Re: bruno list

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 4:51 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi  wrote:

> In my view, any experiment is based on some assumptions (a world view). To
> this end, it would be nice to understand what a world view would be
> necessary to state that "the thermostat feels cold". I guess it is certainly
> possible to introduce new definitions under which such a statement would
> make sense. Yet, someone must first do it.
>
> Let me give one example. Dick and Natalie are writing a book "Embryogenesis
> explained" and in in the first chapter they use an expression "bacteria can
> perceive". To understand the meaning of such a statement I have chosen a
> ballcock
>
> http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/01/perception-feedback-and-qualia.html
>
> It might be also a good example to ask if a toilette with a ballcock has
> consciousness or not, I believe that even a nice example as a thermostat.
> Yet, if we are back to the discussion about "bacteria can perceive", then
> the answer was that yes, perceive was considered at the level of an
> automatic door. In the sense that an automatic door also perceives. Then I
> have nothing against, it is matter of a definition.

Maybe the ballcock, automatic door and thermostat have feelings like
you and I do when we experience cold, pain and so on. Sure, they don't
have high level information processing but how do you know that
prevents them having such experiences? There is no test you can do,
since qualia are necessarily private.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: bruno list

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 22.08.2011 09:14 Stathis Papaioannou said the following:

On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 4:51 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi
wrote:


In my view, any experiment is based on some assumptions (a world
view). To this end, it would be nice to understand what a world
view would be necessary to state that "the thermostat feels cold".
I guess it is certainly possible to introduce new definitions under
which such a statement would make sense. Yet, someone must first do
it.

Let me give one example. Dick and Natalie are writing a book
"Embryogenesis explained" and in in the first chapter they use an
expression "bacteria can perceive". To understand the meaning of
such a statement I have chosen a ballcock

http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/01/perception-feedback-and-qualia.html

It might be also a good example to ask if a toilette with a
ballcock has consciousness or not, I believe that even a nice
example as a thermostat. Yet, if we are back to the discussion
about "bacteria can perceive", then the answer was that yes,
perceive was considered at the level of an automatic door. In the
sense that an automatic door also perceives. Then I have nothing
against, it is matter of a definition.


Maybe the ballcock, automatic door and thermostat have feelings like
you and I do when we experience cold, pain and so on. Sure, they
don't have high level information processing but how do you know
that prevents them having such experiences? There is no test you can
do, since qualia are necessarily private.


I would agree that we cannot exclude it. After all if we take qualia 
ontologically, then it is hard to escape panpsychism. Let me quote Gray 
in this respect (he was not aware of Bruno's theory):


p. 321. "Alternatively, no such new arrangement of the existing laws of 
physics and chemistry will turn out to be possible. The fundamental laws 
of physics themselves will need supplementation. It is difficult to see 
how new fundamental laws could come into play only during biological 
evolution, or they would not be fundamental. So it is probably 
inevitable that any theory which seeks to account for consciousness in 
terms of fundamental physical processes will involve 'panpsychism'. That 
is to say, it will be a theory in which the elements of conscious 
experience are to be found pretty well in everything, animate or 
inanimate, large or small. TO most people this prospect will seem even 
less palatable that that of consciousness in computers or brain slices. 
But the state of our ignorance in this daunting field is so profound 
that we should rule out nothing a priori on the grounds absurdity alone. 
Bear in mind the absurdity of quantum mechanics!"


The question is here than to develop some theory, that is, to add some 
new governing equations for qualia in comp, for example that in some 
processes far from equilibrium good qualia will be maximized.


To this respect, I like a quote from Strugatskii (Monday Begins on 
Saturday):


"People are only an intermediate chain required by the Nature to achieve 
the crown of creation, the glass of brandy with a lemon slice."


Well, from the qualia viewpoint, people are also necessary to enjoy that 
creation but it well might be that required qualia could be produced 
even without people. It would be a pity but who knows.


Evgenii
--
http://blog.rudnyi.ru

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Re: bruno list

[meekerdb]

On 8/22/2011 3:41 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
I would agree that we cannot exclude it. After all if we take qualia 
ontologically, then it is hard to escape panpsychism. Let me quote 
Gray in this respect (he was not aware of Bruno's theory):


p. 321. "Alternatively, no such new arrangement of the existing laws 
of physics and chemistry will turn out to be possible. The fundamental 
laws of physics themselves will need supplementation. It is difficult 
to see how new fundamental laws could come into play only during 
biological evolution, or they would not be fundamental. So it is 
probably inevitable that any theory which seeks to account for 
consciousness in terms of fundamental physical processes will involve 
'panpsychism'.


And not only physical processes.  If consciousness is a result of 
computation in Platonia, it will still be ubiquitous.  Only magic can 
confine it to humans or neurons or living things.  But that is not to 
say consciousness is all-or-nothing; that idea was part of the magic 
that made it only human.  When it is better understood it will be seen 
to occur in all degrees and in many kinds, as we see life today.


Brent

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Re: Unconscious Components

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Aug 2011, at 23:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:


PART I

On Aug 20, 12:16 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

On 20 Aug 2011, at 03:14, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On Aug 18, 9:43 am, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

On 17 Aug 2011, at 06:47, Craig Weinberg wrote:



Not sure I understand. Do I hope for this world and therefore it
exists to me in a solipsistic way?



I mean you can hope to be true, but you can never know that you are
true for sure about anything, except your consciousness.
Transcendental realities are transcendental, simply.



OK. I thought you were saying something else, like 'thoughts create
reality'.


Only physical realities. But I don't expect anyone to understand what
that means, without grasping it by themselves. The UDA is the
explanation.


Whenever you say these kinds of things, I assume that you're just
talking about the arithmetic Matrix seeming real to us because we're
in it.


The arithmetic matrix is real, because it is just a collection of true  
arithmetical facts. It is the physical and theological which seems  
real (= lived), and are real in higher order senses, epistemological,  
sensational, etc.






Part of us and whatever it is that we experience as physically
real are mathematically agreeing to treat the relationship as if it
were physically real. If that's what you're saying there, then I
completely get that, and I'm not saying that that is not true. My view
adds to that two, I think revolutionary ideas.:

1.  The relationships that make up that matrix are comp arithmetic on
one side (literally on one side, like a Klein Bottle which is
invisible on the interior...sort of like one way matter) and
sensorimotive perception on the other (the invisible side is feeling,
participation, being). I would call the arithmetic side
'electromagnetism' and 'relativity'.


Not enough precise. If you want to interpret your theory in  
"mine" (which I borrow from the LUMs), you have to make your  
vocabulary far more precise.






2. The arithmetic side runs on agreement between numbers -
synchronization. The sensorimotive side runs on gaps between
agreements. It is already synchronized because is is the vector of
orientation (local singularity/monad) for time (change), so it runs on
induction. Jumping gaps. Pulling wholes through holes. It's non-comp
guesswork, interpretation, and pantomime that changes and evolves. The
importance of imitation in learning should strike a chord here.


Then, if you identify your little ego with your higher self (which is
not usually done in science), you can identify the whole reality as
the (internal) thought of God (Arithmetical truth).


That's pretty basic, but sure. I think that 'thought' is pretty narrow
though. I like 'sense' better because I see thought as a rather recent
human development that took off symbiotically with the invention of
language and writing. Writing makes one kind of sense, thought another
similar one, hearing and seeing, feeling and tasting, knowing and
sensing, emotions, etc, all different embodied experiences of order or
pattern. I would not limit it to any one of those or even all of those
channels. I would not underestimate the power of order to transcend
any previous definition of it.


That may be what physicists believe that they do, but probably in
reality they use an intuitive feel from numbers and experience  
which

they describe and communicate as an identity thesis, numbers, etc.
The
actual understanding is an artifact of cognition and feeling.


Hmm... I can be OK. But here by identity thesis I mean the brain- 
mind

identity thesis? Except the Everettian, most believe that "seeing a
needle" is due to one needle and one brain, and one experience,  
when

comp implies that for one experience there is an infinity of brain,
and needle. Comp extends Everett on arithmetic.


I would say that seeing the image of a needle may indicate one  
needle,
one eye, one set of visual processing related areas of one brain,  
and
an indeterminate number of potential experiences, depending on how  
the

person feels about the needle, what associations they have, how long
they look at the needle, what else is competing for their attention,
etc. The same can be true if there is no needle, but just a memory  
or

visualization of a needle.


That is the relative needle, and is one 1-p construct. But the "real
needle" emerges from an infinity of 1-p view of an infinity of such
relative 3-p views. This extends Everett in arithmetic.


To me those are special infinities arising from the exclusion of the
input/output of Sense. You don't need to spin off every possible 1p
and 3p universe just to be able to perceive a needle. It's very
straight forward; in a universe of nothing but two things (physical or
ideal), they each can tell that the other exists. It's a primitive of
existence. When you scale that up, you get triangulation, where each
1p is informed by the exterior of the other 2p's and is then able to
infer it's own existence as the dynamica

Re: Unconscious Components

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Aug 2011, at 15:28, Craig Weinberg wrote:


PART II

On Aug 20, 12:16 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:


Thanks for explaining. It's interesting but I am more looking at
taking the Cartesian approach further, so that rather than reducing
experience to gated logics and assuming that it is primitive, the
approach that leads to an understanding of awareness is one that  
seeks

to question all forms of patter recognition.


The theory of knowledge above is not comp dependent. Indeed it has
been used by many to refute comp. But then incompleteness makes the
Theatetical definition of knowledge working for machine, and refuting
those refutations.



it seems more truthful to admit that the fundamentals of  
experience -

our own experience of life in fact, tends to begin and end in an
irrational twilight rather than 1+2=3 opinions.


Hmm...


Both extremes have
significance, but I don't think that one is more primitive.


At the epistemological level, but for a theory it is better to start
from what we understand, or at least agree. If not people stop  
reading

your contribution. Well, even if rational they can stop, in this
field. It touches taboo, and if you are not clear, you will attract
wishful thinking people only (which can help for money, but nor for
genuine progress).


That's the hard part about a massive paradigm shift. It doesn't come
around more than once in many lifetimes. We have no first hand
experience with what it's like so we imagine that it's some far off
thing in the past which we have long outgrown, and that surely our
most settled points of science are beyond questioning.

It would be great to have this theory bridge to our previous
worldview, but I'm not personally qualified to do that. If I can't
find anyone interested in it who would be qualified, then eventually I
might try to do it myself, but really it's better if someone like a
modern day Feynman would translate it themselves.


Geometrically ordered molecular relations from amorphous mineral
deposits, which in turn are re-informed through air and water to
become geometrically ordered transparent crystals.



If
so, I'm saying that the universe is more than what is true,


It is more than that what can be smelled, felt, observed,  
proved,

inferred, prayed, ... OK. But more than what is true? I am not
sure I
can see what that means.



Fiction. Metaphor. The universe is what might be, and it is the
wish
to be what it is not.



That is part of the truth.



Your position seems to place the particular fiction of materiality
outside of truth?



Yes. I know that this is curious, but matter is outside truth, even
outside being. This is really a consequence of comp, but it is  
shared
by Plotinus. In a sense in Plotinus, God and Matter don't exist.  
They

are outside the realm of the relative beings, which belongs to the
Noùs, the realm of the (divine) intellect. God exists, to be sure,
and
matter too, but they are transcendent to the intelligible and the
observable. They are invisible, even if it will appears that the
universal soul "has already a foot in that matter", which can
accelerate the fall, and not help the coming back to God.


I get that, and I can relate to that, but the idea that the  
beliefs of
a machine should be part of the 'truth' while the physical  
presence of

a block of iron is not part of truth, throws up a yellow flag to me.
It seems to make more sense the other way around, at least from a
phenomenological perspective rather than a noumenal one. I think  
that

if matter doesn't exist, then the word existence is probably not a
word.


The wholepoint of Plato, seconded by the UMs and LUMs is that
"seeming" can be a delusion.


Then it follows that ("seeming" can be a delusion) can also be a
delusion. All we have is seeming and seeming correlations of seeming.
See if this grabs you any more than the SEE diagram. 
http://s33light.org/post/9169706079
(based on some discussions I had with Stephen last week).


In Plotinus, and arguably in the Timaeus and Parmenides of Plato,
Matter is where God lose control. It is What God can't determinate.
It
is God's blindspot. And it has inintelligible properties (the
sensible
one).


I think it's just awareness' blind spot. We feel that matter does  
not
feel us. As opposed to music, which we can believe understands how  
we

feel.


That is a play with words.


It is more of a metaphorical truth, yes, but we do feel that music can
address us in an interior way that gross material substance does not.
Matter that has been sculpted into significance, refined as
architecture, furniture, automobiles etc - styled with subjective
enthusiasm - that turns matter into a text of cultural anthropology,
as is music and words.


If I was going to have a God, it would be matter as well.


Like Aristotle. I don't not follow you on this, but it is coherent
with comp. If you want stuffy (ontologically primary) matter, then  
you

need to abandon comp.


It doesn't have to be ontologically p

Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out

[benjayk]

Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> 
> On 20 Aug 2011, at 22:43, benjayk wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 19 Aug 2011, at 18:49, benjayk wrote:
>>>


 Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 18 Aug 2011, at 20:13, benjayk wrote:
 Hm... OK. I am not sure that there are valid 3-communicable theories
 about
 fundamental issues. I guess that is what it comes down to. I am not
 against
 science, I am just skeptical that it can really touch fundamental
 issues. It
 seems to me we always sneak 3-incommunable things into such a  
 theory.
>>>
>>> This is the case for all theorizing. Like we often use the intuition
>>> of natural numbers implicitly.
>> So we agree on this. My point is than that we must be careful if we  
>> claim
>> that some theory explains in a 3-communicable fundamental matters.  
>> It may be
>> we sneak our intuition into the theory. Our intuition of natural  
>> numbers may
>> be fundamentally inseparable from our intution of what is beyond. So  
>> it
>> might be we use numbers + our intuition what is beyond and claim  
>> that we
>> derived it from just numbers. It seems to me to be what COMP does.
> 
> COMP use the intuition we have on consciousness, machine, etc.
> But the TOE isolated with the help of comp does not. You need only to  
> agree with the axioms, and to accept some axiomatic for knowledge,  
> belief, etc.
Just because we formally isolate the theory does not mean it is only
dependent on the axioms that are explicitly stated. In some limited context
this may be basically valid, or at least has no consequences because the
theory isn't about fundamental issues. But a TOE will run into the trap of
exposing that the stated axioms are not everything that is required for the
theory to make sense.


Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
 So in
 COMP, I think the 3-communicable part doesn't ultimately explain  
 much
 fundamental, as it totally relies on the subjective interpretation,
 that you
 call the "inside view of arithmetics", that seems to me just to be  
 the
 primary conciousness.
>>>
>>> Comp explains a lot, but you have to study it to grasp this by  
>>> yourself.
>>> The inside views are recovered by the intensional variant of the
>>> provability predicate.
>>> It makes comp (the classical theory of knowledge) testable, because
>>> the physical reality is among those views.
>> Honestly I can't see that studying COMP will help with what is my  
>> problem.
> 
> You can only decide this by studying it (or it means you have a  
> prejudice).
It is not a prejudice (I hope!). It is a problem that I see with your
interpretation of what a theory could possibly mean, regardless of specific
content. Honestly, the details of it are beyond my head, without intensive
study.
But since I don't even critize the formal content of the theory as such, I
don't see it as necessary to know the details.


Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> It seems to be more fundamental than some issue of understanding a  
>> theory in
>> depth.
> 
> Of course it does. Like the physical universe is more than any theory  
> about it. You confuse a theory and its subject matter. Nobody claim  
> that a TOE *is* the everything, but it talks *about* the everything.
I don't get what you interpreting into what I said here. I just meant that I
don't see that it important to know the specifcs of the theory to criticize
its interpretation. Like I don't have to know much about QM to criticize the
Kopenhagen interpretation.


Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 

>>>
>>> With comp consciousness is platonistically co-extensive with the
>>> numbers (including their additive and multiplicative laws), but this
>>> reduce the mind-body problem to a body problem.
>>> And the mind problem is reduce to the study of what is true *about*
>>> the machine (this includes many things true for the machine but not
>>> justifiable by her).
>> But couldn't it be that the notion of what is true about something is
>> extending so far that it encompasses so much that it is practically  
>> false to
>> say that it is what is true about something? For example, we could  
>> say that
>> is true about frogs that there is something beyond them that is  
>> called a
>> universe that has such and such properties. Yet, for all intents and
>> purposes this is nothing about frogs at all.
> 
> Why? Without the universe there would be no frog.
That's true. But if you go this far, everything is a fact about everything
about in particular. So you could just build the sentence "It is true about
*thing* that there is something beyond (or other than) them that is *another
thing* that has such and such propterties". It is not, in principle, false.
But it is still bad use of language. It is just confusing to say that it is
a true fact about a pebble on a beach that I stepped on that the core of the
sun is 14 million kelvin hot.
Especially if we then claim that the 

Re: bruno list

[Craig Weinberg]

On Aug 21, 3:04 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> On 21 Aug 2011, at 19:18, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Aug 21, 12:35 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> >> On 21 Aug 2011, at 14:43, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> >>> That's why the mechanist position is critically flawed as a
> >>> cosmological-ontological TOE. It amputates the 1p definition of  
> >>> life -
> >>> which only marginally has to do with reproduction (I don't have  
> >>> kids,
> >>> so I'm disqualified from being 3-p 'alive'.) Life is about feeling
> >>> like you want to avoid dying, and that feeling is SIGNIFICANT.
>
> >> This means only that you put consciousness or 1-p in life.
>
> > No, it means that I put 1-p in experience, and life as specific
> > category of experience. Consciousness is a general term that isn't all
> > that helpful. I like awareness or feeling. And yes, I put feeling in
> > life, because it really has no place in an inorganic world. If all of
> > your actions are pre-programmed, feeling is really superfluous. Our
> > intuition is that killing an ant is less significant than burning down
> > a house full of people. I think that intuition has validity. An ant
> > may or may not be any more 'conscious', but whatever it is less of
> > than a human being is the same thing that a computer program is less
> > of, to us at least.
>
> You say so.

Would you agree that this is a common perception? If so, how should we
explain that?


> I see this like a sort of insult toward the UMs and the LUMs. '---
> Sorry guys, you are not made of carbon so you have no souls (or worst,  
> you have not the right sort of soul).

Maybe it's more insulting to the UMs and LUMs to say that they are
like us? I don't disparage the sense that they make objectively, but I
don't see the appeal of conflating that sense with our own. They make
better UMs, than we do. We make better people than they do. We aren't
made of carbon but we are made of experiences which are rooted in the
experiences of animals, cells, and organic carbon-containing
molecules.

I think that the UM is an ideal distillation of some of those
(sensorimotive) experiences which can be exported technologically to
whatever organic or inorganic substances or objects which will behave
like we need them to behave to submit to the machine logic. It's the
willingness to submit which I suspect is mutually exclusive to organic
awareness. What we are made of gets to decide whether to submit or
not. Even if the logic of the machine calls for such a freedom to
decide, it is the existential conditions of the machine's execution
that determines to what degree that freedom can be discovered.

> >> That is just a matter of definition.
> >> I would not have consecrated my life to the study or consciousness if
> >> it was to amputate the notion of first person, which, on the  
> >> contrary,
> >> I extend to number relations and program executions.
>
> > So you extend 1-p to numbers but not to life. I used to extend 1-p to
> > numbers, so I can understand that. I am ok with Platonic primitives,
> > but of course, I see other kinds of sense as primitive as well;
> > privacy, detection, participation, etc.
>
> I am OK with that.
> The problem is that you deprive the number relations from privacy,  
> detection participation.

I would say that the relations themselves are public, relativistic,
and 'empty', but through that emptiness we can privately detect and
participate in the (senseless) sense it's making. We feel logical
about logic, but logic doesn't compute feeling (see also Does Not
Compute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Does_not_compute) "The phrase
was often present in stories which carried a theme of the superiority
of human emotion over limitations within the logic utilized by
machines. ")

How are we to explain this popular theme that machines seem to us
'cold', or that 'robotic' and 'mechanical' seems synonymous with
'heartless' or unfeeling? Even if untrue, we should examine the
persistence of this stereotype and ask, why is that how machines seem
to many of us? To presume that the difference between mammalian warmth
and insectoid automation is purely a matter of logical complexity I
think is astonishingly reckless in the context of simulating human
psyche. If anything, feeling is stereotyped as simple and naive, while
complexity is synonymous with qualities similar to that of machines -
'calculating', 'intellectual', 'analytical', etc.

> Mechanism is not an eliminative doctrine, except for the primitive  
> stuffy matter (that nobody has ever see).
>
> On the contrary, arithmetic is full of life, and consciousness, and  
> consciousness differentiations.

Why are you sure that it's not life, consciousness, and consciousness
differentiations that are full of arithmetic (among other things)?
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> It's
> >>> also about flourishing in whatever way you can - to feel like you  
> >>> are
> >>> thriving. I would go so far as to say that all organisms experience
> >>> this and that no inorganic m

Re: Unconscious Components

[meekerdb]

On 8/22/2011 10:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

If you make it a 3D-hologram of an actress, with
odorama and VR touchback tactile interfaces, then is it a zombie? If
you connect this thing up to a GPS instead of a cinematically scripted
liturgy and put it in an information kiosk, does it become a zombie
then? I don't see much of a difference.


Behaviorally they have no difference with human. Conceptually they are 
quite different, because they lack consciousness and any private 
experiences.
With comp, such zombies are non sensical, or trivial. Consciousness is 
related to the abstract relations involved in the most probable 
computations leading to your actual 3-states. 


Hmmm.  So could your actual 3-state occur in something inanimate?  In 
other words is the state itself dynamic or static.  Static seems to be 
the concept evoked by "states in a Turing machine" and "observer 
moments".  But then the same computations that lead to your 3-state also 
lead to the 3-state in something inanimate.  Are we to conclude that the 
inanimate thing then also experiences that state of consciousness 
(although always the same one).


Brent

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Re: bruno list

[Craig Weinberg]

On Aug 22, 1:06 pm, meekerdb  wrote:
> On 8/22/2011 3:41 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
> > I would agree that we cannot exclude it. After all if we take qualia
> > ontologically, then it is hard to escape panpsychism. Let me quote
> > Gray in this respect (he was not aware of Bruno's theory):
>
> > p. 321. "Alternatively, no such new arrangement of the existing laws
> > of physics and chemistry will turn out to be possible. The fundamental
> > laws of physics themselves will need supplementation. It is difficult
> > to see how new fundamental laws could come into play only during
> > biological evolution, or they would not be fundamental. So it is
> > probably inevitable that any theory which seeks to account for
> > consciousness in terms of fundamental physical processes will involve
> > 'panpsychism'.
>
> And not only physical processes.  If consciousness is a result of
> computation in Platonia, it will still be ubiquitous.  Only magic can
> confine it to humans or neurons or living things.  But that is not to
> say consciousness is all-or-nothing; that idea was part of the magic
> that made it only human.  When it is better understood it will be seen
> to occur in all degrees and in many kinds, as we see life today.

In this case, we would need to explain how there can ever be things
that seem to be unconscious. If ubiquitous computation is animating
every decimal point and integer, then we should only have to draw a
picture of Felix The Cat to have it begin an eternal life adventure of
it's own. Same with physical substance; why don't planets dance the
Hokey Pokey sometimes? Why don't they get tired or dizzy from too many
ellipses but we do?

I think my view explains that. It's because the more something is
distant from what you are and where you are, the less you can relate
to it. The less you can relate to it, the more you make sense of it as
generic, exterior, discrete/digital, quantitative, deterministic,
objective phenomenon. The closer something is to you, to what you are
and who you are, the more you identify with it as proprietary
(extended through loyalty-affinity for example), interior (one of us),
compact/analog (nuanced relativism replaces strict stereotypes),
qualitative, sentient, and subjective. Phenomena of the extreme
macrocosm and microcosm only intersect our frame of reference very
slightly, so what we perceive of them makes sense as phenomena which
is extremely 'not like us'.

Of course, there can be nothing in the universe that is truly 'not
like us' but at the same time, there is nothing else that actually is
only us.

Craig

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Re: bruno list

[meekerdb]

On 8/22/2011 12:11 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Aug 22, 1:06 pm, meekerdb  wrote:
   

On 8/22/2011 3:41 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

 

I would agree that we cannot exclude it. After all if we take qualia
ontologically, then it is hard to escape panpsychism. Let me quote
Gray in this respect (he was not aware of Bruno's theory):
   
 

p. 321. "Alternatively, no such new arrangement of the existing laws
of physics and chemistry will turn out to be possible. The fundamental
laws of physics themselves will need supplementation. It is difficult
to see how new fundamental laws could come into play only during
biological evolution, or they would not be fundamental. So it is
probably inevitable that any theory which seeks to account for
consciousness in terms of fundamental physical processes will involve
'panpsychism'.
   

And not only physical processes.  If consciousness is a result of
computation in Platonia, it will still be ubiquitous.  Only magic can
confine it to humans or neurons or living things.  But that is not to
say consciousness is all-or-nothing; that idea was part of the magic
that made it only human.  When it is better understood it will be seen
to occur in all degrees and in many kinds, as we see life today.
 

In this case, we would need to explain how there can ever be things
that seem to be unconscious.
   


Doesn't follow.

Brent

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

[RMahoney]

No, we see the effect of photons on our receptors.
Our dreams re-inact that effect.

On Aug 12, 9:01 pm, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
> On Aug 12, 9:55 pm, meekerdb  wrote:
>
> > Photons don't carry charge.  If they did they'd interact with other
> > photons and we wouldn't be able to see anything.
>
> Would you say that what we see is photons? Even in our dreams?

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Re: Unconscious Components

[John Mikes]

Animate? Inanimate? "Conceptually" we cannot compare "identity" of *
complexities,* because we compare only as much as we know of and that is
incomplete.
"Zombie" I consider an artifact for a certain (mental?) fantasy-explanation
without basis.
Also 'dynamic' or 'static' is in *our view* streamlined into the (human?)
image we made up for the world we live(?) in - as we see it. In a World of
unlimited complexities (in continuous interchange of relations) we are lost
at this moment. Our terms are irrelevant. We 'compute' those characteristics
(qualia?) only what we know of. That's our conventional science.
Observer? *anyTHING* that responds to relations (also callable: conscious) -
like a ballcock, a thermostat, or even G.B.Shaw, or a microbe.

Agnostically yours
John

On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 2:51 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

> On 8/22/2011 10:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> If you make it a 3D-hologram of an actress, with
>>> odorama and VR touchback tactile interfaces, then is it a zombie? If
>>> you connect this thing up to a GPS instead of a cinematically scripted
>>> liturgy and put it in an information kiosk, does it become a zombie
>>> then? I don't see much of a difference.
>>>
>>
>> Behaviorally they have no difference with human. Conceptually they are
>> quite different, because they lack consciousness and any private
>> experiences.
>> With comp, such zombies are non sensical, or trivial. Consciousness is
>> related to the abstract relations involved in the most probable computations
>> leading to your actual 3-states.
>>
>
> Hmmm.  So could your actual 3-state occur in something inanimate?  In other
> words is the state itself dynamic or static.  Static seems to be the concept
> evoked by "states in a Turing machine" and "observer moments".  But then the
> same computations that lead to your 3-state also lead to the 3-state in
> something inanimate.  Are we to conclude that the inanimate thing then also
> experiences that state of consciousness (although always the same one).
>
> Brent
>
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Re: Unconscious Components

[Craig Weinberg]

On Aug 22, 1:30 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> On 20 Aug 2011, at 23:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> > PART I
>
> > On Aug 20, 12:16 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> >> On 20 Aug 2011, at 03:14, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> >>> On Aug 18, 9:43 am, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>  On 17 Aug 2011, at 06:47, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> > Not sure I understand. Do I hope for this world and therefore it
> > exists to me in a solipsistic way?
>
>  I mean you can hope to be true, but you can never know that you are
>  true for sure about anything, except your consciousness.
>  Transcendental realities are transcendental, simply.
>
> >>> OK. I thought you were saying something else, like 'thoughts create
> >>> reality'.
>
> >> Only physical realities. But I don't expect anyone to understand what
> >> that means, without grasping it by themselves. The UDA is the
> >> explanation.
>
> > Whenever you say these kinds of things, I assume that you're just
> > talking about the arithmetic Matrix seeming real to us because we're
> > in it.
>
> The arithmetic matrix is real, because it is just a collection of true  
> arithmetical facts. It is the physical and theological which seems  
> real (= lived), and are real in higher order senses, epistemological,  
> sensational, etc.

True to who? If I make up a Sims world where donkeys fly, do they
represent factual truth? It all seems context dependent to me. It
makes truth arbitrary. Couldn't I make an arithmetic matrix where the
occupants believe in a different arithmetic than our own? What makes
you think that senses are higher order?

> > Part of us and whatever it is that we experience as physically
> > real are mathematically agreeing to treat the relationship as if it
> > were physically real. If that's what you're saying there, then I
> > completely get that, and I'm not saying that that is not true. My view
> > adds to that two, I think revolutionary ideas.:
>
> > 1.  The relationships that make up that matrix are comp arithmetic on
> > one side (literally on one side, like a Klein Bottle which is
> > invisible on the interior...sort of like one way matter) and
> > sensorimotive perception on the other (the invisible side is feeling,
> > participation, being). I would call the arithmetic side
> > 'electromagnetism' and 'relativity'.
>
> Not enough precise. If you want to interpret your theory in  
> "mine" (which I borrow from the LUMs), you have to make your  
> vocabulary far more precise.

I want to interpret reality in whatever terms that my ideas and your
theories can make the most sense out of.

> > 2. The arithmetic side runs on agreement between numbers -
> > synchronization. The sensorimotive side runs on gaps between
> > agreements. It is already synchronized because is is the vector of
> > orientation (local singularity/monad) for time (change), so it runs on
> > induction. Jumping gaps. Pulling wholes through holes. It's non-comp
> > guesswork, interpretation, and pantomime that changes and evolves. The
> > importance of imitation in learning should strike a chord here.
>
> >> Then, if you identify your little ego with your higher self (which is
> >> not usually done in science), you can identify the whole reality as
> >> the (internal) thought of God (Arithmetical truth).
>
> > That's pretty basic, but sure. I think that 'thought' is pretty narrow
> > though. I like 'sense' better because I see thought as a rather recent
> > human development that took off symbiotically with the invention of
> > language and writing. Writing makes one kind of sense, thought another
> > similar one, hearing and seeing, feeling and tasting, knowing and
> > sensing, emotions, etc, all different embodied experiences of order or
> > pattern. I would not limit it to any one of those or even all of those
> > channels. I would not underestimate the power of order to transcend
> > any previous definition of it.
>
> > That may be what physicists believe that they do, but probably in
> > reality they use an intuitive feel from numbers and experience  
> > which
> > they describe and communicate as an identity thesis, numbers, etc.
> > The
> > actual understanding is an artifact of cognition and feeling.
>
>  Hmm... I can be OK. But here by identity thesis I mean the brain-
>  mind
>  identity thesis? Except the Everettian, most believe that "seeing a
>  needle" is due to one needle and one brain, and one experience,  
>  when
>  comp implies that for one experience there is an infinity of brain,
>  and needle. Comp extends Everett on arithmetic.
>
> >>> I would say that seeing the image of a needle may indicate one  
> >>> needle,
> >>> one eye, one set of visual processing related areas of one brain,  
> >>> and
> >>> an indeterminate number of potential experiences, depending on how  
> >>> the
> >>> person feels about the needle, what associations they have, how long
> >>> they look at the needle, what else is competing for the

Re: Unconscious Components

[Craig Weinberg]

On Aug 22, 1:56 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> On 21 Aug 2011, at 15:28, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> >> My point is that, by definition of philosophical zombie, they behave
> >> like normal and sane human being. It is not walking coma, or  
> >> catatonic
> >> behavior. It is full human behavior. A zombie might write a book on
> >> consciousness, or have a diary of his dreams reports.
>
> > A movie can feature an actress writing a book on consciousness or
> > doing anything else that can be demonstrated audiovisually. How is
> > that not a zombie?
>
> The movie lack the counterfactual. If the public shout "don't go the  
> cave!" to the heroine in a thriller, she will not listen.

That can be obscured by making the movie ambiguous. Having the actors
suddenly look in the camera and say something like "Did you say
something? We can't hear you very well in here." When the tension
builds the heroine could say to the camera "I know what you're
thinking, but I'm going in anyways". I think if you give the movie
anywhere near the latitude you are giving to arithmetic, you'll see
that the threshold between a movie and a UM is much less than between
a living organism and a silicon chip. You can make movies interactive
with alternate story lines that an audience can vote on, or just
pseudointeractive:  
http://listverse.com/2011/05/24/top-10-william-castle-film-gimmicks/
(#1)

> Zombie are  
> different, they behave like you and me. By definition of philosophical  
> zombie, you can't distinguish it from a "real human". You can  
> distinguish a human from filmed human, all right?

Not without breaking the frame of reference. I can't distinguish a
live TV broadcast from a recorded broadcast. It's an audiovisual only
frame of reference. To postulate a philosophical zombie, you are
saying that nothing about them can be distinguished from a genuine
person, which is tautological. If nothing can be distinguished by
anyone or any thing at any time, then it is the genuine person, by
definition.

You're just saying 'an apple that is genuine in every possible way,
except that it's an orange' and using that argument to say 'then
apples can be no different than oranges in any meaningful way and
there is no reason why apples cannot be used to make an orange as long
as the substitution level is low enough.' The fallacy is that it uses
semantics of false exclusion to justify false inclusion. By insisting
that my protests that apples and oranges are both fruit but oranges
can never be made of apples is just an appeal to the false assumption
of substitution level, you disregard any possibility of seeing the
simple truth of the relation.

> > If you make it a 3D-hologram of an actress, with
> > odorama and VR touchback tactile interfaces, then is it a zombie? If
> > you connect this thing up to a GPS instead of a cinematically scripted
> > liturgy and put it in an information kiosk, does it become a zombie
> > then? I don't see much of a difference.
>
> Behaviorally they have no difference with human. Conceptually they are  
> quite different, because they lack consciousness and any private  
> experiences.
> With comp, such zombies are non sensical, or trivial. Consciousness is  
> related to the abstract relations involved in the most probable  
> computations leading to your actual 3-states.

Yes, zombies are non sensical or trivial.

> > It's still just a facade which
> > reflects our human sense rather than the sense of an autonomous logic
> > which transcends programming. Even if it's really fancy programming,
> > it's experience has no connection with us. It's a cypher that only
> > intersects our awareness through it's rear end, upon which we have
> > drawn a face.
>
>  That is an advantage. Precise and hypothetical. Refutable.
>
> >>> True, but it has disadvantages as well. Dissociated and clinical.
>
> >> So you say.
>
> >>> Meaningless. (cue 'Supertramp - The Logical Song')
>
> >> So you say.
>
> > Right. These qualities cannot be proved from 3-p. Meaning and feeling
> > are not literal and existential. If they don't insist for you, then
> > you don't feel them.
>
> > Sense contingent upon the theoretical existence
> > of numbers (or the concrete existence of what unknowable
> > phenomenon is
> > represented theoretically as numbers)
>
>  Mathematician can study the effect of set of unknowable things.  
>  That
>  is the beauty of what LUMs discover inside their "head", not just a
>  big Ignorance, but that the Ignorance has a topology, a geometry, a
>  lot of unexpected feature.
>
> >>> Hopefully it isn't an unfathomably malignant and cunning evil  
> >>> seeking
> >>> to evacuate the souls of unsuspecting scientists who are all too
> >>> willing to trade their humanity for a chance to peek into an abyss  
> >>> of
> >>> empty calculation from which there is no escape. ;)
>
> >> Comp does the contary of evacuating soul. It reinstall soul in
> >> arithmetic, in a precise and testable way.

Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

[Jason Resch]

On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 3:28 PM, RMahoney  wrote:

> No, we see the effect of photons on our receptors.
> Our dreams re-inact that effect.
>
>
There are many who say that waking life is really just a dream that is
modulated by the senses.  This is because the brain does a lot of inventing
in cases where there is insufficient or no sensory data (such as blind
spots).  And that the visual center of the brain receives about as much
information from memory as it does from the senses.

Jason

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