Re: Dreaming On
On 27 Aug 2009, at 15:04, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/8/27 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: You are right. A simpler example is a dreamer and a rock, and the whole universe. They have locally the same input and output: none! So they are functionally identical, yet very different from the first person perspective. This is why in comp I make explicit the existence of a level of substitution. It is the only difference with functionalism which is usually vague on that point. It is a key point. The dreamer is not functionally identical to the rock because he is dreaming and the rock isn't (I'll avoid starting up another rocks are conscious discussion). If the dreamer could talk, he would tell you that something is going on, while the rock would not. I was assuming a non talking dreamer, of course. It isn't really fair to say that the outputs are the same simply because the lines of communication are down, or because eg. you are deliberately trying to fool the external observer into thinking everything is the same. My point is just that functionalism does not really make sense, unless a level of substitution is assumed. - Bruno Marchal 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: Dreaming On
2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Regards, Quentin -- 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: Bayes Destroyed?
On Aug 28, 6:58 am, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: So how are you going to get around Cox's theorem?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox%27s_theorem Cox's theorem is referring to laws of probability for making predictions. I agree Bayesian inference is best for this. But it fails to capture the true basis for rationality, because true explanation is more than just prediction. See for example ‘Theory and Reality’ (Peter Godfrey Smith) and debates in philosophy about prediction versus integration. True explanation is more than just prediction, and involves *integration* of different models. Bayes only deals with prediction. On the contrary, in Bohm's interpretation the particles are more like real classical objects that have definite positions and momenta. What you describe as Bohmian is more like quantum field theory in which particles are just eigenstates of the momentum operator on the field. In Bohm, reality is separated into two different levels of organization, one for the particle level and one for the wave-level. But the wave-level is regarded by Bohm is being deeper, the particles are derivative. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_Explicate_Order_according_to_David_Bohm “In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the explicate or unfolded order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders (Bohm, 1980, p. xv).” “In Bohm’s conception of order, then, primacy is given to the undivided whole, and the implicate order inherent within the whole, rather than to parts of the whole, such as particles, quantum states, and continua.” I'd say analogies are fuzzy associations. Bayesian inference applies equally to fuzzy associations as well as fuzzy causal relations - it's just math. Causal relations are generally of more interest than other relations because they point to ways in which things can be changed. With apologies to Marx, The object of inference is not to explain the world but to change it. Associations are causal relations. But true explanation is more than just causal relations, Bayes deals only with prediction of causal relations.. A more important component of explanation is categorization. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorization Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Categorization implies that objects are grouped into categories, usually for some specific purpose. Analogies are concerned with Categorization, and thus go beyond mere prediction. See ‘Analogies as Categorization’ (Atkins) : http://www.compadre.org/PER/document/ServeFile.cfm?DocID=186ID=4726 “I provide evidence that generated analogies are assertions of categorization, and the base of an analogy is the constructed prototype of an ad hoc category” --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 27 Aug, 20:11, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: and hence that it can't in and of itself tell us anything fundamental about ontology. I don't think it revelas it sown ontology. OTOH, it must somehow be taken accounto fi in any succesful ontology because everything must. I've considered the various comments you've made recently and I've been wondering how best to proceed in our discussion, to try to avoid going round in circles. I'd like to focus on the question of ontology. You say above that consciousness doesn't reveal its own ontology. If by this you mean that consciousness - in virtue of its mere presence - doesn't provide its own analysis, then of course this is obviously true. But this is not what I'm getting at here. I've said pretty clearly that I'm trying to articulate some of the implications of an 'eastern' metaphysics such as Vedanta. A typical statement in this tradition is something like everything is consciousness, and this is indeed broadly the sense in which I'm ascribing ontological primacy to this category. I'm more interested in grounds than implications. If consc. does not reveal its own ontology, some other grounds are needed for making it basic. The term consciousness carries so much freight that I'd prefer some more neutral expression such as primitive self-availability, but as you've said, non-standard vocabulary carries its own burden. Anyway, it's the uneliminable intrinsic availability that Chalmers is getting at in his zombie reductio. Any claim on this as the primitive ontic substrate, naturally entails that all other accounts must in principle be reducible or paraphraseable in terms of it, and I think that in fact Chalmers' own information-based dual-aspect approach has something useful to say on this score. Essentially, at the end of the short exposition in Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness, he summarises the problems pretty well, and comes up with more or less the same intuition, adjusting for vocabulary. Here's the quote: Once a fundamental link between information and experience is on the table, the door is opened to some grander metaphysical speculation concerning the nature of the world. For example, it is often noted that physics characterizes its basic entities only extrinsically, in terms of their relations to other entities, which are themselves characterized extrinsically, and so on. The intrinsic nature of physical entities is left aside. Some argue that no such intrinsic properties exist, but then one is left with a world that is pure causal flux (a pure flow of information) with no properties for the causation to relate. If one allows that intrinsic properties exist, a natural speculation given the above is that the intrinsic properties of the physical - the properties that causation ultimately relates - are themselves phenomenal properties. We might say that phenomenal properties are the internal aspect of information. This could answer a concern about the causal relevance of experience - a natural worry, given a picture on which the physical domain is causally closed, and on which experience is supplementary to the physical. The informational view allows us to understand how experience might have a subtle kind of causal relevance in virtue of its status as the intrinsic nature of the physical. This metaphysical speculation is probably best ignored for the purposes of developing a scientific theory, but in addressing some philosophical issues it is quite suggestive. IOW, he proposes - with charming professional tentativeness - that experience is the intrinsic nature of the physical - i.e. in Quinean terms, everything is reducible to experience. This allows him to paraphrase the extrinsic physical account as 'pure causal flux' - i.e. the abstractable relational properties of what exists. It is of course this abstractability or extrinsicality that makes it at the same time shareable and incomplete. Completing the account - adding back the interpretation of the causal flux - then depends on *being* the 'instantiation' of the flux - i.e. the intrinsic properties in the specified relation. It would interest me to see how the foregoing squares with the criticisms you've recently made, and whether we can at least see exactly where the divergence is situated. David 1. It seems reasonable that relations must have relata. However, relata need not have a rich set of properties. You could build a physical universe out a single type of particle and various relations. 2. Someone's perceptual data are already encoded relationally in the matter of their brain, so if qualia are intrinisc properties of relata, something needs to arrange that they encode the same information, so some novel laws ar required in addition to novel properties, 3,. The Grain problem --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
Re: Bayes Destroyed?
On Aug 27, 7:35 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Zermelo Fraenkel theory has full transfinite induction power, but is still limited by Gödel's incompleteness. What Gentzen showed is that you can prove the consistency of ARITHMETIC by a transfinite induction up to epsilon_0. This shows only that transfinite induction up to epsilon_0 cannot be done in arithmetic. Yes. That's all I need for the purposes of my criticism of Bayes. SInce ZF theory has full transfinite induction power, it is more powerful than arithmetic. The analogy I was suggesting was: Arithmetic = Bayesian Inference Set Theory =Analogical Reasoning If the above match-up is valid, from the above (Set/Category more powerful than Arithmetic), it follows that analogical reasoning is more powerful than Bayesian Inference, and Bayes cannot be the foundation of rationality as many logicians claim. The above match-up is justified by (Brown, Porter), who shows that there's a close match-up between analogical reasoning and Category Theory. See: ‘Category Theory: an abstract setting for analogy and comparison (Brown, Porter) http://www.maths.bangor.ac.uk/research/ftp/cathom/05_10.pdf ‘Comparison’ and ‘Analogy’ are fundamental aspects of knowledge acquisition. We argue that one of the reasons for the usefulness and importance of Category Theory is that it gives an abstract mathematical setting for analogy and comparison, allowing an analysis of the process of abstracting and relating new concepts.’ This shows that analogical reasoning is the deepest possible form of reasoning, and goes beyond Bayes. I agree with your critics on Bayesianism, because it is a good tool but not a panacea, and it does not work for the sort of credibility measure we need in artificial intelligence. The problem of priors in Bayesian inference is devastating. Simple priors only work for simple problems, and complexity priors are uncomputable. The deeper problem of different models cannot be solved by Bayesian inference at all: See: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:_XQwv9eklmkJ:eprints.pascal-network.org/archive/3012/01/statisti.pdf+%22bayesian+inference%22+%22problem+of+priors%22cd=9hl=enct=clnkgl=nz One of the most criticized issues in the Bayesian approach is related to priors. Even if there is a consensus on the use of probability calculus to update beliefs, wildly different conclusions can be arrived at from different states of prior beliefs. While such differences tend to diminish with increas- ing amount of observed data, they are a problem in real situations where the amount of data is always finite. Further, it is only true that posterior beliefs eventually coincide if everyone uses the same set of models and all prior distributions are mutually continuous, i.e., assign non-zero probabili- ties to the same subsets of the parameter space (‘Cromwell’s rule’, see [67]; these conditions are very similar to those guaranteeing consistency [8]). As an interesting sidenote, a Bayesian will always be sure that her own predictions are ‘well-calibrated’, i.e., that empirical frequencies eventually converge to predicted probabilities, no matter how poorly they may have performed so far [22]. It is actually somewhat misleading to speak of the aforementioned crit- icism as the ‘problem of priors’, as it were, since what is meant is often at least as much a ‘problem of models’: if a different set of models is assumed, differences in beliefs never vanish even with the amount of data going to infinity. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug, 02:20, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: the door is opened to some grander metaphysical speculation concerning the nature of the world. For example, it is often noted that physics characterizes its basic entities only extrinsically, in terms of their relations to other entities, which are themselves characterized extrinsically, and so on. The intrinsic nature of physical entities is left aside. Some argue that no such intrinsic properties exist, but then one is left with a world that is pure causal flux (a pure flow of information) with no properties for the causation to relate. ?? Is momentum an intrinsic orextrinsicproperty of an electron? Yes, very much extrinisic since it is actually momentum relative to something else What about spin? Yes, again it has to be measured against a magnetic field. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 27 Aug 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote: On 24 Aug, 16:23, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Aug 2009, at 21:10, Brent Meeker wrote: But you see Brent, here you confirm that materialist are religious in the way they try to explain, or explain away the mind body problem. I can imagine that your consciousness supervene on something uncomputable in the universe. But we have not find anything uncomputable in the universe, except the quantum indeterminacy, but this is the kind of uncomputability predicted by the comp theory (and AUDA suggested it is exactly the uncomputable aspect of the universe predicted by comp). So you are postulating an unknown property of matter just to make the comp theory false. This is really a matter-of-the gaps (cf god-of- the gaps) use of matter. No uncomputable property is needed. If it is a fact that consc. supervenes directly on matter, then no immaterial machine or virtualisation can be conscious. OK. But to be honest I have no clue what matter can be in that setting, nor what directly could possibly mean in consciousness supervenes *directly* on matter. I think that you are saying or meaning that for a computation to have consciousness, the computation needs to be implemented in a real material reality, but that is the point which MGA makes epistemologically inconsistant. That does not prove CTM false, but it does disprove the argument that if physics is computible, then the CTM is true We have both physics is computable entails my brain is computable which entails I can say yes to the doctor, which entails CTM. And we have that physics is computable entails CTM is false (because by UDA, CTM entails that physics cannot be entirely computable, and it is an open problem if that non computability comes only from what is contingent in the computational histories). The white rabbit can be made *relatively* rare (in QM, or in comp) but can never disappear. 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: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug, 08:42, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 27 Aug 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote: On 24 Aug, 16:23, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Aug 2009, at 21:10, Brent Meeker wrote: But you see Brent, here you confirm that materialist are religious in the way they try to explain, or explain away the mind body problem. I can imagine that your consciousness supervene on something uncomputable in the universe. But we have not find anything uncomputable in the universe, except the quantum indeterminacy, but this is the kind of uncomputability predicted by the comp theory (and AUDA suggested it is exactly the uncomputable aspect of the universe predicted by comp). So you are postulating an unknown property of matter just to make the comp theory false. This is really a matter-of-the gaps (cf god-of- the gaps) use of matter. No uncomputable property is needed. If it is a fact that consc. supervenes directly on matter, then no immaterial machine or virtualisation can be conscious. OK. But to be honest I have no clue what matter can be in that setting, nor what directly could possibly mean in consciousness supervenes *directly* on matter. I think that you are saying or meaning that for a computation to have consciousness, the computation needs to be implemented in a real material reality, but that is the point which MGA makes epistemologically inconsistant. That does not prove CTM false, but it does disprove the argument that if physics is computible, then the CTM is true We have both physics is computable entails my brain is computable which entails I can say yes to the doctor, which entails CTM. No we don't for the reasons given. And we have that physics is computable entails CTM is false (because by UDA, CTM entails that physics cannot be entirely computable, and it is an open problem if that non computability comes only from what is contingent in the computational histories). The white rabbit can be made *relatively* rare (in QM, or in comp) but can never disappear. 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: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug, 02:27, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Flammarion wrote: On 21 Aug, 21:01, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Flammarion wrote: Do you think that if you scanned my brain right down to the atomic level, you still wouldn't have captured all the information? That's an interesting question and one that I think relates to the importance of context. A scan of your brain would capture all the information in the Shannon/Boltzman sense, i.e. it would determine which of the possible configurations and processes were realized. However, those concerned about the hard problem, will point out that this misses the fact that the information represents or means something. To know the meaning of the information would require knowledge of the world in which the brain acts and perceives, including a lot of evolutionary history. Image scanning the brain of an alien found in a crash at Roswell. Without knowledge of how he acts and the evolutionary history of his species it would be essentially impossible to guess the meaning of the patterns in his brain. My point is that it is not just computation that is consciousness or cognition, but computation with meaning, which means within a certain context of action. But figuring out stored sensory information should be about the easiest part of the task. If you can trace a pathway from a red sensor to a storage unit, the information in the unit has to mean this is red. What is hard about the Hard Problem is *not* interpretation or context. I'm not so sure about that - maybe more is different applies. This is red is really a summary, an abstraction, of what the red sensor firing means to the alien. To a human it's the color of blood and has connotations of violence, excitement, danger. To an alien with green blood... from a planet with red seas...? If you knew all the associations built up over a lifetime of memories and many lifetimes of evolution maybe the 'hard problem' would dissolve. Not at all. That theory predicts that some entirely novel sensation-- one which has not built up any associations --should be easy to describe. But it isn;t. And in fact describing associations is a lot easier than describing the core phenomenal feel. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug, 09:50, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On 28 Aug, 07:27, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. That still doesn't follow. Water=H2O doesn't mean water is unreal. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. A type of computation is an equivalence class of physical instances. They fall into the class by being susceptible to the same abstract definition, not by having the same extra phsyical property. This is no more mysterious than the fact that you can have quite a physcally varied class of cubic things. Shape is multiply realisable too. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. You do need abstract computations, but you don't need Platonic computations. Not all abstracta are Platonic. Check out the difference between Platonic and Ariostotelean forms. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Non-Platonic bstracta can make sense. Platonism supplies reference, not sense. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug, 07:27, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. That still doesn't follow. Water=H2O doesn't mean water is unreal. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. A type of computation is an equivalence class of physical instances. They fall into the class by being susceptible to the same abstract definition, not by having the same extra phsyical property. This is no more mysterious than the fact that you can have quite a physcally varied class of cubic things. Shape is multiply realisable too. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. You do need abstract computations, but you don't need Platonic computations. Not all abstracta are Platonic. Check out the difference between Platonic and Ariostotelean forms. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Non-Platonic bstracta can make sense. Platonism supplies reference, not sense. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 21 Aug, 20:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 09:33, Flammarion wrote: On 20 Aug, 00:28, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:21, Flammarion wrote: Where he says computation can happen without any physicial process at all. I don't see any evidence for that I am explaining this right now. Only Bruno thinks computation trancends matter. The notion of computation and computability have been discovered by Mathematicians working around the foundation crisis of math after the discovery by Cantor and others of paradoxes in set theory. The idea is that computation should be redefined as physical computation is a very recent one, and is due to people like David Deustch and Landauer. And it does not really work as such. Deutsch reconstruction of the Post-Church-Turing thesis is really a different thesis. Of course you can have theoretical truths about computation But show me something that has been computed by an immaterial computer. A Schmidhuberian computationalist would probably answer: look around you. But I have explained why this is not enough, and why a prori comp makes the observable reality not the output of one program (but a view from inside from all execution of all programs). I can only hope you will work on the UDA+MGA, and understand that non-theoretical truth have to be redefined as theoretical possibilities (consistencies) observed from inside (from some first person point of view). There is no UD. Comp, or CTM, leads to a many types no token view of reality. Token are seen as such by being appearances from the point of view of an abstract subject coupled to an (infinity of) abstract computations. CTM *implies* materialism, and the MGA doesn't work. CTM is neutral on materialism, even if many materialist use incorrectly comp to put the mind body problem under the rug. UDA, including MGA, shows why this fails. What is in MGA which does not work? It's a reductio of the idea that mental states supervene on computational states. CTM must be cast as the claim that mental activity supervenes on computational activity. I agree. Consciousness is attached to computation (and not to computational states), even at the starting of the reasoning, and also when the physical supervenience is introduced in MGA for the reductio ad absurdum. Then, eventually, keeping CTM, and thus abandoning (weak) materialism, consciousness is related to, well not just a computation, but to an infinite sheaves of computations. Consciousness is a first person notion, and as such, is dependent on the first person uncertainty measure brought by the first person indeterminacy. This is why I take time to explain what is a computation, or a computational activity, in purely arithmetical terms. A computation is not just a sequence of computational states, it is a sequence of computational states related by at least one universal machine (and then an infinity of them, from the point of view of the conscious being, observably so when he/she looks below its substitution level). Classical physics become the study of our most probable computations, which emerge from the statistical interference of all computations going through my relevant states (the relevance being dependent of the observer's comp-substitution level). Thanks for quoting my sane2004 definition of comp, and showing that indeed platonism is not part of it. It is a version of Platonism The wording is not important. Maybe you could flag the wording that we are supposed to take serioulsy. The point is that in the assumption of CTM, (CT+ the theological act of faith), I am using that version of platonism only, which is just the idea that classical logic can be applied to arithmetical sentences, and in the conclusion, only, we have to abandon weak materialism or CTM. Nope. Assumptions about truth don't get you a UD which is capable of simulating me. You need a claim about existence. You argument is either based on Platonism or invalid Just arithmetical realism without which CT has no meaning at all. The CT thesis requires some mathematical claims to be true. it doesn't require numbers to actually exist I have never asserted that numbers actually exist. Just that they exist in the sense of the usual interpretation of existential arithmetical statement are independent of me, you, or the existence or not of a material world. There is no usual interpretation, it is disputed. Formalists don't think backeards-E has any existential implications at all Would the two cosmic branes never have collided, and the big bang never occurred, the Rieman hypothesis would still be atemporally and aspatially true or false. Truth and falsehood don't buy you an immaterial computer simulating me and eveything I see. Get the feeling you have change your mind on AR. You believe that a proposition
Re: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug, 12:53, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 28 Aug 2009, at 10:52, Flammarion wrote: On 28 Aug, 08:42, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 27 Aug 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote: On 24 Aug, 16:23, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Aug 2009, at 21:10, Brent Meeker wrote: But you see Brent, here you confirm that materialist are religious in the way they try to explain, or explain away the mind body problem. I can imagine that your consciousness supervene on something uncomputable in the universe. But we have not find anything uncomputable in the universe, except the quantum indeterminacy, but this is the kind of uncomputability predicted by the comp theory (and AUDA suggested it is exactly the uncomputable aspect of the universe predicted by comp). So you are postulating an unknown property of matter just to make the comp theory false. This is really a matter-of-the gaps (cf god-of- the gaps) use of matter. No uncomputable property is needed. If it is a fact that consc. supervenes directly on matter, then no immaterial machine or virtualisation can be conscious. OK. But to be honest I have no clue what matter can be in that setting, nor what directly could possibly mean in consciousness supervenes *directly* on matter. I think that you are saying or meaning that for a computation to have consciousness, the computation needs to be implemented in a real material reality, but that is the point which MGA makes epistemologically inconsistant. That does not prove CTM false, but it does disprove the argument that if physics is computible, then the CTM is true We have both physics is computable entails my brain is computable which entails I can say yes to the doctor, which entails CTM. No we don't for the reasons given. The reason above concerns immaterial machine. Not material one, like in comp alias CTM. (Then MGA proves that matter emerges from number relation, once we assume CTM, but this is not relevant). Are you really saying that if the laws of physics are computable, then we have to say no to the doctor? No. The computability of physics does not entail either the truth or the falsehood of CTM This seems to contradict many statements you have made in preceding posts. Bruno --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 22 Aug, 00:38, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 21 Aug, 19:04, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Explaining away qua reduction is nto the same as explaining away qua elimination. Well, either way he's explaining away, as you yourself point out below. But it's a false distinction, as I point out below. But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! The upshot of which is that he *hasn't* eliminated the mind (with the possible exception of qualia) in the sense of Eliminative Materialism, only reduced it in the sense of Reductive materialism. What do you mean with the possible exception of qualia! The whole point is that if you think you can leave qualitative experience out of the account you're an eliminativist. Qualia are precisely what is being eliminated. He is a selective eliminativist. He is not being inconsistent. Having eiminated qualia, he deosn;t continue to talk about them. He does continue to talk about memory, thought and perception, but then he hasn't eilminated them. In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! In other words, his position isn't what you have decided it is. What do you mean? Are you saying he's an eliminativist or a crypto- dualist? Or are you implying that (possibly!) non-qualitative reductive materialism is something different than either of these? he is eliminativist about qualia and reductionist about everything else. In that case he's an eliminativist about consciousness.. So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. No. Paraphrase indicates identity. Water can be paraphrased as H2O. That means water is identical to H2O. not that water does not and cannot exist. Water is only eliminated as *fundamental* (eg. the way the Greeks thought of it). EliminativISM is a much stronger claim, that the concept eliminated should never subsequently be used even as a place-holder or shrothand Yes, so following your recipe above, a given computation can be paraphrased as a specific physical process. This means that this computation is identical to that physical process. 'Computation' is therefore eliminated as something fundamental (in the Greek sense). Consequently, this leaves CTM+PM with 'computation' as a mere shorthand for an appeal to the fundamental physical processes, or alternatively with no appeal to anything fundamental whatsoever. Yes, yes, and yes. Why would that be a problem? Well, if now you think there's no problem, perhaps you'd like to reconsider what you meant by no above. I try my best to respond to your comments, but it seems to me that you react as though you had never made them. I mean it is false that: Under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, Because instances of compuitation are not eleiminated, they are *identified* with physical processes. Further, I can't possibly agree with your contention that 'eliminativism' is any other or stronger claim than this. Uh-huh. And where are you getting your information on eliminativism from? This would be absurd, as well as unnecessary, because it would mean that we would be struck dumb. Only if we eliminated everything,. and only if we did not have substitute theory. Elimiativists think terms like thought will simply be abandoned as part of a failed theory, (like phlosgiston), rather than continuing as convenient but not entirely accurate shorthand. But they don't expect this to happen until the replacement theories are perfected. So they don't expect to be struck dumb. In that case they're 'replacementists' rather than 'eliminativists', wouldn't you say? It doesn't help to re-arrange the vocabulary They just want to replace one shorthand with another.
Re: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug 2009, at 10:52, Flammarion wrote: On 28 Aug, 08:42, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 27 Aug 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote: On 24 Aug, 16:23, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Aug 2009, at 21:10, Brent Meeker wrote: But you see Brent, here you confirm that materialist are religious in the way they try to explain, or explain away the mind body problem. I can imagine that your consciousness supervene on something uncomputable in the universe. But we have not find anything uncomputable in the universe, except the quantum indeterminacy, but this is the kind of uncomputability predicted by the comp theory (and AUDA suggested it is exactly the uncomputable aspect of the universe predicted by comp). So you are postulating an unknown property of matter just to make the comp theory false. This is really a matter-of-the gaps (cf god-of- the gaps) use of matter. No uncomputable property is needed. If it is a fact that consc. supervenes directly on matter, then no immaterial machine or virtualisation can be conscious. OK. But to be honest I have no clue what matter can be in that setting, nor what directly could possibly mean in consciousness supervenes *directly* on matter. I think that you are saying or meaning that for a computation to have consciousness, the computation needs to be implemented in a real material reality, but that is the point which MGA makes epistemologically inconsistant. That does not prove CTM false, but it does disprove the argument that if physics is computible, then the CTM is true We have both physics is computable entails my brain is computable which entails I can say yes to the doctor, which entails CTM. No we don't for the reasons given. The reason above concerns immaterial machine. Not material one, like in comp alias CTM. (Then MGA proves that matter emerges from number relation, once we assume CTM, but this is not relevant). Are you really saying that if the laws of physics are computable, then we have to say no to the doctor? This seems to contradict many statements you have made in preceding posts. Bruno And we have that physics is computable entails CTM is false (because by UDA, CTM entails that physics cannot be entirely computable, and it is an open problem if that non computability comes only from what is contingent in the computational histories). The white rabbit can be made *relatively* rare (in QM, or in comp) but can never disappear. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 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: Dreaming On
2009/8/28 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: Well, I don't think that it is just words, but it can be difficult to see this because of the heavy freight of association carried by the standard vocabulary. At root, if one doesn't intuit the 'personal' (in the most general sense - e.g. Bruno's sense of the 0-personal) as a) ontological and b) uniquely so, one is still unconsciously categorising in terms of Descartes' two substances, however the vocabulary masks this. But perhaps this is what you mean by just words? Is functionalism monism, property dualism, or might it even be a form of substance dualism? Can a materialist honestly be a monist or is he just a dualist in denial? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 25 Aug, 08:22, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:38, Flammarion wrote: That is false. You are tacitly assuming that PM has to be argued with the full force of necessity -- I don't remember. I don't find trace of what makes you think so. Where? Well, if it;s tacit you wouldn't find a trace. I wake up this morning realizing this was not your usual statement that I am implicitly assuming what I am proving. So actually you may be right, I do believe that PM has to be argued. The key phrase is: with the full force of necessity --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug, 13:51, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: Is functionalism monism, property dualism, or might it even be a form of substance dualism? Monism --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Is your experience the same? Do you experience frabjous? If you put melody for frabjous, you've got synsathesia. I'd say that functional equivalence is relative to the level. At *some* level equal-input-output=equal-experience, but not at higher levels. If you have a different experience for the same input, then you don't produce the same output. If you count experience as output that would reduce functionalism to a meaningless tautology. The private experience itself is not output, but the behaviour it *might* result in is. If my experience is different, then I might say that I feel different; hence my behaviour might be different. But if I am truly functionally identical following a brain transplant, I will by definition be physically incapable of behaving differently. You might on a particular occasion, but you won't under all conditions, because you will be able to say there is something different about the altered experience; namely, the sky now looks frabjous or melodious as well as blue. To have a functionally perfect brain replacement is to be guaranteed that *nothing* will change, so that you will never even be able to say, this feels a bit weird, but I can't explain exactly how. But if functionalism is to be meaningful the level of functional units for a perfect brain replacement must not vary with experience - otherwise functionalism threatens to collapse to identicalism (I just made that up :-) ). I actually expect that our consciousness is very crude, compared to the information theoretic content of our perception and our biological function, and we could be easily fooled by the doctor. Suppose we get a brain that makes the sky look different - but one that forgets how the sky used to look. Yes, you're right. But I'd pay more to keep everything just the same. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Dreaming On
Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Regards, Quentin Try substituting lengths for computations. Are lengths primary because the same length can occur in different physical objects? 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: Dreaming On
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 27 Aug 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote: On 24 Aug, 16:23, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Aug 2009, at 21:10, Brent Meeker wrote: But you see Brent, here you confirm that materialist are religious in the way they try to explain, or explain away the mind body problem. I can imagine that your consciousness supervene on something uncomputable in the universe. But we have not find anything uncomputable in the universe, except the quantum indeterminacy, but this is the kind of uncomputability predicted by the comp theory (and AUDA suggested it is exactly the uncomputable aspect of the universe predicted by comp). So you are postulating an unknown property of matter just to make the comp theory false. This is really a matter-of-the gaps (cf god-of- the gaps) use of matter. No uncomputable property is needed. If it is a fact that consc. supervenes directly on matter, then no immaterial machine or virtualisation can be conscious. OK. But to be honest I have no clue what matter can be in that setting, nor what directly could possibly mean in consciousness supervenes *directly* on matter. I think that you are saying or meaning that for a computation to have consciousness, the computation needs to be implemented in a real material reality, but that is the point which MGA makes epistemologically inconsistant. That does not prove CTM false, but it does disprove the argument that if physics is computible, then the CTM is true We have both physics is computable entails my brain is computable which entails I can say yes to the doctor, which entails CTM. And we have that physics is computable entails CTM is false (because by UDA, CTM entails that physics cannot be entirely computable, This seems to already assume that physics and computation are the same kind of thing, i.e. physics is in Platonia or CTM is a statement about real machines. and it is an open problem if that non computability comes only from what is contingent in the computational histories). Is the contingency of the form some things happen and some things don't? Brent The white rabbit can be made *relatively* rare (in QM, or in comp) but can never disappear. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 28 Aug 2009, at 14:46, Flammarion wrote: On 22 Aug, 08:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 10:28, Flammarion wrote: 1. Something that ontologically exists can only be caused or generated by something else that does 2. I ontologically exist 3. According to you, I am generated by the UD 4. Therefore the UD must ontologically exist. Step 4 is really step 0 which I have worked backwards to here 5. But the UD exists only mathematically. Thus, ontological existence = mathematical existence. There is no usual one, since there is no one agreed ontology of mathematics. For sets and functions, you may be right. For numbers, there is a general mathematical agreement. No there isn't. What is the disagreement? There may be no philosophical argument, but this is not relevant to undersatnd the non philosophical reasoning. Ontology is philosophy. You can't settle ontological quesitons with mathematical proofs. Philosophy, or theology. OK. But comp is an assumption in cognitive- science/philosophy/theology. It is an assumption that a form of reincarnation is possible. This is not pure mathematics. UDA belongs to the intersection of cognitive and physic science. UDA is not purely mathematical. You are aware. are you not, that philosophers and mathematicians are still writing books and papers attacking and defending Platonism and other approaches? Platonism is used by both philosopher and mathematician as something far more general than arithmetical realism, on which all mathematicians agree. I am not concerned with argument about how many pixies exist. So a doubt about the existence of a large cardinal in set theory rise a doubt about the existence of seven? I have use arithmetical realism, because I have never met any difficulty, among mathematicians, physicians and computer scientist. Nor even with philosophers, except some which just dodge the issues of showing what they miss in the argument. My work has been indeed rejected in Brussels, by philsophers. But it has been defended a s a PhD thesis by a jury with mathematician, computer scientist, physician (yes, not physicist, but doctor!). The point remains: there *is* a debate so there is *not* a standard ontology. It is believed explcitly by many physicists too, like David Deutsch, Roger Penrose, and those who use math in physics. I never said no-on beliieves Platonism. I said some people belive other things. Therefore it is contentious, therefore it is needs jsutification. It is more efficacious to see if the consequence of comp, believed by many, are verified by nature. By comp, the ontic theory of everything is shown to be any theory in which I can represent the computable function. The very weak Robinson Arithmetic is already enough. I am not interested in haggling over which pixies exist. This may be the root of your problem. comp = CTM. It clearly isn't by the defintiion you gave in your SANE paper. All right. As I said: comp is CTM + 2 + 2 = 4. Nope, mere truth does not buy the immaterial existence of a UD But from 2+2 = 4 and CT, you can derive the existence of UD. Classical logic is just a formal rule. It depends on the realm in which you apply classical logic. In computer science people admit that a running program will either halt, or not halt, even in case we don't know. This is a non formal use of classical logic. It still does not demonstrate the immaterial existence of computers no-one has built. No one has ever build the prime numbers. Bivalence is not Platonism Exactly. This is one more reason to distinguish carefully arithmetical realism (bivalence in the realm of numbers), and Platonism (something huge in philosophy and theology). Even more reason to distinguish between AR qua truth and AR qua existence. Yes, and I use only AR qua truth. I may ask you what are your evidence for a primary matter, or for your notion of AR qua physical existence. So what? If I am material the reasoning is correct. Since the alternatives to my being material are inherently unlikely, my reasoning is still *probably* correct. You are telling me that if you are material, then you are material. I am telling you I do not have to give equal weight to every hypothesis. I begin to believe what Jesse and David says: you are dodging the issue. What issue? CTM and weak materialism are epistemologically incompabible. Not demonstrated. You have pointed on invisible or implicit errors only, up to now. In your preceding post, you even argue somehow that you cannot show me the errors because they are invisible. At least you don't argue against the first person indeterminacy (unlike Chalmers who pretends that after a duplication between W and M you feel yourself to be simultaneously at the two places). I think you have difficulties with MGA, but if you are interested we
Re: Dreaming On
Flammarion wrote: On 28 Aug, 02:27, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Flammarion wrote: On 21 Aug, 21:01, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Flammarion wrote: Do you think that if you scanned my brain right down to the atomic level, you still wouldn't have captured all the information? That's an interesting question and one that I think relates to the importance of context. A scan of your brain would capture all the information in the Shannon/Boltzman sense, i.e. it would determine which of the possible configurations and processes were realized. However, those concerned about the hard problem, will point out that this misses the fact that the information represents or means something. To know the meaning of the information would require knowledge of the world in which the brain acts and perceives, including a lot of evolutionary history. Image scanning the brain of an alien found in a crash at Roswell. Without knowledge of how he acts and the evolutionary history of his species it would be essentially impossible to guess the meaning of the patterns in his brain. My point is that it is not just computation that is consciousness or cognition, but computation with meaning, which means within a certain context of action. But figuring out stored sensory information should be about the easiest part of the task. If you can trace a pathway from a red sensor to a storage unit, the information in the unit has to mean this is red. What is hard about the Hard Problem is *not* interpretation or context. I'm not so sure about that - maybe more is different applies. This is red is really a summary, an abstraction, of what the red sensor firing means to the alien. To a human it's the color of blood and has connotations of violence, excitement, danger. To an alien with green blood... from a planet with red seas...? If you knew all the associations built up over a lifetime of memories and many lifetimes of evolution maybe the 'hard problem' would dissolve. Not at all. That theory predicts that some entirely novel sensation-- one which has not built up any associations --should be easy to describe. But it isn;t. And in fact describing associations is a lot easier than describing the core phenomenal feel. Does that theory refer to more-is-different? ISTM that more-is-different implies exactly what you point out. It's easier to describe a sensation that has lots of associations because describe it in terms of the associations; whereas a completely novel sensation is impossible describe. 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: Bayes Destroyed?
On 28 Aug 2009, at 10:47, marc.geddes wrote: On Aug 27, 7:35 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Zermelo Fraenkel theory has full transfinite induction power, but is still limited by Gödel's incompleteness. What Gentzen showed is that you can prove the consistency of ARITHMETIC by a transfinite induction up to epsilon_0. This shows only that transfinite induction up to epsilon_0 cannot be done in arithmetic. Yes. That's all I need for the purposes of my criticism of Bayes. SInce ZF theory has full transfinite induction power, it is more powerful than arithmetic. The analogy I was suggesting was: Arithmetic = Bayesian Inference Set Theory =Analogical Reasoning This makes no sense for me. Also, here arithmetic = Peano Arithmetic (the machine, or the formal system). Obviously (?, by Gödel) Arithmetic (arithmetical truth) is infinitely larger that what you can prove in ZF theory. Of course ZF proves much more arithmetical true statements than PA. Interestingly enough, ZF and ZFC proves the same arithmetical truth. (ZFC = ZF + axiom of choice); And of course ZFK (ZF + existence of inaccessible cardinals) proves much more arithmetical statements than ZF. But all those theories proves only a tiny part of Arithmetical truth, which escapes all axiomatizable theories. If the above match-up is valid, from the above (Set/Category more powerful than Arithmetic), it follows that analogical reasoning is more powerful than Bayesian Inference, and Bayes cannot be the foundation of rationality as many logicians claim. The above match-up is justified by (Brown, Porter), who shows that there's a close match-up between analogical reasoning and Category Theory. See: ‘Category Theory: an abstract setting for analogy and comparison (Brown, Porter) http://www.maths.bangor.ac.uk/research/ftp/cathom/05_10.pdf ‘Comparison’ and ‘Analogy’ are fundamental aspects of knowledge acquisition. We argue that one of the reasons for the usefulness and importance of Category Theory is that it gives an abstract mathematical setting for analogy and comparison, allowing an analysis of the process of abstracting and relating new concepts.’ This shows that analogical reasoning is the deepest possible form of reasoning, and goes beyond Bayes. I agree, but there are many things going beyond Bayes. I agree with your critics on Bayesianism, because it is a good tool but not a panacea, and it does not work for the sort of credibility measure we need in artificial intelligence. The problem of priors in Bayesian inference is devastating. Simple priors only work for simple problems, and complexity priors are uncomputable. The deeper problem of different models cannot be solved by Bayesian inference at all: Like all theorems, Bayes theorems can be used with many benefits on some problems, and can generate total non sense when misapplied. 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: Emulation and Stuff
On 28 Aug 2009, at 13:47, Flammarion wrote: On 21 Aug, 20:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 09:33, Flammarion wrote: I can only hope you will work on the UDA+MGA, and understand that non-theoretical truth have to be redefined as theoretical possibilities (consistencies) observed from inside (from some first person point of view). There is no UD. You are meaning no physical UD. I don't need a physical UD in the reasoning. Thanks for quoting my sane2004 definition of comp, and showing that indeed platonism is not part of it. It is a version of Platonism The wording is not important. Maybe you could flag the wording that we are supposed to take serioulsy. I have explained to you why it is preferable to avoid the term Platonism for the belief that classical logic can be applied in arithmetic. Even mathematicians does not call that Platonism, which they use for the general idea that classical logic applies to a much larger part of math. Arithmetical realism is better: it is the belief that the truth of arithmetical sentence exists independently of any means (humans, theories, machines, universes, ...) to study them. The point is that in the assumption of CTM, (CT+ the theological act of faith), I am using that version of platonism only, which is just the idea that classical logic can be applied to arithmetical sentences, and in the conclusion, only, we have to abandon weak materialism or CTM. Nope. Assumptions about truth don't get you a UD which is capable of simulating me. You need a claim about existence. You told me this before, and I did explain that I am use the truth of the existential statement in arithmetic, as my unique claim about existence. You argument is either based on Platonism or invalid Yes, it based on Turing theorem, which with CT can be sump up by universal digital machines exist. Just arithmetical realism without which CT has no meaning at all. The CT thesis requires some mathematical claims to be true. it doesn't require numbers to actually exist I have never asserted that numbers actually exist. Just that they exist in the sense of the usual interpretation of existential arithmetical statement are independent of me, you, or the existence or not of a material world. There is no usual interpretation, it is disputed. For set theoretical realism. Not for the natural numbers. I mean nobody, except you and ultrafinitist, doubt about the mathematical existence of natural numbers. They can doubt about deeper existence of those numbers, but I am not using this. Are you criticizing all theories using natural numbers (from economy to physics)?. Formalists don't think backeards-E has any existential implications at all Formalist does not believe in primary matter either. And they do believe in formal systems, which have sense only through naïve arithmetic. This dodge the issue, nevertheless, because you can add formal to all existential quantifier in the reasoning without changing the conclusion: formal physics has to be reduced to formal number theory. Would the two cosmic branes never have collided, and the big bang never occurred, the Rieman hypothesis would still be atemporally and aspatially true or false. Truth and falsehood don't buy you an immaterial computer simulating me and eveything I see. Fortunately numbers and math are still free. If CTM is correct, you are emulated infinitely often in the UD*. It exists (mathematically) like PI and square-root of two. Get the feeling you have change your mind on AR. You believe that a proposition like the statement that there is no biggest prime number has something to do with physics. In which physical theory you prove that statement, and how? Its truth is not a physical truth. The existence or non-existence asserted is not any kind of real existence OK, in your theory real existence = physical existence. There are two claim here: real existence = physical existence. and mathemaical existence != real existence. they are argued separately. Please, define real. But if the UDA is valid it would be better to write consensual reality = physical reality, and ontic or basic 3- existence = arithmetical existence, or to abandon CTM. If UDA is non valid, it would be nice to point where is the error. You said that the error is in step 0, because I would have pretended something like the number seven actually exists. My answer is that I don't see where I say so. I just say that the number seven exists, in the sense used by mathematicians. I limit my platonism to arithmetic to avoid the problem of platonism in set theory or analysis, and the CTM explains why realism on natural numbers in both necessary and sufficient. I am not denying nay truths, only the interpretation of backwards-E as actual existence I am using a fairly common notion
Re: Bayes Destroyed?
marc.geddes wrote: On Aug 28, 6:58 am, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: So how are you going to get around Cox's theorem?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox%27s_theorem Cox's theorem is referring to laws of probability for making predictions. I agree Bayesian inference is best for this. But it fails to capture the true basis for rationality, because true explanation is more than just prediction. See for example ‘Theory and Reality’ (Peter Godfrey Smith) and debates in philosophy about prediction versus integration. True explanation is more than just prediction, and involves *integration* of different models. Bayes only deals with prediction. That depends on what interpretation you are assigning to the probability measure. Often it is degree of belief, not a prediction. But prediction is the gold-standard for understanding. On the contrary, in Bohm's interpretation the particles are more like real classical objects that have definite positions and momenta. What you describe as Bohmian is more like quantum field theory in which particles are just eigenstates of the momentum operator on the field. In Bohm, reality is separated into two different levels of organization, one for the particle level and one for the wave-level. But the wave-level is regarded by Bohm is being deeper, the particles are derivative. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_Explicate_Order_according_to_David_Bohm This is obviously written by an advocate of Bohm's philosophy - of which his reformulation of Schrodinger's equation was on a small, suggestive part. Note that Bohmian quantum mechanics implies that everything is deterministic - only one sequence of events happens and that sequence is strictly determined by the wave-function of the universe and the initial conditions. Of course it doesn't account for particle production and so is inconsistent with cosmogony and relativity. Brent “In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the explicate or unfolded order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders (Bohm, 1980, p. xv).” “In Bohm’s conception of order, then, primacy is given to the undivided whole, and the implicate order inherent within the whole, rather than to parts of the whole, such as particles, quantum states, and continua.” I'd say analogies are fuzzy associations. Bayesian inference applies equally to fuzzy associations as well as fuzzy causal relations - it's just math. Causal relations are generally of more interest than other relations because they point to ways in which things can be changed. With apologies to Marx, The object of inference is not to explain the world but to change it. Associations are causal relations. But true explanation is more than just causal relations, Bayes deals only with prediction of causal relations.. Bayes deals with whatever you put a probability measure on. Most often it is cited as applying to degrees of belief, which is what Cox's theorem is about. A more important component of explanation is categorization. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorization Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Categorization implies that objects are grouped into categories, usually for some specific purpose. Analogies are concerned with Categorization, and thus go beyond mere prediction. See ‘Analogies as Categorization’ (Atkins) : http://www.compadre.org/PER/document/ServeFile.cfm?DocID=186ID=4726 “I provide evidence that generated analogies are assertions of categorization, and the base of an analogy is the constructed prototype of an ad hoc category” One may invent analogies and categories, but how do you know they are not just arbitrary manipulation of symbols unless you can predict something from them. This seems to me to be an appeal to mysticism (of which Bohm would approve) in which understanding becomes a mystical inner feeling unrelated to action and consequences. 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: Dreaming On
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Is your experience the same? Do you experience frabjous? If you put melody for frabjous, you've got synsathesia. I'd say that functional equivalence is relative to the level. At *some* level equal-input-output=equal-experience, but not at higher levels. If you have a different experience for the same input, then you don't produce the same output. If you count experience as output that would reduce functionalism to a meaningless tautology. The private experience itself is not output, but the behaviour it *might* result in is. If my experience is different, then I might say that I feel different; hence my behaviour might be different. But if I am truly functionally identical following a brain transplant, I will by definition be physically incapable of behaving differently. You might on a particular occasion, but you won't under all conditions, because you will be able to say there is something different about the altered experience; namely, the sky now looks frabjous or melodious as well as blue. To have a functionally perfect brain replacement is to be guaranteed that *nothing* will change, so that you will never even be able to say, this feels a bit weird, but I can't explain exactly how. But if functionalism is to be meaningful the level of functional units for a perfect brain replacement must not vary with experience - otherwise functionalism threatens to collapse to identicalism (I just made that up :-) ). I actually expect that our consciousness is very crude, compared to the information theoretic content of our perception and our biological function, and we could be easily fooled by the doctor. Suppose we get a brain that makes the sky look different - but one that forgets how the sky used to look. Yes, you're right. But I'd pay more to keep everything just the same. But if you take conscious experience as fundamental there's no other standard of sameness. It is only because we believe in the independent reality out there that being fooled makes sense. If the doctor was also creating a simulation of the sky there would be no sense to saying the sky looks different but we are fooled into thinking it looks the same. 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: Dreaming On
2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Regards, Quentin Try substituting lengths for computations. Are lengths primary because the same length can occur in different physical objects? Brent Why would I ? It's not the same thing at all... You could have said substitute by 'red'... there are multiple physical red object. The thing is you can come up with an infinity of physical (possible) realisation for a given computation. So the question is what is linking the computation to the physical realisation if not the abstract rules (which don't exists with physicalism, because there exists only realized computations... no abstract thing) ? Regards, Quentin -- 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: Dreaming On
Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Regards, Quentin Try substituting lengths for computations. Are lengths primary because the same length can occur in different physical objects? Brent Why would I ? It's not the same thing at all... You could have said substitute by 'red'... there are multiple physical red object. The thing is you can come up with an infinity of physical (possible) realisation for a given computation. So the question is what is linking the computation to the physical realisation if not the abstract rules (which don't exists with physicalism, because there exists only realized computations... no abstract thing) ? Lengths are abstract to, but we don't take them to be fundamental. Your reasoning is Platonism; you end up reifying every abstraction simply because they are common to multiple realizations. Brent Regards, 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Dreaming On
On 28 Aug 2009, at 17:58, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 27 Aug 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote: On 24 Aug, 16:23, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Aug 2009, at 21:10, Brent Meeker wrote: But you see Brent, here you confirm that materialist are religious in the way they try to explain, or explain away the mind body problem. I can imagine that your consciousness supervene on something uncomputable in the universe. But we have not find anything uncomputable in the universe, except the quantum indeterminacy, but this is the kind of uncomputability predicted by the comp theory (and AUDA suggested it is exactly the uncomputable aspect of the universe predicted by comp). So you are postulating an unknown property of matter just to make the comp theory false. This is really a matter-of-the gaps (cf god-of- the gaps) use of matter. No uncomputable property is needed. If it is a fact that consc. supervenes directly on matter, then no immaterial machine or virtualisation can be conscious. OK. But to be honest I have no clue what matter can be in that setting, nor what directly could possibly mean in consciousness supervenes *directly* on matter. I think that you are saying or meaning that for a computation to have consciousness, the computation needs to be implemented in a real material reality, but that is the point which MGA makes epistemologically inconsistant. That does not prove CTM false, but it does disprove the argument that if physics is computible, then the CTM is true We have both physics is computable entails my brain is computable which entails I can say yes to the doctor, which entails CTM. And we have that physics is computable entails CTM is false (because by UDA, CTM entails that physics cannot be entirely computable, This seems to already assume that physics and computation are the same kind of thing, i.e. physics is in Platonia or CTM is a statement about real machines. I think there is a misunderstanding. If the physical laws are turing emulable, then whatever is responsible for my consciousness can be Turing emulable at some level (I assume some form of naturalism/materialism or computationalism).OK? If not, your brain (generalized or not) does not obeys to the laws of physics. Then, UDA shows that if we assume we are Turing emulable, then, if we observe ourself below the level of substitution, we are confronted with the many computations going through our states, and physics is given by a measure on the indeterminacy on those computations. Physics is never in Platonia. Physics is Platonia (Arithmetic) as seen from inside. Physics is what is *observed* by self-referentially correct universal machines/numbers. CTM is always a statement about real person with respect to its most probable history/histories (from which the computationalist can trust or not his/her doctor). and it is an open problem if that non computability comes only from what is contingent in the computational histories). Is the contingency of the form some things happen and some things don't? The contingency is of the form some things happen, for me or us, and some things don't happen, for me or us, but all consistent things happens for some one or someone else, yet some phenomenon have a measure near 0, and some have a measure near one, and many have measure in between, and this with respect to anybody (anysoul, anymind). 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: Bayes Destroyed?
marc.geddes wrote: On Aug 27, 7:35 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Zermelo Fraenkel theory has full transfinite induction power, but is still limited by Gödel's incompleteness. What Gentzen showed is that you can prove the consistency of ARITHMETIC by a transfinite induction up to epsilon_0. This shows only that transfinite induction up to epsilon_0 cannot be done in arithmetic. Yes. That's all I need for the purposes of my criticism of Bayes. SInce ZF theory has full transfinite induction power, it is more powerful than arithmetic. The analogy I was suggesting was: Arithmetic = Bayesian Inference Set Theory =Analogical Reasoning If the above match-up is valid, from the above (Set/Category more powerful than Arithmetic), it follows that analogical reasoning is more powerful than Bayesian Inference, From analogies are only suggestive - not proofs. and Bayes cannot be the foundation of rationality as many logicians claim. The above match-up is justified by (Brown, Porter), who shows that there's a close match-up between analogical reasoning and Category Theory. But did Brown and Porter justify Arithmetic=Bayesian inference? ISTM that Bayesian math is just rules of inference for reasoning with probabilities replacing modal operators necessary and possible. See: ‘Category Theory: an abstract setting for analogy and comparison (Brown, Porter) http://www.maths.bangor.ac.uk/research/ftp/cathom/05_10.pdf ‘Comparison’ and ‘Analogy’ are fundamental aspects of knowledge acquisition. We argue that one of the reasons for the usefulness and importance of Category Theory is that it gives an abstract mathematical setting for analogy and comparison, allowing an analysis of the process of abstracting and relating new concepts.’ This shows that analogical reasoning is the deepest possible form of reasoning, and goes beyond Bayes. I agree with your critics on Bayesianism, because it is a good tool but not a panacea, and it does not work for the sort of credibility measure we need in artificial intelligence. The problem of priors in Bayesian inference is devastating. Simple priors only work for simple problems, and complexity priors are uncomputable. Look at Winbugs or R. They compute with some pretty complex priors - that's what Markov chain Monte Carlo methods were invented for. Complex =/= uncomputable. The deeper problem of different models cannot be solved by Bayesian inference at all: Actually Bayesian inference gives a precise and quatitative meaning to Occam's razor in selecting between models. http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/papers/ockham.pdf See: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:_XQwv9eklmkJ:eprints.pascal-network.org/archive/3012/01/statisti.pdf+%22bayesian+inference%22+%22problem+of+priors%22cd=9hl=enct=clnkgl=nz One of the most criticized issues in the Bayesian approach is related to priors. Even if there is a consensus on the use of probability calculus to update beliefs, wildly different conclusions can be arrived at from different states of prior beliefs. A feature, not a bug. While such differences tend to diminish with increas- ing amount of observed data, they are a problem in real situations where the amount of data is always finite. And beliefs do not converge, even in probability - compare Islam and Judaism. Why would any correct theory of degrees of belief suppose that finite data should remove all doubt? Further, it is only true that posterior beliefs eventually coincide if everyone uses the same set of models and all prior distributions are mutually continuous, i.e., assign non-zero probabili- ties to the same subsets of the parameter space (‘Cromwell’s rule’, see [67]; these conditions are very similar to those guaranteeing consistency [8]). As an interesting sidenote, a Bayesian will always be sure that her own predictions are ‘well-calibrated’, i.e., that empirical frequencies eventually converge to predicted probabilities, no matter how poorly they may have performed so far [22]. It is actually somewhat misleading to speak of the aforementioned crit- icism as the ‘problem of priors’, as it were, since what is meant is often at least as much a ‘problem of models’: if a different set of models is assumed, differences in beliefs never vanish even with the amount of data going to infinity. But some models are more probable than others. 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: Dreaming On
2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Regards, Quentin Try substituting lengths for computations. Are lengths primary because the same length can occur in different physical objects? Brent Why would I ? It's not the same thing at all... You could have said substitute by 'red'... there are multiple physical red object. The thing is you can come up with an infinity of physical (possible) realisation for a given computation. So the question is what is linking the computation to the physical realisation if not the abstract rules (which don't exists with physicalism, because there exists only realized computations... no abstract thing) ? Lengths are abstract to, but we don't take them to be fundamental. Your reasoning is Platonism; you end up reifying every abstraction simply because they are common to multiple realizations. Brent I still disagree (about your wording game)... computation is not a property of a thing like a length is, it's a process. And yes I assume abstract rules simply exists... that's what allows me to build concrete realisation of such computation. Regards, Quentin Regards, Quentin -- 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: Dreaming On
Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Regards, Quentin Try substituting lengths for computations. Are lengths primary because the same length can occur in different physical objects? Brent Why would I ? It's not the same thing at all... You could have said substitute by 'red'... there are multiple physical red object. The thing is you can come up with an infinity of physical (possible) realisation for a given computation. So the question is what is linking the computation to the physical realisation if not the abstract rules (which don't exists with physicalism, because there exists only realized computations... no abstract thing) ? Lengths are abstract to, but we don't take them to be fundamental. Your reasoning is Platonism; you end up reifying every abstraction simply because they are common to multiple realizations. Brent I still disagree (about your wording game)... computation is not a property of a thing like a length is, it's a process. So is walking. Shall we reify walking too? And then take it to be fundamental? And yes I assume abstract rules simply exists... I have no problem with taking rules to exist, but that's not the same as assuming they are fundamental and can exist independently. that's what allows me to build concrete realisation of such computation. I think they must exist in your brain first. Brent Regards, Quentin Regards, 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Dreaming On
2009/8/29 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/8/27 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 27 Aug, 08:54, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/26 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: This is because if consciousness is a computational process then it is independant of the (physical or ... virtual) implementation. If I perfom the computation on an abacus or within my head or with stones on the ground... it is the same (from the computation pov). And that's my problem with physicalism. How can it account for the independance of implementation if computations are not real ? Physcialism doesn't say that computations aren't real. It says real instances of computation are identical to physical processes. If everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. Also that doesn't answer how it account for the independance of implementation. As the computation is not primary, how 2 different physical process could generate the same computation without abstract computations being the only thing that link the two processes having existence. How can you make sense of church-turing thesis if only realized computations make sense ? Regards, Quentin Try substituting lengths for computations. Are lengths primary because the same length can occur in different physical objects? Brent Why would I ? It's not the same thing at all... You could have said substitute by 'red'... there are multiple physical red object. The thing is you can come up with an infinity of physical (possible) realisation for a given computation. So the question is what is linking the computation to the physical realisation if not the abstract rules (which don't exists with physicalism, because there exists only realized computations... no abstract thing) ? Lengths are abstract to, but we don't take them to be fundamental. Your reasoning is Platonism; you end up reifying every abstraction simply because they are common to multiple realizations. Brent I still disagree (about your wording game)... computation is not a property of a thing like a length is, it's a process. So is walking. Shall we reify walking too? And then take it to be fundamental? ... Is it a joke or what I'm writing is non-sense ? And yes I assume abstract rules simply exists... I have no problem with taking rules to exist, but that's not the same as assuming they are fundamental and can exist independently. that's what allows me to build concrete realisation of such computation. I think they must exist in your brain first. Brent Well I think they exist independantly of my brain... My brain plays no roles at all in their existence. (Nor yours, nor any) Quentin -- 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: Bayes Destroyed?
On Aug 29, 2:36 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Obviously (?, by Gödel) Arithmetic (arithmetical truth) is infinitely larger that what you can prove in ZF theory. Godel’s theorem doesn’t mean that anything is *absolutely* undecidable; it just means that not all truths can captured by *axiomatic* methods; but we can always use mathematical intuition (non axiomatic methods) to decide the truth of anything can't we?. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems The TRUE but unprovable statement referred to by the theorem is often referred to as “the Gödel sentence” for the theory. The sentence is unprovable within the system but TRUE. How do we know it is true? Mathematical intuition. So to find a math technique powerful enough to decide Godel sentences , we look for a reasoning technique which is non-axiomatic, by asking which math structures are related to which possible reasoning techniques. So we find; Bayesian reasoning (related to) functions/relations Analogical reasoning (related to) categories/sets Then we note that math structures can be arranged in a hierarchy, for instance natural numbers are lower down the hierarchy than real numbers, because real numbers are a higher-order infinity. So we can use this hierarchy to compare the relative power of epistemological techniques. Since: Functions/relations categories/sets (Functions are not as general/abstract as sets/categories; they are lower down in the math structure hierarchy) Bayes Analogical reasoning So, analogical reasoning must be the stronger technique. And indeed, since analogical reasoning is related to sets/categories (the highest order of math) it must the strongest technique. So we can determine the truth of Godel sentences by relying on mathematical intuition (which from the above must be equivalent to analogical reasoning). And nothing is really undecidable. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Bayes Destroyed?
On Aug 29, 5:21 am, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Look at Winbugs or R. They compute with some pretty complex priors - that's what Markov chain Monte Carlo methods were invented for. Complex =/= uncomputable. Techniques such the Monte Carlo method don’t scale well. Actually Bayesian inference gives a precise and quatitative meaning to Occam's razor in selecting between models. http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/papers/ockham.pdf The formal definitions of Occam’s razor are uncomputable. Remember, the theory of Bayesian reasoning is *itself* a scientific model, so differences of opinion about Bayesian models will result in mutually incompatible science. That’s why Bayes has serious problems. (see below for more on this point) And beliefs do not converge, even in probability - compare Islam and Judaism. Why would any correct theory of degrees of belief suppose that finite data should remove all doubt? So how did people come to believe things like Islam and Judaism in the first place? (the beliefs PRIOR to collecting evidence) Bayes can’t tell you *what* to believe, it can only tell you how your beliefs should *change* with new evidence. The fact that you are free to believe anything to start with shows that Bayes has major problems. Stathis once pointed on this list that crazy people can actually still perform axiomatic reasoning very well, and invent all sorts of elaborate justifications, the problem is their priors, not their reasoning; so if you try to use Bayes as the entire basis of your logic, you’re crazy ;) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
