RE: Worlds do fuse
It's something of a semantic difference whether worlds should be said to fuse in the MWI. Consider a photon which passes through a two slit interference experiment. One way of describing it is to say that there are two worlds, one where the photon passes through one slit and one where it passes through the other. Then the worlds fuse when the photons hit the screen and this is the cause of the interference. Another way of describing it is that there is no split of worlds, that there is only one world in which the photon takes both paths (in some sense). Only when there is a measurement which collapses the wave function do we get a new world. In this view, if we put a detector at the slits which could tell which slit the photon passed through, the worlds would split when the detector was triggered. In one world the detector would show the photon going through one slit, and in the other world it would show the photon going through the other slit. It is the act of measurement, an irreversible act of amplification, which causes worlds to split in this definition. Both pictures are consistent and both use the concept of many worlds. It is just a matter of definition whether you want to say that parts of the state function which still are coherently entangled are separate worlds or not. If you use the second definition, though, I think it is correct to say that worlds do not fuse. Even a seemingly insignificant difference, if it occurs at the classical level, will produce a fundamentally different quantum wave function. And in fact, given the chaotic nature of the classical world (where the flap of a butterfly's wings causes next year's hurricane), it is likely that there are no insigificant differences. Hal [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Conventional QTI = False
Saibal writes: According to the conventional QTI, not only do you live forever, you can also never forget anything. I don't believe this because I know for a fact that I have forgotten quite a lot of things that have happened a long time ago. Right, but to make the same argument against QTI you'd have to say, you don't believe this because you have died. But this is not possible. So the analogy is not as good as it looks. You do exist in branches where you have forgotten things, as well as in branches where you remember them. But you don't exist in branches where you have died, only in branches where you are still alive. They aren't really the same. There are arguments against QTI but this one does not work so well. Hal F.
Re: Implementation
One of the thins which is attractive about Wei's approach, as I understand it, is that it does not try to answer the question of whether a given system is conscious, at least not in yes-or-no terms. Rather, it tries to give a probability that a given system is conscious, and specifically that it instantiates a particular consciousness, such as my own. This allows you to have such things as systems which are probably conscious, or, in a sense, partially conscious (in the sense that we can treat them as having a 10% chance of being conscious, say). This interpretation makes most sense in the context of the Strong Self-Selection Assumption (that we can consider our moments of experience as randomly chosen from among all observer-moments). The probabilities assigned to consciousness serve as a weighting factor for how much they contribute to the ensemble of all observer-moments. We don't try to ask, is it like something to be this rock, or this brain. We ask, what is the probability that it is like something to be this rock, or perhaps, what is the probability that it is like being me right now to be this rock. In Chalmer's fading qualia, he points out the unreasonability of describing systems as being partially conscious, maybe halfway between between being conscious as we are and being zombies. But Wei's approach avoids this while still allowing for gradations of consciousness. He does not try to imagine what it is like to be one of those systems which is 50% conscious, rather he simply incorporates the 50% in the contribution the system makes to the overall ensemble of conscious systems. Wei's method is reminiscent of an objective variant on Hans Moravec's pan-psychism, the notion that everything is potentially conscious, it's just a matter of how we look at it. Hans would say that a brain seems conscious to us and a rock does not, because the mapping needed to see the brain's consciousness is simpler from our perspective than the mapping that would be necessary for the rock's. He raises the possibility that there could be other observers in our own world for whom the rock was conscious but the brain was not, because the mapping was simpler in that direction for them. Wei's approach rejects the subjective element but retains the notion that there is a degree of probability for any system's consciousness. The brain's probability is very high, and the rock's is very low. The construction of the probabilities might be operationally very similar to Hans' model, having to do with how complex the mapping would have to be (similar as well to Jacques Mallah's proposal). But it is given an objective interpretation. In effect we reject the notion that there are legitimate observers for whom the rock is conscious. Whether there is a sound objective basis for doing so is still unclear to me. Hal
RE: consciousness based on information or computation?
Jacques Bailhache, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: Is it really a fundamental difference between static and dynamic structures ? Any machine can be represented by a string. A program can be considered either as a static character string, or as the description of the rules of evolution of a dynamic process. I am uncomfortable with saying that a process is equivalent to the rules which generate it. It seems to suggest that writing down the rules is equivalent to actually working out all the ramifications of those rules. It is true that the rules uniquely specify the process, but in practice it still takes work to find out exactly what the details of that process are. In particular, if the process in question is a consciousness-containing universe, what is actually necessary in order for that consciousness to exist? Running the program seems good enough to me. Is just writing the program enough? Hans Moravec takes the view that you don't even have to write the program; the mere fact that such a program potentially exists automatically means that the consciousness exists (and is, in fact, how and why our own consciousness-containing universe exists). I prefer a simpler approach to the string-process question. I would say that a dynamic three-dimensional process can be represented by a static four-dimensional space-time structure. This is the standard viewpoint for relativity theory. Time is just another dimension (albeit one with different properties than the spatial dimensions). Another way to think of this is to imagine a two-dimensional world. It's been demonstrated that you could, in theory, have a two-dimensional universal computer. Then any process operating in that computer could be represented as a three dimensional structure, where we use the third dimension to represent time. This solid, static three-dimensional structure then can encode any computational process. Some versions of the many-worlds model consider the universe to be branching at each point into multiple universes. This is harder to capture in a static picture. You can do it but it doesn't seem as natural. However another way to view this model is to have, instead of a single universe which branches into many, many initially identical universes which then differentiate themselves. These are equivalent ways of looking at the same phenomenon. With the differentiating-universes model we again have a simple flow of time within each universe and a very simple representation of processes in that universe as static structures. Hal
Re: Everything is Just a Memory
Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There is a widespread confusion between two kind of idealism. 1) There is solipsism, sometimes called subjective idealism. It is (as James Higgo said) the doctrine that I am dreaming, that I am the only builder of reality, and all other people are just zombie. This is a ridiculous doctrine, although it can be used to illustrate some philophical point, like the concept of zombie. It is a ridiculous doctrine, because a doctrine is something you communicate, and why should someone try to communicate things to zombie. So solipsisme (like some strong form of positivism) is self-defeating. I don't agree that this is a ridiculous doctrine, or that a believer in solipsism should not communicate. A solipsist may communicate with others, even if he believes they are not conscious, in order to get information and ideas. In his model of the world, certain information comes to him only through interaction with the outside. If he is to work out his ideas in fullness, he can best do so by interacting with the outside world. This may involve bouncing ideas off of other people, and even trying to persuade them, in order to test the quality of his ideas. It is like a believer in more conventional philosophies who finds it useful to write his ideas down on paper (or on a computer), in order to clarify them and look for problems and new approaches. He doesn't think the paper or computer is conscious, but this method of interacting with the outside world can still be productive. The real problem with solipsism, IMO, is that it fails to predict or explain why the world is the way it is. Fine, I'm dreaming. Why? Why am I dreaming that I live in a lawful universe? And why do I have dreams within the dream, and those dreams are not of a lawful universe? None of this is explained. Contrast this with other approaches to philosophy, such as the all- universes models we have been discussing. These approaches have the potential to truly explain why the universe is lawful, and why we see things in roughly the way they are. It might even turn out that our very universe is, by some measures, the most probable one to exist. We don't know for sure that things will work out this way, but at least the potential is there. This makes it a very productive avenue to explore. It is hard to see how solipsism could begin to provide this kind of explanation. Hal
Re: minimal theory of consciousness
Wei Dai, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: On Sun, Jul 18, 1999 at 02:35:03PM -0400, Jacques M Mallah wrote: On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I can then apply your formula, letting x vary over all universes in U, computing sum over x of P(x)Q(x). I don't fully understand the meaning of the result, the probability that I feel the way I do, but I wonder if this would be a valid alternative way of getting to it. That makes NO sense. If you say all 'universes' exist, that's the same as saying one big universe exists. And if two copies of the same computation give you twice the measure when they are in different 'subuniverses', there's no reason that shouldn't be true in general. Suppose I exist in universe A and I exist in universe B. Then the contribution these two universes make to the overall probability I feel the way I do is p(A) + p(B). If universe C is another universe that happens to be identical to A joined to B somehow, then I exist in C. The measure of C may or may not be related in a simple way to the measures of A and B. (I am not making any assumptions here about how measures are assigned to universes, in particular I am not assuming the universal distribution.) So p(C) gets added to the mix. I don't see anything contradictory in this. I agree with Jacques Mallah here. Even if you could somehow distinguish between subuniverses (between which measures add up) and regions of subuniverse, there would be a subuniverse with high measure (e.g. the counting universe) that contains a copy of every other subuniverse as a region and it would dominate in your computation, leaving you with senseless results. I agree that I exist in the counting universe. The counting universe would have to have low measure for this model to be true. (Unless I am actually living in the counting universe.) I think you agree that you exist in the counting universe. However I think you give low measure to the places in the counting universe where you exist because they are so small compared to the universe as a whole. Is that right? I think Jacques does not agree that he exists in the counting universe. He wants to see a process, not a pattern. It is not clear whether a process can be fully represented as a pattern. Hal
RE: Implementation
To follow up on Bruno's comment, can we use a HLUT type structure to implement something equivalent to a universal Turing machine? The TM can be thought of as implementing an algorithm, mapping from an input tape to an output tape. We can do the same thing with an HLUT, using the contents of the input tape as the index to look up an entry in the humongous table. The data at that entry in the table is then put out as the contents of the output tape. The resulting system, let's call it HLUT-TM, if considered as a black box, has the same I/O behavior as the TM. We could even include a time-delay value in the HLUT if we wanted the HLUT machine to take the same amount of time as the TM. If the HLUT-TM would be considered as an implementatino of the computation executed by the TM, then if the TM was executing a conscious program, perhaps the HLUT equivalent of the TM executing that same program should also be considered conscious. As is common in philosophical paradoxes like this, we can then try to find a range of cases between the two extremes (TM vs HLUT-TM). Hans Moravec suggests something along these lines in Mind Children. Consider a variant on a TM, a cellular automaton which is performing some calculation. Many such CAs are known to be universal. Hans notes that occasionally implementations of CAs are optimized for speed by incorporating local lookup tables. The local configuration of cell states is checked against the table and if the entry is found the entire local set of cells is updated immediately, potentially skipping many steps of computation. Otherwise the calculation is done laboriously (and perhaps it is added to the lookup table for future use). You could imagine doing this on larger and larger scales. At the smallest level you have a simple optimization that wouldn't seem to have any significant effects, but at the highest level you essentially have a HLUT. If you want to say that the original system was conscious (say, the CA is running a TM which is running a conscious program), but you don't want to say that the HLUT is conscious, you have to say something about at what point consciousness would go away. You also have to say whether consciousness would go away gradually or suddenly as larger volumes of the CA are swept into the local lookup tables. Hal
RE: Turing vs math
[I sent this privately by accident] James Higgo writes: What that postulates is that everything exists, and that means you exist and I exist in an infinity of all possible variations. I'm perfectly comfortable with this, as I am an MWI-er. In this view, the only reason you ever get a physical 'law' is that when the random relationships we see as laws break down (which is most of the time), we cease to be able to observe it, as the environment then ceases to be hospitable to life. The same reson an MWI-er will give for us never seeing a vacuum collapse: they occur, but we don't observe those eigenstates in which they do, as we aren't alive. Only if it's a major breakdown. Laws that have small exceptions and loopholes would still be consistent with our existence. The question is, given that all worlds exist, and that the WAP explains why we find ourselves in a congenial environment, WHY have I never seen a flying rabbit? Why should not the 'laws' break a little bit, to allow non-lethal event like that, then repair themselves? Well, I just asked you the same thing in another message! I don't think you can explain this without invoking multiple universes. The normal all-universe explanation is to consider two universes. One has physical laws as we know them: F=ma (one of Newton's laws), etc. The other has a law like F=ma except when Merlin waves his magic wand. This universe allows for flying rabbits and other magical objects, but is otherwise basically lawful and people can evolve in it. Now, obviously the program to compute the second universe is much more complicated than the program to compute the first one. It has all these special exceptions in it for when magic is allowed to work, and how. So it is a bigger program. We then invoke the principle that large-program universes are inherently less likely than small-program universes, and presto! we have it more likely that we live in a universe without flying rabbits, without magic, etc. That's the general argument we are striving to achieve. I do think that this argument has some problems, but it is appealing and if the holes can be filled it seems to offer an answer to the question. What do you think? Hal
Re: all of me or one of me
Wei Dai, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes, regarding whether we should identify with exact copies of ourselves: I think the following thought experiment shows the latter is more appropriate. Suppose you are one of two people in a prisoner's dilemma type game, where if you push button A both players will get 4 dollars, but if you push button B you will get 5 dollars and the other player will get nothing. The twist is that both players are given temporary amnesia and are put into identical rooms so you don't know what your identity is. If you identify with both players, then you should press A. However I think most people under the circumstances will press B. This is similar to the question of super-rationality discussed by Douglas Hofstadter in his Scientific American column in the 1980s. He set up a similar thought experiment and he found that most people he asked would in fact push B. However in his case he simply had everyone be in roughly the same situation, that is, they had their individual personalities intact but they were presented identical scenarios, and they knew that each person was presented an identical scenario. Wei sharpens the situation so that the players have temporary amnesia and don't remember who they are. This would make it more plausible that each would do the same thing. But still they might have different personalities, tendencies, reasoning abilities, etc. Wouldn't the situation most relevant to the question of identity be one where the two people in the room are both copies of you? Where you can know that each would do exactly the same thing? If you knew that each would do the same thing, I think you would push A. As I recall, if Hofstadter set up different scenarios to try to get people to push A. The other fellow is your identical twin, etc. When he finally got to where the other player was just the player in a mirror, then finally people would push A. With two instances of the same person, I think it would be as certain as myself in the mirror. Hal
RE: Turing vs math
Why can't the simplest possible program be taken as computing a universe which includes us? We tend to say it computes all universes as though it computes more than one. Then it is fair to object that the program is too simple, because it computes more than one universe. But this is a semantic objection based on the definition of a universe. How do we know how many universes a given program computes? Is there an objective, well defined measure? That seems necessary in order to rule out a trivial counting or dovetailing program as one which creates our observable universe and our minds as a subset of its output. Wei Dai proposed a solution to this, which was to say that it is not enough to compute a universe that matches what I see; it must compute a universe which includes my mind. And then, he proposes that the probability measure should not be calculated as just the size of the universe program, but rather as the size of the program that computes the universe PLUS the size of the program that localizes (finds, locates) my mind within that universe. This provides an objective measure of the degree of overkill/redundancy/extra-universes produced by the universe simulation. Something objective like this seems necessary to reject the notion that we live in a universe produced by a trivial program. Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Juergen Schmidhuber) writes: Ah! The point is: the information content of a particular universe U is the length of the shortest algorithm that computes U AND NOTHING ELSE. But the shortest algorithm for everything computes all the other universes too. Hence it does not convey the information about U by itself! Everything conveys much less info than most particular computable objects. More is less. But to calculate the probability of a particular universe you need to look at its particular algorithms, of course, not at the collective probability of all universes.
Re: practical reasoning and strong SSA
Wei Dai, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: Bayesian analysis in general does not depend on the Strong SSA, but any Bayesian analysis where you try to compute P(X | I observe Y) does because you need the Strong SSA to compute P(I observe Y | X) and P(I observe Y | not X). My example is one of classical Bayesian reasoning, but it is slightly different from the way you put it, because I don't have direct knowledge that Mathematica outputs a 9 for the sixth digit of Pi. I do know that I am reading N[Pi]=3.14159, and Strong SSA is needed to derive the probability that I am reading N[Pi]=3.14159 if Pi doesn't begin with 3.14159. So, are you saying that P(I observe N[Pi]=3.14159 | PI == 3.14159) should be considered the probability, given that PI has that value, that a randomly chosen observer-moment is of me, sitting at a computer, seeing this value display, out of all observer-moments in all possible universes? In that case the probability would be extremely low, since only a tiny fraction of all observer-moments would consist of me doing that. Maybe it would be something like 1E-100. However, the probability P(I observe N[Pi]=3.14159 | PI != 3.14159) would be even lower, since not only would the randomly chosen observer moment have to be me running mathematica, but it would also be necessary that mathematica is wrong. Maybe this probability would be 1E-110. We would then run the Bayesian formula with these two extremely low conditional probabilities. From this we would conclude that P(PI == 3.14159 | I observe N[Pi]=3.14159) would be high, as we expect. Is this how you would work this problem, based on the strong SSA? I'm not sure I am on the right track here... Hal
Re: Fwd: Implementation/Relativity
Hans Moravec, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: Christopher Maloney [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If our tools were sophisticated enough, we could figure out what that creature was experiencing at that moment, independent of his or her report. NO! We may determine the full physical structure of an organism well enough to simulate it faithfully as a purely physical object. However, any experiences we impute to it will remain a subjective matter with different answers for different observers. Some observers will be content to say there are no experiences in any case, including when they simulate you or me. In trying to understand these ideas, I have a question. Earlier I think Hans said that one possible observer was the conscious entity himself. I am an observer of my own consciousness. My consciousness (or lack thereof) is subjective, and varies depending on the observer, but one of the observers is me. Does this mean that there is a special consciousness, which is that consciousness observed by the observer himself? In other words, I may impute a certain consciousness to Hans, and someone else may interpret his actions as caused by a different consciousness, but Hans himself interprets his consciousness in a certain way as well. Does this self-interpretation have a privileged position, and if so could we choose to say that it is the true consciousness of Hans himself? Hal
Re: 3 possible views of consciousness
Hans writes: But position 1 does NOT preclude the reality of a first-person existence, it just makes that existence a purely subjective matter, but not only for third persons. Once you attribute consciousness to an entity (perhaps persuaded by its Turing test performance), then you are interpreting its observable state in terms of feelings, beliefs and intentions. Would you say, then, that it is *impossible* to *falsely* attribute consciousness to an entity? That the question of whether something is conscious, being purely subjective, is not something that you can be mistaken about? We sometimes find ourselves tempted to treat seemingly mindless and even inanimate objects as conscious. Some people talk to their plants and feel that the plants respond. Others persuade their vehicles to cooperate by offering encouraging words. Primitive societies believed that nature in its various manifestations was conscious, and would talk to the crops and clouds, entreating them to grow, often with success. In your view, would you say that these attitudes are equally as valid as treating other human beings as conscious? If it is all subjective, how can we draw a line between conscious and unconscious entities? It seems important to do so, otherwise there a danger that we might say there is no moral difference between kicking a rock and kicking a puppy. Hal
Re: Turing vs math
Juergen Schmidhuber writes: Hal: Approximate probabilities based on approximations to the K. complexity of a string are no more computable than precise ones. There is no fixed bound B which allows you to compute the K. complexity of an arbitrary string within accuracy B. You should add within a given fixed time interval. Within finite (though unknown) time you can compute the K of finite string x. In general you'll just never know whether your current lowest upper bound on K is tight. Right, but the fact that we observe probabilities means that they are being computed to within some bounds, right? And the bounds have to be low enough that we don't observe discrepancies from what probability theory would predict, it seems to me. Kolmogorov complexity is uncomputable to the same extent and for much the same reason that the halting problem is undecideable. Yes, if you had infinite time you could compute the K. complexity of any string, and you could also solve the halting problem for any program. Wouldn't you be uncomfortable with an ontology which required solving the halting problem in order to produce the observable universe? It seems that requiring evaluating K. complexity, even to within some specific bounds, raises the same difficulties. Hal
Re: on simply being an SAS (and UDA)
Russell Standish, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: I then asked you whether by digital device, you meant a Universal Turing Machine. This is where I part company with you, as I suspect that (1-)randomness has something to do with free will. Suppose a Turing Machine augmented with a true random number generator (quantum, or whatever) produced consciousness while one with only a pseudo random number generator (a deterministic, algorithmic, but largely unpredictable generator) did not. In cryptography we study pseudo RNGs which can be distinguished from true RNGs only if certain problems can be solved which are thought to be intractable. For exmaple, the Blum Blum Shub psuedo RNG can be distinguished from true randomness only if an extremely large number can be broken into its prime factors (the same problem underlying the well known RSA cryptosystem). It seems implausible that the ability to perform a calculation (factoring a sufficiently large prime) which is thought to take more computing power than is available in the universe would make the difference between consciousness and its absence. Hal
Re: Confessions of a quantum suicidal
That's a very interesting story. I wonder if any suicides have ever been discovered where there was a note or other evidence that they were attempting quantum suicide? Of course these ideas are not well known so it is unlikely that the investigators would attach any significance to such evidence. Hal
Re: Q Wars Episode 10^9: the Phantom Measure
Jacques M Mallah, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: It is surely true that in the MWI, old copies of you-like beings will exist. It is also true that they will be of very small measure, and that the effective probability of being one of those copies is very tiny. We would agree that someone is going to be those people. One way to ask the question at hand is, would that someone be you. This then depends on the definition of identity. If you define all beings who follow from your present state by the laws of physics as you, then that someone will be you. In that case, you will eventually find yourself to be very old. Hal
Program for UD
self-delimiting programs in order for the notion of running all programs to be well defined, and recover the universal distribution? Hal
Re: Computing Randomness
Hal writes: Here is a direct quote from page 24 of Chaitin's The Unknowable: The general flavor of my work is like this. You compare the complexity of the axioms to the complexity of the result you're trying to derive, and if the result is more complex than the axioms, then you can not get it from those axioms. I think Chaitin is paraphrasing his results here. As he says, this just gives the flavor of it. Here is the second quote. It is from Chaitin's The Limits of Mathematics page 90. The first of these theorems states that an N-bit formal axiomatic system cannot enable one to exhibit any specific object with a program-size complexity greater than N + c. When you look at this in detail, he means that the FAS cannot exhibit a specific object that it can PROVE to have large complexity. This article is online at http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/rov.html and the statement above is found in the third paragraph. But when we read farther down we find, a more formal statement: Now consider a formal axiomatic system A of complexity N, i.e., with a set of theorems T_A that considered as an r.e. set as above has self-delimiting program-size complexity H(TA) = N. We show that A cannot enable us to exhibit a specific S-expression s with self-delimiting complexity H(s) greater than N+c. Here c = 4872. See godel2.r. And if we follow the link to godel2.r, which is the lisp program that establishes the result, it says, Show that a formal system of complexity N can't prove that a specific object has complexity N + 4872. That's what is actually proven. The FAS cannot PROVE that a specific object has high complexity. The earlier statements were attempts to paraphrase this result and were perhaps somewhat misleading. When he said the FAS would not enable us to exhibit a specific s-expression with high complexity, he meant that the FAS was not able to supply us with a proof of this fact. The whole thrust of Chaitin's result, when you follow it closely and study the LISP code as I did for several hours last night, is that the FAS is limited in the complexity it can prove, not in the complexity of what it can produce. Hal
Re: Variations in measure
Wei writes, quoting Hal In general, one might expect those minds with less observational power and less specific knowledge and understanding of the universe to have larger measure. Yes, but that doesn't mean you should be surprised if you find yourself having more observational power and more knowledge, because the set of sharp minds can have greater measure than the set of dull minds even if individual sharp minds has less measure than individual dull minds. Does this have any implications for the use of the all-universe hypothesis to explain and predict our observations? What kinds of implications did you have in mind? What is the right question to ask in terms of relating measure of an observer-moment to our likelihood of experiencing it? Equivalently, what can we hope to explain via the concept of observer-moments that vary in measure? It seems that the general statement that we would expect to be in a high-measure observer-moment is not true, if the number of low-measure observer moments is high. We are not more likely to live in a simple universe than in a complex one, if the number of possible complex universes is correspondingly larger. And the larger number seems plausible when there is greater complexity, as in the example above of more complex minds existing in higher numbers. Hence the all universe principle does not easily explain the absence of flying rabbits, because while flying-rabbit universes are more complex and of lower measure, there are so many more ways to come up with complex universes. It seems that the explanatory power of the principle is less than I had realized. Hal
Re: The Simulation Argument
Nick Bostrom writes: I have just finished a paper (which had been existing in a half-baked form for much too long) that might be of interest to the list members. It has its own website at http://www.simulation-argument.com ... ABSTRACT. This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the transhumanist dogma that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed. I wonder if you consider the possibility that there is no matter of fact as to whether we are living in a simulation? Suppose that we live in real life, and also get simulated one or more times, then our consciousness cannot be localized to any specific instantiation. Perhaps you are considering posthumans who simulate variations on possible histories? In that case only those simulations which happen to match the past exactly would give rise to this question, which is arguably a small fraction of simulations assuming imperfect knowledge of the past. Hal
Re: Predictions duplications
Juergen writes: Some seem to think that the weak anthropic principle explains the regularity. The argument goes like this: Let there be a uniform measure on all universe histories, represented as bitstrings. Now take the tiny subset of histories in which you appear. Although the measure of this subset is tiny, its conditional measure, given your very existence, is not: According to the weak anthropic principle, the conditional probability of finding yourself in a regular universe compatible with your existence equals 1. But it is essential to see that the weak anthropic principle does not have any predictive power at all. It does not tell you anything about the future. It cannot explain away futures in which you still exist but irregular things happen. Only a nonuniform prior can explain this. Isn't this fixed by saying that the uniform measure is not over all universe histories, as you have it above, but over all programs that generate universes? Now we have the advantage that short programs generate more regular universes than long ones, and the WAP grows teeth. Hal Finney
Re: The Simulation Argument
Nick Bostrom writes: Hal wrote: I wonder if you consider the possibility that there is no matter of fact as to whether we are living in a simulation? Suppose that we live in real life, and also get simulated one or more times, then our consciousness cannot be localized to any specific instantiation. A brain (or a particular simulation of a brain) can refer indexically to itself. Suppose you have two brains, A and B, in exactly the same internal states, both of whom think of themselves that they are in a red box. Suppose A is in a red box and B is in a blue box. Then A has a true belief and B has a false belief, and there seems to be an objective fact of the matter that this is so. I don't think it is right to say that a brain has beliefs. It seems to me that beliefs are a property of a mind. Saying that a brain has beliefs is a shorthand for saying that the brain instantiates a conscious program, and that the consciousness has beliefs. In this case then we would say that the consciousness believes that it is in a red box. More precisely, it would believe that the brain which instantiates it is in a red box. But the brain which instantiates it is not well defined, since two brains instantiate it. Hal
Re: UDA steps 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Marchal writes: Here is question 6. Perhaps the first not so obvious one. Do you agree that, if I ask you at Brussels, before the Washington-Moscow duplication experiment: Where will you *feel* to be after the experiment will be completed? that although you can answer you will see me at Washington and at Moscow, your first person diary will either contain I am at Moscow or I am at Washington so that you cannot predict with certainty where you will feel to be? I don't think this is a meaningful question, because it is not operational, that is, it is just a matter of opinion and does not require anyone to take any action. Suppose you were French and, faced with this experiment, you were asked, would you study English or Russian prior to engaging in this experiment? That is an operational question. If you think you will be in Moscow, you would study Russian; if Washington, English. If neither, then I suppose you would not study either one. For me, I would study both. However I would refuse to answer a question like where will you feel to be, not because I can't predict the answer with certainty, but because I don't think you is a well defined concept in the context of this experiment. It's not that the answer to the question is unpredictable, it's that the question is meaningless. Hal
Narrow escapes
Suppose you almost cause a terrible accident. You are driving too fast down a quiet street and a child suddenly steps out. You swerve and manage to miss him. You drive on, nervous and anxious, and feeling very lucky that you did not hit and perhaps kill the child. It's all a matter of probabilities. In some universes you do hit him and in some you miss. By taking the action of driving recklessly, you increase the number of universes in which you kill the child. Suppose you cause a different accident. You drive into a crowd of 100 children and kill 20. Do you feel relief that 80 survived? No, you feel terrible that you have taken 20 children from the universe. The same feeling is appropriate in the first example, the narrow escape. You decreased the number of children in the multiverse by your actions. It is irrelevant that this instance of your consciousness happened to end up in a universe where nothing happened. The multiverse has been affected, the measure of that child has been reduced. You have killed children just as surely as in the second example where you drove into a crowd. In general, when you do something and you get lucky or unlucky with regard to the consequences, you shouldn't look too closely at the particular outcome you saw. Morally speaking your actions spread out through the multiverse. The fact that the results, good or bad, are not immediately visible to you does not decrease their reality. I don't think that this reasoning implies any differences in how we should make our decisions. We already base them on probabilites and the multiverse view retains probability based decision theory. However it does perhaps change how we should view the outcomes and the effects of what we do. Hal Finney
Re: Variations in measure
Wei writes: If you think about it more, I think you'll realize that the greater number of observer-moments observing flying rabbits or similar happenings can't make up for the much smaller measure of each such observer-moment. Unfortunately right now I can't find a way to easily articulate the reasoning behind that conclusion. Here is an example. Suppose we had a universe which was a CA system like Conway's Life game, but more complex. It still has a fairly simple program to represent its functions and so will have generally high measure. Now suppose we modify that program to be, follow the normal rules except at position X, always set the cell to 0. This represents a flying rabbit universe, one which has relatively simple laws of physics but where there is an exception. If the universe is very large, then to specify X will take a large number of bits. Hence the flying rabbit universe program is much larger than the simple universe program, and its measure is much less. This is the explanation I accepted for why we are not in a flying rabbit universe. (I am assuming the universal distribution as a measure, where the measure of an n-bit minimal program is 2^(-n).) However if you consider all possible universes of this type, that is, all possible values of X, then there are 2^n of these if X is n bits long, exactly countering the loss in measure due to the size of X. The collection of this kind of flying rabbit universes has only modestly less measure than the simple universe. The only decrease is due to the size of the except at position and set to 0 clauses, which might be only a few bits long. And this is only one possible kind of exceptional universe. If we consider the various other special-case exceptions to the normal rule then the collective measure of all of these will come even closer to the simple case. This suggests that the simplicity explanation against flying-rabbit universes is not strong, because the total collection of flying-rabbit universes is close in measure to the simple universe to which they rerpesent exceptions. That's the problem as I see it. Hal
Re: relevance of the real measure
Wei writes: Suppose there are only two logically possible deterministic universes A and B, and you know that A has measure 0.9, and B has measure 0.1. Suppose that until time T the history of these two universes are identical. At time T an experiment will be done in both universes. In universe A the outcome of the experiment will be a, and in universe B the outcome will be b. If before time T you were given an opportunity to bet $10 that the outcome is a at 1:1 odds, so that in universe A you would gain $10, and in universe B you would lose $10, Would you take the bet? Measure is not supposed to be just an abstract number that is attached to a universe. It has meaning in terms of our own perceptions and experience in that universe. The all-universe theory includes both a model of universes which exist, and a way of relating our experiences of consciousness to those universes. In the theory, if there is a physical system in the multiverse which is isomorphic to our own mental state, then the probability of experiencing subjective consequences which correspond to changes in that system will be proportional to its measure. This is a crucial linkage for the theory to have explanatory power, otherwise our experiences would not need to have any connection to measure and it would be a meaningless parameter. The standard answer is yes, you should take it because A has greater measure. But that assumes you care more about universes that have greater measure than universes that have less measure. But you could say that you don't care about what happens in universe A, only about what happens in universe B, in which case you wouldn't take the bet. So it seems that the measure only affects your decisions if it enters into your utility function somehow, and it's not clear that it must. Think of a single-universe model with ordinary probability, where you have a bet with a 90% chance of outcome A and 10% chance of outcome B. Conventionally you should take the bet which maximizes your expectations based on A occuring. But you could imagine someone who only cared about what happened if outcome B happened, and bet on B so that he would do well in that unlikely case. It's rational in a certain sense, but it is going to lead to bad consequences in practice. These two examples are similar in that in each case you have to face the reality that you are likely to subjectively experience outcome A. In the multiverse model that is part of the theory which relates subjective experience to the physical model. You can't escape the fact that the subjective consequences of your actions will be based on measure. So I don't think you can ignore it or treat it as a parameter to be dealt with as you like. Hal
RE: FIN too
Charles Goodwin, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: Another question is what happens in cases of very violent death, e.g. beheading. After someone's head is cut off, so they say, it remains conscious for a few seconds (I can't see why it wouldn't). According to QTI it experiences being decapitated but then survives indefinitely - somehow . . . well, I'd like to hear what QTI supporters think happens next (from the pov of the victim). Are they magically translated into a non-decapitated version of themselves, and if so, how? Surely it can't be in the same quantum state that they're in? If not, do they experience indefinitely continued survival as a severed head, or . . . what??? Just curious! The answer is very simple. The future that is experienced is the least unlikely that allows for continuation of consciousness. (More precisely, the probability distribution over those futures where you are still alive determines the relative probability of experience given that you find yourself alive, a tautology.) So, your head has been cut off and clunk, you fall on the ground, getting a nasty knock on the head, not to mention the neck soreness and missing body. How could you survive? There are several alternatives. It is possible that entropy ceases to operate in your brain, and that you continue to think despite the loss of blood flow. This however would be an astronomically unlikely future. More likely, aliens or supernatural intelligences of some sort would intervene to keep you alive. Alternatively, it would turn out that you were playing a futuristic video game where you had temporarily blanked out your memory to make it more realistic. Then next thing you see is Game Over. These possibilities makes most sense if you consider the set of all physical systems where you have the same mental state, rather than just the systems which are part of your corner of the QM multiverse. There are universes where aliens are monitoring the earth, unknown to its inhabitants, and the mental states of residents of earth in such universes will be identical to the states of people in some other universes without aliens. When you find yourself with head chopped off, you don't know which class of universe you are in. I would argue that there is no fact of the matter about it (this is our old argument about whether your consciousness is tied to a specific instance of the many which instantiate it). Hence you will experience the most likely continuation which is consistent with your mental experiences in any branch of the QM universe which could produce that experience. I think we all agree with the objective facts of the situation here. For any observer moment there exist other observer moments which are subjectively in its future (equivalently, for which it is subjectively in the past). The question is whether to interpret this fact as meaning continued survival. Ultimately that is a matter of definitions. Hal Finney
Re: Computing Randomness
Hal writes: Well any assertion [object] with a LISP elegant program size greater than N + 356 can not be fully described by A since you can not identify its elegant program with A. Agreed. Now Chaitin says on page 24 that he can not exhibit specific true, unprovable assertions. But can we indeed point to some? No, I don't think you have done so. Keep in mind that Chaitin's assertions in this context means potential theorems of the FAS (Formal Axiomatic System, right?), that is, well-formed strings which might turn out to be true or false. Being fully described is not a well-formed string. It is not a potential theorem of the FAS. So pointing at a number and saying that it is not fully described (because the FAS can't numerically determine its complexity) does not represent a true, unprovable assertion in the FAS. I consider evolving universes - at first examination - to be theorem cascades in finite FAS. So let us look at Juergen's example: 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+1=4, 4+1=5, ...2873465+1=2873466, As the iterations proceed numerous added steps to the computing program unavoidably contain longer strings [most strings are incompressible] than those in any previous iteration and thus these steps have more program length complexity. This complexity will eventually exceed any finite limit. We will have arrived at strings whose properties are not fully describable by any finite FAS. Sure. Most of the strings almost certainly have greater complexity than that of the FAS. We may even be able to prove that they do so, outside the system, by using assumptions which are stronger than the FAS. But the FAS itself will not be able to prove that the complexity of any string is greater than itself (plus a constant). This is shown by a trivial program which reaches a contradiction if it were possible. Basically you would have a small program which outputs a string of large complexity, which violates the definition of complexity (the size of the smallest program which outputs it). What happens to the cascade when it reaches unprovable assertions [strings]? Cascades do not have internal stop rules. It doesn't reach unprovable assertions [strings]; the assertions/theorems are just as provable at this size as they were at the smaller size. Rather, the FAS can no longer compute how complex the strings are. That's the only difference. I wonder if you are confusing the idea that the strings have unprovable complexity with the idea that the strings themselves, as theorems, are unprovable. These are two different matters. An FAS with a given complexity CAN and DOES produce theorems with greater complexity. You should not misread Chaitin to think that he says otherwise. There is NO LIMIT on the complexity of a theorem which can be produced using an FAS, any more than there is a limit to the complexity of a string that can be produced with a finite alphabet. What Chaitin says is that the FAS can't PROVE that a string has greater complexity than what the FAS itself starts with. It is a limitation on the power of the FAS to PROVE complexity, not on the power of the FAS to GENERATE complexity. IMO the issue is cured by the FAS itself becoming more complex. A bit of incompleteness is resolved. Why is there a need for a cure? Hal (the other Hal)
Re: Leibniz Semantics
A v B A - B 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 Just to help you guys out, the notation used here puts the 'result' operation in the middle column. The first column is A, the last column is B, and the middle column holds A or B in the first table and if A then B in the second table. This is different than how I have usually seen it displayed, where the result operation is in the rightmost column. That accounts for part of the confusion. Hal
Re: QTI
Saibal writes: Since conventional physics is sufficient to give (at least in principle) a complete description of the human brain, a partial ordering on the set of all possible observer moments S can be defined as follows: First we choose an arbitrary brain B. If x1 and x2 are elements of S, then x1 x2 iff both x1 and x2 can be experienced by B and an initial condition specifying the entire state of the (conventional) universe including that of B exists such that x1 is experienced by B at some time t1 and x2 is experienced at some time t2 and t1 t2. Your definition of a brain B cannot be a specific atomic configuration, because of course the brain state changes depending on what it is experiencing. So B must include an entire set of possible configurations. But we know from biology that as brains experience things, their fine structure changes. The synapses where neurons come together change, the cells themselves change, the blood vessels probably change, etc. So I think you will have trouble clearly defining B in a biologically reasonable or plausible way, to mean all the things B could ever experience. You're also bringing in the notion of time, which raises many problems of its own. Even if you could do all this, isn't it possible that x1 x2 and also x2 x1. You haven't proven that it isn't. Biologically we could imagine a brain going into state x1, and then forgetting about it, and going into state x2; and we could also imagine the reverse. For example, it might be possible for a brain to have dream D1 followed by dream D2, or it could have had D2 followed by D1. All in all I don't think this is a very promising approach. Hal Finney
Re: my current position (was: AUDA)
Wei writes: Suppose you want to crack a bank's encryption key, which is worth $4 million to you, and there are two ways to do it. You can spend $2 million to build a quantum computer to crack the key, or you can spend $3 million to build a classical computer to do this. Now if you believe the Speed Prior is the correct measure, then you'll think that the quantum computer will very likely fail, and therefore you should go with the classical computer instead. But if you believe the Universal Prior is the correct measure, then you'll think that both computers will work and you'll go with the quantum computer because it's cheaper. However, there's another way to think about this situation that doesn't involve an objective measure. The fast-to-compute and the slow-to-compute universes both exist. (The fast-to-compute universes are the ones where quantum computers fail.) So when you adopt the Speed Prior you're really saying I know the slow-to-compute universes exist (and my actions affect what happens in them), but I just don't care very much about those universe. I'm having a lot of trouble understanding this view. Why should you care more or less about slow to compute universes? What kinds of considerations would influence your decision to care about such universes? Isn't it an empirical question which prior obtains (speed vs universal)? You want to maximize your gains, so you try to figure out from reason and observation which prior is true. For example you could build a small quantum computer and see if worked. If not that would suggest that the speed prior is true, if it does work that suggests the universal prior is true. Suppose you observe that quantum computers don't work. What does that mean in your formulation? Does it mean that you have decided to care about a certain kind of universe? Why should this fact change what you care about? Hal
Kiln People
I've started reading the new novel from SF writer David Brin, Kiln People. He describes it at his web site, http://www.kithrup.com/brin/othersfbooks.html: : Take the notion of golems-- temporary clay people (not clones!) -- and : now imagine a near future when everybody can make them. Using a home : copier you ditto your memories -- perhaps even a genuine imprint of : your soul -- and off goes the duplicate to run your errands, attend your : classes, or do all the drudgery work. Then, at day's end, you download : the golem's memories. : : As a citizen of this near future, you've duplicated yourself a zillion : times and take it for granted, sometimes being the original, sometimes the : copy. You live your life in parallel, sending expensive study golems : to the library while cheap models clean the house and your real body : works out at the gym. Two thirds of the Earth's population consists of : temporaries made of clay. People seem to have even adjusted to this new : way of life, until The interesting thing is the implication of such technology for some of our discussions of measure. If you duplicate yourself, of course you and your duplicate begin to diverge. Your measure effectively doubles. But the duplicates have a short lifetime, just a day or two. At the end they either self-destruct, get killed or if they are lucky they get their memories merged back into the biological original. If duplicating yourself doubles your measure, then merging two selves would halve it, right? Likewise letting one of your two selves be killed would halve it as well. So from the point of view of maximizing measure, which is supposedly what evolution makes us try to do in the context of the multiverse, is it any better to try to arrange to recapture the memories of as many golems as possible, or to just let them expire? From the point of view of gaining useful information and experience, it is certainly better to recapture the memories of the dittos. Doing that makes it seem like the duplicate was still alive. Yet the measure is halved. That seems a little paradoxical. Another point is the experience of having a duplicate made. The narrator, a private detective, has several made every morning who go out and do his investigative work. Some come back, others don't (it's a dangerous business). So he has memories of being both duplicates and original. From his perspective, when he lies down to be scanned, it's indeterminate and random whether he will get up as a ditto or as the biological original. This is the famous first-person indeterminacy which we have often discussed. No doubt many of our philosophical conundrums would be easier to handle if we lived in Brin's golem-ridden society. Hal
The Edge on Multiverse Theories
The online magazine The Edge has a set of hard questions by experts and notables in a variety of fields, some of which discuss multiverse theories. http://www.edge.org/q2002/question.02_index.html. Paul Davies critiques the multiverse+anthropic_principle explanation for what we see, in http://www.edge.org/q2002/q_davies2.html: Sir Martin raises the question of whether what we consider to be fundamental laws of physics are in fact merely local bylaws applicable to the universe we perceive. Implicit in this assumption is the fact that there are laws of some sort anyway. By definition, a law is a property of nature that is independent of time. We still need to explain why universes come with such time-independent lawlike features, even if a vast and random variety of laws is on offer. One might try to counter this by invoking an extreme version of the anthropic theory in which there are no laws, just chaos. The apparent day-by-day lawfulness of the universe would then itself be anthropically selected: if a crucial regularity of nature suddenly failed, observers would die and cease to observe. But this theory seems to be rather easily falsified. As Sir Martin points out, if a particular remarkable aspect of the laws is anthropically selected from a truly random set, then we would expect on statistical grounds the aspect concerned to be just sufficient to permit biological observers. Consider, then, the law of conservation of electric charge. At the atomic level, this law is implied by the assumed constancy of the fine-structure constant. (I shall sidestep recent claims that this number might vary over cosmological time scales.) Suppose there were no such fundamental law, and the unit of electric charge varied randomly from moment to moment? Would that be life-threatening? Not if the variations were small enough. The fine-structure constant affects atomic fine-structure, not gross structure, so that most chemical properties on which life as we know it depends are not very sensitive to the actual value of this number. In fact, the fine-structure constant is known to be constant to better than one part in a hundred million. A related quantity, the anamolous magnetic moment of the electron, is known to be constant to even greater accuracy. Variations several orders of magnitude larger than this would not render the universe hostile to carbon-based life. So the constancy of electric charge at the atomic level is an example of a regularity of nature far in excess of what is demanded by anthropic considerations. Even a multiverse theory that treated this regularity as a bylaw would need to explain why such a bylaw exists. It seems that this point can be addressed pretty well by the flavor of multiverse theories we consider here, in which simple universes are inherently more likely than more complex ones. In this model we would predict that the universe would be just as complex as necessary to support our kind of life, but no more so. For a constant to be stable to better than 1/100,000,000 is not that surprising; it is plausible that the simplest theory has that constant being absolutely stable. It would take more information to specify a formula for variation of some physical unit than to specify a single value which never varies. The Sir Martin article being responded to above is interesting in its own right, as an attempt to justify exploring the multiverse concept despite some complaints that it is metaphysics rather than physics. In http://www.edge.org/q2002/q_rees.html Martin Rees gives his own example of an apparent departure from simplicity: the fact that our universe seems to have a considerable portion of its mass in dark matter, which doesn't do anything obviously useful. Of course it may well be that dark matter plays an important role in the formation of galaxies, which allow for the formation of 2nd-generation stars which have enough heavy elements that they can have planets. Hal
Re: Kiln People
Wei writes: This brings up the question: Which measure is evolution making us try to maximize? The answer is none. It only appears that way because people who try to maximize their measures according to some measure function will tend to have large measures according to that measure function. So if you sample the multiverse according to some measure function, you'll likely find people who appear to be trying to maximize their measures according to that measure function. But if you then sample the multiverse according to a second measure function, you'll likely find people who appear to be trying to maximize their measures according to the second measure function. This makes sense in a formal, mathematical way. Given a sheaf of universes you can apply any weighting function you want. But I still think you are taking too many degrees of freedom here. My intuition is that there must be some kind of constraint which keeps you from adopting arbitrary measures. But I don't have a good idea yet for what that might be. A couple of possibilities occur to me. One is that it might be irrational to adopt other measures (for some definition of rationality). For example, rationality might impose some consistency conditions on your weighting function. Another possibility is that mathematics says that there is really only one measure function, the universal measure, for all but an insignificant fraction of worlds. That is, all measure functions are arbitrarily close to the universal measure, in the limit. I thought I remembered reading that this was a property of the universal measure. If so then it would mean that you can't really depart from it very much. There is also the point I and others have made, that you are not just an observer from outside the universe, but a participant inside. This ties you to the universe in a way which might constrain you. I think your argument above makes more sense if you think of yourself as an observer of a multiverse in which you are not participating, say some kind of computer simulation. Then the idea of measure seems pretty arbitrary. However once you are inside you are influenced by the reality of measure. I don't see how you can reconcile the notion that measure is arbitrary with the observation that the laws of probability work. Aren't these phenomena tied together? Living here in this world, aren't you forced to either believe that the universe is fantastically improbable (because we live in an extremely low-measure universe for some arbitrary measure), or else that we do in fact live in a high measure universe, meaning that measure is not arbitrary? I think you have answered this last objection already but I need to think about it some more. I don't know if any of these proposals really work. Hal
Re: Kiln People
Wei writes: I think you probably misunderstood what you read. What's true is that universal priors based on different Turing machines are close to each other, up to a multiplicative factor that depends on the pair of universal priors being compared. But this multiplicative factor is not necessarily insignificant in terms of practical consequences, and there are other candidiate measures proposed by Juergen that seem about as attractive as universal priors (i.e. the less dominant speed prior, and the more dominant one based on GTMs which I'm not sure has a name). Yes, I went back and checked (a paper by Li and Vitanyi and someone else) and you are right, the priors are only the same up to a constant factor. I agree that this is too weak a sense in which the priors are close to each other to be useful. Also these kinds of comparisons are only really meaningful in an asymptotic sense as we go to infinite length strings. For finite strings a constant factor says essentially nothing about how close two distributions are to each other. I'm not convinced about the models of computation involving GTMs and such in Juergen Schmidhuber's paper. Basically these kinds of TMs can change their mind about the output, and the machine doesn't know when it is through changing its mind. So there is never any time you can point to the output or even a prefix and say that part is done. It is questionable to me whether this ought to count as computation. I will write some more about his paper tomorrow, I hope. One thing you do give up when you abandon the concept of an objective measure is an explanation of why you are who(/when/where) you are. But I can't shake the feeling that perhaps the question doesn't really make sense, because how could you not be who you are? However, if you don't want to give this up, you can keep the notion of an objective measure just for the purpose of having this explanation, but adopt an arbitrary subjective measure for making decision. In other words, even if you think there is an objective measure, you don't have to care about each universe in proportion to its measure. I wonder if a better term than objective measure is probability. That carries the connotation that it represents the likelihood that something happens. Then you could have an objective probability which told how likely each universe was (its chance of being selected at random from the multiverse), and a subjective measure that told how much you cared about universes. Now suppose you could manipulate the beliefs of your future selfs and not have them remember the manipulations (e.g. like the protagonist in the movie Momento). What would you want your future selfs to accept as the objective measure? Well it would be the same as your subjective measure, because otherwise you'd be in a situation where the future selfs that you care a lot about don't have a good explanation for why they are where they are, while some of the ones you don't care much about do have a good explanation. And what's the downside to your future selfs believing in the incorrect objective measure? There doesn't seem to be one. Maybe you should multiply the subjective measure times the objective measure. Then the subjective measure can play the role of utility in game theory, and the objective measure is as suggested above the probability. This brings us back onto familiar territory. Rather than dealing with this abstract measure which is just a number that is associated with a universe, we have probability and value, the traditional basis for making decisions. Hal
Re: CA rules and external random oracles
In Stephen Wolfram's book we find examples of rules that start out with a complex behavior but then settle down in various ways to something more routine. At an extreme they land on an attractor. If one was to randomly input to such systems information from an external random oracle [true noise] so as to locally reestablish the general character of the initial conditions [flipping cells here and there] then it seems to me [I currently have no modeling tools set up] that the system would maintain a higher level of complex behavior - such as avoiding the attractor - but not depart from the nature of the rule in question - few exploding cows if the rule in question makes exploding cows scarce. [Something of this sort may be in the book but I have not yet been able to read it all.] If one then allows the externally sourced noise to accumulate by adding it as groups of new cells between existing cells [an accelerating expansion of the space of the universe in question if the noise density per unit of the space does not decrease] then I believe one has most of the basis for a model of universes like the one we seem to be in. To finish the basis the noise must also be able to target the rules. I prefer that the global system we are attempting to invoke be one that has no meta information. If one sort of universe should have a frequency of occurrence or quantity of example different from that of another sort then that would be meta information. I see no reason or need for this and in my view the concept of true noise defeats such lopsidedness directly. In order to maintain a given lopsidedness all universes would have to be free of true noise [meta information]. If not then the noise if it can target the data and the rules [why down select from this?] would it seems continually reconfigure the lopsidedness by transforming noise susceptible universes into all types. On the other hand allowing all to be true noise susceptible [data and rules], each by at least one of all possible ports requires no sustaining meta information - no exclusion or other selection is needed. Actually there would be a flow of universes between noise port types since the right dose of true noise would change the character of the rules of a universe. Hal
RE: Revisions to my approach. Is it a UD?
Hi Bruno: Since I have not programmed computers beyond the use of simple spread sheet data organizing displays for many years, about the best I can offer these days is a kind of flow chart: Start with an input space that contains all possible collections of distinctions. I call these collections Divisors. [I wish to avoid the use of the word information.] It is then noted that this collection contains itself. Next it is noted that at least one of these Divisors is incomplete in a way that must be resolved. This boot straps a dynamic within the input space. To avoid adding additional types of components to the input space such as labels on divisors it is simplest to describe the dynamic as creating a succession of additional copies of divisors and adding them to the input space. Since any divisor is already present an infinite number of times, this dynamic is not changing the nature of the content of the input space. So far the simulating program is self booting and makes copies of portions of its input space and outputs the copies to that space. Each of the identified incomplete divisors is a seed for an additional such program including any new copies of that divisor. A particular succession of copies is a trace of a simulation particular program. The copy process has no restrictions. Some traces would be computationally correct while others would be random and others a blend. Traces can split. The output process generates observer moments based on the outputted divisors. The output of new copies of the incomplete Divisor and splitting traces dovetails the dynamic. I think this contains a UD but the unrestricted nature of the traces seems to makes it more than that. Yours Hal -Original Message- From: everything-l...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2008 5:36 AM To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Revisions to my approach. Is it a UD? Hi Hal, To see if your system is a UD, the first thing to do should consist in writing a program capable of simulating it on a computer, and then to see for which value of some parameters (on which it is supposed to dovetail) it simulates a universal Turing machine. To simulate it on a computer would help you (and us) to interpret the words that you are using in the description of your system. Best, Bruno On 27 Dec 2008, at 03:27, Hal Ruhl wrote: --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Revisions to my approach. Is it a UD?
Hi Abram: I have interlaced responses with - symbols. Original Message- From: everything-l...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Abram Demski Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 3:10 PM To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Revisions to my approach. Is it a UD? Hal, Is there a pattern to how the system responds to its own incompleteness? You say that there is not a pattern to the traces, but what do you mean by that? --- That is not what I actually said. I indicated that there were no restrictions on the copy process. There would be a pattern to some of the traces. The incompleteness of the Nothings causes them individually to eventually become a more distinction encompassing Something. This is a little like cold booting a computer that has a large [infinite] hard drive containing the All. [a Nothing - a Something] - The BIOS chip loads the startup program and some data into the dynamic memory and the computer boots. The program/data would be the first Something in a trace. From this point on there is no fixed nature to traces. The program could at one extreme generate the entire remaining trace [a series of Somethings] from just the data already present in the computer - without reading in more from the All - outputting each resulting computer state to the All on the hard drive. The All already contains these states many times over so this is just a copy process. At the other extreme the program could just generate random output which states are also in the All - another copy process. There would be all nature of traces between these two extremes. The incompleteness I cite is just the instability question. There may be others. [A trace would end if the output went into a continuous repeat of a particular state.] Other incompleteness issues of a particular Something seem like they should also prevent a trace from stopping. - It sounds to me like what you are describing is some version of an inconsistent set theory that is somehow trying to repair itself. - In other postings I have said that the All, being absolutely complete, is therefore inconsistent since it contains all answers to all questions [all possible distinctions and therefore no distinction]. (Except rather then sets, which are 2-fold distinctions because a thing can either be a member or not, you are admitting arbitrary N-fold distinctions, including 1-fold distinctions that fail to distinguish anything... conceptually interesting, I must admit.) I am not well versed in set theory or logic but I believe I understand what you are saying. I see this as the All contains an N-fold distinction - itself. --- So the question is, what is the process by which the system attempts to repair itself? --- The individual traces so far are attempts by a Nothing to repair its incompleteness. The terminus of some traces would be the All - an absolutely complete, and thus inconsistent divisor. You seem to be adding traces based on inconsistency which seems reasonable - see my responses below. --- Here is one option: The system starts with all its axioms (a possibly infinite set). It starts making inferences (possibly with infinitistic methods), splitting when it runs into an inconsistency; the (possibly infinite) split rejects facts that could have led to the inconsistency. So, the process makes increasingly consistent versions of the set theory. Some will end up consistent eventually, and so will stop splitting. These may be boring (having rejected most of the axioms) or interesting. Some of the interesting ones will be UDs. So far I have not tried to identify a second source of the dynamic. I see the Nothings as consistent because they can produce no answers but therefore incomplete since they need to answer at least one. Some traces starting here evolve towards completeness. The All contains at least one inconsistent divisor - itself. It is interesting to consider if traces could originate at inconsistent divisors and evolve towards consistency. The entire process may or may not amount to more than a UD, depending on whether we use infinities in the basic setup. You did in your post, and it seems likely, since set theory is not finitely axiomizable and your system is an extension of set theory. On the other hand, there would be some fairly satisfying axiomizations, in particular those based on naive set theory. This does have an infinite number of axioms, but in the form of an axiom schema, which can be characterized easily by finite deduction rules. So, your system could easily be crafted to be either a UD or more-than-UD, depending on personal preference. (That is, if my interpretation has not strayed too far from your intention.) --Abram - So far I think the inconsistency driven traces you
RE: Revisions to my approach. Is it a UD?
Hi Abram: My sentence structure could have been better. The Nothing(s) encompass no distinction but need to respond to the stability question. So they have an unavoidable necessity to encompass this distinction. At some point they spontaneously change nature and become Somethings. The particular Something may also be incomplete for the same or some other set of unavoidable questions. This is what keeps the particular incompleteness trace going. In this regard also see my next lines in that post: The N(k) are thus unstable with respect to their empty condition. They each must at some point spontaneously seek to encompass this stability distinction. They become evolving S(i) [call them eS(i)]. I have used this Nothing to Something transformation trigger for many years in other posts and did not notice that this time the wording was not as clear as it could have been. However, this lack of clarity seems to have been useful given your discussion of inconsistency driven traces. I had not considered this before. Yours Hal -Original Message- From: everything-l...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Abram Demski Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 12:59 AM To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Revisions to my approach. Is it a UD? Hal, I do not understand why the Nothings are fundamentally incomplete. I interpreted this as inconsistency, partly due to the following line: 5) At least one divisor type - the Nothings or N(k)- encompass no distinction but must encompass this one. This is a type of incompleteness. If they encompass no distinctions yet encompass one, they are apparently inconsistent. So what do you mean when you instead assert them to be incomplete? --Abram --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Boltzmann Brains, consciousness and the arrow of time
towards the first interpretation, for the following reason. If consciousness really was able to somehow distinguish the forward from reverse phases in a Boltzmann fluctuation, it would be quite remarkable. Given that the fundamental laws of physics are time symmetric, nothing should be able to do that, to deduce a true implicit arrow of time that goes beyond the superficial arrow of time caused by entropy differences. The whole point of time symmetry, the very definition, is that there should be no such implicit arrow of time. This suggestion would seem to give consciousness a power that it should not have, allow it to do something that is impossible. And if the first interpretation is correct, it seems to call into question the very nature of causality, and its posible role in consciousness. If we are forced to attribute consciousness to sequences of events which occur purely by luck, then causality can't play a significant role. This is the rather surprising conclusion which I reached from these musings on Boltzmann Brains. Hal Finney --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Revisions to my approach. Is it a UD?
Hi Abram and Bruno: My goal some time ago was to find an origin to a dynamic in the Everything. It seemed that many on the list were pointing to such a dynamic - the UD for example. I came up with the Nothing to Something incompleteness dynamic initiator maybe 10 or more years ago. Since then I have been trying to make the resulting model as simple as I could. I have looked at Abram's idea of adding inconsistency derived traces in the dynamic: I have in recent changes stopped using information to avoid the complications this term seemed to bring with it. This lead to a compact model with just two definitions, one assumption, and the stability trigger question resulting in the dynamic. To maintain this simplicity I note that when a Nothing in a particular All containing just one copy of the Nothing converts to a Something this also converts the particular All into a Something. The All is inconsistent by reason of its absolute completeness. The absence of its Nothing which was consistent but incomplete is not likely to make the Something the All became consistent Something. So this Something may be a source of inconsistency driven traces. As far as learning how to communicate this model in a more mathematical language [logic, set theory, etc.] to aid understanding by others, I have consumed what little time I had available over the years just getting to the current state of the model. It has been said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice in some endeavor to become an expert in it. Since I understand less than half the mathematical logic based comments in this tread regarding my model I am far from expert in such a language. My engineering career gives me some formal exposure and practical understanding of it, and I have studied small additional pieces of it in the course of developing this model. However, the current realities of life have made adding new time intensive endeavors such as becoming sufficiently fluent in such a communication method an overcome by events effort. I might find maybe an hour a week for my total participation on the list. This seems extremely insufficient. Thus I suspect that despite my real interest in developing an alternative means of communication for my ideas in this area, my primary reliance for communicating the model will unfortunately have to remain using as small a set of words as I can muster. Hal -Original Message- From: everything-l...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2009 3:25 AM To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Revisions to my approach. Is it a UD? On 03 Jan 2009, at 02:04, Abram Demski wrote: Bruno, Interesting point, but if we are starting at nothing rather than PA, we don't have provability logic so we can't do that! How can we tell if an *arbitrary* set of axioms is incomplete? nothing is ambiguous and depends on the theory or its intended domain. Incompleteness means usually arithmetically incomplete. The theory with no axioms at all? Not even logical axioms? Well, you can obtain anything from that. The theory with nothing ontological? You will need a complex epistemology, using reflexion and comprehension axioms, that is a bit of set theory, to proceed. Nothing physical? You will need at least the numbers, or a physics: the quantum emptiness is known to be a very rich and complex entity. It needs quantum mechanics, and thus classical or intuitionistic logic, + Hilbert spaces or von Neumann algebra. I would say that nothing means nothing in absence of some logic, at least. No axioms, but a semantic. Right, the empty theory is satisfied by all structure (none can contradict absent axioms). But here you will have a metatheory which presupposes ... every mathematical structure. The metatheory will be naïve set theory, at least. I suspect since some time that Hal Ruhl is searching for a generative set theory, but unfortunately he seems unable to study at least one conventional language to make his work understandable by those who could be interested. This can be related with the so-called autonomous progressions studied in the literature, like: PA, PA+conPA, PA+conPA+con(PA +conPA), etc. The etc here bears on the constructive ordinals. conPA is for PA does not derive P~P. I have been wondering recently, if we follow the ... to its end, do we arrive at an infinite set of axioms that contains all of arithmetical truth, or is it gappy? The ... is (necessarily) ambiguous. If it is constructive, it will define a constructive ordinal. In that case the theory obtained is axiomatizable but still incomplete. If the ... is not constructive, and go through all constructive ordinals at least, then Turing showed we can get a complete (with respect to arithmetical truth) theory, but, as can be expected from incompleteness, the theory obtained will not be axiomatizable
Latest revision of my model
Hi Everyone: I have not posted for awhile but here is the latest revision to my model: Hal Ruhl DEFINITIONS: V k 04/03/10 1) Distinction: That which describes a cut [boundary], such as the cut between red and other colors. 2) Devisor: That which encompasses a quantity of distinctions. Some divisors are collections of divisors. [A devisor may be information but I will not use that term here.] Since a distinction is a description, a devisor is a quantity of descriptions. [A description can be encoded in a number so a devisor may be simply a number encoding some multiplicity of distinctions. There is no restriction on the variety or encoding schemes so the number can include them all. I wish to not include other properties of numbers herein and mention them only in passing to establish a possible link.] 3) Incomplete: The inability of a divisor to answer a question that is meaningful to that divisor. [This has a mirror image in inconsistency wherein all possible answers to a meaningful question are in the devisor [yes and no, true and false, etc.] MODEL: 1) Assumption #1: There exists a complete ensemble [possibly a set but I wish to not use that term here] of all possible divisors - call it the All, [The All may be the Everything but I wish not to use that term here]. 2) The All therefore encompasses every distinction. The All is thus itself a divisor and therefore contains itself an unbounded number of times. 3) Define N(j) as divisors that encompass a zero quantity of distinction. Call them Nothings. By definition each copy of the All contains at least one N(j). 4) Define S(k) as divisors that encompass a non zero quantity of distinction but not all distinction. Call them Somethings. 5) An issue that arises is whether or not a particular divisor is static or dynamic in any way [the relevant possibilities are discussed below]. Devisors cannot be both. This requires that all divisors individually encompass the self referential distinction of being static or dynamic. 6) From #3 one divisor type - the Nothings - encompass zero distinction but must encompass this static/dynamic distinction thus they are incomplete. 7) The N(j) are thus unstable with respect to their zero distinction condition [dynamic one]. They each must at some point spontaneously seek to encompass this static/dynamic distinction. That is they spontaneously become Somethings. 8) Somethings can also be incomplete and/or inconsistent. 9) The result is a flow of a condition from an incomplete and/or inconsistent Something to a successor Something that encompasses a new quantity of distinction. 10) The condition is whether or not a particular Something is the current terminus of a path or not. 11) Since a Something can have a multiplicity of successors the flow is a multiplicity of paths of successions of Somethings until a complete something is arrived at which stops the individual path [i.e. a path stasis [dynamic three.]] 12) Some members of the All describe individual states of universes. 13) Our universe's path would be a succession of such members of an All. A particular succession of Somethings can vary from fully random to strictly driven by the incompleteness and/or inconsistency of the current terminus Something. I suspect our universe's path has until now been close to the latter. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
RE: everything-list and the Singularity
I believe Stephen Gould indicated evolution was a random walk with a lower bound. It seems reasonable that the longest random walk would more or less double in length more or less periodically i.e. exponential growth. Hal Ruhl _ From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jason Resch Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 10:46 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: everything-list and the Singularity Hello Skeletori, Welcome to the list. I enjoy your comments and rationalization regarding personal identity and of why we should consider I to be the universe / multiverse / or the everything. I have some comments regarding the technological singularity below. On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 5:23 PM, Skeletori sami.per...@gmail.com wrote: Hello! I have some tentative arguments on TS and wanted to put them somewhere where knowledgeable people could comment. This seemed like a good place. I also believe in an ultimate ensemble but that's a different story. Let's start with intelligence explosion. This part is essentially the same as Hawkins' argument against it (it can be found on the Wikipedia page on TS). When we're talking about self-improving intelligence, making improved copies of oneself, we're talking about a very, very complex optimization problem. So complex that our only tool is heuristic search, making guesses and trying to create better rules for taking stabs in the dark. The recursive optimization process improves by making better heuristics. However, an instinctual misassumption behind IE is that intelligence is somehow a simple concept and could be recursively leveraged not only descriptively but also algorithmically. If the things we want a machine to do have no simple description then it's unlikely they can be captured by simple heuristics. And if heuristics can't be simple then the metasearch space is vast. I think some people don't fully appreciate the huge complexity of self-improving search. The notion that an intelligent machine could accelerate its optimization exponentially is just as implausible as the notion that a genetic algorithm equipped with open-ended metaevolution rules would be able to do so. It just doesn't happen in practice, and we haven't even attempted to solve any problems that are anywhere near the magnitude of this one. So I think that the flaw in IE reasoning is that there should, at some higher level of intelligence, emerge a magic process that is able to achieve miraculous things. If you accept that, it precludes the possibility of TS happening (solely) through an IE. What then about Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns? Well, technological innovation is similarly a complex optimization problem, just in a different setting. We can regard the scientific community as the optimizing algorithm here and come to the same conclusions as with IE. That is, unless humans possess some kind of higher intelligence that can defeat heuristic search. I don't think there's any reason to believe that. Complex optimization problems exhibit the law of diminished returns and the law of fits and starts, where the optimization process gets stuck in a plateau for a long time, then breaks out of it and makes quick progress for a while. But I've never seen anything exhibiting a law of accelerating returns. This would imply that, e.g., Moore's law is just an accident, a random product of exceedingly complex interactions. It would take more than some plots of a few data points to convince me to believe in a law of accelerating returns. If not the plots what would it take to convince you? I think one should accept the law of accelerating returns until someone can describe what accident caused the plot. Kurzweil's page describes a model and assumptions which re-create the real-world data plot: http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1 It is a rather long page, Ctrl+F for The Model considers the following variables: to find where he describes the reasoning behind the law of accelerated returns. It also depends on how one defines exponential growth, as one can always take X as exp(X) - I suppose we want the exponential growth of some variable that is needed for TS and whose linear growth corresponds to linear increase in technological ability (that's very vague, can anybody help here?). In conclusion, I haven't yet found a credible lawlike explanation of anything that could cause a runaway TS where things become very unpredictable. All comments are welcome. I think intelligence optimization is composed of several different, but interrelated components, and that it makes sense to clearly define these components of intelligence rather than talk about intelligence as a single entity. I think intelligence embodies. 1. knowledge - information that is useful for something 2. memory - the capacity to store, index and organize information 3. processing rate - the rate at which information
Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Everyone: I would like to restart my participation on the list by having a discussion regarding the aspects of what we call “life” in our universe starting in a simple manner as follows: [terms not defined herein have the usual “Laws of Physics” definition] 1) Definition (1): Energy (E) is the ability to subject a mass to a force. 2) There are several types of energy currently known: a) Mass itself via the conversion: [M = E/(c*c)] b) Gravitational c) Electromagnetic d) Nuclear [Strong and Weak forces] e) Dark Energy 3) Definition (2) Work (W) Work is the flow of energy amongst the various types by means of a change in the spatial configuration, dynamics and/or amount of mass in a system brought about by an actual application of a force to a mass. 4) The exact original distribution of energy amongst the various types can’t be reestablished and the new configuration can’t do as much work as the prior configuration was capable of doing. [Second Law of Thermodynamics] 5) Time is not a factor: Once a flow of energy is possible it will take place immediately. 6) Conclusion (1): Since life is an energy flow conduit, wherever the possibility of life exists life will appear as rapidly as possible. The “origin” of life herein. 7) Some energy flows are prevented by what are known [in my memory] as “Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers” such as nuclear bonding coefficient issues, spatial configuration, spin, other spatial dynamics, ignition temperature requirements, electromagnetic repulsion, etc. [“Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers” is not my terminology – I think there was a twenty year or so old article in Scientific American I am looking for and a quick Internet search found a discussion of the repulsion hang-up in “Cosmology The Science of the Universe” by Edward Robert Harrison. 8) Once life is present it will immediately punch as many holes in as many Energy Hang-up Barriers as the details of the particular life entity involved allows – this is how it realizes its energy flow conduit character. The “purpose” of life herein. In other words life’s purpose is to hasten the heat death of its host universe. 9) Now add in evolution which is a random walk with a lower but no upper bound. A discussion of the possible consequences [such as qualia levels of particular life entities - like degrees of consciousness] should await a critique and possibly a revision of the above. Comments are eagerly sought. Thank you -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Stephen: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen P. King Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 11:50 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum On 10/31/2012 9:48 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi Everyone: I would like to restart my participation on the list by having a discussion regarding the aspects of what we call life in our universe starting in a simple manner as follows: [terms not defined herein have the usual Laws of Physics definition] 1) Definition (1): Energy (E) is the ability to subject a mass to a force. 2) There are several types of energy currently known: a) Mass itself via the conversion: [M = E/(c*c)] b) Gravitational c) Electromagnetic d) Nuclear [Strong and Weak forces] e) Dark Energy Hi Hal, Nice post! Thank you. Any way that the energy/force/work relation can be considered as a broken symmetry restoration concept? I had not thought of the unfolding of the scene I propose in terms of symmetry. But now that you mention it is seems that our universe may have started with full rotational symmetry [a point] and may end up with the same symmetry based on an infinite uniform and quite cold gas. 3) Definition (2) Work (W) Work is the flow of energy amongst the various types by means of a change in the spatial configuration, dynamics and/or amount of mass in a system brought about by an actual application of a force to a mass. 4) The exact original distribution of energy amongst the various types can't be reestablished and the new configuration can't do as much work as the prior configuration was capable of doing. [Second Law of Thermodynamics] Isn't the maximum entropy of a system a type of symmetry, where all equiprobable states look the same? See above response. 5) Time is not a factor: Once a flow of energy is possible it will take place immediately. 6) Conclusion (1): Since life is an energy flow conduit, wherever the possibility of life exists life will appear as rapidly as possible. The origin of life herein. Let me refer you to a very old paper of mine: http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/life.html I took a quick look. I may need some help understanding it fully. I occasionally play with the idea that Dark Energy is a spatially uniform leak of information from outside combined with a maximum information packing density in our universe. 7) Some energy flows are prevented by what are known [in my memory] as Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers such as nuclear bonding coefficient issues, spatial configuration, spin, other spatial dynamics, ignition temperature requirements, electromagnetic repulsion, etc. [Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers is not my terminology - I think there was a twenty year or so old article in Scientific American I am looking for and a quick Internet search found a discussion of the repulsion hang-up in Cosmology The Science of the Universe by Edward Robert Harrison. 8) Once life is present it will immediately punch as many holes in as many Energy Hang-up Barriers as the details of the particular life entity involved allows - this is how it realizes its energy flow conduit character. The purpose of life herein. In other words life's purpose is to hasten the heat death of its host universe. 9) Now add in evolution which is a random walk with a lower but no upper bound. Do you see mutation as a one-to-many map and selection as a many -to-one map? Well the DNA strings we know of are finite [n characters] so a particular example is a one in some sense and this string's finite number of mutations 4 ^ n+ is a many. However, I do not see that selection will always produce just one successor. My intent with #9 was to open the door a crack on what I would like to post next. Slightly larger crack: I too have been chewing on these concepts for many years. I have several unpublished works expressing versions of these ideas such as A Path to Socioeconomic Sustainability, 1992, Library of Congress deposit # TXu 554 900 among others and a very few published tiny pieces. My goal here is to make sure the underling engine of what I will now try to publish is sound. As potential returns to the list some of the engine's consequences seem of interest here such as consciousness distribution in an ecosystem and the engine's impact on the concept of freewill. A discussion of the possible consequences [such as qualia levels of particular life entities - like degrees of consciousness] should await a critique and possibly a revision of the above. Comments are eagerly sought. Thank you Nice! Thanks again -- Onward! Indeed! Stephen Hal Ruhl -- 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
RE: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Stephen: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen P. King Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 6:37 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum On 11/2/2012 4:27 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote: Let me refer you to a very old paper of mine: http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/life.html I took a quick look. I may need some help understanding it fully. I occasionally play with the idea that Dark Energy is a spatially uniform leak of information from outside combined with a maximum information packing density in our universe. Hi Hal, Could it be that information is being created and forcing the physical universe to make room for its instantiation? After all, space is not a conserved quantity! I think that what you mention is at least part of the source of Dark Energy but I wonder if the members of the multiverse are completely isolated. Hal -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Stephen: I think this got lost so I sending it again. -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen P. King Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 6:37 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum On 11/2/2012 4:27 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote: Let me refer you to a very old paper of mine: http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/life.html I took a quick look. I may need some help understanding it fully. I occasionally play with the idea that Dark Energy is a spatially uniform leak of information from outside combined with a maximum information packing density in our universe. Hi Hal, Could it be that information is being created and forcing the physical universe to make room for its instantiation? After all, space is not a conserved quantity! I think that what you mention is at least part of the source of Dark Energy but I wonder if the members of the multiverse are completely isolated from each other. Hal -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Stephen: -Original Message- Hi Hal, Could it be that information is being created and forcing the physical universe to make room for its instantiation? After all, space is not a conserved quantity! [HH] I think that what you mention is at least part of the source of Dark Energy but I wonder if the members of the multiverse are completely isolated from each other. Of course they are, otherwise we would see them! Perhaps we have yet to look in the right place in the right way. Perhaps a component of Dark Energy is a first peak at a larger world. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi John: My responses are below within an edited original post. Thanks for your comments. 1) Definition (1): Energy (E) is the ability to subject a mass to a force. * Re the use of ability here: What I am trying to do here is establish a process such that at the instant an ability becomes a possibility that possibility is realized immediately since the necessary series of events unfold immediately . Take as an example a radioactive isotope deep in the earth's core. We can reasonably assume that it was fused together billions of years ago in some ancient stellar event. Since then it has had the ability to undergo fission [ a type of energy ] but has not because conditions in it have never been quite right. Then all of a sudden conditions are right - appropriate Bosons are exchanged and the fission unfolds. Energy is redistributed amongst the various types. Thus at the moment I will therefore leave the above wording as is. * * 2) There are several types of energy currently known or proposed : I agree with you about Dark Energy - I had intended the wording to be as it now appears above. ++ a) Mass itself via the conversion: [M=E/(c*c)] I do not think the above is a restriction in the sense I think you mean. For example a spring when compressed [as I understand it] is more massive when compressed then when relaxed. ++ b) Gravitional c) Electromagnetic d) Nuclear [Strong and Weak forces] e) Dark Energy 3) Definition (2) Work (W): Work is the flow of energy amongst the various types by means of a change in the spatial configuration, dynamics and/or amount of mass in a system brought about by an actual application of a force to a mass. 4) The exact original distribution of energy amongst the various types can't be reestablished and the new configuration can't do as much work as the prior configuration was capable of doing. [Second Law of Thermodynamics] 5) Time is not a factor: Once a flow of energy is possible it will take place immediately. 6) Conclusion (1): Since life is an energy flow conduit, wherever the possibility of life exists life will appear as rapidly as possible. The origin of life herein. \ If we look at the usual attempts to define life, we find things such as grow [larger I suppose], reproduce, etc. These require a flow of energy from an initial ability to do work to a lower ability to do work and through the life entity. Think of the life entity as a pipe or conduit for this flow. Therefore life herein is just an energy flow conduit drilling holes in energy flow hang-up barriers as rapidly as possible for the particular entity to enable even more such energy flow - a simple but not necessarily uplifting origin-purpose. *** 7) Some energy flows are prevented by what are known [in my memory] as Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers such as nuclear bonding coefficient issues, spatial configuration, spin, other spatial dynamics, ignition temperature requirements, electromagnetic repulsion, etc. [Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers is not my terminology - I think there was a twenty year or so old article in Scientific American and a quick Internet search found a discussion of the repulsion hangup in Cosmology The Science of the Universe. 8) Once life is present it will immediately punch as many holes in as many Energy Hang-up Barriers as the details of the particular life entity involved allows - this is how it realizes its energy flow conduit character. The purpose of life herein. In other words life's purpose is to hasten the heat death of its host universe. 9) Now add in evolution which is a random walk with a lower but no upper bound. A discussion of the possible consequences [such as qualia levels of particular life entities] should await a critique and possibly a revision of the above. Thanks again for your comments. Hal -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Stephen and John: I believe I absorbed the evolution is a random walk with a lower bound but no upper bound from my readings of Stephen Gould. I have no memory of where and when and the memory may be false. In any event I do not see that it excludes selection. I think there was an illustration something like: A staggering drunk is walking down a city street on a sidewalk bounded on one side by a solid row of locked buildings and on the other by the street. Given a long enough walk the drunk will always end up in the gutter - the gutter in this case representing either a new player on the field or a pruning. This discussion is important to where I want to take my posts. Thanks Hal -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen P. King Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2012 12:09 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum On 11/4/2012 12:09 AM, John Mikes wrote: snip ## to 9 I have objections. I cannot imagine (maybe my mistake) evolution without a goal, a final aim which would require an intelligent design to approach it. (I may have one: the re-distribution into the Plenitude). My way (as of yesterday) is the ease-and-potential path of changes allowed by the available configurations (relations) when a change occurs. NO RANDOM, it would make a grits out of nature. Even authors with high preference on random treatises withdrew into a conditional random when I attacked the term. Conditionality kills random of course. So in my terms: NO random mutations, (especially not FOR survival) I call 'evolution' the HISTORY of our universe. The unsuccessful mutants die, the successful go on - science detects them in its snapshots taken and explains them religiously. (Survival of the fittest - the Dinosaur was fit when it got extinct by the change in circumstances). I accept ONE random (in mathematical puzzles): take ANY number... Your lower, but not upper bound is highly appreciable. Thanks. I apologize for my haphazard remarks upon prima vista reading. The list-discussion is not a well-founded scientific discourse upon new ideas. Most people tell what they formulated over years. A reply is many times instantaneous. snip [HR] 9) Now add in evolution which is a random walk with a lower but no upper bound. snip Dear John, I wanted to make a remark on just this part of your post as I need to ask a question. Why is the Selective aspect of evolution almost completely ignored? It is easy to talk about mutations and models of them, such as random walks - which I favor!, but what about the selection aspect? what about how the Tree of Life is almost constantly pruned by events that kill off or otherwise blunt growth in some directions as opposed to others? My question to you is specific. How do polymers mold themselves to local parameters that influence their molecules? What determines their shape? Is there a deterministic explanation of the shape of a polymer? Would this explanation work for, say, DNA or peptite molecules? -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- 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.
Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Everyone: I would now like to expand the discussion re the two current conclusions in the slightly edited version of the first post [below] as follows: i) Consciousness: The origin and purpose of life herein leads me to believe that consciousness is distributed across life entities in accordance with their ability to act in accord with it. Even single celled entities would have a non zero degree of it to properly enable life's purpose. ii) Freewill: Life's purpose as given herein precludes it. iii) Species survival: Life on this planet is in the midst of a mass extinction [not a new idea] that can't be stopped because implementation of the purpose as given herein is the only priority for life. We can't exclude ourselves from the extinction. [There have been a number of mass extinctions but evolution has sometimes used these to produce new life entities with greater energy hang-up barrier busting ability than the extinguished ones - new life entities such as ourselves. Edited first post 1) Definition (1): Energy (E) is the ability to subject a mass to a force. 2) There are several types of energy currently known or proposed: a) Mass itself via the conversion: [M = E/(c*c)] b) Gravitational c) Electromagnetic d) Nuclear [Strong and Weak forces] e) Dark Energy 3) Definition (2): Work (W) is the flow of energy amongst the various types by means of a change in the spatial configuration, dynamics and/or amount of mass in a system brought about by an actual application of a force to a mass. 4) The exact original distribution of energy amongst the various types can't be reestablished and the new configuration can't do as much work as the prior configuration was capable of doing. [Second Law of Thermodynamics] 5) Time is not a factor: Once a flow of energy is possible it will take place immediately. 6) Conclusion (1): Since life is an energy flow conduit, wherever the possibility of life exists life will appear as rapidly as possible. This is the origin of life herein. [If we look at the usual attempts to define life, we find things such as grow, procreate,[Thanks John] etc. These require a flow of energy from an initial ability to do work to a lower ability to do work and through the life entity. Think of the life entity as a pipe or conduit for this flow.] 7) Some energy flows are prevented by what are known [in my memory] as Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers such as nuclear bonding coefficient issues, spatial configuration, spin, other spatial dynamics, ignition temperature requirements, electromagnetic repulsion, etc. [Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers is not my terminology - I think there was a twenty year or so old article in Scientific American I am looking for and a quick Internet search found a discussion of the repulsion hang-up in Cosmology The Science of the Universe by Edward Robert Harrison. [Therefore life herein is just an energy flow conduit drilling holes in energy flow hang-up barriers as rapidly as possible for the particular entity to enable even more such energy flow.] 8) Conclusion (2): Once life is present it will immediately punch as many holes in as many Energy Hang-up Barriers as the details of the particular life entity involved allows - this is how it realizes its energy flow conduit character. This is the purpose of life herein. In other words life's purpose is to hasten the heat death of its host universe. 9) Now add in evolution which is a random walk with a lower but no upper bound. -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Everyone: I would now like to expand the discussion re the two current conclusions in the slightly edited version of the first post [below] as follows: i) Consciousness: The origin and purpose of life herein leads me to believe that consciousness is distributed across life entities in accordance with their ability to act in accord with it. Even single celled entities would have a non zero degree of it to properly enable life's purpose. ii) Freewill: Life's purpose as given herein precludes it. iii) Species survival: Life on this planet is in the midst of a mass extinction [not a new idea] that can't be stopped because implementation of the purpose as given herein is the only priority for life. We can't exclude ourselves from the extinction. [There have been a number of mass extinctions but evolution has sometimes used these to produce new life entities with greater energy hang-up barrier busting ability than the extinguished ones - new life entities such as ourselves. Edited first post 1) Definition (1): Energy (E) is the ability to subject a mass to a force. 2) There are several types of energy currently known or proposed: a) Mass itself via the conversion: [M = E/(c*c)] b) Gravitational c) Electromagnetic d) Nuclear [Strong and Weak forces] e) Dark Energy 3) Definition (2): Work (W) is the flow of energy amongst the various types by means of a change in the spatial configuration, dynamics and/or amount of mass in a system brought about by an actual application of a force to a mass. 4) The exact original distribution of energy amongst the various types can't be reestablished and the new configuration can't do as much work as the prior configuration was capable of doing. [Second Law of Thermodynamics] 5) Time is not a factor: Once a flow of energy is possible it will take place immediately. 6) Conclusion (1): Since life is an energy flow conduit, wherever the possibility of life exists life will appear as rapidly as possible. This is the origin of life herein. [If we look at the usual attempts to define life, we find things such as grow, procreate,[Thanks John] etc. These require a flow of energy from an initial ability to do work to a lower ability to do work and through the life entity. Think of the life entity as a pipe or conduit for this flow.] 7) Some energy flows are prevented by what are known [in my memory] as Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers such as nuclear bonding coefficient issues, spatial configuration, spin, other spatial dynamics, ignition temperature requirements, electromagnetic repulsion, etc. [Energy Flow Hang-up Barriers is not my terminology - I think there was a twenty year or so old article in Scientific American I am looking for and a quick Internet search found a discussion of the repulsion hang-up in Cosmology The Science of the Universe by Edward Robert Harrison. [Therefore life herein is just an energy flow conduit drilling holes in energy flow hang-up barriers as rapidly as possible for the particular entity to enable even more such energy flow.] 8) Conclusion (2): Once life is present it will immediately punch as many holes in as many Energy Hang-up Barriers as the details of the particular life entity involved allows - this is how it realizes its energy flow conduit character. This is the purpose of life herein. In other words life's purpose is to hasten the heat death of its host universe. 9) Now add in evolution which is a random walk with a lower but no upper bound. -- 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: Debunking people's belief in free will takes the intention out of their movements
Hi John: See my 11/4/12 @ 4:43PM post on life re proposal ii - freewill precluded. Hal Ruhl From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Monday, November 05, 2012 1:57 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Debunking people's belief in free will takes the intention out of their movements On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: The finding implies that free will is illusory. Free will is not illusionary. A illusion is a perfectly respectable subjective phenomena, but free will is not respectable, free will is just gibberish. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Everyone: Here are some expansions on my prior post regarding the following three topics: i) Consciousness: Define it for now as the detection by a life entity of the current system energy configuration both internal and external to the life entity sufficient to ensure its adherence to its Actual Purpose [AP] in its universe. In our universe it appears that even single cells may have antenna to facilitate this detection. See ScienceNews, 11/03/12, page 16. I have proposed that life's AP in this universe is the one I derived in earlier posts. Call this proposed Actual Purpose 1 [pAP1]. I see no reason how the life's Origin that I propose and pAP1 conflict with such antenna on individual cells. ii) Freewill: pAP1 precludes it because life must always follow its purpose, so too for any AP that differs from pAP1. iii) Species survival: Life on this planet is in the midst of an extinction event [not a new idea] that can't be stopped because pAP1 would be the only priority for life. We may not be extinguished as a species but we can't exclude ourselves from the extinction because of pPA1. There have been a number of extinction events. However, evolution has used some of these to produce new life entities with greater energy hang-up barrier busting ability than the extinguished ones - new life entities such as ourselves from the K-Pg event. -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Stephen: pAP1 is #8 of the discussion initiating posts 8) Conclusion (2): Once life is present it will immediately punch as many holes in as many Energy Hang-up Barriers as the details of the particular life entity involved allows - this is how it realizes its energy flow conduit character. This is the purpose of life herein. In other words life's purpose is to hasten the heat death of its host universe. Hal -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen P. King Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 11:07 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum On 11/7/2012 9:38 AM, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi Everyone: This may show up more than once as a few others did. In recent days I have had issues with my internet connection. It has been 16 hours since I sent this the second time. This time I tried sending it again and then again as plain text. Very sorry if my troubles cause some clutter. At this time I would like to go a bit further re item iii: iii) Species survival: Life on this planet is in the midst of an extinction event [not a new idea] that can't be stopped because pAP1 would be the only priority for life. We may not be extinguished as a species but we can't exclude ourselves from the extinction because of pAP1 [fixed typo]. There have been a number of extinction events. However, evolution has used some of these to produce new life entities with greater energy hang-up barrier busting ability than the extinguished ones - new life entities such as ourselves from the K-Pg event. iiia) Current Economic Conditions: The news in this area has been rather bad for some time. The most frequently offered solution has been that national economies and thus the world economy must grow real GDP. In fact grow it exponentially or even super exponentially. Since the planet has only a finite supply of energy - see prior posts under #2 for energy types - a new trick has to be learned. However, the offered solution is in compliance with pAP1. Thus if pAP1 is correct then no other solution [new trick] can be offered. In this case weep for the children. I hope someone can falsify pAP1 and anything near it. Hal Dear Hal, Could you restate pAP1? -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
RE: Consciousness = life = intelligence
Hi Roger: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Clough Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 11:06 AM To: everything-list Subject: Consciousness = life = intelligence Hi Hal Ruhl Consciousness = life = intelligence. These are an inseparable, subjective, inextended properties of a living being. Hal: Consciousness is merely a qualia of life enabling life's compliance with pAP1. In addition, intelligence requires free will of some degree in order to make life-preserving choices for an associated, objective body, such as are required for self-animation, metabolism, self-defense, eating and mating. Hal: pAP1 precludes freewill because ALL of life's qualia [such as consciousness] merely enable compliance with pAP1. Hal Ruhl -- 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: RE: RE: Consciousness = life = intelligence
Hi Roger: You have to look at the net effect of the entire biosphere. I am not a biologist and can't speak to the total net effect of photosynthesis. But it does store some part of the energy flow it encompasses. Humans are rather substantial energy hang-up barrier busters. We also store internal energy as fat or external energy as say chemical energy in a battery or gravitational energy as water behind a dam. We are also dependent on the storage ability of photosynthesis to live. I am currently convinced that the net effect of the biosphere [life] is in compliance with pAP1. I suspect that each individual life entity upon sufficiently close inspection will be found to be as well. Further the environment necessary for life to arise as I propose and be sustainable is hardly random. Hal -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Clough Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 5:51 AM To: everything-list Subject: Re: RE: RE: Consciousness = life = intelligence Hi Hal Ruhl Since life in the form of photosynthesis creates order in the form of cell structure out of a random (entropic) environment, life seems to reverse time's arrow, and hence slow down the heat death of the universe. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 11/8/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Hal Ruhl Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-11-07, 14:27:03 Subject: RE: RE: Consciousness = life = intelligence Hi Roger: pAP1 [proposed Actual Purpose #1] is the life purpose I introduced in the discussion initiating posts. See below. I recently posted giving acronyms. AP is the actual purpose of life acronym. 8) Conclusion (2): Once life is present it will immediately punch as many holes in as many Energy Hang-up Barriers as the details of the particular life entity involved allows - this is how it realizes its energy flow conduit character. This is the purpose of life herein. In other words life's purpose is to hasten the heat death of its host universe. Hal -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Clough Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 12:34 PM To: everything-list Subject: Re: RE: Consciousness = life = intelligence Hi Hal Ruhl What is pAP1 ? Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 11/7/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Hal Ruhl Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-11-07, 12:18:21 Subject: RE: Consciousness = life = intelligence Hi Roger: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Clough Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 11:06 AM To: everything-list Subject: Consciousness = life = intelligence Hi Hal Ruhl Consciousness = life = intelligence. These are an inseparable, subjective, inextended properties of a living being. Hal: Consciousness is merely a qualia of life enabling life's compliance with pAP1. In addition, intelligence requires free will of some degree in order to make life-preserving choices for an associated, objective body, such as are required for self-animation, metabolism, self-defense, eating and mating. Hal: pAP1 precludes freewill because ALL of life's qualia [such as consciousness] merely enable compliance with pAP1. Hal Ruhl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You
RE: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Stephen: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen P. King Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 6:56 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum On 11/7/2012 11:40 AM, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi Stephen: pAP1 is #8 of the discussion initiating posts 8) Conclusion (2): Once life is present it will immediately punch as many holes in as many Energy Hang-up Barriers as the details of the particular life entity involved allows - this is how it realizes its energy flow conduit character. This is the purpose of life herein. In other words life's purpose is to hasten the heat death of its host universe. Hal Dear Hal, Is heat death truly real or a necessary concept? Well the term has been around for awhile but I have not seen a proposed end state or series of end states of the universe in which the ability to run a heat engine does not become zero or asymptotically approach it. Hal -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen P. King Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 11:07 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum On 11/7/2012 9:38 AM, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi Everyone: This may show up more than once as a few others did. In recent days I have had issues with my internet connection. It has been 16 hours since I sent this the second time. This time I tried sending it again and then again as plain text. Very sorry if my troubles cause some clutter. At this time I would like to go a bit further re item iii: iii) Species survival: Life on this planet is in the midst of an extinction event [not a new idea] that can't be stopped because pAP1 would be the only priority for life. We may not be extinguished as a species but we can't exclude ourselves from the extinction because of pAP1 [fixed typo]. There have been a number of extinction events. However, evolution has used some of these to produce new life entities with greater energy hang-up barrier busting ability than the extinguished ones - new life entities such as ourselves from the K-Pg event. iiia) Current Economic Conditions: The news in this area has been rather bad for some time. The most frequently offered solution has been that national economies and thus the world economy must grow real GDP. In fact grow it exponentially or even super exponentially. Since the planet has only a finite supply of energy - see prior posts under #2 for energy types - a new trick has to be learned. However, the offered solution is in compliance with pAP1. Thus if pAP1 is correct then no other solution [new trick] can be offered. In this case weep for the children. I hope someone can falsify pAP1 and anything near it. Hal Dear Hal, Could you restate pAP1? -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- 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: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Roger: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Clough Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 6:09 AM To: everything-list Subject: Re: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum Hi Hal, Just look at the metaphors you use to see that your idea below is wrong. You say that life hastens death. Of course it does - all day every day in . Animals are parasitic on photosynthesis and frequently each other as well as the energy hang-up barriers they must bust. Hal -- 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: RE: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Roger: Roger: Talk to Dawkins. The purpose of the gene is to create more genes. So the purpose of life (at a minimum) is to create more life. Response from Hal: No. Life creates more life in compliance with pAP1. A reasonable result is one heck of a mass extinction. Repeat until there are no more operative energy hang-up barriers. Roger: You may notice that earth was once lifeless but its surface become alive with plants, fishes... SNIP Response from Hal: You help make my point. Hal -- 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: RE: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Roger: I try to practice reasonable bandwidth conservation. Your comment You say life hastens death. which is in my response seemed sufficient for the discussion. If you need something from one of your prior posts and you do not have it just cut and paste it from the Google archive. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/everything-list Hal -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Clough Sent: Friday, November 09, 2012 8:42 AM To: everything-list Subject: Re: RE: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum Hi Hal Ruhl Sorry, I can not respond as you clipped off my previous post containing said metaphors. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 11/9/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Hal Ruhl Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-11-08, 12:13:48 Subject: RE: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum Hi Roger: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Clough Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 6:09 AM To: everything-list Subject: Re: Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum Hi Hal, Just look at the metaphors you use to see that your idea below is wrong. You say that life hastens death. Of course it does - all day every day in . Animals are parasitic on photosynthesis and frequently each other as well as the energy hang-up barriers they must bust. Hal -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Stepen: Interesting post. I indicated in the initiating posts that life should rapidly appear where the conditions supporting it are found. I suspect that in most cases the sphere of influence for a particular instance of a biosphere is small when compared to the size of the universe. Therefore I propose to change heat death to operative heat death re your finite resolving power for observers. This should allow for the possibility of an open universe. I am also considering changing purpose of life to function of life. Thanks Hal Dear Hal, What consequences would there be is the Universe (all that exists) is truly infinite and eternal (no absolute beginning or end) and what we observe as a finite (spatially and temporally) universe is just the result of our finite ability to compute the contents of our observations? It is helpful to remember that thermodynamic arguments, such as the heat engine concept, apply only to closed systems. It is better to assume open systems and finite resolving power (or equivalently finite computational abilities) for observers. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
Hi Everyone: At this time I would like to go a bit further re item iii: iii) Species survival: Life on this planet is in the midst of an extinction event [not a new idea] that can't be stopped because pAP1 would be the only priority for life. We may not be extinguished as a species but we can't exclude ourselves from the extinction because of pAP1 [fixed typo]. There have been a number of extinction events. However, evolution has used some of these to produce new life entities with greater energy hang-up barrier busting ability than the extinguished ones - new life entities such as ourselves from the K-Pg event. Iiia) Current Economic Conditions: The news in this area has been rather bad for some time. The most frequently offered solution has been that national economies and thus the world economy must grow real GDP. In fact grow it exponentially or even super exponentially. Since the planet has only a finite supply of energy - see prior posts under #2 for energy types - a new trick has to be learned. However, the offered solution is in compliance with pAP1. Thus if pAP1 is correct then no other solution can be offered. In this case weep for the children. I hope someone can falsify pAP1. Hal -- 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.
life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
I have tried to post this several times. It appears I am again having issues with my email software. I am sorry if it eventually posts multiple times. Hi John and Russell: As far as I know all the “Laws of Physics” are based on observation and are absent closed form proof. Given the data I have seen, resource consumption and real GDP follow similar size trajectories. Twenty or more years ago I played with ideas on how they [using quality of life experience for which real GDP would be a reasonable proxy] might be decoupled to the benefit of species survival . This included consideration of what I now call pAP1. Recently I had reason to resurrect these old unpublished writings. Review of these writings, conversations with associates and the vantage point of 20 more years of observation have caused me to believe that pAP1 has a global and unbreakable hold on human behavior. I believe even outliers such as survivalists if subjected to accurate energy flow analysis would be shown to be fully in its grasp. The consequences of this would be rather unpleasant as I indicated and Russell appears to support. Thus my recent posts looking for a falsification of pAP1. [I am currently rewriting the early post to improve clarity.] John: I think my response to Stephen re his “finite resolution…” responds to your post also. Hal AFAIK, there is no requirement for resource consumption to be proportional to GDP. So it should be possible to save the economy without wrecking the planet. But yes, ultimately life will have to move on from H. Sapiens... -- 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: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
I have tried to post this several times. It appears I am again having issues with my email software. I am sorry if it eventually posts multiple times. Hi John and Russell: As far as I know all the Laws of Physics are based on observation and are absent closed form proof. Given the data I have seen, resource consumption and real GDP follow similar size trajectories. Twenty or more years ago I played with ideas on how they [using quality of life experience for which real GDP would be a reasonable proxy] might be decoupled to the benefit of species survival . This included consideration of what I now call pAP1. Recently I had reason to resurrect these old unpublished writings. Review of these writings, conversations with associates and the vantage point of 20 more years of observation have caused me to believe that pAP1 has a global and unbreakable hold on human behavior. I believe even outliers such as survivalists if subjected to accurate energy flow analysis would be shown to be fully in its grasp. The consequences of this would be rather unpleasant as I indicated and Russell appears to support. Thus my recent posts looking for a falsification of pAP1. [I am currently rewriting the early post to improve clarity.] John: I think my response to Stephen re his finite resolution. responds to your post also. Hal AFAIK, there is no requirement for resource consumption to be proportional to GDP. So it should be possible to save the economy without wrecking the planet. But yes, ultimately life will have to move on from H. Sapiens... -- 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: life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum
economies and thus the world economy must grow larger - generally measured by the amount of real GDP*. In fact grow real GDP exponentially with a doubling time of perhaps 1 to 2 decades. Since the planet has only a finite supply of energy - see (2) for energy types - a new trick has to be learned. However, the offered solution [essentially to increase energy flow in the economy] is in compliance with pF1. Thus if pF1 is correct then no other solution [new trick] can be offered because it would not be followed. In this case weep for the children, we could be rapidly approaching a very substantial economic size inflection point. I hope someone can falsify pF1 and anything near it. *I am not an economist but given the data I have seen, economic activity size measures such as resource consumption, industrial output, etc. [all energy flows] and real GDP historically follow similar size trajectories. Thus I believe a sufficient link exists to make real GDP a useable proxy for the size of energy flow in an industrial society. A question is whether or not it is a suitable proxy for perceived quality of life. Since perceived quality of life by pF1 should go up with increased energy flow in the society - life is following its function and enjoys doing so as it should - then real GDP should be a suitable proxy for perceived quality of life. The fly in the ointment - there seems to always be at least one - is by (3) and (4) the monotonic reduction in the ability to do work in that biosphere. Hal -- 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: clearing up the confusion on the fairness index
Hi Roger : Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_distribution_in_the_United_States Then Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States Hal -- 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: On Income Fairness in the USA and the world
Hi Roger: Try this and sort by wealth Gini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth Hal -- 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: On Income Fairness in the USA and the world
Hi Roger : Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_distribution_in_the_United_States Then Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States Hal Sorry if this posts more than once - some of my posts just disappear -- 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: Re: clearing up the confusion on the fairness index
Hi Roger : Then Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States Hal -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
RE: The limit of all computations
Hi Everyone: Unfortunately I have been unable to support a post reading/creation activity on this list for a long time. I had started this post as a comment to one of Russell's responses [Hi Russell] to a post by Stephen [Hi Stephen]. I have a model (considerably revised here) that I have been developing for a long time and was going to use it to support my comments. However, the post evolved. Note: The next most recent version of the following model was posted to the list on Friday, December 26, 2008 @ 9:28 PM as far as I can reconstruct events. A brief model of - well - Everything SOME DEFINITIONS: i) Distinction: That which enables a separation such as a particular red from other colors. ii) Devisor: That which encloses a quantity [none to every] of distinctions. [Some divisors are thus collections of divisors.] MODEL: 1) Assumption # A1: There exists a set consisting of all possible divisors. Call this set A [for All]. A encompasses every distinction. A is thus itself a divisor by (i) and therefore contains itself an unbounded number of times. 2) Definition (iii): Define Ns as those divisors that enclose zero distinction. Call them Nothings. 3) Definition (iv): Define Ss as divisors that enclose non zero distinction but not all distinction. Call them Somethings. 4) An issue that arises is whether or not an individual specific divisor is static or dynamic. That is: Is its quantity of distinction subject to change? It cannot be both. This requires that all divisors individually enclose the self referential distinction of being static or dynamic. 5) At least one divisor type - the Ns, by definition (iii), enclose no such distinction but must enclose this one. This is a type of incompleteness. That is the Ns cannot answer this question which is nevertheless meaningful to them. [The incompleteness is taken to be rather similar functionally to the incompleteness of some mathematical Formal Axiomatic Systems - See Godel.] The N are thus unstable with respect to their initial condition. They each must at some point spontaneously enclose this static or dynamic distinction. They thereby transition into Ss. 6) By (4) and (5) Transitions exist. 7) Some of these Ss may themselves be incomplete in a similar manner but in a different distinction family. They must evolve - via similar incompleteness driven transitions - until complete in the sense of (5). 8) Assumption # A2: Each element of A is a universe state. 9) The result is a flow of Ss that are encompassing more and more distinction with each transition. 10) This flow is a multiplicity of paths of successions of transitions from element to element of the All. That is (by A2) a transition from a universe state to a successor universe state. Consequences: a) Our Universe's evolution would be one such path on which the S has constantly gotten larger. b) Since a particular incompleteness can have multiple resolutions, the path of an evolving S may split into multiple paths at any transition. c) A path may also originate on any incomplete S not just the Ns. d) Observer constructs such as life entities and likely all other constructs imbedded in a universe bear witness to the transitions via morphing. e) Paths can be of any length. f) Since many elements of A are very large, large transitions could become infrequent on a long path where the particular S gets very large. (Few White Rabbits if both sides of the transition are sufficiently similar). --- So far I see no computation in my model. However, as I prepared the post and did more reading of recent posts and thinking I found that I could add one more requirement to the model and thus make it contain [but not be limited to] comp as far as I can tell: Add to the end of (5): Any transition must resolve at least one incompleteness in the relevant S. Equate some fraction of the incompleteness of SOME relevant Ss to a snapshot of a computation(s) that has(have) not halted. The transition path of such an S must include (but not limited to) transitions to a next state containing the next step of at least one such computation. Thus I see the model as containing, but not limited to, comp. Well, the model is still a work in progress. Hal Ruhl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
RE: The limit of all computations
Hi Brent: What you appear to be asking for are predictions of the physics of a particular universe. My belief is that the best we can do is to predict the components of physics common to every evolving universe. My efforts have focused on understanding why there is a dynamic within the Everything [such as UDs] and what observers in a universe containing them are observing. In my model I have identified a dynamic driver [incompleteness] and what observers observe [TRANSITIONS between universe states]. Since I do not prohibit computations, I believe Comp [including any prediction of QM in many universes] is allowed within my model but is not the only descriptor of universe evolution. Many evolving universes may contain no such computational component. Hal Ruhl -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 3:52 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The limit of all computations On 5/23/2012 11:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 23 May 2012, at 19:08, meekerdb wrote: On 5/23/2012 8:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Hmm... I agree with all your points in this post, except this one. The comp model (theory) has much more predictive power than physics, given that it predicts the whole of physics, It's easy to predict the whole of physics; just predict that everything happens. But that's not predictive power. I will take it that you are forgetting the whole argument. When I say that it predicts the whole physics, I mean it literally. And not everything happens only something like what is described by the physical theories, except that physicists derive them from direct observation, and comp derives them by the logic of universal machine observable. Physics, with comp, and arguably already with QM, is not at all everything happens, but more everything interfere leading to non trivial symmetries and symmetries breaking, etc. Bruno I don't see that comp has predicted anything except uncertainty. Can comp explain the reason QM is based on complex Hilbert space instead or real, or quaternion, or octonion? Can it explain where the mass gap comes from? Can it predict the dimensionality of spacetime? Can it tell whether spacetime is discrete at some level? 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
RE: The limit of all computations
Hi Brent: I ask if it is reasonable to propose that a theory of everything must be able to list ALL the aspects of the local physics for each one of a complete catalog of universes? Suppose ours is just number 9,876,869,345 in the catalog. Would we ever complete such a project within the observers present lifetime of our universe? My current belief is that Comp is a broad brush description of a subset of universes within my own model. If Bruno thinks his approach is more precise than that I do not have a problem with that. My model appears to answer my questions about the basis of dynamics within the everything and a response as to what observers observe. Perhaps this sort of level is all we can expect, but it is, I believe, necessary to police the results so that most individuals can eventually sign on some day. For example we sure need in my opinion a substantially increased level of comprehension of economics which is actually a result of any local physics. I can't accomplish this re most of Bruno's work since I am definitely not adequate in the relevant logic disciplines. Hal Ruhl From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 4:41 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The limit of all computations On 5/23/2012 1:20 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi Brent: What you appear to be asking for are predictions of the physics of a particular universe. It's the other extreme from 'predicting' everything happens. Since we only have the one physical universe against which to test the prediction, it's the only kind of prediction that means anything. 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
RE: The limit of all computations
Hi Brent: I shall try to respond tomorrow. Hal Ruhl From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 8:41 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The limit of all computations On 5/23/2012 4:42 PM, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi Brent: I ask if it is reasonable to propose that a theory of everything must be able to list ALL the aspects of the local physics for each one of a complete catalog of universes? But I wasn't asking for ALL the aspects, just a few very general ones which are questions in current research, meaning there's a chance we might be able to check the predictions. 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. -- 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: A humble suggestion to the group
Hi Russell and everyone Interesting that the first time I look at the list for a very long time I find something I like. My personal archive goes back to March of 2008 if there might be something in there that could help a wiki construction. As I recall I once a very long time ago started a FAQ for the list but the project died. Hal Ruhl -Original Message- From: *everything-list@googlegroups.com* everything-list@googlegroups.com[ *mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com* everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Russell Standish Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2014 5:38 PM To: Everything List Subject: Re: A humble suggestion to the group That is a pity, given I wrote quite a few of those pages. I don't have the time now to repeat the effort :(. But I'll chime on of other people's efforts. We must make sure we have backups this time! PS - checked the Wayback machine, and it did only one archive of the wiki back in 21st of July last year - alas it got an Error 403 :( *https://web.archive.org/web/20130721124015/http://everythingwiki.gcn.cx*https://web.archive.org/web/20130721124015/http:/everythingwiki.gcn.cx Cheers -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: A humble suggestion to the group
On Monday, February 3, 2014 3:58:07 PM UTC-5, Russell Standish wrote: On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 08:09:00AM -0800, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi Russell and everyone My personal archive goes back to March of 2008 if there might be something in there that could help a wiki construction. Backup of the wiki or an email archive? Email archives exist, of course, particularly through googlegroups, but seem to be difficult to search, for some reason. Hi Russell It is just email posts. It may not be of use but I can try searching it if someone has a search criteria. Hal Ruhl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: A humble suggestion to the group
Hi Russell and everyone Interesting that the first time I look at the list for a very long time I find something I like. My personal archive goes back to March of 2008 if there might be something in there that could help a wiki construction. As I recall I once a very long time ago started a FAQ for the list but the project died. Hal Ruhl -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Russell Standish Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2014 5:38 PM To: Everything List Subject: Re: A humble suggestion to the group That is a pity, given I wrote quite a few of those pages. I don't have the time now to repeat the effort :(. But I'll chime on of other people's efforts. We must make sure we have backups this time! PS - checked the Wayback machine, and it did only one archive of the wiki back in 21st of July last year - alas it got an Error 403 :( https://web.archive.org/web/20130721124015/http://everythingwiki.gcn.cx Cheers -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Vote to make ecocide illegal
On Sunday, February 9, 2014 4:35:01 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: http://www.endecocide.eu/ Hi Liz Back on 10/31/2012 I started a thread Life: Origin, Purpose, and Qualia Spectrum wherein I argue that ecocide [to adopt a term] is a natural and unavoidable aspect of life. A draft later version [4/18/2013] is at http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/ Hal Ruhl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Vote to make ecocide illegal
Hi Liz: I am not sure I understand your comment. As to rate I posit a positive feedback loop in the life system that forces natural ecocide that also makes the rate at which life approaches it accelerate. There is always a chance that an essentially outside originating influence could terminate the natural extinction process with an unnatural one [cometary impact, etc.]. By natural here I mean inherent in life itself. Unnatural would be external to life. [I suppose that these distinctions may have permeable boundaries.] In any event my point is that my argument supports a natural and thus unavoidable extinction event built into life and it is fully effective absent an unnatural earlier one. Hal Ruhl On Monday, February 10, 2014 8:33:08 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: It certainly isn't natural at the rate we've been doing it. We're coming close to a cometary impact. On 11 February 2014 14:02, Hal Ruhl hal...@alum.syracuse.edujavascript: wrote: On Sunday, February 9, 2014 4:35:01 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: http://www.endecocide.eu/ Hi Liz Back on 10/31/2012 I started a thread Life: Origin, Purpose, and Qualia Spectrum wherein I argue that ecocide [to adopt a term] is a natural and unavoidable aspect of life. A draft later version [4/18/2013] is at http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/ Hal Ruhl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Vote to make ecocide illegal
On Monday, February 10, 2014 9:57:56 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I still don't think we should be killing off all the species we are, if only for our own sake. I think we benefit from biodiversity, probably even more so than the next species since we have occupied almost every niche on the planet apart from deep sea smokers. I also don't like the suggestion that ecocide is a natural and unavoidable aspect of life because that appears to be an attempt at justifying ourselves. I doubt if the species that came through the k-t boundary with some members alive had an easy time of it for the next few million years, and I don't particularly want the same for our children. Hi Liz: The argument I present is based in the laws of physics as we know them in our universe and resulting information flows. The laws of physics make no kind of judgment as to the nature of the emotional consequences of actions that result from them other than are the resulting emotions a correct result of the physics in play. My position is that the emotions anti ecocide will never come even close to outweighing the emotions pro the process that leads to the ecocide. However I do make allowance for such a possibility. See the material I pointed to: http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/ Hal Ruhl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Vote to make ecocide illegal
Hi Bruno and Liz: I think it is not fruitful to look further at the words natural and unnatural. They seem to carry too much baggage. I should not have used them. I suggest looking at my post I pointed to: *http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/*http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/ and go through it and discuss it one step at a time. It uses the term inherent. After that we could explore how the collection of universes in the Everything permits the result of the discussion. For example if the result is that life appears always inherently self extinguishing how does this lack of choice influence the origin and structure [if this is a reasonably applicable term] of the Everything. Hal Ruhl On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 11:18:57 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Feb 2014, at 03:57, LizR wrote: On 11 February 2014 15:22, Hal Ruhl hal...@alum.syracuse.edujavascript: wrote: Hi Liz: I am not sure I understand your comment. As to rate I posit a positive feedback loop in the life system that forces natural ecocide that also makes the rate at which life approaches it accelerate. There is always a chance that an essentially outside originating influence could terminate the natural extinction process with an unnatural one [cometary impact, etc.]. By natural here I mean inherent in life itself. Unnatural would be external to life. [I suppose that these distinctions may have permeable boundaries.] In any event my point is that my argument supports a natural and thus unavoidable extinction event built into life and it is fully effective absent an unnatural earlier one. I still don't think we should be killing off all the species we are, if only for our own sake. I think we benefit from biodiversity, probably even more so than the next species since we have occupied almost every niche on the planet apart from deep sea smokers. I also don't like the suggestion that ecocide is a natural and unavoidable aspect of life because that appears to be an attempt at justifying ourselves. It is the same error than the lawyer who justified his client's murder by the fact that it just obeys the laws of physics. It is natural! It is empty also, in this case, as we can say that the human reaction to avoid the natural ecocide is natural too, like the jury member can condemm the murderer to any pain, by justifying them by the fact that they too obey the physical laws. naturality add nothing on each sides of the debate. Here nature plays a role of the gap, and some others could just say Oh, that's God will. I think this has a name: fatalism. Invoking God or Matter in this way, is, in comp+Theaetetus, a theological error. Comp explains why this is false, even if true at the non justifiable truth level, but it becomes false when asserted (it put us in a cul-de-sac world, which can satisfies []A - ~A.) We do exist, as human or Löbian person, and we do have partial control, and thus relative responsibilities. If comp is true. I doubt if the species that came through the k-t boundary with some members alive had an easy time of it for the next few million years, and I don't particularly want the same for our children. OK. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: New NASA study predicts high probability of collapse of industrial civilization
Hi everyone Below is a URL from one of my posts on the subject of life being inherently self destructive which I believe it to be. It provides my curent argument on the subject. I think such discussion is relevant to the main history of this group's threads because if life is indeed always inherently self destructive wherever it appears in any allowed universe then why is there such a down select in the types of allowed universes. - *http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/*http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/ Hal Ruhl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: New NASA study predicts high probability of collapse of industrial civilization
Hi John: It is a distinct pleasure to hear from you. To answer your question I think the narrowest characterization of the type of life I talk about is that it is one of the possible processes within a universe that if implemented increase the entropy of that universe. Further all such processes will be implemented in any universe in which they are possible. Since entropy has a fixed maximum in a closed system (a universe) then life must enable its own extinction. Yours Hal On Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:23:58 PM UTC-4, JohnM wrote: Dear Hal Ruhl, it has been for long since we had our last exchangeI clicked the URL and found mostly agreeable general ideas (with my peculiar thoughts in frequent questioning). *May I ask WHAT kind of LIFE are you talking about?* I believe our Terresstrial 'bio' is only a segment. Then again evolution etc. are not within my agnostic framework of worldview, so your explanation would find fertile grounds. Good to hear from you again John Mikes oldtimer On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 6:28 PM, Hal Ruhl hal...@alum.syracuse.edujavascript: wrote: Hi everyone Below is a URL from one of my posts on the subject of life being inherently self destructive which I believe it to be. It provides my curent argument on the subject. I think such discussion is relevant to the main history of this group's threads because if life is indeed always inherently self destructive wherever it appears in any allowed universe then why is there such a down select in the types of allowed universes. - *http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/*http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/ Hal Ruhl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: New NASA study predicts high probability of collapse of industrial civilization
Hi Russell and everyone I appreciate the comments in the thread such as those on entropy vs universe dynamics which reveal the fact that I may be somewhat old school re physics. In the blog discussion I pointed to in my earlier post I do cover many points. For example at definition #3, I discuss closed systems. I hypothetically designate our solar system as essentially closed for the purposes of the blog post. Over the duration of my posting on this list I have presented a collection of models regarding how the Everything can allow and implement dynamic universes at least as viewed by life entities inside those universes. I am currently interested in several aspects of the results of the observation of life in our local life system, how the observational results can be understood, and what impact do the resulting conclusions have on models of the Everything and humanities [Homo Sapiens Sapiens] continued existence or perhaps imposed life style changes. In the blog post I am trying to explain why numerous warnings of impending socio-economic disaster have been, by prior trials, largely ignored. I would like to refine the blog [or even abandon it if it is shown to be unrealistic] so I would deeply appreciate comments on it. Hal Ruhl On Wednesday, March 19, 2014 9:28:15 PM UTC-4, Russell Standish wrote: On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 12:44:17PM +1300, LizR wrote: Yes, I think that's what Carl Sagan said about the possibility of life existing indefinitely, too. The entropy ceiling goes up indefinitely, but the energy remaining goes down, and ultimately I would imagine it ends up at the noise level. Since entropy is an emergent concept I'm not sure where the rising ceiling gets us in the long run, although it certainly helps in the short term (the big bang was near equilibrium, yet we're now far from it). It's not as clear cut as that. In a Friedman universe, gravity eventually slows the expansion of the universe, (whether open or closed) so the entropy ceiling slows down in being raised. This would imply that eventually that dissipative process will eventually assymptotically consume the available free energy. (Apparently, in a closed Friedman universe, it is possible to obtain energy from the big crunch - Tipler's Omega point, so I probably haven't got this quite right for closed universes. Something to do with reversing the direction of the second law, I suppose.) But it now appears that the universe's expansion is accelerating due to dark energy. This would entail that free energy will forever be created faster than the dissipative processes can consume it. Again, consider this to all be revised again in our lifetimes. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.aujavascript: University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
My model re Comp and Life re the Everything
Hi everyone: I am currently interested in two questions: Does my model of why there are dynamic universes within the Everything [latest version is below] include Bruno's Comp? Hi Bruno. If life is inherently self destructive under any reasonable definition of life [see some of my recent posts], then how does this impact the Everything since I see it as a restriction [selection] on the scope of possible universes? Comments welcome. Thanks Hal Ruhl DEFINITIONS: i) Distinction: That which enables a separation such as a particular red from other colors. ii) Devisor: That which encloses a quantity [zero to every] of distinctions. [Some divisors are thus collections of divisors.] iii): Define “N”s as those divisors that enclose zero distinction. Call them Nothing(s). iv): Define “S”s as divisors that enclose a non zero number of distinctions but not all distinctions. Call them Something(s). MODEL: 1) Assumption # A1: There exists a set consisting of all possible divisors. Call this set “A”. “A” encompasses every distinction. “A” is thus itself a divisor by definition (i) and therefore contains itself an unbounded number of times [“A” contains “A” which contains “A” and so on. 2) An issue that arises is whether or not an individual specific divisor is static or dynamic. That is: Is its quantity of distinction subject to change? It cannot be both. This requires that all divisors individually enclose the self referential distinction of being static or dynamic. 3) At least one divisor type - the “N”s, by definition (iii), enclose no such distinction but by (2) they must enclose this one. This is a type of incompleteness. [A complete divisor can answer any self meaningful question but not necessarily consistently i.e. sometimes one way sometimes another] That is the “N”s cannot answer this question which is nevertheless meaningful to them. [The incompleteness is taken to be rather similar functionally to the incompleteness of some mathematical Formal Axiomatic Systems – See Godel.] The “N” are thus unstable with respect to their initial condition. They each must at some point spontaneously enclose this stability distinction. They thereby transition into “S”s. 4) By (3) Transitions between divisors exist. 5) Some of the “S”s resulting from “N”s [see (3)] may themselves be incomplete in a similar manner but perhaps in a different distinction family. They must evolve – via similar incompleteness driven transitions - until “complete” in the sense of (3). 6) Assumption # A2: Each element of “A” is a universe state. 7) The result is a “flow” of “S”s most of which are encompassing more and more distinction with each transition. 8) This flow is a multiplicity of paths of successions of transitions from element to element of the All. That is (by A2) a transition from a universe state to a successor universe state. 9) Our Universe’s evolution would be one such path on which the S constantly gets larger. 10) Since incompleteness can have multiple resolutions the path of an evolving “S” may split into multiple paths at any transition. 11) A path may also originate on an incomplete “S” not just the Ns. 12) Observer constructs such as life entities and likely all other constructs imbedded in a universe bear witness to the transitions. 13) Transition paths [“traces” may be a better term] can be of any length. 14) A particular transition may not resolve any incompleteness of the subject evolving S. 15) White Rabbits: Since many elements of A are very large, large transitions could become infrequent on a long path [trace] whereon the particular S itself gets large. (Also few White Rabbits if both sides of the divisors on either side of the transition are sufficiently similar in size). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: My model re Comp and Life re the Everything
Hi Bruno: Reintroducing some mathematical terms to my model: A distinction is a description of a boundary between two things see definition ”i”. As a description it is a number - I suppose [a positive integer ?]. This makes a divisor - a collection of distinctions by definition “ii” - a collection of numbers. Since I think any number can be a description and thus a member of a divisor, “A” since it contains all divisors by assumption A1 contains all numbers. I consider “A” to be the Everything. To get a dynamic in the “A” - one of my personal goals - I point to the incompleteness of a subset of divisors. A universe [see assumption A2] needs to answer all meaningful questions relevant to it, so it must eventually become complete in this sense. Thus a trace from state to state is created within “A” for each universe. The trace eventually ends on a complete divisor. I see “A” and its traces as a UD. As for the issue of the nature of life please see my draft at: *http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/*http://arobustfuturehistory.wordpress.com/ It is a pleasure to converse with you again. Hal On Monday, March 31, 2014 4:12:08 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi Hal, I read and try to understand. I am not sure life is inherently self-destructive. It is more inherently self-replacing. Can you define the A of your assumption more specifically? Your notion of divisors is quite vague for me. Best, Bruno On 31 Mar 2014, at 01:21, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi everyone: I am currently interested in two questions: Does my model of why there are dynamic universes within the Everything [latest version is below] include Bruno's Comp? Hi Bruno. If life is inherently self destructive under any reasonable definition of life [see some of my recent posts], then how does this impact the Everything since I see it as a restriction [selection] on the scope of possible universes? Comments welcome. Thanks Hal Ruhl DEFINITIONS: i) Distinction: That which enables a separation such as a particular red from other colors. ii) Devisor: That which encloses a quantity [zero to every] of distinctions. [Some divisors are thus collections of divisors.] iii): Define “N”s as those divisors that enclose zero distinction. Call them Nothing(s). iv): Define “S”s as divisors that enclose a non zero number of distinctions but not all distinctions. Call them Something(s). MODEL: 1) Assumption # A1: There exists a set consisting of all possible divisors. Call this set “A”. “A” encompasses every distinction. “A” is thus itself a divisor by definition (i) and therefore contains itself an unbounded number of times [“A” contains “A” which contains “A” and so on. 2) An issue that arises is whether or not an individual specific divisor is static or dynamic. That is: Is its quantity of distinction subject to change? It cannot be both. This requires that all divisors individually enclose the self referential distinction of being static or dynamic. 3) At least one divisor type - the “N”s, by definition (iii), enclose no such distinction but by (2) they must enclose this one. This is a type of incompleteness. [A complete divisor can answer any self meaningful question but not necessarily consistently i.e. sometimes one way sometimes another] That is the “N”s cannot answer this question which is nevertheless meaningful to them. [The incompleteness is taken to be rather similar functionally to the incompleteness of some mathematical Formal Axiomatic Systems – See Godel.] The “N” are thus unstable with respect to their initial condition. They each must at some point spontaneously enclose this stability distinction. They thereby transition into “S”s. 4) By (3) Transitions between divisors exist. 5) Some of the “S”s resulting from “N”s [see (3)] may themselves be incomplete in a similar manner but perhaps in a different distinction family. They must evolve – via similar incompleteness driven transitions - until “complete” in the sense of (3). 6) Assumption # A2: Each element of “A” is a universe state. 7) The result is a “flow” of “S”s most of which are encompassing more and more distinction with each transition. 8) This flow is a multiplicity of paths of successions of transitions from element to element of the All. That is (by A2) a transition from a universe state to a successor universe state. 9) Our Universe’s evolution would be one such path on which the S constantly gets larger. 10) Since incompleteness can have multiple resolutions the path of an evolving “S” may split into multiple paths at any transition. 11) A path may also originate on an incomplete “S” not just the Ns. 12) Observer constructs such as life entities and likely all other constructs imbedded in a universe bear witness to the transitions. 13
RE: My model re Comp and Life re the Everything
Hi Liz: A number can be interpreted as encoded information. The decoder can even be a segment of the number. Hal From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 7:53 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: My model re Comp and Life re the Everything On 1 April 2014 12:48, Hal Ruhl halr...@alum.syracuse.edu wrote: Hi Bruno: Reintroducing some mathematical terms to my model: A distinction is a description of a boundary between two things see definition i. As a description it is a number - I suppose [a positive integer ?]. Sorry I don't quite see this. If you want to draw a distinction between a particular shade of red and any other colour, how is that a number? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: My model re Comp and Life re the Everything
Hi Bruno, John, Liz, and everyone:
Bruno:
Your comments helped me to refine my thoughts about my model and the model
itself.
See below.
Thank you.
I believe my model as clarified below has convinced me that Comp to the
degree I may understand it and to the degree it is “machine” is at least
one component of a correct and complete description of our observer
experience. This because I believe it to be a different expression part of
if not all of my approach. There may be other components but this may be
TBD.
On 01 Apr 2014, at 01:48, Hal Ruhl wrote:
Reintroducing some mathematical terms to my model:
A distinction is a description of a boundary between two things see
definition ”i”. As a description it is a number - I suppose [a positive
integer ?].
-
Do you mean the code of a program computing a predicate P(x), that is a
function from N to {0, 1}, so that some digital machine can distinguish if
some number, of finite input, verifies or not that property?
---
*I am not very strong on computer science but just an MSEE minted in 60’s,
however I think my answer would be a qualified yes with the following
qualifications:*
*a) I take your “predicate” to be the subject number itself.*
*b) The program for the machine is in that number.*
*c) The rest of the number is the data for the machine.*
*d) Not all numbers, such as maybe zero, can be distinctions since they
encode an incomplete machine and or incomplete data.*
---
This makes a divisor - a collection of distinctions by definition “ii” - a
collection of numbers.
Why use divisor, where x is divisor of y already means Ez(z*x = y),
(i.e. it exists a number z such that z times x is equal to y).
*By definition “ii” regarding “divisors” I merely give a relevant short
name to a subset of numbers.*
*Also by “ii” some divisors contain zero distinctions [the “N”s by
definition “iii”] but nevertheless can contain numbers that contain
incomplete code. *
*Further some divisors can contain numbers that are distinctions and some
that are not because such numbers encode incomplete machines or data or
both.*
*Notes:*
*I need to clarify definition “ii” per the underlined words above*
*Here I have tried to structure the clarifications so that there is no need
to resort to a machine that is external to a divisor.*
The collection of numbers (codes of the total computable predicates) will
not be a computable set of numbers, but you can compute a superset of them,
--
*I am not sure I understand. Some numbers [+integers] are excluded from
being distinctions in the above because they contain incomplete codes. *
*However the full set of distinctions [call it “d”] should still be [I
think] a countable infinite set of integers. *
*Divisors include all subsets of the set {“d” Union [the set of all
integers that are not distinctions - call this set “I”]}*
* This I think makes “A” - the set of all divisors - an uncountable
infinite powerset of {“d” U “I”}. So by your comment I think both {“d” U
“I”} and “A” are computable (perhaps some with the aid of a random oracle.
*
--
by accepting that some code will not output any answer for some predicate
(distinction)
---
*I think the above covers that.*
--
No machine can distinct the totally distinguishable from the non
distinguishable.
--
*I do not think this applies, but I think my clarifications may help
decide the issue.*
*Many incomplete codings [machine, data or both] should produce output
which is at least partly a guess on some of the incomplete coding [output
of a random oracle]. I would identify this as the transition from an
incomplete divisor [a universe state by assumption A2] to a successor
divisor [universe state] which itself may be incomplete – a trace in “A” is
started, continued or terminated [on a complete divisor]. *
--
Since I think any number can be description and thus a member of a divisor,
“A” since it contains all divisors by assumption A1 contains all numbers. I
consider “A” to be the Everything.
---
*See the clarification of “Divisor” above.*
It works with the superset above. I think. As you are a bit unclear, I take
the opportunity to understand you in the frame which makes already some
sense to me (mainly the mechanist hypothesis).
--
*See my last comment below.*
--
To get a dynamic in the “A” - one of my personal goals - I point to the
incompleteness of a subset of divisors.
A universe [see assumption A2] needs to answer all meaningful questions
relevant to it, so it must eventually become complete in this sense.
Thus a trace from state to state is created within “A” for each universe. The
trace eventually ends on a complete divisor.
I see “A” and its traces
Re: My model re Comp and Life re the Everything
Hi Bruno: On Friday, April 4, 2014 12:36:13 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: Hal, Yes, we might be on the same length wave for the ultimate TOE, Thank you but your terming is rather terrible. I will work on it, perhaps needing some help. Today I tend to think of the current state of my model as managing to parachute in using a bed sheet without sustaining a fatal injury. Hal -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: UDA revisited
Hi Russell At 09:53 PM 11/17/2006, you wrote: To say that there must be a physical computer on which the dovetailer should run, is rather similar to saying there must be an ultimate turtle upon which the world rests. The little old lady was right in saying its turtles all the way down. Of course it is also analogous to saying there must be a prime mover to start the causal chain. Back on 9/4/06 I posted a more recent version of my model. While this model continues to evolve, I define Physical Reality as the property of an object that allows objects to interact - it is the only property of an object allowed to change. I think one can make a loose correspondence between my list and its dynamic and the UD as follows: 1) Some of my objects and all the states of all the programs in all the possible UD trace states [However, I suspect some if not most of my objects are not Turing computable.]. 2) My object to object interaction [according to local interaction rules] and the operation of the UD itself [a current program state producing the next state via the particular computer's configuration[state]]. My list would have a locus containing a group of closely related properties re the level of the Physical Reality of an object. Within this locus objects interact by pushing each other's boundary around by rules local to those objects. This boundary pushing is like what the UD's operation does [it seems to me]. 3) The current Physical Reality distribution among some of my objects and the current state of the UD trace. However, the UD trace is binary in that it is only active at one state at a time and all other states are inactive. I think that that is a disallowed selection from a more general multiplicity of possibilities. Also I have more objects than possible program states. Nevertheless I see no need for a fundamental material matrix in which to play out the dynamics of my list. In fact I think it would be logically excluded as a global necessity since it would select just a subset of the possible dynamics of interaction between my objects because the matrix would have to have some properties. I think that this argument as far as a material matrix goes is to a degree along the lines of your argument but clearly I presently see the UD as just a subset of my list's dynamic. Hal Ruhl --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Objects, Lists, and continuums
I have tried to find material discussing the following idea but have not found any yet so I would appreciate comments. The idea is based in the description of objects. It was recently pointed out to me as being an aspect of my model by Alastair Malcolm. The idea is presented below and its result appears to be to exclude continuums from universes. Assumptions: 1) There is a list of all possible properties of objects. 2) The list and all its sublists are the descriptions of all possible objects. By Cantor's diagonal argument lists can be no more than countably infinite in length. An object's spacial coordinates are part of its description [its sublist] but because the full list is at most only countably infinite in length there can not be a continuum of spacial coordinates on it. The same would apply to an object's time coordinates. Universes are objects described by sub lists of the full list and consist of sets of other sub lists but as such universes can not contain continuums of spacial or temporal coordinates or continuums of any other property its objects might have. As an aside, in my current model the full list and its sub lists are both description and object. Objects interact by mutually changing just one property - their location on a Physical Reality dimension. The change is just a shifting of boundaries between sublists. Hal Ruhl --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Objects, Lists, and continuums
Hi Tom At 11:10 AM 12/4/2006, you wrote: Hal Ruhl wrote: The idea is presented below and its result appears to be to exclude continuums from universes. Assumptions: 1) There is a list of all possible properties of objects. The above object #1 is countable by definition. It is only countable as I say in my model but by Cantor's argument as far as I know and not by definition. If it was by definition then why his argument? 2) The list and all its sublists are the descriptions of all possible objects. The above object #2 is uncountable by Cantor's diagonal argument. It is the power set of the first list. As I say in my model it is indeed the power set and thus makes for an uncountable number of objects. It is not a list. I did not say it was. By Cantor's diagonal argument lists can be no more than countably infinite in length. The above refers to #1. I thought that was clear since I did not try to say #2 was a list. An object's spacial coordinates are part of its description [its sublist] but because the full list is at most only countably infinite in length there can not be a continuum of spacial coordinates on it. The same would apply to an object's time coordinates. If you assume that space and/or time is a continuum, then there exists an uncountable set of space and/or time coordinates, even in every interval of non-zero measure. Well the idea that you can map the points in an N dimensional continuum to the points on any line segment makes me wonder how continuums can play a role in the description of universes especially since it does not seem necessary - at least to me. But if you take a particular object, as you are doing here, which has one set of space-time coordinate (4-tuple), this is describable with a countable set of symbols. If so then why is a continuum necessary? My Physical reality dimension with countable - finite will do I think - values seems enough. Yes, assuming a space-time continuum that is really a continuum is rather hard to believe, as Feynman pointed out (at one point in his life ;). But as I have been trying to point out, this kind of belief is something that we do without thinking about it. And yet it is faith. It is based on evidence, a finite set of points of evidence, but it takes faith to integrate over those points. As I indicated appeal to continuums seems odd and unnecessary. I have found no evidence that convinces me otherwise and I have no faith in the odd and unnecessary. Universes are objects described by sub lists of the full list and consist of sets of other sub lists but as such universes can not contain continuums of spacial or temporal coordinates or continuums of any other property its objects might have. As an aside, in my current model the full list and its sub lists are both description and object. Objects interact by mutually changing just one property - their location on a Physical Reality dimension. The change is just a shifting of boundaries between sublists. Hal Ruhl Perhaps this is a good new angle to try to say what I'm trying to say. If there is ultimately no such thing as a person, Well a result of what I am saying seems to be that there are a countably infinite number of objects that are exactly as I am now but having every possible space-time combination. However, one has to consider their location on the physical reality dimension. This would allow a dynamic [which occurs by the nature of the # 1 list] to trace out chains of such as I could ever be objects that would appear as a person moving through space-time so long as at least several adjacent such objects all have non zero but first rising and then falling physical reality so that flow and apparent have a reference. Must go it is late. Hal then there is no subject-object distinction (needed for science, and even more for scientists). This is talking at the deepest level of philosophy, not the common sense (sometimes the word naive is used) sense that is used in everyday science. I think it is best to always look at the whole week (the living of everyday life at the finite level) from the perspective of the weekend (personal eternity, the grand scheme of things which the impersonal Everything does not provide). The only way to the continuum is to start with it. No amount of making lists is going to get you there. Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
One way to look at life is from the point of view of energy hang-up barriers - those various facts about the structure of our universe that slow the dissipation of useful energy concentrations. Life drills holes in these barriers and thus is on the fastest system path to maximum entropy. That could be why life appeared quickly on earth and should also do so wherever conditions permit. Life forms that are bigger [hold larger drills] and smarter [invent more kinds of drills] produce a wider variety of holes in the barriers. Since body size and brain size [complexity] have only a lower bound and the thermodynamics above gives an additional bias towards large, smart life forms to an otherwise goal less evolution, large SAS seem inevitable. Thus is life in a universe that can support it just an unavoidable thermodynamic tool and SAS just the top grade of such tool? Hal Ruhl --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Hi John: One example of what I am saying would be the way we drill holes in the earth and pump out oil and oxidize it and the resulting energy flux soon dissipates, can do little more useful work, and radiates into space. If the oil was left in place it could be many millions of years before it oxidized. If a thermodynamic system always finds the fastest path to maximum entropy then in our universe entities such as we would be inevitable. My current approach to existence results in a fully quantized mulitverse in which some objects [divisions of my list] are states of individual universes. The level of a logically unavoidable [no selection] object interaction parameter is unevenly distributed over all the objects in the multiverse. This distribution is in a state of random flux due to logical incompleteness and inconsistency of the multiverse. I have called this parameter physical reality. A high degree [maximum] of this physical reality parameter therefore moves from object to object. The levels of this physical reality can not logically [no selection] be just binary [maximum:none] but must logically [no selection] have all possible other quantifications. The random flux can produce infinitely long sequences of objects with maximally high degrees of this parameter that could be interpreted as being successive now states of well behaved evolving universes. A non binary quantification for this parameter level [as mentioned above] for such a sequence could bridge successive states and perhaps be the origin of what we call consciousness. Now that model may be physical in a sense but there does not seem to be a need for a material substrate. The parameter is just a property of objects that can change while all their other properties remain fixed. I also think that Bruno's comp model might fit inside such a multiverse since some of the object sequences could be associated with the trace of a UD. Hal Ruhl At 06:59 PM 12/31/2006, you wrote: Hal, so yhou look at it... (at what?) - anyway from the standpoint of the 'physical' model. Can you come closer totell what you are 'looking at'? Happy 2007! John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
One thing that I do not agree with is what seems to me to be a common holding regarding observer moments [by this I mean discrete states of universes [which are a sub set of possible objects]] is that they are each so far assumed to have a set of properties that are to some extent the same as other observer moments and to some extent different from all other observer moments [to distinguish individual moments] but nevertheless the properties of an individual observer moment are fixed for that observer moment. This to me is not logical since it is a selection and why that selection? Why not have some blend of variable properties and fixed properties as a possibility? This seems more in accord with a zero information ensemble. Further, if it is also held that observer moments can not interact - that is also a selection. I have proposed in other posts that there should be at least one variable property through which universe states can interact. The idea is that all possible universe states have a uniform existence property, but also can have an addition property that is a variable that one could call hyper existence through which they can interact. They interact by mutually altering each others hyper existence property. This variable property should not have just a binary set of values as a possibility but should also have many discrete levels as a possibility - again to avoid selection. In other words a universe state could experience a non square pulse of hyper existence which could span many of the this particular state to other state interactions. This would be like a wave of hyper existence propagating through some succession of universe states. Non binary, non square pulses of propagating hyper existence could be a basis for what is called consciousness - a flow of modulated awareness. Given a random component to the underlying dynamic [which I have also discussed ] some such wave propagations with non binary, non square pulses of hyper existence would be through infinite strings of successive states that would all be life - and even beyond that - SAS friendly. Hal Ruhl --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Hi John: Sorry I did not respond earlier. Lately I do not have time to read the list posts and respond during the week. At 04:02 PM 1/29/2007, you wrote: Hal, a decade ago I 'read' your text easier than now: you firmed up your vocabulary - gradually out of my understanding. Sorry. * You seem to accept 'observer moments' and their interaction - even postulate one variable needed. Observer moments and states of universes I take as being identical. To say that they do not interact is a selection. Selections create information and I prefer the point of view that the top level system should have zero net information. The All [has many other names suppose] has zero net information because it contains all information. I separate out of the information zero All for examination a list of all properties that an object can have. That is I select a boundary in the All from among its infinite number of boundaries. My list being a list can be countably infinite and the set of all its sub sets would then be uncountably infinite. There are then an uncountably infinite number of objects which can be taken to be states of universes. How long is an OM? a million years (cosmology) or a msec? States of universes have permanent uniform existence. The question is how long can they have a non zero hyper existence. The answer is all values [to avoid more selection]. Even if it is a portion of the latter, it makes the existence quite discontinuous - with all the difficulties in it. If it is continuous, then how can we talk about 'moments'? Should we assign an equal rate change to all existence (meaning: ONE selection for the OM length)? If it can be ANY, varying from the infinitely short to the other extreme, it would 'wash away' any sense of the meaning of an Observer MOMENT concept. My flow of hyper existence with its possible non binary pulse shapes could make consciousness continuous for some sequences of states. SAS might find a universe state sequence in which the pulse rises from zero to 1 and then back to zero in a many step stair case fashion user friendly. I think the OM is the figment of us, human observers, who want to use an 'understandable' model. [Like: numbers (in the human logic sense).] Then, in view of the resulting 'unfathomable', we 'complicate' these models - originally created FOR comprehension - into incomprehensibility. [The way as e.g. to bridge Bohm's Explicate to the Implicate (by Nic de Cusa's 2nd principle, left out by Bohm: the Complicate - what I like to assign as math).] * That 'one' variable property you mention as needed for state- interaction is IMO not necessarily o n e within our (present) comprehension. I identify my list's sub sets as states of universes. The interaction variable I call hyper existence could be compared with a UD trace. When the trace lands on a state it gets a non zero hyper existence. You could have UDs that assign a 0.1 hyper existence, UDs that assign a 0.2 value, UDs that assign a 0.8 value, UDs that assign a 1.0 value etc. etc. Now all my model would ask for next is for a sting of universe states that look like ours is in lasting [infinite] compatible set of UD trace intersections. Since all UDs are infinitely nested, an infinite set of such trace intersection sets would be obtained. My model has a dynamic originated in the incompleteness of some of the list sub sets and this dynamic has a random content due to the internal and external inconsistency of some of the list's sub sets. As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as a subset. Yours Hal Ruhl - Original Message - From: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Hal Ruhl To: mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.comeverything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 11:02 PM Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds One thing that I do not agree with is what seems to me to be a common holding regarding observer moments [by this I mean discrete states of universes [which are a sub set of possible objects]] is that they are each so far assumed to have a set of properties that are to some extent the same as other observer moments and to some extent different from all other observer moments [to distinguish individual moments] but nevertheless the properties of an individual observer moment are fixed for that observer moment. This to me is not logical since it is a selection and why that selection? Why not have some blend of variable properties and fixed properties as a possibility? This seems more in accord with a zero information ensemble. Further, if it is also held that observer moments can not interact - that is also a selection. I have proposed in other posts that there should be at least one variable property through which universe states can interact. The idea is that all possible universe states have a uniform existence property, but also can have an addition property that is a variable that one could
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Hi Bruno: I do not think I fully understand what you are saying. Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its evolving universes - meaning I take it that all successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state. I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two. Lets us say that you are correct about this result re your model, this just seems to reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order to avoid the information generating selection in the full set. Yours Hal Ruhl At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote: Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit : As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as a subset. This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person) white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does not reintroduce new one. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Hi Bruno: At 06:23 AM 2/6/2007, you wrote: Le 06-févr.-07, à 05:25, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Hal Ruhl writes: Hi Bruno: I do not think I fully understand what you are saying. Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its evolving universes - meaning I take it that all successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state. You mean physical consequences or something similar, don't you? I don't see anything logically inconsistent about a talking white rabbit or even the atoms of my keyboard reassembling themselves into a fire-breathing dragon. My model taps the inconsistency of a complete collection of information to give the dynamic of its universe state to state succession at least some random content. There is no conflict in my approach with talking white rabbits or uncommonly evolving keyboards. What I indicated is that all I needed to encompass our world in a UD metaphor of a sub set of my model was a compatible ongoing intersection of a set [an infinite set most likely] of UD traces. The picture is a set of say twenty traces all arriving at twenty Our World compatible successive states simultaneously. If the traces assign a compatible degree of hyper existence to their respective states then the result is twenty immediately successive states with a rising then falling degree of Hyper existence. The intersecting traces are not even necessarily logically related just compatibly coincident for one of Our World's ticks so to speak. At the next tick of our world a completely different set of twenty traces can be involved. Our World can be precisely as random as it needs to be. I agree with Stathis. Much more, I can prove to you that the sound lobian machine agrees with Stathis! It is a key point: there is nothing inconsistent with my seeing and measuring white rabbits (cf dreams, videa, ...). Both with QM and/or comp, we can only hope such events are relatively rare. Now, a naive reading of the UD can give the feeling that with comp white rabbits are not rare at all, and that is why I insist at some point that we have to take more fully into account the objective constraints of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic (some of which are counter-intuitive and even necessarily so). Hal Ruhl continued: I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two. Lets us say that you are correct about this result re your model, this just seems to reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order to avoid the information generating selection in the full set. It *could* be the contrary. In quantum mechanics a case can be given that it *is* the contrary. It is by taking the full set of (relative histories) that the quantum phase randomization can eliminate the quantum aberrant histories (cf Feynman paths). It works with the QM because of the existence of destructive interferences, and somehow what the computationalist has to justify is the (first person plural) appearance of such destructive effects. Bruno Given an uncountably infinite number of objects generated from a countably infinite list of properties and an uncountably infinite number of UD's in the metaphor I can not see an issue with this re my model. As I said above Our World can be as precisely as random as it needs to be. Hal Ruhl --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Hi John: Long ago there was some effort to write a FAQ for the list. Perhaps we should give it another try. Hal Ruhl At 11:30 AM 2/6/2007, you wrote: Hal and list: I do not think anybody fully understands what other listers write, even if one thinks so. Or is it only my handicap? John M - Original Message - From: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Hal Ruhl To: mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.comeverything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:24 PM Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds Hi Bruno: I do not think I fully understand what you are saying. Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its evolving universes - meaning I take it that all successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state. I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two. Lets us say that you are correct about this result re your model, this just seems to reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order to avoid the information generating selection in the full set. Yours Hal Ruhl At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote: Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit : As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as a subset. This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person) white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does not reintroduce new one. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
