Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 29, 2:26 am, russell standish li...@hpcoders.com.au wrote: What extra information do you have in mind? I'd gladly update my priors with anything I can lay my hands on. So changes to neural structure and the concentrations of various chemicals within neurons and around neural synapses is known to change conscious experience in humans. Ants have neurons that work along similar lines as human neurons. Surely this must affect the probability that is assigned to the question of whether ants are able to experience things like pain in a similar way that humans do. It certainly seems to me to be significant. So how does this extra information show up in your assessment of ant consciousness? Again, it seems to me that SSA arguments are better than nothing. But their usefulness fades quickly as more sources of data become available. They might be a good first stab at answering a question, but ideally will never be the final word. For instance, why would I believe your argument over something like this: Fish Feel Pain, Study Finds When you hook a fish, does it hurt? Yes, a new study suggests. Some researchers have previously concluded that fish react to painful stimuli without actually feeling pain in the conscious way humans do. In the new study, researchers gave morphine to one group of fish, and injected the other group with a placebo (saline). Then the fish were treated to burning sensations that were expected to be painful but which did not damage any fish tissue. Both groups reacted the same, by wriggling. However, the fish that had been on morphine later went on about business as if nothing had happened. The fish that had gotten the saline were wary after the test. They acted with defensive behaviors, indicating wariness, or fear and anxiety, said Joseph Garner, an assistant professor at Purdue University. The experiment shows that fish do not only respond to painful stimuli with reflexes, but change their behavior also after the event, said Janicke Nordgreen, a doctoral student in the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science. Together with what we know from experiments carried out by other groups, this indicates that the fish consciously perceive the test situation as painful and switch to behaviors indicative of having been through an aversive experience. A study last month indicated that crabs feel pain, too. Garner and Nordgreen published their results in the online version of the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science. Garner figures the morphine blocked the experience of pain, but not behavioral responses to the heat stimulus itself, either because the responses were reflexive or because the morphine blocked the experience of pain, but not the experience of an unusual stimulus. If you think back to when you have had a headache and taken a painkiller, the pain may go away, but you can still feel the presence or discomfort of the headache, Garner said. The goldfish that did not get morphine experienced this painful, stressful event. Then two hours later, they turned that pain into fear like we do, Garner said. To me, it sounds an awful lot like how we experience pain. Then again, scientist don't fully understand pain in humans. It is felt when electrical signals are sent from nerve endings to your brain, which in turn can release painkillers called endorphins and generate physical and emotional reactions. The details remain unclear, which his why so many people suffer chronic pain with no relief. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 30 Apr 2009, at 18:29, Jesse Mazer wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 29 Apr 2009, at 23:30, Jesse Mazer wrote: But I'm not convinced that the basic Olympia machine he describes doesn't already have a complex causal structure--the causal structure would be in the way different troughs influence each other via the pipe system he describes, not in the motion of the armature. But Maudlin succeed in showing that in its particular running history, *that* causal structure is physically inert. Or it has mysterious influence not related to the computation. Maudlin only showed that *if* you define causal structure in terms of counterfactuals, then the machinery that ensures the proper counterfactuals might be physically inert. But if you reread my post at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg16244.html you can see that I was trying to come up with a definition of the causal structure of a set of events that did *not* depend on counterfactuals...look at these two paragraphs from that post, particular the first sentence of the first paragraph and the last sentence of the second paragraph: It seems to me that there might be ways of defining causal structure which don't depend on counterfactuals, though. One idea I had is that for any system which changes state in a lawlike way over time, all facts about events in the system's history can be represented as a collection of propositions, and then causal structure might be understood in terms of logical relations between propositions, given knowledge of the laws governing the system. As an example, if the system was a cellular automaton, one might have a collection of propositions like cell 156 is colored black at time- step 36, and if you know the rules for how the cells are updated on each time-step, then knowing some subsets of propositions would allow you to deduce others (for example, if you have a set of propositions that tell you the states of all the cells surrounding cell 71 at time-step 106, in most cellular automata that would allow you to figure out the state of cell 71 at the subsequent time-step 107). If the laws of physics in our universe are deterministic than you should in principle be able to represent all facts about the state of the universe at all times as a giant (probably infinite) set of propositions as well, and given knowledge of the laws, knowing certain subsets of these propositions would allow you to deduce others. Causal structure could then be defined in terms of what logical relations hold between the propositions, given knowledge of the laws governing the system. Perhaps in one system you might find a set of four propositions A, B, C, D such that if you know the system's laws, you can see that AB imply C, and D implies A, but no other proposition or group of propositions in this set of four are sufficient to deduce any of the others in this set. Then in another system you might find a set of four propositions X, Y, Z and W such that WZ imply Y, and X implies W, but those are the only deductions you can make from within this set. In this case you can say these two different sets of four propositions represent instantiations of the same causal structure, since if you map W to A, Z to B, Y to C, and D to X then you can see an isomorphism in the logical relations. That's obviously a very simple causal structure involving only 4 events, but one might define much more complex causal structures and then check if there was any subset of events in a system's history that matched that structure. And the propositions could be restricted to ones concerning events that actually did occur in the system's history, with no counterfactual propositions about what would have happened if the system's initial state had been different. For a Turing machine running a particular program the propositions might be things like at time-step 35 the Turing machine's read/ write head moved to memory cell #82 and at time-step 35 the Turing machine had internal state S3 and at time-step 35 memory cell #82 held the digit 1. I'm not sure whether the general rules for how the Turing machine's internal state changes from one step to the next should also be included among the propositions, my guess is you'd probably need to do so in order to ensure that different computations had different causal structures according to the type of definition above...so, you might have a proposition expressing a rule like if the Turing machine is in internal state S3 and its read/write head detects the digit 1, it changes the digit in that cell to a 0 and moves 2 cells to the left, also changing its internal state to S5. Then this set of four propositions would be sufficient to deduce some other propositions about the history of this computation,
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 30 Apr 2009, at 19:39, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 30 Apr 2009, at 15:49, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Marchal wrote That is weird. I think that you believe that a rock implements computations, because you believe a computation can be decomposed in tiny computations, but this is not true, you need much more. You need a universal machine which links and complexify the states in a precise way. Some alive beings do some computations (like some flowers compute tiny part of the Fibonacci function). But again, this is sophisticated and took time to appear. Waves do analog computations, hardly universal digital one, or only when put in some very special condition. Interesting and rich computations are relatively rare and exceptional until they self-multiplied, like amoebas. Does the universe compute its states? Open problem, but most probably not, given that the universe appearance emerge from a statistic bearing on a infinite set of (finite and infinite) computations. How is the evolution of the wave function of the universe or of a flower not a computation? For a reason similar to the fact that there is no algorithm capable of predicting if you will see an electron up or down when prepared in the state up+down. But comp makes the wave itself resulting from apparent (for the 1-person) arithmetical collapses. Nor do I believe the filmed movie graph do any computation, it read a description of one, but does not link them logically in real time. Today, genetical systems, brains, and computer (human or engineered) do concrete computations. But that seems like introducing a magic similar to the magic of physical existence, except now it is the magic of computational connection. Ok, but the magic of computational connection can be entirely reduce to the magic of succession, addition and multiplication of positive integers. And it is magic, but it is a magic which explains why it has to be a magic. A TOE which does not postulate the natural numbers is a TOE without natural numbers. We have to assume the numbers, they cannot be reduced to anything simpler/ Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 01 May 2009, at 17:02, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/5/1 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: That is, you can't say that the rock implements one computation but not another. I don't think it implements any computations. I could accept some tiny apparition of tiny pieces of of tiny automata, but nothing big or sophisticated. Some very special crystals perhaps, no doubt, but those are, then, computer. If your computer has to interact with the external world then that imposes some constraints on what counts as an implementation of a computation. OK. Although you could say: if your computer has to interact with another computer then But OK. It is important, not for the rise of consciousness, but for its relative stability with respect to some notion of first person splral. It is important for having local measure. But without this constraint you are free to interpret any activity as any computation. I don't see why. Simple activity could correspond to simple computation (I can agree with this). But any complex computation will require some gobal connectness among the many simple activity. Especially the long and deep (in Bennett sense) computations. You could pick three trees and, observing the movement of birds on and off the trees, interpret this as a logic gate. Three birds land on the first tree, and that's a zero input. Two birds alight from the second tree, that's a zero input also. Three birds land on the third tree, that's a one output. A minute later, five birds alight from the first tree, one bird lands on the second tree and two birds land on the third tree, which is interpreted as two one inputs giving a zero output. Looks like it might be a a NAND gate! Not very useful, of course, but is there any reason why my interpretation is wrong, or why the birds flying around won't give rise to whatever consciousness is associated with the operation of the logic gate? Somehow you make my point, because I am willing to say that you are right, ONCE assuming the supervenience thesis. But your conclusion, that anything computation supervenes on any physical activity, including the empty one, is what I definitely consider as an absurdity, and is the reason why, keeping comp, I abandon the physical supervenience thesis, and eventually the very idea of primitive physical stuff. A computation is just like they are defined in mathematical books on computation: it is a global logical relation capable of sustaining non trivial relations among abstract items. Consider Ned Block's Chinese People Computer. You can (logically, not ethically of course) program the people of China so that each chinese, just by doing very simple mails, participate into a giant computation emulating Einstein' brain, say. The consciousness of Einstein will rely on the global organization of the information handled by all chineses, not on the physical activity of such or such particular person. Of course, this line ends up accepting that from the point of view of Einstein it is just undecidable if he is a brain in a vat, a body in a hospital, or an abstract (but relatively rare and sophisticate) pattern in Platonia, and then the comp 1 person indeterminacy leads to a rich non trivial relative state interpretation of Arithmetic. I think that if you take a real forest with birds, here and there, you can interpret some behavior as NAND or NOR, but you will not succeed ever in finding the computation of factorial(5). Even the universal dovetailer has to wait (in its own step-time) billions of billions of steps before getting something as interesting as the factorial functions. For Einstein's brain the UD will already take a ridiculously long time (well beyond anything physically observable) before getting its simulation. Even if you decide to no more interact with the external world, you will not say yes to a doctor who propose you a rock in place of your brain. This is beacuse the probability, ven and especially from your first person point of view, that the many NAND (that the rock could perhaps emulates indeed) arrange themselves into a Papaioannou healthy mind's state is null? You could survive in some possible world, but not through the rock computational power. If ever you survive with the rock, the probability that you will be dumb or disable will be far greater. But you are right, those who believes in both comp and physical supervenience have to attach all consciousness to all physical activity, and then they does not need comp anymore and everything become trivial. You get a Kelly sort of physics which predict everything. I prefer to keep the mathematically coherent and sound comp, and forget physical supervenience. Even more so when you realize that the math for comp will explain the appearance of rocks and particles without assuming any metaphysical naturalism. Bruno
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 01 May 2009, at 19:36, Jesse Mazer wrote: I found a paper on the Mandelbrot set and computability, I understand very little but maybe Bruno would be able to follow it: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.CC/0604003 The same author has a shorter outline or slides for a presentation on this subject at http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/cie06/files/d37/PHP_MandelbrotCiE2006Swansea_Jul2006.pdf and at the end he asks the question If M (Mandelbrot set) not Q- computable, can the Halting Problem be reduced to determining membership of (intersection of M and Q^2), i.e. how powerful a 'hypercomputer' is the Mandelbrot set? I believe Q^2 here just refers to the set of all possible pairs of rational numbers. Maybe by reducing the Halting Problem he means that for any Turing machine + input, there might be some rule that would translate it into a pair of rational numbers such that the computation will halt iff the pair is included in the Mandelbrot set? Whatever he means, it sounds like he's saying it's an open question... Thanks! Very interesting. It confirms my feeling that the result Blum, Smale and Shub cannot really help to figure out if the digital Mandelbrot Set is a compact form of a universal dovetaling ... or the exponential complex would already be one Hmm Another way to digitalize the M set would be to consider its digital, ste by step enlargement on the Gaussian Integers (n + mi, n, m in Z). I will study those papers, soon or later. I really love the Mandelbrot set. Look at this beautiful musical zoom by Ubermari0: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgM3XJmH768feature=channel_page Look at this new very impressive zoom by Phaumann, with a 10^333 enlargement, in an hard to compute part of the M-set! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6DD1k4BAUgfeature=channel_page You can see that the computations is deep in Bennett sense, like most object in nature plausibly: it is both very involved and sophisticated yet incredibly redundant, and it is itself the product of a very tiny algorithm. It can be used in practice to compress data. Bruno Jason wrote: On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The mathematical Universal Dovetailer, the splashed universal Turing Machine, the rational Mandelbrot set, or any creative sets in the sense of Emil Post, does all computations. Really all, with Church thesis. This is a theorem in math. The rock? Show me just the 30 first steps of a computation of square-root(2). ... Bruno, I am interested about your statement regarding the Mandelbrot set implementing all computations, could you elaborate on this? Thank you, Jason http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Temporary Reality
On 01 May 2009, at 08:53, Kim Jones wrote: Perhaps atheism is necessary as a stepping stone to a more correct theology? Ah ah, I see that you want to provoke me :) Hard to say, I am discovering that many atheist websites adopt a new definition of atheism, making it a form of agnosticism. This differs from the atheist living in my neighborhood who dismiss agnosticism as a coward form of atheism. So just to fix the thing, I assume you are talking on the real atheist, those who have the faith in the non existence of God. OK. And by God I assume the Judeo-Islamo-Christiano God, to fix the thing, all right? (obviously there are nuances there) Materialistic atheism is not irrational, being on the side of reason, Who says that? but it may be illogical, It may be wrong. Because it is an assertion. (Illogical or invalid bears on reasonings or proofs) given the advanced view of reality we are adopting on this list that challenges the myth of a hard material substratum. Nevertheless I can see a distinct need for this illogicality. de Bono says that the mind goes from equilibrium to equilibrium which means we only ever see/perceive what the mind is prepped by belief to see. The mind craves stable states - we cope very badly with change we ourselves are not controlling or desiring We literally cannot see what we do not already possess some kind of belief/theory/hypothesis/guess etc. about that's the magnificent thing about hominid minds - they're able to make sense of anything at all; without this faculty we wouldn't have gotten this far In Hobson theory of dream, the dreams result from quasi random information generated by the cerebral stem into the cortex, and the cortex would just create meanings from that information. The Ganzfeld procedure shows also how much the brain can generate meaning from random inputs: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/graphics/011109_hacking_your_brain/ You are right I think, it is a fundamental ability. Note also the experiments made by Penfield: you can't trig (electrically) a brain so that someone loose its identity in any first person way. It looks like some fixed theorem in computer science. Drugs confirms that too. But it's also a worry We find it extremely difficult to switch our perception away from our favourite, automated patterns of recognition Anything new will only be judged by the knowledge of the past i.e. the sequence of arrival of all information converted to knowledge up to that point. Anything truly new cannot therefore be understood easily. Sure. This is the mathematical necessity for Lateral Thinking and other disruptive mental operations that reboot perception so that previously hidden realities come into purview. I think the brain does already this during the night. It's also how humour works, another reason humour is an incredibly significant part of thinking. Humour, and many other art. Dreams are also forms of self-made art. Sometimes I make comical dreams, full of jokes. This would mean that atheism would be like a provocative operation designed to perturb the fake certainty of most religion Science is agnostic, and cannot do any absolute ontological commitment. Atheists give a wrong idea of science, and that is worst than simply provoke. For me Atheism is really just a variant of Christianism. They both believe in one of the Aristotelian God, a material nature. They both fight against agnosticism and any form of return to rationalism in the field. At least, like in the ex-Soviet Union, good christian theologians continue discretely the serious research, despite and through the authoritative arguments. so that perhaps a new appreciation based on renewed and broader perception comes about. as de Bono says it can be perfectly logical to be illogical at times. That's what the guardian angel G* tells to the machine G, but it adds, like Sally apparently, that you have to keep your mouth close here. It is once more again a truth which transforms itself into a falsity when made explicit. It belongs to the corona G* minus G. You can teach those Protagorian virtue only by example and practice, never by assertions. Sorry for being so literal, I just like so much the case of ideally correct machine. And you help me to put the finger on what disturbs me a little in de Bono. It is like he tries to teach G* minus G (in comp-auda terms). Perhaps. It is really the non emptiness of G* minus G which makes the good intentions paving the road to hell. 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
