RE: Re: Bruno's argument
Jesse Mazer writes (quoting SP): Whatyouseemtobesuggestingisthatnotallcomputationsareequivalent: somegiverisetomind,whileothers,apparentlysimilar,donot.Isn't thissimilartothereasoningofpeoplewhosaythatacomputercould neverbeconsciousbecauseevenifitexactlyemulatedahumanbrain,itis alawofnaturethatonlybrainscanbeconscious? No,notatall--wheredidyougettheideaIwassaying"apparentlysimilar" computationswouldnotgiverisetominds?Thepsychophysicallawsare supposedtoinsurethatacomputationswhichappearscompletely*dissimilar* toahumanmind,likeasimulationofthemovementofatomsinarock,does notinfactqualifyasanimplementationof(orcontributetothemeasure of)mymindandeveryotherpossiblemind,aswouldbeconcludedby Maudlin'sargumentorBruno'smovie-graphargument,asIunderstandthem. SeeChalmers'paper"DoesaRockImplementEveryFinite-StateAutomaton?"at http://consc.net/papers/rock.htmlformoreonthis"implementationproblem". OK, I should have said "apparently dissimilar, but actually similar computations".Chalmer's argument seems to be that the vibration of atoms in a rock does not follow any well-defined causal relationship, as the functioning of a computer or a brain does. It is only by accident, after the fact, that the rock's states map onto computational states, whereas a computer will reliably give a certain output for a certain input. Even if the computer has no input or output (which is the subtype of FSA which Putnam claims a rock implements) there is still a consistent set of rules governing the physical state transitions and mapping them onto computational states, such that had the physical states been different, so would the computation being implemented. The first problem with this idea is that it is an unnecessary complication:the fact that we*can't*observe rocks' solipsistic computing is enough to explain why we *don't* observe it.The second problem is that you would have to say that a system deliberately set up to perform a computation in the usual manner does perform that computation, but that the same system arising at random does not. This sounds almost like magic: why would the system know or care how it came about? Stathis PapaioannouBe one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Bruno's argument
Russell Standish writes: Torefinetheproblemalittlefurther-weseeabraininour observedrealityonwhichourmindsupervenes.Andweseeother brains,forwhichwemustassumesupervenienceofotherpersons(the nozombiesassumption). Whatisthecauseofthissupervenience?Itisasymptomofthe anthropicprinciple(observedrealitybeingconsistentwithour brains),butthisismerelytransferringthemystery.InmyToNbookI advancetheargumentthatthishastobesomethingtodowith self-awareness-iethebodyisnecessaryforself-awareness,and self-awarenessmustthereforebenecessaryforconsciousness. Bruno,Iknowinyourtheorythatintrospectionisavitalcomponent (theGoedel-likeconstructions),butIdidn'tseehowthisturnsback ontotheself-awarenessissue.Didyoudevelopthissideoftheargument? Why is the body necessary for self-awareness? And why are our heads not homogeneously solid like a potato?The answer is straightforward if you say only computers compute, but not if you say everything computes, or every computation is implemented (sans "physical reality") by virtue of itsstatus as a mathematical object in Platonia. One answer is that only those computations which supervene on physical processes in a brain which exists in a universe with orderly physical laws (which universe is just a tiny subset of the computations in Platonia) can result in the kind of orderly structure required to create the effect of a conscious being persisting through time. This does not necessarily mean that the computations underpinningyour stream of conscious are actually implemented in a physical universe, or even in a simulation of a physical universe, since it is impossible to say "where" a computation is being implemented when there are an infinity of them for every possible thought. Rather, it is enough that those computations which have a component in the physical universe (such as it is) are selected out, while those that end in your head turning into a bunch of flowers in the next microsecond are excluded. The above is of course related to the problem of the failure of induction, which you address more rigorously in your "Why Occam's Razor" paper and (hopefully at a simpler level, when it arrives) in your ToN book. Stathis PapaioannouBe one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Brent Meeker wrote: 1Z wrote: Brent Meeker wrote: In other words it is not justified, based on our limited understanding of brains, to say we'll never be able to know how another feels based on observation of their brain. We don't know how insects or amoebae feel, either. It is not just an issue of complexity. We don't knw where to *start* with qualia. We know where to start when it comes to knowing how other people feel, i.e. we empathize. If we knew how our brain worked and how the brain of our friend worked, then we could correlate the empathized feeling with the brain events. Correlation isn't explanation. This doesn't mean we would experience our friends feeling, but we could produce a mapping between his brain processes and his (inferred) feelings. Of course we wouldn't *know* this was right - but scientific knowledge is always uncertain, so I don't see that as a objection to calling it knowledge. I think you have skated past an important point. Being explanatory is not all the same as being certain. All scientific knowledge is uncertain; all knowledge worthy of the name is explanatory -- meaning it can provide answers (however uncertain) to how and why questions. Then there are homologous structures in our friends brain to those in a chimpanzee's brain and there are similar behavoirs - so I think we could extend our map to the feelings of a chimpanzee. Of course with some really alien life form, say an octopus, this would be difficult to test empirically - but not, I think, impossible. At best, this anwers questions about the circumstances under which an organism might feel a quale. It doesn't say anything about what qualia are -- why red seems red. (oh well, of course we can't answer that question..) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Russell Standish wrote: On Sun, Jul 23, 2006 at 06:53:50PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Russell Standish writes: To refine the problem a little further - we see a brain in our observed reality on which our mind supervenes. And we see other brains, for which we must assume supervenience of other persons (the no zombies assumption). What is the cause of this supervenience? It is a symptom of the anthropic principle (observed reality being consistent with our brains), but this is merely transferring the mystery. In my ToN book I advance the argument that this has to be something to do with self-awareness - ie the body is necessary for self-awareness, and self-awareness must therefore be necessary for consciousness. Bruno, I know in your theory that introspection is a vital component (the Goedel-like constructions), but I didn't see how this turns back onto the self-awareness issue. Did you develop this side of the argument? Why is the body necessary for self-awareness? And why are our heads not homogeneously solid like a potato? Good question! The answer is straightforward if you say only computers compute, but not if you say everything computes, or every computation is implemented (sans physical reality) by virtue of its status as a mathematical object in Platonia. But why does our consciousness supervene on any physical object (which we conventionally label heads)? it is easy enough to see why the Easy Problem asepcts of consciousness... # the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli; # the integration of information by a cognitive system; # the reportability of mental states; # the ability of a system to access its own internal states; # the focus of attention; # the deliberate control of behavior; # the difference between wakefulness and sleep. ...do. The question, then, is : why do the Hard Problem aspects.. (The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.) ...supervene on the easy problem aspects. Of course, the universe would be quite a strange place if reports of red qualia (EP) weren't accompanied by experienced red qualia (HP)! Which is just he issue Chalmers addresses in another key paper: Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: COMP Self-awareness
Le 20-juil.-06, à 21:01, Russell Standish a écrit : On Sat, Jul 22, 2006 at 04:49:04PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 20-juil.-06, à 13:46, Russell Standish a écrit : Bruno, I know in your theory that introspection is a vital component (the Goedel-like constructions), but I didn't see how this turns back onto the self-awareness issue. Did you develop this side of the argument? Yes sure. The Goedel-like construction can handle only a 3-person discursive self-reference. A little like if you where reasoning on some 3-description of your brain or body with your doctor, although it could be also an high level 3-description (like I have a head). ... Removed for brevity I will come back on the correspondence later. The key point is that the nuance between p, Bp, Bp p, Bp Dp, Bp Dp p, are imposed by the incompleteness phenomenon, and self-awareness corresponds to the one having p in their definition. It is the umbilical chord between truth and intellect of the reasonable first person. Bruno How do we get the p part corresponding to self-awareness? That doesn't seem to make sense at all! We could of course be foundering upon my major problem with your work. I have no problems with your UDA, and even think it could be generalised to the functionalist position, but where I come to grief is the latter Theatetical arguments. Functionalism is the same as comp, except that functionalist traditionally presuppose some knowable high level of substitution (and then like materialist presuppose a physical stuffy level). So I would say comp is just the old functionalism corrected for taking the UDA consequence into account (the level of substitution is unkowable, and physical stuff is either contradictory or devoid of explanation power and redundant). I have studied the book by Boolos, and can appreciate the power of modal logic to handle reasoning about provability. I can also see how you (and others) have extended these logic systems to the Theatetical notion of knowledge (adding the p), but my (physicist's) intuition riots against this definition capturing what we mean by knowledge. At best, I consider it a description of _mathematical_ knowledge, where indeed we can never know something unless proved. It depends what you put in the B. It is indeed a sort of scientific knowledge when starting with B = the provability predicate of some fixed theory like Peano arithmetic, but such a theory can (autonomously) transcends itself in the (constructive) transfinite, and the arithmetical meaning of B will evolved, letting invariant the modal logic G, G*, S4Grz, ... Then the justification is that it works. It gives an unameable creative subject which lives in a non describable temporal structure, etc. You can take this as a simplification. With comp the simple first person already leads to a notion of arithmetical quantization. Then sensible matter is also given by adding p , but on Bp Dp, ... I will say more in the road map ... General scientific knowledge doesn't seem to work that way, let alone knowledge of humanities or other types (echoes of John Mike's criticisms here, I know). Parenthetically, what about scientific knowledge being captured by DB-p -B-p? In other words, falsifiable, but not falsified, a statement of Popper's principle. Substituting D=-B-, we get -BDp Dp, which has a similar Theatetical structure about a statement being possibly true. Except that Dp always entail ~BDp (by second incompleteness). This would make your refutability notion much too large. Anyway, thats by the bye. If I accept the Theatetical notion for the sake of argument (since I can see how it might work for mathematical knowledge), I still struggle to see how the p part leads to self awareness. To be just a little bit more specific, Bp is 3-self-referential (the machine proves correct proposition on any of third person description made at some level, correctly chosen in a serendipitous way). But by adding p, by a theorem similar to Tarski theorem, we are lead to a first person self-reference (Bp p) without any nameable subject. It is the I which has no name. That I, somehow, could correctly said about himself that he is not a program, that he is not duplicable (and indeed the first person is not duplicable from its first person point of view (despite Chalmers). The heart of my critics to non computationalist is that they confuse Bp with Bp p. (or Bp with Bp Dp). Easy confusion given that G* justifies it, but then G* justified also that the machine cannot access that equivalence. Feel free to propose other definition of person point of view (intensional variant of G). The key is that they are all G* equivalent and none are G-equiavlent reflecting an explanation gap between communicable, intelligible, sensible etc. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You
Re: Bruno's argument
Le 22-juil.-06, à 22:02, Brent Meeker a écrit : No bigger than the assumption that other minds exists (a key assumption in comp if only through the trust to the doctor). Aren't those two propositions independent - that there are other minds and that we cannot possibly know what their experiences are like? Not with comp. Other minds have personal experiences, and if they are vehiculated by a software having a complexity comparable to your's, those personal experience are knowable only by empathy, for you. Not 3-describable knowledge. And then it is a theorem that for any correct machine there are true propositions about them that the machine cannot prove. And there are true propositions about itself that the machine cannot prove - but are they experiences? Certainly there are myriad true propositions about what my brain is doing that I am not, and cannot be aware of, but they aren't experiences. I don't try to use a sophisticated theory of knowledge. You mention yourself knowing can be given by true justified opinion (Theaetetus). I take provability of p as a form of justified opinion of p: Bp. Then I get knowledge by adding that p is true, under the form p. Limiting ourself to correct machine, we know that Bp and Bp p are equivalent, but the key (godelian) point is that the machine itself cannot know that for its own provability predicate, making the logic of Bp p different. It can be proved that Bp p acts as a knowledge operator(*) (S4 modal logic), even a temporal one (S4Grz logic), and even a quasi quantum one with comp: S4GRz1 proves LASE p - BDp necessary to get an arithmetical interpretation of some quantum logic. So non provability is not the way I model experience in the lobian interview. I model experiences and experiments with *variant* of G and G*, the logics of provable and true provability respectively. The variants are obtain by adding p or Dp. This could sound technical, it is, sorry. Bruno (*) Which I should have recall to Russell (it is the best justification for the p). Artemov has shown that it is the only one possible(*) if we decide to restrict ourself (as I have done) to what Russell call mathematical knowledge, but if Russell agrees with the UDA, this should not cause a problem (especially knowing that S4Grz describes mathematically a form of knowledge which cannot be put (knowingly) in a mathematical form. That's admittedly counter-intuitive and subtle and explains why I need to get people familiar with many similar counter-intuitive propositions which all are obtained directly or indirectly from diagonalizations. (*) http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume4CC/ 6%20La%20these%20d'Artemov.pdf 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: This is not the roadmap
Le 23-juil.-06, à 02:43, 1Z a écrit : There is no reason to think numbers can describe qualia at all, so the question of the best description hardly arises. That was my point. But then I can show this is a necessary consequence of comp. Materialist who are using comp as a pretext for not doing serious philosophy of mind takes as granted that qualia can be described by number or machine or theories. Comp explains how both qualia can be related to a mixture of self-reference and unnameable truth. Number cannot 3-describes qualia, but can build (correct) theories about them including explanation why numbers cannot describe them, yet bet instinctively on them before anything else. 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: COMP Self-awareness
On Sun, Jul 23, 2006 at 04:38:01PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: Functionalism is the same as comp, except that functionalist traditionally presuppose some knowable high level of substitution (and then like materialist presuppose a physical stuffy level). So I would say comp is just the old functionalism corrected for taking the UDA consequence into account (the level of substitution is unkowable, and physical stuff is either contradictory or devoid of explanation power and redundant). Hmm - you use the term functionalism quite differently to my understanding. My take is that functionalism implies if you replace the parts of my brain with things which were functionally equivalent, you would end up with a copy of my consciousness. The description given by Janet Levin on plato.stanford.edu seems to be in agreement with this notion (even though she uses different words). Nowhere in this discussion is an assumption of a level of substitution, nor of stuffy matter. Suppose I had a non Turing-emulable soul, composed of identical non Turing-emulable particles called soulons. Functionalism would imply I can copy my brain by adding in an appropriate arrangement of physical particles, as well as an appropriate arrangement of soulons. Yet, by construction, this theory is not computationalist! So I stand by my remarks that computationalism is a specialised variant of functionalism. I have studied the book by Boolos, and can appreciate the power of modal logic to handle reasoning about provability. I can also see how you (and others) have extended these logic systems to the Theatetical notion of knowledge (adding the p), but my (physicist's) intuition riots against this definition capturing what we mean by knowledge. At best, I consider it a description of _mathematical_ knowledge, where indeed we can never know something unless proved. It depends what you put in the B. It is indeed a sort of scientific knowledge when starting with B = the provability predicate of some fixed theory like Peano arithmetic, but such a theory can (autonomously) transcends itself in the (constructive) transfinite, and the arithmetical meaning of B will evolved, letting invariant the modal logic G, G*, S4Grz, ... Then the justification is that it works. It gives an unameable creative subject which lives in a non describable temporal structure, etc. You can take this as a simplification. With comp the simple first person already leads to a notion of arithmetical quantization. Then sensible matter is also given by adding p , but on Bp Dp, ... I can (sort of) see this. However, it is only one model, and not even a terribly convincing one (to me at least). Do you have any uniqueness results showing that the p is necessary for obtaining the unamable creative subject or the temporality? ... Except that Dp always entail ~BDp (by second incompleteness). This would make your refutability notion much too large. Oh, well another idea bites the dust! Anyway, thats by the bye. If I accept the Theatetical notion for the sake of argument (since I can see how it might work for mathematical knowledge), I still struggle to see how the p part leads to self awareness. To be just a little bit more specific, Bp is 3-self-referential (the machine proves correct proposition on any of third person description made at some level, correctly chosen in a serendipitous way). But by adding p, by a theorem similar to Tarski theorem, we are lead to a first person self-reference (Bp p) without any nameable subject. It is the I which has no name. That I, somehow, could correctly said about himself that he is not a program, that he is not duplicable (and indeed the first person is not duplicable from its first person point of view (despite Chalmers). You would need to be more specific in your claims, but that would probably be the subject of a full scientific paper, and perhaps you are only speculating at present anyway. I will need to be patient. But even so, I don't see anywhere the necessity of 1st person self-awareness, which is what I was driving at. The heart of my critics to non computationalist is that they confuse Bp with Bp p. (or Bp with Bp Dp). Easy confusion given that G* justifies it, but then G* justified also that the machine cannot access that equivalence. OK - but I hope I'm not doing that. Feel free to propose other definition of person point of view (intensional variant of G). The key is that they are all G* equivalent and none are G-equiavlent reflecting an explanation gap between communicable, intelligible, sensible etc. Bruno I wish I shared your certainty that any n-person POV can be captured by means of a modal logic. But I don't. All I can say is that I find it unconvincing, whilst admitting that perhaps you have a point. -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type
Re: This is not the roadmap
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 23-juil.-06, à 02:43, 1Z a écrit : There is no reason to think numbers can describe qualia at all, so the question of the best description hardly arises. That was my point. But then I can show this is a necessary consequence of comp. Materialist who are using comp as a pretext for not doing serious philosophy of mind takes as granted that qualia can be described by number or machine or theories. Comp explains how both qualia can be related to a mixture of self-reference and unnameable truth. OTOH, materialism explains how qualia can be unrelated to computation. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
On Mon, Jul 24, 2006 at 12:35:02PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: What if we just say that there is no more to the supervenience of the mental on the physical than there is to the supervenience of a parabola on the trajectory of a projectile under gravity? The projectile doesn't create the parabola, which exists in Platonia in an infinite variety of formulations (different coordinate systems and so on) along with all the other mathematical objects, but there is an isomorphism between physical reality and mathematical structure, which in the projectile's case happens to be a parabola. So we could say that the brain does not create consciousness, but it does happen that those mathematical structures isomorphic with brain processes in a particular individual are the subset of Platonia that constitutes a coherent conscious stream. This is not to assume that there actually is a real physical world: simulating a projectile's motion with pencil and paper, on a computer, or just the *idea* of doing so will define that subset of Platonia corresponding to a particular parabola as surely as doing the actual experiment. Similarly, simulating atoms, molecules etc. making up a physical brain, or just the idea of doing so defines the subset of Platonia corresponding to an individual stream of consciousness. Your head suddenly turning into a bunch of flowers is not part of the consciousness simulation/reality (although it still is part of Platonia), just as the projectile suddenly changing its trajectory in a random direction is not part of the parabola simulation/reality, or 7 is not an element of the set of even numbers.Stathis Papaioannou So you consider it just a coincidence then that incredibly complicated structures (called brains) are part of our observed reality, even though by Occam's razor we really should be demanding an explanation of why such complexity exists. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
