Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 26, 1:08 am, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: These are edges in time, i.e. a future boundary and a past boundary. If these two boundaries are different then we are not longer talking about a state, we're talking about an interval, furthermore an interval that has duration and direction. Uhwhat??? I think you should re-read my post. I think you missed something. Well, I'm not sure how much of the brain's information is needed to represent a particular state of consciousness. But I don't think that it's a crucial question. It's a crucial question if the answer is more than what is in an instant of consciousness. Why is it a crucial question in that case? I don't see what you're getting at. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 25 Apr 2009, at 21:42, Kelly wrote: On Apr 24, 3:14 am, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Kelly, Your arguments are compelling and logical, you have put a lot of doubt in my mind about computationalism. Excellent! It sounds like you are following the same path as I did on all of this. So it makes sense to start with the idea of physicalism and the idea that the mind is like a very complex computer, since this explains third person observations of human behavior and ability very well I think. BUT, then the question of first person subjective consciousness arises. Where does that fit in with physicalism? So the next step is to expand to physicalism + full computationalism, where the computational activities of the brain also explain consciousness, in addition to behavior and ability. But then you run into things like Maudlin's Olympia thought experiement, and Bruno's movie graph examples, and many other strange scenarios as well. So the next step is to just get rid of physicalism altogether, as it has other problems anyway (why something rather than nothing, the ultimate nature of matter and energy, the origin of the universe, the strangeness of QM, etc. etc.), and just go with pure computationalism. But in the thought experiments that led to the jettisoning of physicalism, the possiblity appears of just associating consciousness with information, instead of the computations that produce the information. Then you loose the measure problem, the physical laws, the partial and relative control, the quantum nature of the computations, etc. So we seem to have two options: computation + information OR information. This is like replacing the universal dovetailing (with its redundancy, its very long (deep) histories, its many internal dynamics) I can't really see what problem is solved by including computation. Do you say yes to the digitalist doctor? If yes, you cannot avoid computer science or elementary number theory even just to define information. Why avoiding computer science in a theory which relate consciousness (as manifesting relatively to me) to working computer. To me, assigning consciousness to platonically existing information seems to be good enough, with nothing left over for computation to explain. So, I go with the just information choice. Agains. formally the difference is that your theory accept the natural number (the finite information strings) and succession (to get them all). But if you add addition and multiplication you get computer science + a measure which explains why apples can fall from a tree in normal histories, and why white rabbits can be rare. i could that that if you are platonist, I don't see how you can avoid the computations through which informations flux develop themselves, when seen from inside. Perhaps I should just ask what is your theory. Measure of information needs already a non trivial math apparatus. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On 25 Apr 2009, at 22:52, Kelly wrote: On Apr 24, 11:39 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: At any given instant that I'm awake, I'm conscious of SOMETHING. To predict something, the difficulty is to relate that consciousness to its computational histories. Physics is given by a measure of probability on those comp histories. The laws of physics would seem to be contingent, not necessary. On the contrary/ Physical laws appear are necessarily non contingent with comp. They are defined through all computations in Platonia. In that I can imagine a universe with an entirely different set of physical laws. Thre is no universe. You already belong to all comp histories going through your actual states. of course all states are actual from inside, but only normal states remains normal, and there are physical laws only in normal histories. Physicalness is a product of that normality conditions on histories. Further, assuming that computer simulations of brains are possible and give rise to consciousness, OK. That is comp. My working hypothesis. I can imagine that a simulation of such a brain could be altered in a way that the simulated consciousness begins to perceive a universe with these alternate physical laws. Only relatively to you. From the first person point of view of the inhabitant of your altered simulation, they don't belong to it, but to the infinity of simulation in Platonia. If your alteration in such that the 1-view of those inhabitant escape from normality, from their point ofviex they esacpe your universe. With comp there is no identity thesis. There is a 1-1 relation going from a machine to a mind, but the inverse is 1-infinity: to each mind state there is an infinity of machine realizing it. The first person indeterminacy is exploitable to extract the laws of physics. Or even begins to perceive a universe with no consistent coherent physical laws at all. The question is; what are their relative probability measure? What can I expect. And I'm conscious of it by virtue of my mental state at that instant. In the materialist view, my mental state is just the state of the particles of my brain at that instant. Which cannot be maintained with the comp hyp. Your consciousness is an abstract type related to all computations going through your current state. I see what my current state does here with respect to consciousness. But I don't see what the computations going through it contribute. They contribute to the measure which gives sense to the universal physical laws. I won't worry about it too much, as there is no doctor, only my perceptions of a doctor. Every possible outcome of the brain replacement operation that I can perceive, I will perceive. Not in the relative way. You have to explain why you see apples falling from a tree, and not any arbitrary information-theoretical data. I explain it by asserting that there are many versions of me, some who see apples, and some who see arbitrary information-theoretical data. Everything that can be perceived is perceived. Without giving me a measure, it is like your theory predicts everything. This is contradicted by the fact. If I want coffee now, I know all to well I have to do something for that. Sorry but I cannot wait for a white rabbit bringing me my cup of coffee. Including outcomes that don't make any sense. You have to explain why they are *rare*. If not your theory does not explain why you put water on the gas and not in the fridge when you want a cup of coffee. I don't say that they are rare, I say they don't make any sense. A big difference. If they make any sense then they does not exist in Platonia, except in non standard mathematical representation (due to incompleteness). Then they have better to be rare relatively to my current state, or your theory is deflationnary: it predicts every-events. I say that every possible event is perceived to happen, and so nothing is more or less rare than anything else. It has to be at least in the relative way, if not your theory predicts all happenings, even in practice, but the facts contradict this. There are only things that are rare in your experience. This is what comp can explain. This is what the universal dovetailer got normal explanations of measure one. The counting algorithm does not. They are not rare in an absolute sense. Probably. I don't know because the proba are always relative with comp, but this is an old discussion (cf ASSA/RSSA). Why do I say this? Because I think that platonism is the best explanation for conscious experience, and the above view is (I think) the logical conclusion of that platonic view of reality. I agree with the platonism. And it is because the computations are ion platonia that the whole thing works. Thus the talk of probabilities and measures. I'm willing to just
Re: Consciousness is information?
Kelly wrote: On Apr 26, 1:08 am, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: These are edges in time, i.e. a future boundary and a past boundary. If these two boundaries are different then we are not longer talking about a state, we're talking about an interval, furthermore an interval that has duration and direction. Uhwhat??? I think you should re-read my post. I think you missed something. No, I think you're missing my point. Consider your analogy of fitting together images to make a complete picture. You present this as a spatial representation of the sequential flow of consciousness. Now suppose your spatial elements have zero extent - they are spatial instants, i.e. points. What fits them together? Well, I'm not sure how much of the brain's information is needed to represent a particular state of consciousness. But I don't think that it's a crucial question. It's a crucial question if the answer is more than what is in an instant of consciousness. Why is it a crucial question in that case? I don't see what you're getting at. It appears to me that you are implicitly supposing that information in the brain (say in it's structure) can be associated with an instant of consciousness and hence allow it's position in the complete picture to be determined. But it would not be a legitimate move to use information that was not in the instant itself. And that's what I find implausible, that there is significant information content in a conscious interval of infinitesimal duration. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 3:52 PM, Kelly harmon...@gmail.com wrote: I don't say that they are rare, I say they don't make any sense. A big difference. I say that every possible event is perceived to happen, and so nothing is more or less rare than anything else. There are only things that are rare in your experience. They are not rare in an absolute sense. Why do I say this? Because I think that platonism is the best explanation for conscious experience, and the above view is (I think) the logical conclusion of that platonic view of reality. I am not sure that the measure problem can be so easily abandoned/ignored. Assuming every Observer Moment had has an equal measure, then the random/white-noise filled OMs should vastly outnumber the ordered and sensible OMs. Though I ever only have one OM to go by, the fact I was able to maintain a non-random/non-white-noise filled OMs long enough to compose this post should serve as some level of evidence that all OMs are not weighted equally. Bruno has suggested that computationalism is a candidate for answering the measure problem in a testable way. However there may be other ways to answer it by considering platonic objects, for example counting the umber of paths to a state, that is how often it reappears as a substructure of other platonic objects, etc. Whether or not this is testable is another question, but whether the ultimate explanation of consciousness is computation or information, I feel that measure is important. Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 26, 2:01 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I am not sure that the measure problem can be so easily abandoned/ignored. Assuming every Observer Moment had has an equal measure, then the random/white-noise filled OMs should vastly outnumber the ordered and sensible OMs. The ordered and sensible OM's may be vastly outnumbered, but they are there. And thus if you assume that everything happens, they will happen, and that explains your current experience of an ordered and sensible reality. I don't see the problem. Again, I'm lead to this conclusion by the line of reasoning mentioned in my previous posts. I didn't start with this assumption and then try to come up with supporting evidence. It is a strange conclusion, but it seems to me that any theory that explains conscious experience is going to have to be strange. I think this one is only slightly odder than Bruno's. And it's not really much odder than MWI, or the implications of an infinite universe (e.g., infinite Kellys), or of infinite time (e.g., poincare recurrence, boltzmann brains). Or strange compared to thinking about where a material universe could have come from, what proceeded it, what caused it, what underlies it, etc. That we exist at all is pretty strange I think. Though I ever only have one OM to go by, the fact I was able to maintain a non-random/non-white-noise filled OMs long enough to compose this post should serve as some level of evidence that all OMs are not weighted equally. If all possible OMs are real, then you will have successfully completed all possible posts. So, where's the problem? You are one of the Jason's who successfully completed a post. Where does your experience depart from what the theory predicts? You can only experience one path through life. One reality per customer. The reality that you are experiencing HAD to be experienced by someone, this is mandatory in my theory. Using the fact that you ARE in fact experiencing it to try to disprove my theory I think is not a valid option. My theory does make one definite prediction, and so is (first person) falsifiable. It predicts that there is always a next moment. Always another conscious experience. So, if you die and that's it, just oblivion...then I was wrong. Oops. So, we just have to wait...we will have our answer soon enough! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 7:04 PM, Kelly harmon...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 26, 2:01 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I am not sure that the measure problem can be so easily abandoned/ignored. Assuming every Observer Moment had has an equal measure, then the random/white-noise filled OMs should vastly outnumber the ordered and sensible OMs. The ordered and sensible OM's may be vastly outnumbered, but they are there. And thus if you assume that everything happens, they will happen, and that explains your current experience of an ordered and sensible reality. I don't see the problem. Again, I'm lead to this conclusion by the line of reasoning mentioned in my previous posts. I didn't start with this assumption and then try to come up with supporting evidence. It is a strange conclusion, but it seems to me that any theory that explains conscious experience is going to have to be strange. I think this one is only slightly odder than Bruno's. And it's not really much odder than MWI, or the implications of an infinite universe (e.g., infinite Kellys), or of infinite time (e.g., poincare recurrence, boltzmann brains). Or strange compared to thinking about where a material universe could have come from, what proceeded it, what caused it, what underlies it, etc. That we exist at all is pretty strange I think. Though I ever only have one OM to go by, the fact I was able to maintain a non-random/non-white-noise filled OMs long enough to compose this post should serve as some level of evidence that all OMs are not weighted equally. If all possible OMs are real, then you will have successfully completed all possible posts. So, where's the problem? You are one of the Jason's who successfully completed a post. Where does your experience depart from what the theory predicts? You can only experience one path through life. One reality per customer. The reality that you are experiencing HAD to be experienced by someone, this is mandatory in my theory. Using the fact that you ARE in fact experiencing it to try to disprove my theory I think is not a valid option. My theory does make one definite prediction, and so is (first person) falsifiable. It predicts that there is always a next moment. Always another conscious experience. So, if you die and that's it, just oblivion...then I was wrong. Oops. So, we just have to wait...we will have our answer soon enough! I understand that all possible experiences by definition are experienced, and that rare experiences, however rare they may be, will still be experienced. In fact I used that same argument with Russell Standish when he said that ants aren't conscious because if they were then we should expect to be experiencing life as ants and not humans. However, in your theory you explain that there are always next moments to be experienced, if you were to wager on your next experience would you guess that it will be random or ordered? If you say ordered, is that not a contradiction when the random experiences so greatly outnumber the ordered? If your theory is true, then certainly there are observers who experience every moment as sensible, yet I would liken those to a branch of the multiverse where every time an experimenter measures the quantum state of any particle, it comes out the same, in that branch perhaps they never develop the field of quantum mechanics, but how long into the future would you expect that illusion to hold? Perhaps in your theory next and previous OMs aren't really connected, only the illusion of such a connection? Would you say you belong to the ASSA or RSSA camp? http://everythingwiki.gcn.cx/wiki/index.php?title=ASSA http://everythingwiki.gcn.cx/wiki/index.php?title=RSSA Or perhaps something different entirely? Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: In fact I used that same argument with Russell Standish when he said that ants aren't conscious because if they were then we should expect to be experiencing life as ants and not humans. Did you win or lose that argument? I've heard that line of reasoning before also. Doesn't it also conclude that we're living in the last days? If there are more conscious beings in the future than in the present, then we should expect to live there and not here, so there must not be more conscious beings in the future? And also it predicts that there are no significant number of (conscious) aliens? Because if there were, we should expect to be one of them and not a human? Sounds like over-use of a good idea. In this case it ignores all other available information to just focus only on one narrow statistic. Why should we ignore everything else we know and only credit this single argument from probability? Surely, after studying ants and humans, the knowledge that we gain has to alter our initial expectations, right? But that isn't taken into account here (at least not in your one line description of the discussion...ha!). I think the problem with Russell's ant argument stems from trying to use a priori reasoning in an a posteriori situation. There is extra information available that he isn't taking into consideration. Probably the same applies to the Doomsday argument and aliens. There is extra information available that isn't being taking into account by SSA. Pure SSA type reasoning only applies when there is no extra information available on which to base your conclusion, I think. However, in your theory you explain that there are always next moments to be experienced, if you were to wager on your next experience would you guess that it will be random or ordered? If you say ordered, is that not a contradiction when the random experiences so greatly outnumber the ordered? I have no choice in the matter. Some of me are going to bet random. Some of me are going to bet ordered. When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Really and truely, I think the best rule of thumb is to bet the way that leaves you looking LEAST FOOLISH if you're wrong. Usually that'll be ordered. Perhaps in your theory next and previous OMs aren't really connected, only the illusion of such a connection? Right, that's exactly what I'm saying. Would you say you belong to the ASSA or RSSA camp? Or perhaps something different entirely? I guess something different entirely. I'm saying that the only rule is: Everything happens. And sometimes, by sheer coincidence, it makes sense. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 26, 12:47 pm, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: No, I think you're missing my point. Consider your analogy of fitting together images to make a complete picture. You present this as a spatial representation of the sequential flow of consciousness. Now suppose your spatial elements have zero extent - they are spatial instants, i.e. points. What fits them together? It appears to me that you are implicitly supposing that information in the brain (say in it's structure) can be associated with an instant of consciousness and hence allow it's position in the complete picture to be determined. But it would not be a legitimate move to use information that was not in the instant itself. And that's what I find implausible, that there is significant information content in a conscious interval of infinitesimal duration. So, we have two things represented by a puzzle piece. 1) The contents of an instant of consciousness...which is the image fragment on the surface of the piece. 2) How that instant of consciousness relates to the instants that preceeded it and follow it...which is the piece's position within the larger picture And you have two seperate questions about information and conscious states. A) What information is responsible for a conscious state B) What information is IN a conscious state. And I think your questions focus on 2 and B. So, as for 2...there is no actual relationship between the instants. They fit together based solely on the first person subjective feeling of flow, which undoubtedly involves some sort of short term memory. Part of the feeling of an instant is how it is related to the previous instant. As for B, I'm not sure this matters, as it's really a seperate question from A. So I am saying consciousness is information, but I'm not saying it's the information that describes the particular things that you're conscious OF at any given instant. If I write down the details of what I'm conscious of AT this moment, that information isn't the information that caused my conscious experience OF that moment. Conscious experience is tied to A. Not B. B has no special significance. I'm not sure what it even really means to talk about the information in a conscious state. How much information is in the feeling of anger? How many bits describe the subjective experience of seeing red? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Consciousness is information?
On Apr 26, 11:40 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The question is; what are their relative probability measure? What can I expect. Any expectations you have are unfounded. The problem of induction applies. Any probabilities arrived at empirically are suspect, they will continue to hold for some Brunos but not for all... But there's really not a better option that I can think of, so we might as well stick with our expectations and probabilities. Not that we have a choice, since free will is an illusion also... Without giving me a measure, it is like your theory predicts everything. Right, it does basically predict everything. Except an end to experience. There is no sweet, sweet release of death if I'm right. There will be no final rest in the comforting embrace of oblivion. Only the endless grind of a weary existence. This is contradicted by the fact. How so? What fact? You know for certain that you are the only Bruno? You know for certain that there aren't parallel realities containing Brunos with different experiences? How did you come by this fact? Is it a fact, or just a belief? If I want coffee now, I know all to well I have to do something for that. Sorry but I cannot wait for a white rabbit bringing me my cup of coffee. God helps those who help themselves. However, some Brunos are more fortunate with respect to helpful rabbits than other Brunos. Stay optimisitic. I say that every possible event is perceived to happen, and so nothing is more or less rare than anything else. It has to be at least in the relative way, if not your theory predicts all happenings, even in practice, but the facts contradict this. Again, what facts? If everything was happening in alternate versions of reality, how would you detect this? What facts do you possess that rule this out? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
