are not well
Re: The free will function
On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: can a virtual typhoon makes you wet? I don't know, it depends on whether you are in the same level of reality as the typhoon. I do know for certain that a real typhoon can't make the laws of physics wet because they exist at different levels, although I don't really have a way of determining if the storm is real or not, all I can do is tell if its at the same level as me or not. I can also say that some things behave much the same regardless of what level they are in, things like arithmetic and logic and consciousness. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The free will function
On 12 Feb 2012, at 15:22, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Feb 11, 8:04 pm, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2012/2/11 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com All computers are as dumb as anything could be. Any computer will run the same loop over and over forever if you program them to do that. It's not because you can program's them to being slavingly dumb to do a thing *that's the only thing they can do*, that's a program mean. That's what being dumb is - not being able to figure out how to do anything else than what you already do. But is that not what you do, and vindicate, by telling us that you don't want to study the work of other people, or that you cannot assume comp if only just for the sake of reasoning? A lot of your comment are preventing the meaning of trying to discuss further because you beg the question systematically. In a sense you are saying that comp cannot be true, because your know that your opinion is the correct one. We can't argue then. Intelligence is the ability to make sense of any given context and to potentially transcend it, I can agree, although then even human might have a limited intelligence, as humans cannot a priori transcend all context, or you are making a gros assumption on humans. Again a new assumption in an already very long and fuzzy list. which is why it can't be programmed or simulated (but it can be imitated trivially for specific functions). And now a big assumption on machine, which is already refuted by the diagonalization routine. If it weren't that way we would not be having this discussion. Machines would exhibit creativity and versatility and would be widely considered identical to animal and human life. You confuse the conceptually possibility that some machine can think, the possibility that actual machine can thing. You might have said that the DNA will never reach the moon by looking at bacteria or insects. That is not reasoning. 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: The free will function
find out in 10 years or 100 years that the molecular model is only the tip of the iceberg. You mean we could discover the existence of something we have not at this point in time experienced? It's the same even without LSD. What you experience isn't what exists objectively, it is what you are capable of and conditioned to experience. Deterministic forces can cause false beliefs. Deterministic forces can suggest false beliefs, but they can't truly cause any beliefs, otherwise they wouldn't be beliefs, but mechanisms. Belief can only be finally caused by a believer. That's your belief Only if my belief is true. Otherwise I can't have a belief. Sure you can. it's just that your theory of belief would be wrong. It would be a false belief. It would be to imagine the opposite of something that cannot even be named. Where on earth did you get cannot be named? Probably from Lovecraft or something. But it's entirely appropriate. A deterministic universe means that determinism cannot be named. Nope. How could it be named if there is no alternative quality to distinguish it from? Because naming is lingusitic, and language allows us to negate concepts even if we don;t have experience of their negations. We can conceive the im-material in a material universe, the im-mortal, the a-temporal, the in-finite, etc, etc. You seem to be runnign off a theory of concept-formation whereby concepts are only ever recongnitions of percerived realities. That does not remotely do justice to human thought and language. Language is combinatorial, it allows you to stick a pair of wings on a horse. Whenever someone resorts to saying 'Nope' or 'No, it isn't' I know that they have nothing to support their opinion or they haven;t got the energy to explain the bleedin' obvious. What name does an engine have for being something other than a non-engine? The problem with an piece of clockwork is that it is dumb, not that it is deterministic. Ok, so what is an intelligent machine's word for a non-machine? Non machine, if it speaks English. But that is a false analogy. Indeterminism just means lack of determinism. But free will means a positive assertion of intentionality - hence, color is not mere non-monochrome, and intentionality is not mere indeterminism. I was talking about indeterminism. Since the thread is named 'The free will function', I was thinking we were talking about that. I would say that indeterminism is a pseudo- position because it simultaneously assumes an omniscient voyeur and an arbitrary subject for orientation. I can't imagine why you would think that. Indeterminism is a comment on access to knowledge, implying that there is something other than the universe as a whole to either possess or lack that access. Blimey! What is the point of anything? Everything has all kinds of points. Generally I think the inside of things wants to accumulate significance and the outside of things doesn't want anything, which negates significance as entropy. That's opinion. You asked a question that can only be answered with an opinion. it could have been answered: actually, there is no good reason to think nothing can exist without having a point. My argument fails. You think opinion is the only option because you think admitting you are wrong is not an option. How does a gear or lever have an opinion? The problems with gears and levers is dumbness. Does putting a billion gears and levers together in an arrangement make them less dumb? Why not? Does it start having opinions at some point? You were a single cell once. Now you are billions, and you started having opinions at some point. Deterministic doesn't mean mandatory or involuntary. How could it not? Can you give a counter example? I am not physically determined to pay taxes, but it is mandatory. I am physically determined to fall under the influence of gravity, but no one mandated it. -- 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.
