Re: Interactions between mind and brain
On 10/22/2012 11:35 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/22/2012 6:05 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: I don't understand why you're focusing on NP-hard problems... NP-hard problems are solvable algorithmically... but not efficiently. When I read you (I'm surely misinterpreting), it seems like you're saying you can't solve NP-hard problems... it's not the case,... but as your input grows, the time to solve the problem may be bigger than the time ellapsed since the bigbang. You could say that the NP-hard problems for most input are not technically/practically sovable but they are in theories (you have the algorithm) unlike undecidable problems like the halting problem. Quentin Hi Quentin, Yes, they are solved algorithmically. I am trying to get some focus on the requirement of resources for computations to be said to be solvable. This is my criticism of the Platonic treatment of computer theory, it completely ignores these considerations. The Big Bang theory (considered in classical terms) has a related problem in its stipulation of initial conditions, just as the Pre-Established Harmony of Leibniz' Monadology. Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. We cannot consider the solution to be accessible prior to its actual computation! Why not? NP-hard problems have solutions ex hypothesi; it's part of their defintion. What would a prior computation mean? Are you supposing that there is a computation and *then* there is an implementation (in matter) that somehow realizes the computation that was formerly abstract. That would seem muddled. If the universe is to be explained as a computation then it must be realized by the computation - not by some later (in what time measure?) events. Brent The calculation of the minimum action configuration of the universe such that there is a universe that we observe now is in the state that it is and such is consistent with our existence in it must be explained either as being the result of some fortuitous accident or, as some claim, some intelligent design or some process working in some super-universe where our universe was somehow selected, if the prior computation idea is true. I am trying to find an alternative that does not require computations to occur prior to the universe's existence! Several people, such as Lee Smolin, Stuart Kaufmann and David Deutsch have advanced the idea that the universe is, literally, computing its next state in an ongoing fashion, so my conjecture is not new. The universe is computing solutions to NP-Hard problems, but not in any Platonic 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: Interactions between mind and brain
On 10/23/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/22/2012 11:35 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/22/2012 6:05 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: I don't understand why you're focusing on NP-hard problems... NP-hard problems are solvable algorithmically... but not efficiently. When I read you (I'm surely misinterpreting), it seems like you're saying you can't solve NP-hard problems... it's not the case,... but as your input grows, the time to solve the problem may be bigger than the time ellapsed since the bigbang. You could say that the NP-hard problems for most input are not technically/practically sovable but they are in theories (you have the algorithm) unlike undecidable problems like the halting problem. Quentin Hi Quentin, Yes, they are solved algorithmically. I am trying to get some focus on the requirement of resources for computations to be said to be solvable. This is my criticism of the Platonic treatment of computer theory, it completely ignores these considerations. The Big Bang theory (considered in classical terms) has a related problem in its stipulation of initial conditions, just as the Pre-Established Harmony of Leibniz' Monadology. Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. We cannot consider the solution to be accessible prior to its actual computation! Why not? NP-hard problems have solutions ex hypothesi; it's part of their defintion. Having a solution in the abstract sense, is different from actual access to the solution. You cannot do any work with the abstract fact that a NP-Hard problem has a solution, you must actually compute a solution! The truth that there exists a minimum path for a traveling salesman to follow given N cities does not guide her anywhere. This should not be so unobvious! What would a prior computation mean? Where did you get that cluster of words? Are you supposing that there is a computation and *then* there is an implementation (in matter) that somehow realizes the computation that was formerly abstract. That would seem muddled. Right! It would be, at least, muddled. That is my point! If the universe is to be explained as a computation then it must be realized by the computation - not by some later (in what time measure?) events. Exactly. The computation cannot occur before the universe! Did you stop reading at this point? Brent The calculation of the minimum action configuration of the universe such that there is a universe that we observe now is in the state that it is and such is consistent with our existence in it must be explained either as being the result of some fortuitous accident or, as some claim, some intelligent design or some process working in some super-universe where our universe was somehow selected, if the prior computation idea is true. I am trying to find an alternative that does not require computations to occur prior to the universe's existence! Several people, such as Lee Smolin, Stuart Kaufmann and David Deutsch have advanced the idea that the universe is, literally, computing its next state in an ongoing fashion, so my conjecture is not new. The universe is computing solutions to NP-Hard problems, but not in any Platonic sense. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism
Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism Problematic Idealism (Berkeley's idealism, not that of Leibniz) is the thesis that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist. This results directly from Descartes' proposition that the only thing I cannot doubt is that I exist (solipsism). If solipsism is true, it seems to raise the problem that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist . But Kant refutes this thesis by his observation that we cannot observe the passing of time (in itself inextended or nonphysical) unless there is some fixed inextended substrate on which to observe the change in time. Thus there must exist a fixed (only necessarily over a small duration of time) nonphysical substrate to reality. A similar conclusion can be made regarding space. Here is an alternate account of that argument: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/#RefIde Dicker provides a compelling initial representation of Kant's argument (Dicker 2004, 2008): 1) I am conscious of my own existence in time; that is, I am aware, and can be aware, that I have experiences that occur in a specific temporal order. (premise) 2) can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive something permanent by reference to which I can determine their temporal order. (premise) 3) No conscious state of my own can serve as the permanent entity by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) 4) Time itself cannot serve as this permanent entity by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) (5) If (2), (3), and (4), are true, then I can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive persisting objects in space outside me by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) (6) Therefore, I perceive persisting objects in space outside me by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (1?5) Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen -- 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.
wave function collapse
Hi meekerdb There are a number of theories to explain the collapse of the quantum wave function (see below). 1) In subjective theories, the collapse is attributed to consciousness (presumably of the intent or decision to make a measurement). 2) In objective or decoherence theories, some physical event (such as using a probe to make a measurement) in itself causes decoherence of the wave function. To me, this is the simplest and most sensible answer (Occam's Razor). 3) There is also the many-worlds interpretation, in which collapse of the wave is avoided by creating an entire universe. This sounds like overkill to me. So I vote for decoherence of the wave by a probe. Roger Clough Wave function collapse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse The cluster of phenomena described by the expression wave function collapse is a fundamental problem in the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and is known as the measurement problem. The problem is not really confronted by the Copenhagen Interpretation, which postulates that this is a special characteristic of the measurement process. The Many-Worlds Interpretation deals with it by discarding the collapse-process, thus reformulating the relation between measurement apparatus and system in such a way that the linear laws of quantum mechanics are universally valid; that is, the only process according to which a quantum system evolves is governed by the Schr?inger equation or some relativistic equivalent. Often tied in with the Many-Worlds Interpretation, but not limited to it, is the physical process of decoherence, which causes an apparent collapse. Decoherence is also important for the interpretation based on Consistent Histories. A general description of the evolution of quantum mechanical systems is possible by using density operators and quantum operations. In this formalism (which is closely related to the C*-algebraic formalism) the collapse of the wave function corresponds to a non-unitary quantum operation. The significance ascribed to the wave function varies from interpretation to interpretation, and varies even within an interpretation (such as the Copenhagen Interpretation). If the wave function merely encodes an observer's knowledge of the universe then the wave function collapse corresponds to the receipt of new information. This is somewhat analogous to the situation in classical physics, except that the classical wave function does not necessarily obey a wave equation. If the wave function is physically real, in some sense and to some extent, then the collapse of the wave function is also seen as a real process, to the same extent. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: meekerdb Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-22, 12:26:39 Subject: Re: Continuous Game of Life On 10/22/2012 12:51 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2012/10/22 Jason Resch On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 12:46 PM, John Clark wrote: On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 Bruno Marchal wrote: I stopped reading after your proof of the existence of a new type of indeterminacy never seen before because the proof was in error, so there was no point in reading about things built on top of that From your error you have been obliged to say that in the WM duplication, you will live both at W and at W Yes. yet your agree that both copy will feel to live in only one place Yes. so the error you have seen was dues to a confusion between first person and third person. Somebody is certainly confused but it's not me. The fact is that if we are identical then my first person experience of looking at you is identical to your first person experience of looking at me, and both our actions are identical for a third person looking at both of us. As long as we're identical it's meaningless to talk about 2 conscious beings regardless of how many bodies or brains have been duplicated. Your confusion stems from saying you have been duplicated but then not thinking about what that really means, you haven't realized that a noun (like a brain) has been duplicated but a adjective (like Bruno Marchal) has not been as long as they are identical; you are treating adjectives as if they were nouns and that's bound to cause confusion. You are also confused by the fact that if 2 identical things change in nonidentical ways, such as by forming different memories, then they are no longer identical. And finally you are confused by the fact that although they are not each other any more after those changes both still have a equal right to call themselves Bruno Marchal. After reading these multiple confusions in one step of your proof I saw no point in reading more, and I still don't. John, I think you are missing
Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p
Hi Bruno Marchal SNIP ROGER: OK, but computers can't experience anything, it would be simulated experience. Not arbitrarily available. But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false. ROGER: Simulated experience would be objective, such as is given by the text of a novel (knowledge by description). True experience is the subjective experience of the mind --knowledge by aquaintance. These are obviously substantially different. BRUNO: You are right, it is not the material computer who thinks, nor the physical brains who thinks, it is the owner (temporarily) of the brain, or of the computers which does the thinking (and that can include a computer itself, if you let it develop beliefs). ROGER: I don't think so. The owner of the brain is the self. But although the owner of a computer will have a self, so would anybody else involved in creating the computer or software also have one. Are trying to say that I or anybody else can cause the computer to be conscious ? If wave collapse causes consciousness, there are objective theories of wave collapse called decoherence theories which seem more realistic to me. But I can't seem to see how these could work on a computer. Roger -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: The circular logic of Dennett and other materialists
Hi Bruno Marchal Numbers and calculations are not subjective, for they are mindless. Which means they can't experience anything. They're dead in the water. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-22, 12:49:30 Subject: Re: The circular logic of Dennett and other materialists On 21 Oct 2012, at 21:51, Roger Clough wrote: On 20 Oct 2012, at 14:04, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal This is also where I run into trouble with the p-zombie definition of what a zombie is. It has no mind but it can still behave just as a real person would. But that assumes, as the materialists do, that the mind has no necessary function. Which is nonsense, at least to a realist. Thus Dennett claims that a real candidate person does not need to have a mind. But that's in his definition of what a real person is. That's circular logic. BRUNO: I agree with you on this. Dennett is always on the verge of eliminativism. That is deeply wrong. Now, if you want eliminate the zombie, and keep comp, you have to eventually associate the mind to the logico-arithmetical relations defining a computation relative to a universal number, and then a reasoning explains where the laws of physics comes from (the number's dream statistics). This leads also to the arithmetical understanding of Plotinus, and of all those rare people aware of both the importance of staying rational on those issue, *and* open minded on, if not aware of, the existence of consciousness and altered consciousness states. ROGER: OK. As long as the computer stays 3p, then anything is possible. You can't. Machines have 1p, personal memory, and personal relative incarnation and relation with some truth. 1p = experiencing (only humans can do this). What? Are you saying that dogs and cats have no 1p? 3p(1p) = a way of saying that a human can publicly describe his experience. He cannot really do that, but he can communicate something, and then the others, by using their own experience can, or cannot relate. 1p(3p) = a way of saying that a human can experience any description or proposition (by himself, by a computer, by others) OK. 3p = a description or proposition given by a human, or by a machine. OK. 3p(3p) = computer knowledge of a proposition or description I really don't know what it means to say that a computer knows something. With comp you know perfectly well what it means, as comp is the hypothesis that you are a computer. So a particular case of what a computer knows something is what it means for you know something. Ah! A computer can only know things by description, but not by acquaintance. Forget the current man-made computer. We talk about a special sort of machine. There is nothing in the brain that a computer cannot imitate, at some fine grained level. So if you believe that brain can do something that acomputer can do, you will have to give a 3p description of the brain which is not Turing emulable. Then, first you are still stuck with a pre 3-things, so it will not help you for the mind-body problem, and second, well, nobody find in Nature (as opposed in math) non Turing emulable things in our neighborhood, except, importantly, for the souls of machines and humans, and for their detailed material reality. The soul of the machine, is not a machine, from the point of view of the machine. Machine's naturally believe that their are not machine, especially when growing ego. Only humans can know things by either route. Looks like a dogma. frankly, a very sad dogma. The Bp and Bp p arithmetical modalities already exemplifies why and how the machines (actually, not the universal computer, but the L?ian believer) is sensible to the two routes. Humans can be cute, and terrible, but for human and non human, it is always a sort of error of declaring oneself superior, especially in feeling and subjective matter. You don't know that. 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.
Can you think of an experiment to verify comp ?
Hi Bruno Marchal Nothing is true, even comp, until it is proven by experiment. Can you think of an experiment to verify comp ? Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-22, 13:18:13 Subject: Re: Continuous Game of Life Hi Roger, You just describe the non-comp conviction. You don't give any argument. With comp, you are the owner of an infinity of machine, it does not matter if it is in silicon or carbon, as long as the components do the right relative things in the most probable history. You are just insulting many creatures just by referring to their 3p shapes. You are not cautious. You might insult God in the process. Certainly so in case they are conscious, imo. Any way, strong AI is the hypothesis that machine can be conscious. Comp is the assumption that your body behave locally like a machine, so that you might change it in some futures. Bruno On 21 Oct 2012, at 22:35, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal 1p is to know by acquaintance (only possible to humans). I conjecture that any statement pertaining to humans containing 1p is TRUE. 3p is to know by description (works for both humans and computers). I believe that any statement pertaining to computers containing 1p is FALSE. Consciousness would be to know that you are conscious, or for a real person, 1p(1p) = TRUE and saying that he is conscious to others would be 3p(1p) = TRUE or even (3p(1p(1p))) = TRUE But a computer cannot experience anything (is blocked from 1p), or for a computer, 3p (1p) = FALSE (or any statement containing 1p) but 3p(3p) = TRUE (or any proposition not containing 1p = TRUE) Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/21/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-21, 09:56:39 Subject: Re: Continuous Game of Life Hi John, On 20 Oct 2012, at 23:16, John Mikes wrote: Bruno, especially in my identification as responding to relations. Now the Self? IT certainly refers to a more sophisticated level of thinking, more so than the average (animalic?) mind. - OR: we have no idea. What WE call 'Self-Ccness' is definitely a human attribute because WE identify it that way. I never talked to a cauliflower to clarify whether she feels like having a self? (In cauliflowerese, of course). My feeling was first that all homeotherm animals have self- consciousness, as they have the ability to dream, easily realted to the ability to build a representation of one self. Then I have enlarged the spectrum up to some spiders and the octopi, just by reading a lot about them, looking video. But this is just a personal appreciation. For the plant, let us say I know nothing, although I supect possible consciousness, related to different scalings. The following theory seems to have consciousness, for different reason (the main one is that it is Turing Universal): x + 0 = x x + s(y) = s(x + y) x *0 = 0 x*s(y) = x*y + x But once you add the very powerful induction axioms: which say that if a property F is true for zero, and preserved by the successor operation, then it is true for all natural numbers. That is the infinity of axioms: (F(0) Ax(F(x) - F(s(x))) - AxF(x), with F(x) being any formula in the arithmetical language (and thus defined with 0, s, +, *), Then you get L?ianity, and this makes it as much conscious as you and me. Indeed, they got a rich theology about which they can develop maximal awareness, and even test it by comparing the physics retrievable by that theology, and the observation and inference on their most probable neighborhoods. L?ianity is the treshold at which any new axiom added will create and enlarge the machine ignorance. It is the utimate modesty treshold. Bruno On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Oct 2012, at 19:19, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal IMHO all life must have some degree of consciousness or it cannot perceive its environment. Are you sure? Would you say that the plants are conscious? I do think so, but I am not sure they have self-consciousness. Self-consciousness accelerates the information treatment, and might come from the need of this for the self-movie living creature having some important mass. all life is a very fuzzy notion. Bruno Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/17/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver:
Re: Re: Interactions between mind and brain
Hi Stephen P. King I saw a paper once on the possibility of the universe inventing itself as it goes along. I forget the result or why, but it had to do with the amount of information in the universe, the amount needed to do such a calc, etc. Is some limnit exceeded ? Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-22, 14:35:15 Subject: Re: Interactions between mind and brain On 10/22/2012 6:05 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: I don't understand why you're focusing on NP-hard problems... NP-hard problems are solvable algorithmically... but not efficiently. When I read you (I'm surely misinterpreting), it seems like you're saying you can't solve NP-hard problems... it's not the case,... but as your input grows, the time to solve the problem may be bigger than the time ellapsed since the bigbang. You could say that the NP-hard problems for most input are not technically/practically sovable but they are in theories (you have the algorithm) unlike undecidable problems like the halting problem. Quentin Hi Quentin, Yes, they are solved algorithmically. I am trying to get some focus on the requirement of resources for computations to be said to be solvable. This is my criticism of the Platonic treatment of computer theory, it completely ignores these considerations. The Big Bang theory (considered in classical terms) has a related problem in its stipulation of initial conditions, just as the Pre-Established Harmony of Leibniz' Monadology. Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. We cannot consider the solution to be accessible prior to its actual computation! The calculation of the minimum action configuration of the universe such that there is a universe that we observe now is in the state that it is and such is consistent with our existence in it must be explained either as being the result of some fortuitous accident or, as some claim, some intelligent design or some process working in some super-universe where our universe was somehow selected, if the prior computation idea is true. I am trying to find an alternative that does not require computations to occur prior to the universe's existence! Several people, such as Lee Smolin, Stuart Kaufmann and David Deutsch have advanced the idea that the universe is, literally, computing its next state in an ongoing fashion, so my conjecture is not new. The universe is computing solutions to NP-Hard problems, but not in any Platonic sense. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:26, meekerdb wrote: On 10/22/2012 12:51 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2012/10/22 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 12:46 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I stopped reading after your proof of the existence of a new type of indeterminacy never seen before because the proof was in error, so there was no point in reading about things built on top of that From your error you have been obliged to say that in the WM duplication, you will live both at W and at W Yes. yet your agree that both copy will feel to live in only one place Yes. so the error you have seen was dues to a confusion between first person and third person. Somebody is certainly confused but it's not me. The fact is that if we are identical then my first person experience of looking at you is identical to your first person experience of looking at me, and both our actions are identical for a third person looking at both of us. As long as we're identical it's meaningless to talk about 2 conscious beings regardless of how many bodies or brains have been duplicated. Your confusion stems from saying you have been duplicated but then not thinking about what that really means, you haven't realized that a noun (like a brain) has been duplicated but a adjective (like Bruno Marchal) has not been as long as they are identical; you are treating adjectives as if they were nouns and that's bound to cause confusion. You are also confused by the fact that if 2 identical things change in nonidentical ways, such as by forming different memories, then they are no longer identical. And finally you are confused by the fact that although they are not each other any more afterthose changes both still have a equal right to call themselves Bruno Marchal. After reading these multiple confusions in one step of your proof I saw no point in reading more, and I still don't. John, I think you are missing something. It is a problem that I noticed after watching the movie The Prestige and it eventually led me to join this list. Unless you consider yourself to be only a single momentary atom of thought, you probably believe there is some stream of thoughts/ consciousness that you identify with. You further believe that these thoughts and consciousness are produced by some activity of your brain. Unlike Craig, you believe that whatever horrible injury you suffered, even if every atom in your body were separated from every other atom, in principle you could be put back together, and if the atoms are put back just right, you will be removed and alive and well, and conscious again. Further, you probably believe it doesn't matter if we even re-use the same atoms or not, since atoms of the same elements and isotopes are functionally equivalent. We could take apart your current atoms, then put you back together with atoms from a different pile and your consciousness would continue right where it left off (from before you were obliterated). It would be as if a simulation of your brain were running on a VM, we paused the VM, moved it to a different physical computer and then resumed it. From your perspective inside, there was no interruption, yet your physical incarnation and location has changed. Assuming you are with me so far, an interesting question emerges: what happens to your consciousness when duplicated? Either an atom for atom replica of yourself is created in two places or your VM image which contains your brain emulation is copied to two different computers while paused, and then both are resumed. Initially, the sensory input to the two duplicates could be the same, and in a sense they are still the same mind, just with two instances, but then something interesting happens once different input is fed to the two instances: they split. You could say they split in the same sense as when someone opens the steel box to see whether the cat is alive or dead. All the splitting in quantum mechanics may be the result of our infinite instances discovering/learning different things about our infinite environments. I would add that what's interresting in the duplication is the what happens next probability (when the two copies diverge). If you're about to do an experience (for exemple opening a door and looking what is behind) and that just before opening the door, your are duplicated, the copy is put in the same position in front of an identical door, the fact that you were originally (just before duplication) in front of a door that opens on new york city, what is the probability that when you open it *it is* new york city... in case of a single universe (limited) where not duplications of state could appear the answer is straighforward, it is 100%, but
Re: Solipsism = 1p
On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false. This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes experience for granted. How can experience itself be simulated? The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated, neither by a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object of thought, describing compactly infinities of arithmetical relations. I can have an experience within which another experience is simulated, Never. It does not make sense. You take my sentence above too much literally. Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant simulate the context making the experience of the person, really living in Platonia possible to manifest itself locally. but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that experience itself - *all experience* can be somehow not really happening but instead be a non-happening that defines itself *as if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some level of description, something has to actually be happening. If the brain simulates experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters and cells? It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to its most probable computation. Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no business producing such things at all. If the world is computation, why pretend it isn't - and how exactly is such a pretending possible. The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is almost the complementary of computations. That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that anti-computation and compare to physics. Bruno It's a fun theory, but it's really not a viable explanation for the universe where we actually live. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/NRKbvcFBg7QJ . 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 . 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: One more nail in comp's coffin.
On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Bruno, My own subjectivity is 1p. I don't believe a computer can have consciousness, but suppose we let the computer have consciousness as well. Let a descriptor be 3p. Let my consciousness = 1p But the computer's consciousness would be different, say 1p' -- because, let's say, it's less intelligent than I am. Or it's not travelled around the world as I have. Or it is only 3 years old. I've only used it for 3 years. Or it is Christian while I am a pagan. Or it is a materialist while I follow Leibniz. Or I am drunk and it is sober. Then the meaning of the 3p to me = 1p(3p). The meaning of the 3p to the computer = 1p'(3p). These obviously aren't going to be the same. So comp can't work or work with any reliability. You could use this same argument to disprove the consciousness of every other person on earth. 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.
computers, materialism and subjective/objective dyslexia
Computers, materialism and subjective/objective dyslexia In materialism there is no self, it is implied. This works in most cases, except if the case involves the self or subjectivity. The problem with that situation is that, without a self to be subjective, there can be no subjectivity. Hence what we know to be subjective (lived experience, for example) has to be considered as objective. This is somewhat understandable, because subjective/objective dyslexia and its issues are hard to understand. Thus comp, or computer output, which is objective, can easily be confused with subjective phenomena. Now life, thought, consciousness, and intelligence are all subjective (non-physical, non-objective) activities. But because of subjective/objective dyslexia, and the fact that it is difficult to conceive of the nonphysical, they are almost always often considered to be objective (physical) phenomena. In other words, life, consciousness and thought are thought to be properties of or associated with, material objects. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: A test for solipsism
On 22 Oct 2012, at 21:13, Alberto G. Corona wrote: C3PO would be a phylosophical zombie. It would not? If you assume non-comp, or just non-strong AI. Bruno 2012/10/22 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net On 10/22/2012 3:12 AM, Roger Clough wrote: SNIP Hi Bruno and Roger, What would distinguish, for an external observer, a p-zombie from a person that does not see the world external to it as anything other than an internal panorama with which it cannot interact? -- Onward! Stephen Hi Stephan, That sounds like autism to me. Roger Hi Roger, I was trying to demonstrate that the closest real example of a p- zombie is an autistic person, but they almost never act normally. I think that the p-zombie idea is nonsensical. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . -- Alberto. -- 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 . 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: Can you think of an experiment to verify comp ?
Bruno was born 100 years too late, he would have predicted quantum mechanics. Saibal Citeren Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net: Hi Bruno Marchal Nothing is true, even comp, until it is proven by experiment. Can you think of an experiment to verify comp ? Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-22, 13:18:13 Subject: Re: Continuous Game of Life Hi Roger, You just describe the non-comp conviction. You don't give any argument. With comp, you are the owner of an infinity of machine, it does not matter if it is in silicon or carbon, as long as the components do the right relative things in the most probable history. You are just insulting many creatures just by referring to their 3p shapes. You are not cautious. You might insult God in the process. Certainly so in case they are conscious, imo. Any way, strong AI is the hypothesis that machine can be conscious. Comp is the assumption that your body behave locally like a machine, so that you might change it in some futures. Bruno On 21 Oct 2012, at 22:35, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal 1p is to know by acquaintance (only possible to humans). I conjecture that any statement pertaining to humans containing 1p is TRUE. 3p is to know by description (works for both humans and computers). I believe that any statement pertaining to computers containing 1p is FALSE. Consciousness would be to know that you are conscious, or for a real person, 1p(1p) = TRUE and saying that he is conscious to others would be 3p(1p) = TRUE or even (3p(1p(1p))) = TRUE But a computer cannot experience anything (is blocked from 1p), or for a computer, 3p (1p) = FALSE (or any statement containing 1p) but 3p(3p) = TRUE (or any proposition not containing 1p = TRUE) Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/21/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-21, 09:56:39 Subject: Re: Continuous Game of Life Hi John, On 20 Oct 2012, at 23:16, John Mikes wrote: Bruno, especially in my identification as responding to relations. Now the Self? IT certainly refers to a more sophisticated level of thinking, more so than the average (animalic?) mind. - OR: we have no idea. What WE call 'Self-Ccness' is definitely a human attribute because WE identify it that way. I never talked to a cauliflower to clarify whether she feels like having a self? (In cauliflowerese, of course). My feeling was first that all homeotherm animals have self- consciousness, as they have the ability to dream, easily realted to the ability to build a representation of one self. Then I have enlarged the spectrum up to some spiders and the octopi, just by reading a lot about them, looking video. But this is just a personal appreciation. For the plant, let us say I know nothing, although I supect possible consciousness, related to different scalings. The following theory seems to have consciousness, for different reason (the main one is that it is Turing Universal): x + 0 = x x + s(y) = s(x + y) x *0 = 0 x*s(y) = x*y + x But once you add the very powerful induction axioms: which say that if a property F is true for zero, and preserved by the successor operation, then it is true for all natural numbers. That is the infinity of axioms: (F(0) Ax(F(x) - F(s(x))) - AxF(x), with F(x) being any formula in the arithmetical language (and thus defined with 0, s, +, *), Then you get L?ianity, and this makes it as much conscious as you and me. Indeed, they got a rich theology about which they can develop maximal awareness, and even test it by comparing the physics retrievable by that theology, and the observation and inference on their most probable neighborhoods. L?ianity is the treshold at which any new axiom added will create and enlarge the machine ignorance. It is the utimate modesty treshold. Bruno On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Oct 2012, at 19:19, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal IMHO all life must have some degree of consciousness or it cannot perceive its environment. Are you sure? Would you say that the plants are conscious? I do think so, but I am not sure they have self-consciousness. Self-consciousness accelerates the information treatment, and might come from the need of this for the self-movie living creature having some important mass. all life is a very fuzzy notion. Bruno Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/17/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-17, 10:13:37 Subject: Re: Continuous Game of Life On 16 Oct 2012, at 18:37, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 2:40 PM,
Re: Solipsism = 1p
On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 10:15:15 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false. This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes experience for granted. How can experience itself be simulated? The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated, neither by a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object of thought, describing compactly infinities of arithmetical relations. That's what I'm saying, experience can't be simulated. I can have an experience within which another experience is simulated, Never. It does not make sense. Why not? I am sitting here at my desk while I am imagining I am in a coffee shop instead - or a talking bowling ball is eating a coffee shop, or whatever. I can simulate practically any experience I like by imagining it. You take my sentence above too much literally. Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant simulate the context making the experience of the person, really living in Platonia possible to manifest itself locally. Oh, ok. but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that experience itself - *all experience* can be somehow not really happening but instead be a non-happening that defines itself *as if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some level of description, something has to actually be happening. If the brain simulates experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters and cells? It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to its most probable computation. Why would that result in an experience? Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no business producing such things at all. If the world is computation, why pretend it isn't - and how exactly is such a pretending possible. The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is almost the complementary of computations. That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that anti-computation and compare to physics. If they are not computation then how can computation refer to them? Craig Bruno It's a fun theory, but it's really not a viable explanation for the universe where we actually live. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/NRKbvcFBg7QJ. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/jk1TtRiPH9QJ. 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: Interactions between mind and brain
On 10/23/2012 3:40 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/23/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/22/2012 11:35 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/22/2012 6:05 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: I don't understand why you're focusing on NP-hard problems... NP-hard problems are solvable algorithmically... but not efficiently. When I read you (I'm surely misinterpreting), it seems like you're saying you can't solve NP-hard problems... it's not the case,... but as your input grows, the time to solve the problem may be bigger than the time ellapsed since the bigbang. You could say that the NP-hard problems for most input are not technically/practically sovable but they are in theories (you have the algorithm) unlike undecidable problems like the halting problem. Quentin Hi Quentin, Yes, they are solved algorithmically. I am trying to get some focus on the requirement of resources for computations to be said to be solvable. This is my criticism of the Platonic treatment of computer theory, it completely ignores these considerations. The Big Bang theory (considered in classical terms) has a related problem in its stipulation of initial conditions, just as the Pre-Established Harmony of Leibniz' Monadology. Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. We cannot consider the solution to be accessible prior to its actual computation! Why not? NP-hard problems have solutions ex hypothesi; it's part of their defintion. Having a solution in the abstract sense, is different from actual access to the solution. You cannot do any work with the abstract fact that a NP-Hard problem has a solution, you must actually compute a solution! The truth that there exists a minimum path for a traveling salesman to follow given N cities does not guide her anywhere. This should not be so unobvious! But you wrote, Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. An existence that is guaranteed by the definition. When you refer to the universe computing itself as an NP-hard problem, you are assuming that computing the universe is member of a class of problems. It actually doesn't make any sense to refer to a single problem as NP-hard, since the hard refers to how the difficulty scales with different problems of increasing size. I'm not clear on what this class is. Are you thinking of something like computing Feynman path integrals for the universe? What would a prior computation mean? Where did you get that cluster of words? From you, below, in the next to last paragraph (just because I quit writing doesn't mean I quit reading at the same point). Are you supposing that there is a computation and *then* there is an implementation (in matter) that somehow realizes the computation that was formerly abstract. That would seem muddled. Right! It would be, at least, muddled. That is my point! But no one but you has ever suggested the universe is computed and then implemented to a two-step process. So it seems to be a muddle of your invention. Brent If the universe is to be explained as a computation then it must be realized by the computation - not by some later (in what time measure?) events. Exactly. The computation cannot occur before the universe! Did you stop reading at this point? Brent The calculation of the minimum action configuration of the universe such that there is a universe that we observe now is in the state that it is and such is consistent with our existence in it must be explained either as being the result of some fortuitous accident or, as some claim, some intelligent design or some process working in some super-universe where our universe was somehow selected, if the prior computation idea is true. I am trying to find an alternative that does not require computations to occur prior to the universe's existence! Several people, such as Lee Smolin, Stuart Kaufmann and David Deutsch have advanced the idea that the universe is, literally, computing its next state in an ongoing fashion, so my conjecture is not new. The universe is computing solutions to NP-Hard problems, but not in any Platonic 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: Interactions between mind and brain
On 10/23/2012 9:43 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Stephen P. King I saw a paper once on the possibility of the universe inventing itself as it goes along. I forget the result or why, but it had to do with the amount of information in the universe, the amount needed to do such a calc, etc. Is some limnit exceeded ? Hi Roger, The currently accepted theoretical upper bound on computation is the Bekenstein bound. http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Bekenstein_bound But this bound is based on the assumption that the radius of a sphere that can enclose a given system is equivalent to what is required to effectively isolate that system, if an event horizon where to exist at the surface. It ignores the implications of quantum entanglement, but for the sake of 0-th order approximations of it, it works. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-22, 14:35:15 Subject: Re: Interactions between mind and brain On 10/22/2012 6:05 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: I don't understand why you're focusing on NP-hard problems... NP-hard problems are solvable algorithmically... but not efficiently. When I read you (I'm surely misinterpreting), it seems like you're saying you can't solve NP-hard problems... it's not the case,... but as your input grows, the time to solve the problem may be bigger than the time ellapsed since the bigbang. You could say that the NP-hard problems for most input are not technically/practically sovable but they are in theories (you have the algorithm) unlike undecidable problems like the halting problem. Quentin Hi Quentin, Yes, they are solved algorithmically. I am trying to get some focus on the requirement of resources for computations to be said to be solvable. This is my criticism of the Platonic treatment of computer theory, it completely ignores these considerations. The Big Bang theory (considered in classical terms) has a related problem in its stipulation of initial conditions, just as the Pre-Established Harmony of Leibniz' Monadology. Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. We cannot consider the solution to be accessible prior to its actual computation! The calculation of the minimum action configuration of the universe such that there is a universe that we observe now is in the state that it is and such is consistent with our existence in it must be explained either as being the result of some fortuitous accident or, as some claim, some intelligent design or some process working in some super-universe where our universe was somehow selected, if the prior computation idea is true. I am trying to find an alternative that does not require computations to occur prior to the universe's existence! Several people, such as Lee Smolin, Stuart Kaufmann and David Deutsch have advanced the idea that the universe is, literally, computing its next state in an ongoing fashion, so my conjecture is not new. The universe is computing solutions to NP-Hard problems, but not in any Platonic sense. -- Onward! Stephen -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Solipsism = 1p
On 10/23/2012 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false. This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes experience for granted. How can experience itself be simulated? The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated, neither by a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object of thought, describing compactly infinities of arithmetical relations. Hi Craig and Bruno, If the simulation by the computation is exact then the simulation *is* the experience. I agree with what Bruno is saying here except that that the model that Bruno is using goes to far into the limit of abstraction in my opinion. I can have an experience within which another experience is simulated, Never. It does not make sense. You take my sentence above too much literally. Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant simulate the context making the experience of the person, really living in Platonia possible to manifest itself locally. We can think about our thoughts. Is that not an experience within another? but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that experience itself - *all experience* can be somehow not really happening but instead be a non-happening that defines itself *as if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some level of description, something has to actually be happening. If the brain simulates experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters and cells? It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to its most probable computation. There is a difference between a single computation and a bundle of computations. The brain's neurons, etc. are the physical (topological space) aspect of the intersection of computational bundle. They are not a separate substance. Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no business producing such things at all. If the world is computation, why pretend it isn't - and how exactly is such a pretending possible. The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is almost the complementary of computations. Yes, it is exactly only the content that the computations generate. That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that anti-computation and compare to physics. But, Bruno, what we obtain from comp is not a particular physics. What we get is an infinite landscape of possible physics theories. Bruno -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Solipsism = 1p
On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 2:21:30 PM UTC-4, Stephen Paul King wrote: On 10/23/2012 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 Oct 2012, at 18:49, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, October 22, 2012 12:28:41 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: But that's what the brain does, simulate experience from the point of view of the owner or liver of the experience. According to some theory. You can't talk like if you knew that this is false. This is the retrospective view of consciousness that takes experience for granted. How can experience itself be simulated? The question is senseless. An experience is lived. never simulated, neither by a computer, nor by a brain, which eventually are object of thought, describing compactly infinities of arithmetical relations. Hi Craig and Bruno, If the simulation by the computation is exact then the simulation *is* the experience. That's what I am saying. Nothing is being simulated, there is only a direct experience (even if that experience is a dream, which is only a simulation when compared to what the dream is not). Bruno said that the brain simulates experience, but it isn't clear what it is that can be more authentic than our own experience. I agree with what Bruno is saying here except that that the model that Bruno is using goes to far into the limit of abstraction in my opinion. I can have an experience within which another experience is simulated, Never. It does not make sense. You take my sentence above too much literally. Sorry, my fault. I wanted to be short. I meant simulate the context making the experience of the person, really living in Platonia possible to manifest itself locally. We can think about our thoughts. Is that not an experience within another? Right. but there is no ontological basis for the assumption that experience itself - *all experience* can be somehow not really happening but instead be a non-happening that defines itself *as if* it is happening. Somewhere, on some level of description, something has to actually be happening. If the brain simulates experience, what is it doing with all of those neurotransmitters and cells? It computes, so that the person can manifest itself relatively to its most probable computation. There is a difference between a single computation and a bundle of computations. The brain's neurons, etc. are the physical (topological space) aspect of the intersection of computational bundle. They are not a separate substance. Why bother with a simulation or experience at all? Comp has no business producing such things at all. If the world is computation, why pretend it isn't - and how exactly is such a pretending possible. The world and reality is not computation. On the contrary it is almost the complementary of computations. Yes, it is exactly only the content that the computations generate. I don't think computations can generate anything. Only things can generate other things, and computations aren't things, they are sensorimotive narratives about things. I say no to enumeration without presentation. That is why we can test comp by doing the math of that anti-computation and compare to physics. But, Bruno, what we obtain from comp is not a particular physics. What we get is an infinite landscape of possible physics theories. This makes me think... if Comp were true, shouldn't we see Escher like anomalies of persons whose computations have evolved their own personal exceptions to physics? Shouldn't most of the multi-worlds be filled with people walking on walls or swimming through the crust of the Earth? Craig Bruno -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/qZgziFPAz8UJ. 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: Interactions between mind and brain
Hi, Stephen,
you wrote some points in accordance with my thinking (whatever that is
worth) with one point I disagree with:
if you want to argue a point, do not accept it as a base for your argument
(even negatively not). You do that all the time. (SPK? etc.) -
My fundamental question: what do you (all) call *'mind*'?
(Sub: does the *brain* do/learn mind functions? HOW?)
(('experimentally observed' is restricted to our present level of
understanding/technology(instrumentation)/theories.
Besides: miraculous is subject to oncoming explanatory novel info, when
it changes into merely 'functonal'.))
To fish out some of my agreeing statements:
*Well, I don't follow the crowd*
Science is no voting matter. 90+% believed the Flat Earth.
**
*... Alter 1 neuron and you might not have the same mind...
*(Meaning: the 'invasion(?)' called 'altering a neuron' MAY change the
functionalist's complexity *IN THE MIND!-* which is certainly beyond our
knowable domain. That makes the 'hard' hard. We 'like' to explain DOWN
everything in today's knowable terms. (Beware my agnostic views!)
Computation of course I consider a lot more than that (Platonistic?)
algorithmic calculation on our existing (and so knowable?) embryonic
device. I go for the Latin orig.: to THINK together - mathematically, or
beyond. That mat be a deficiency from my (Non-Indo-European) mother tongue
where the (improper?) translatable equivalent closes to the term
expectable. I am counting on your visit tomorrow.
* I strongly believe that computational complexity plays a huge role in
many aspects of the hard problem of consciousness and that the Platonic
approach to computer science is obscuring solutions as it is blind to
questions of resource availability and distribution.*
(and a lot more, do we 'know' about them, or not (yet).
*Is the brain strictly a classical system? - No,...
*The *BRAIN* may be - as a 'Physical-World' figment of our bio-physio
conventional science image, but its mind-related function(?) (especially
the hard one) is much more than a 'system': ALL 'parts' inventoried in
explained functionality).
And: I keep away from the beloved thought-experiments invented to make
uncanny ideas practically(?) feasible.
*...As I see it, there is no brain change without a mind change and vice
versa. The mind and brain are dual,... *
Thanks, Stephen, originally I thought there may be some (tissue-related)
minor brain-changes not affecting the mind of which the 'brains' serves as
a (material) tool in our sci? explanations.
Reading your post(s) I realized that it is a complexity and ANY change in
one part has consequences in the others.
So whatever 'part' we landscape as the *'neuronal brain'* it is
still part of the wider complexity unknowable.
Have a good trip onward
John M
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 8:43 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote:
On 10/21/2012 7:14 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 1:55 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net
wrote:
If there is a top-down effect of the mind on the atoms then there we
would expect some scientific evidence of this. Evidence would
constitute, for example, neurons firing when measurements of
transmembrane potentials, ion concentrations etc. suggest that they
should not. You claim that such anomalous behaviour of neurons and
other cells due to consciousness is widespread, yet it has never been
experimentally observed. Why?
Hi Stathis,
How would you set up the experiment? How do you control for an
effect
that may well be ubiquitous? Did you somehow miss the point that
consciousness can only be observed in 1p? Why are you so insistent on a
3p
of it?
A top-down effect of consciousness on matter could be inferred if
miraculous events were observed in neurophysiology research. The
consciousness itself cannot be directly observed.
Hi Stathis,
This would be true only if consciousness is separate from matter, such
as in Descartes failed theory of substance dualism. In the dual aspect
theory that I am arguing for, there would never be any miracles that
would contradict physical law. At most there would be statistical
deviations from classical predictions. Check out
http://boole.stanford.edu/pub/**ratmech.pdfhttp://boole.stanford.edu/pub/ratmech.pdffor
details. My support for this theory and not materialism follows from
materialism demonstrated inability to account for 1p. Dual aspect monism
has 1p built in from first principles. BTW, I don't use the term dualism
any more as what I am advocating seems to be too easily confused with the
failed version.
I don't mean putting an extra module into the brain, I mean putting
the brain directly into the same configuration it is put into by
learning the language in the normal way.
How might we do that? Alter 1 neuron and you might not have the same
mind.
When you learn something, your brain physically changes. After a year
studying Chinese it goes from configuration SPK-E
Re: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism
I have not met this argument before. I have comments interspersed. On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 08:04:35AM -0400, Roger Clough wrote: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism Problematic Idealism (Berkeley's idealism, not that of Leibniz) is the thesis that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist. This results directly from Descartes' proposition that the only thing I cannot doubt is that I exist (solipsism). If solipsism is true, it seems to raise the problem that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist . But Kant refutes this thesis by his observation that we cannot observe the passing of time (in itself inextended or nonphysical) unless there is some fixed inextended substrate on which to observe the change in time. Thus there must exist a fixed (only necessarily over a small duration of time) nonphysical substrate to reality. A similar conclusion can be made regarding space. Here is an alternate account of that argument: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/#RefIde Dicker provides a compelling initial representation of Kant's argument (Dicker 2004, 2008): 1) I am conscious of my own existence in time; that is, I am aware, and can be aware, that I have experiences that occur in a specific temporal order. (premise) OK 2) can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive something permanent by reference to which I can determine their temporal order. (premise) What motivates this premise? 3) No conscious state of my own can serve as the permanent entity by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) Even assuming 2), what motivates this premise? 4) Time itself cannot serve as this permanent entity by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) Well, I don't accept an objective concept of time anyway, so I have no problem with this, although I don't see why this should hold, assuming an objective (eg Newtonian) concept of time is valid. (5) If (2), (3), and (4), are true, then I can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive persisting objects in space outside me by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) Yes, I can see this follows. (6) Therefore, I perceive persisting objects in space outside me by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (1?5) Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen -- 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. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To 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: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism
On 10/23/2012 2:39 PM, Russell Standish wrote: I have not met this argument before. I have comments interspersed. On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 08:04:35AM -0400, Roger Clough wrote: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism Problematic Idealism (Berkeley's idealism, not that of Leibniz) is the thesis that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist. This results directly from Descartes' proposition that the only thing I cannot doubt is that I exist (solipsism). If solipsism is true, it seems to raise the problem that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist . But Kant refutes this thesis by his observation that we cannot observe the passing of time (in itself inextended or nonphysical) unless there is some fixed inextended substrate on which to observe the change in time. Thus there must exist a fixed (only necessarily over a small duration of time) nonphysical substrate to reality. A similar conclusion can be made regarding space. Here is an alternate account of that argument: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/#RefIde Dicker provides a compelling initial representation of Kant's argument (Dicker 2004, 2008): 1) I am conscious of my own existence in time; that is, I am aware, and can be aware, that I have experiences that occur in a specific temporal order. (premise) OK 2) can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive something permanent by reference to which I can determine their temporal order. (premise) What motivates this premise? I think it is implicitly assuming that experiences have no 'fuzz' in their duration, they are discrete like states of a Turing machine computation. I'd say we perceive temporal order by overlap between successive experiences. This is consistent with the idea that an experience is not just a state of a computation, but a bundle of states that constitute the same stream of consciousness. Brent 3) No conscious state of my own can serve as the permanent entity by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) Even assuming 2), what motivates this premise? 4) Time itself cannot serve as this permanent entity by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) Well, I don't accept an objective concept of time anyway, so I have no problem with this, although I don't see why this should hold, assuming an objective (eg Newtonian) concept of time is valid. (5) If (2), (3), and (4), are true, then I can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive persisting objects in space outside me by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (premise) Yes, I can see this follows. (6) Therefore, I perceive persisting objects in space outside me by reference to which I can determine the temporal order of my experiences. (1?5) Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/23/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism
On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 11:04 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism Problematic Idealism (Berkeley's idealism, not that of Leibniz) is the thesis that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist. This results directly from Descartes' proposition that the only thing I cannot doubt is that I exist (solipsism). If solipsism is true, it seems to raise the problem that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist . But Kant refutes this thesis by his observation that we cannot observe the passing of time (in itself inextended or nonphysical) unless there is some fixed inextended substrate on which to observe the change in time. Thus there must exist a fixed (only necessarily over a small duration of time) nonphysical substrate to reality. A similar conclusion can be made regarding space. I cannot doubt that I exist *at this moment*, but I can doubt that I existed before, or that any other moments have or will exist. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism
On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 02:47:12PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: On 10/23/2012 2:39 PM, Russell Standish wrote: 2) can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive something permanent by reference to which I can determine their temporal order. (premise) What motivates this premise? I think it is implicitly assuming that experiences have no 'fuzz' in their duration, they are discrete like states of a Turing machine computation. I'd say we perceive temporal order by overlap between successive experiences. This is consistent with the idea that an experience is not just a state of a computation, but a bundle of states that constitute the same stream of consciousness. Brent Whilst I'm sympathetic to that model, I can also imagine comparing one's current state, or a memory of one's current state, with a memory of a previous state, which is a discrete state model that is in contradiction to 2). I think this model implies one cannot be aware of the totality of one's state (ie that a subconsciousness exists), but does not entail the existence of an external world. As some whit put it, information is the difference that makes a difference (ie you have to compare two states in order to process information at all). Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To 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: Interactions between mind and brain
On 10/23/2012 1:29 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/23/2012 3:40 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/23/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/22/2012 11:35 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/22/2012 6:05 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: I don't understand why you're focusing on NP-hard problems... NP-hard problems are solvable algorithmically... but not efficiently. When I read you (I'm surely misinterpreting), it seems like you're saying you can't solve NP-hard problems... it's not the case,... but as your input grows, the time to solve the problem may be bigger than the time ellapsed since the bigbang. You could say that the NP-hard problems for most input are not technically/practically sovable but they are in theories (you have the algorithm) unlike undecidable problems like the halting problem. Quentin Hi Quentin, Yes, they are solved algorithmically. I am trying to get some focus on the requirement of resources for computations to be said to be solvable. This is my criticism of the Platonic treatment of computer theory, it completely ignores these considerations. The Big Bang theory (considered in classical terms) has a related problem in its stipulation of initial conditions, just as the Pre-Established Harmony of Leibniz' Monadology. Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. We cannot consider the solution to be accessible prior to its actual computation! Why not? NP-hard problems have solutions ex hypothesi; it's part of their defintion. Having a solution in the abstract sense, is different from actual access to the solution. You cannot do any work with the abstract fact that a NP-Hard problem has a solution, you must actually compute a solution! The truth that there exists a minimum path for a traveling salesman to follow given N cities does not guide her anywhere. This should not be so unobvious! But you wrote, Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. An existence that is guaranteed by the definition. Hi Brent, OH! Well, I thank you for helping me clean up my language! Let me try again. ;--) First I need to address the word existence. I have tried to argue that to exists is to be necessarily possible but that attempt has fallen on deaf ears, well, it has until now for you are using it exactly how I am arguing that it should be used, as in An existence that is guaranteed by the definition. DO you see that existence does nothing for the issue of properties? The existence of a pink unicorn and the existence of the 1234345465475766th prime number are the same kind of existence, once we drop the pretense that existence is dependent or contingent on physicality. Is it possible to define Physicality can be considered solely in terms of bundles of particular properties, kinda like Bruno's bundles of computations that define any given 1p. My thinking is that what is physical is exactly what some quantity of separable 1p have as mutually consistent (or representable as a Boolean Algebra) but this consideration seems to run independent of anything physical. What could reasonably constrain the computations so that there is some thing real to a physical universe? There has to be something that cannot be changed merely by changing one's point of view. When you refer to the universe computing itself as an NP-hard problem, you are assuming that computing the universe is member of a class of problems. Yes. It can be shown that computing a universe that contains something consistent with Einstein's GR is NP-Hard, as the problem of deciding whether or not there exists a smooth diffeomorphism between a pair of 3,1 manifolds has been proven (by Markov) to be so. This tells me that if we are going to consider the evolution of the universe to be something that can be a simulation running on some powerful computer (or an abstract computation in Platonia) then that simulation has to at least the equivalent to solving an NP-Hard problem. The prior existence, per se, of a solution is no different than the non-constructable proof that Diffeo_3,1 /subset NP-Hard that Markov found. It actually doesn't make any sense to refer to a single problem as NP-hard, since the hard refers to how the difficulty scales with different problems of increasing size. These terms, Scale and Size, do they refer to some thing abstract or something physical or, perhaps, both in some sense? I'm not clear on what this class is. It is an equivalence class of computationally soluble problems. http://cs.joensuu.fi/pages/whamalai/daa/npsession.pdf There are many of them. Are you thinking of something like computing Feynman path integrals for the universe? Not exactly, but that is one example of a computational problem. What would a prior computation mean? Where did you get that cluster of words? From you, below, in the next to last paragraph (just because I quit writing doesn't
Re: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism
On 10/23/2012 3:20 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 02:47:12PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: On 10/23/2012 2:39 PM, Russell Standish wrote: 2) can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive something permanent by reference to which I can determine their temporal order. (premise) What motivates this premise? I think it is implicitly assuming that experiences have no 'fuzz' in their duration, they are discrete like states of a Turing machine computation. I'd say we perceive temporal order by overlap between successive experiences. This is consistent with the idea that an experience is not just a state of a computation, but a bundle of states that constitute the same stream of consciousness. Brent Whilst I'm sympathetic to that model, I can also imagine comparing one's current state, or a memory of one's current state, with a memory of a previous state, which is a discrete state model that is in contradiction to 2). I think this model implies one cannot be aware of the totality of one's state (ie that a subconsciousness exists), Because otherwise you would only be aware of the passage of time when you consciously remembered and compared two states? I certainly agree that subconscious thought/information-processing must exist. Conscious thought can only account for a small part of our thinking/awareness. It seems to roughly correspond to what we can put into words or otherwise communicate. That's why I think its appearance was associated with the (cultural) evolution of language. Brent but does not entail the existence of an external world. As some whit put it, information is the difference that makes a difference (ie you have to compare two states in order to process information at all). Cheers -- 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: Interactions between mind and brain
On 10/23/2012 3:35 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/23/2012 1:29 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/23/2012 3:40 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/23/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/22/2012 11:35 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/22/2012 6:05 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: I don't understand why you're focusing on NP-hard problems... NP-hard problems are solvable algorithmically... but not efficiently. When I read you (I'm surely misinterpreting), it seems like you're saying you can't solve NP-hard problems... it's not the case,... but as your input grows, the time to solve the problem may be bigger than the time ellapsed since the bigbang. You could say that the NP-hard problems for most input are not technically/practically sovable but they are in theories (you have the algorithm) unlike undecidable problems like the halting problem. Quentin Hi Quentin, Yes, they are solved algorithmically. I am trying to get some focus on the requirement of resources for computations to be said to be solvable. This is my criticism of the Platonic treatment of computer theory, it completely ignores these considerations. The Big Bang theory (considered in classical terms) has a related problem in its stipulation of initial conditions, just as the Pre-Established Harmony of Leibniz' Monadology. Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. We cannot consider the solution to be accessible prior to its actual computation! Why not? NP-hard problems have solutions ex hypothesi; it's part of their defintion. Having a solution in the abstract sense, is different from actual access to the solution. You cannot do any work with the abstract fact that a NP-Hard problem has a solution, you must actually compute a solution! The truth that there exists a minimum path for a traveling salesman to follow given N cities does not guide her anywhere. This should not be so unobvious! But you wrote, Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. An existence that is guaranteed by the definition. Hi Brent, OH! Well, I thank you for helping me clean up my language! Let me try again. ;--) First I need to address the word existence. I have tried to argue that to exists is to be necessarily possible but that attempt has fallen on deaf ears, well, it has until now for you are using it exactly how I am arguing that it should be used, as in An existence that is guaranteed by the definition. DO you see that existence does nothing for the issue of properties? The existence of a pink unicorn and the existence of the 1234345465475766th prime number are the same kind of existence, I don't see that they are even similar. Existence of the aforesaid prime number just means it satisfies a certain formula within an axiom system. The pink unicorn fails existence of a quite different kind, namely an ability to locate it in spacetime. It may still satisfy some propositions, such as, The animal that is pink, has one horn, and loses it's power in the presence of a virgin is obviously metaphorical.; just not ones we think of as axiomatic. once we drop the pretense that existence is dependent or contingent on physicality. It's not a pretense; it's a rejection of Platonism, or at least a distinction between different meanings of 'exists'. Is it possible to define Physicality can be considered solely in terms of bundles of particular properties, kinda like Bruno's bundles of computations that define any given 1p. My thinking is that what is physical is exactly what some quantity of separable 1p have as mutually consistent But do the 1p have to exist? Can they be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson? (or representable as a Boolean Algebra) but this consideration seems to run independent of anything physical. What could reasonably constrain the computations so that there is some thing real to a physical universe? That's already assuming the universe is just computation, which I think is begging the question. It's the same as saying, Why this and not that. There has to be something that cannot be changed merely by changing one's point of view. So long as you thing other 1p viewpoints exist then intersubjective agreement defines the 'real' 3p world. When you refer to the universe computing itself as an NP-hard problem, you are assuming that computing the universe is member of a class of problems. Yes. It can be shown that computing a universe that contains something consistent with Einstein's GR is NP-Hard, as the problem of deciding whether or not there exists a smooth diffeomorphism between a pair of 3,1 manifolds has been proven (by Markov) to be so. This tells me that if we are going to consider the evolution of the universe to be something that can be a simulation running on some powerful computer (or an abstract computation in Platonia) then that simulation has to at least the equivalent to solving an NP-Hard problem. The
Re: Interactions between mind and brain
On 10/23/2012 4:53 PM, John Mikes wrote:
Hi, Stephen,
you wrote some points in accordance with my thinking (whatever that is
worth) with one point I disagree with:
if you want to argue a point, do not accept it as a base for your
argument (even negatively not). You do that all the time. (SPK? etc.) -
Hi John,
My English is pathetic and my rhetoric is even worse, I know
this... I don't have an internal narrative in English, its all
proprioceptive sensations that I have to translate into English as best
I can... Dyslexia sucks! What I try to do is lay down a claim and then
argue for its validity; my language often is muddled... but the point
gets across sometimes. I have to accept that limitation...
My fundamental question: what do you (all) call *_'mind_*'?
Actually, mind - for me- is a concept, an abstraction, it isn't a
thing at all...
(Sub: does the *_brain_* do/learn mind functions? HOW?)
The same way that we learn to communicate with each other. How
exactly? /hypothesis non fingo///.
(('experimentally observed' is restricted to our present level of
understanding/technology(instrumentation)/theories.
Besides: miraculous is subject to oncoming explanatory novel info,
when it changes into merely 'functonal'.))
I agree.
To fish out some of my agreeing statements:
/*Well, I don't follow the crowd*/
Science is no voting matter. 90+% believed the Flat Earth.
I wish more ppl understood that fact!
*//*
/*...* Alter 1 neuron and you might not have the same mind...
/(Meaning: the 'invasion(?)' called 'altering a neuron' MAY change the
functionalist's complexity /IN THE MIND!-/ which is certainly beyond
our knowable domain. That makes the 'hard' hard. We 'like' to explain
DOWN everything in today's knowable terms. (Beware my agnostic views!)
Agnostisism is a good stance to take. I am a bit too bold and lean
into my beliefs. Sometimes too far...
Computation of course I consider a lot more than that (Platonistic?)
algorithmic calculation on our existing (and so knowable?) embryonic
device. I go for the Latin orig.: to THINK together - mathematically,
or beyond. That mat be a deficiency from my (Non-Indo-European) mother
tongue where the (improper?) translatable equivalent closes to the
term expectable. I am counting on your visit tomorrow.
That is similar to my notion of faith as expectation of future
truth...
/I strongly believe that computational complexity plays a huge role
in many aspects of the hard problem of consciousness and that the
Platonic approach to computer science is obscuring solutions as it is
blind to questions of resource availability and distribution./
(and a lot more, do we 'know' about them, or not (yet).
yep, unknown unknowns!
/Is the brain strictly a classical system? - No,...
/The *BRAIN* may be - as a 'Physical-World' figment of our
bio-physio conventional science image, but its mind-related
function(?) (especially the hard one) is much more than a 'system':
ALL 'parts' inventoried in explained functionality).
And: I keep away from the beloved thought-experiments invented to
make uncanny ideas practically(?) feasible.
Ah, I love thought experiments, the are the laboratory of
philosophy. ;-)
/...As I see it, there is no brain change without a mind change and
vice versa. The mind and brain are dual,... /
Thanks, Stephen, originally I thought there may be some
(tissue-related) minor brain-changes not affecting the mind of which
the 'brains' serves as a (material) tool in our sci? explanations.
Reading your post(s) I realized that it is a complexity and ANY change
in one part has consequences in the others.
Right. I have to account for the degradation effects.
Psycho-physical parallelism is either exact or not at all.
So whatever 'part' we landscape as the /'neuronal brain'/ it is
still part of the wider complexity unknowable.
Indeed!
Have a good trip onward
Thanks. ;-)
John M
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 8:43 PM, Stephen P. King
stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote:
On 10/21/2012 7:14 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 1:55 AM, Stephen P. King
stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote:
If there is a top-down effect of the mind on the atoms
then there we
would expect some scientific evidence of this.
Evidence would
constitute, for example, neurons firing when
measurements of
transmembrane potentials, ion concentrations etc.
suggest that they
should not. You claim that such anomalous behaviour of
neurons and
other cells due to consciousness is widespread, yet it
has never been
experimentally observed. Why?
Hi Stathis,
How would you set up the
Re: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism
On 10/23/2012 5:47 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/23/2012 2:39 PM, Russell Standish wrote: I have not met this argument before. I have comments interspersed. On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 08:04:35AM -0400, Roger Clough wrote: Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism Problematic Idealism (Berkeley's idealism, not that of Leibniz) is the thesis that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist. This results directly from Descartes' proposition that the only thing I cannot doubt is that I exist (solipsism). If solipsism is true, it seems to raise the problem that we cannot prove that objects outside us exist . But Kant refutes this thesis by his observation that we cannot observe the passing of time (in itself inextended or nonphysical) unless there is some fixed inextended substrate on which to observe the change in time. Thus there must exist a fixed (only necessarily over a small duration of time) nonphysical substrate to reality. A similar conclusion can be made regarding space. Here is an alternate account of that argument: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/#RefIde Dicker provides a compelling initial representation of Kant's argument (Dicker 2004, 2008): 1) I am conscious of my own existence in time; that is, I am aware, and can be aware, that I have experiences that occur in a specific temporal order. (premise) OK 2) can be aware of having experiences that occur in a specific temporal order only if I perceive something permanent by reference to which I can determine their temporal order. (premise) What motivates this premise? I think it is implicitly assuming that experiences have no 'fuzz' in their duration, they are discrete like states of a Turing machine computation. I'd say we perceive temporal order by overlap between successive experiences. This is consistent with the idea that an experience is not just a state of a computation, but a bundle of states that constitute the same stream of consciousness. Brent I agree. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: wave function collapse
On 10/23/2012 5:50 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi meekerdb There are a number of theories to explain the collapse of the quantum wave function (see below). 1) In subjective theories, the collapse is attributed to consciousness (presumably of the intent or decision to make a measurement). There are also 'subjective' epistemological interpretations in which the 'collapse' is just taking account of the change in information provided by a measurement (c.f. Asher Peres or Chris Fuchs arXiv:1207.2141 http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.2141 ). 2) In objective or decoherence theories, some physical event (such as using a probe to make a measurement) in itself causes decoherence of the wave function. To me, this is the simplest and most sensible answer (Occam's Razor). Decoherence has gone part way in explaining the apparent collapse of the wave function, but it still depends on the existence of a preferred (einselected) basis in which the density matrix is diagonalized by environmental interactions. Tracing over the environmental degrees of freedom is our mathematical operation - it's not part of system physics. 3) There is also the many-worlds interpretation, in which collapse of the wave is avoided by creating an entire universe. This sounds like overkill to me. So I vote for decoherence of the wave by a probe. It's not true that disturbance by the measurement device causes the (apparent) collapse; it's the interaction with an environment, and ultimately it may require assumption of retarded wave propagation. I highly recommend the review article on decoherence by Schlosshauer arXiv:quant-ph/0312059 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0312059. 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: Against Mechanism
On Sunday, November 28, 2010 5:19:08 AM UTC+10:30, Rex Allen wrote: On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 7:40 PM, Jason Resch jason...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Rex Allen rexall...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: But I also deny that mechanism can account for consciousness (except by fiat declaration that it does). Rex, I am interested in your reasoning against mechanism. Assume there is were an] mechanical brain composed of mechanical neurons, that contained the same information as a human brain, and processed it in the same way. I started out as a functionalist/computationalist/mechanist but abandoned it - mainly because I don't think that representation will do all that you're asking it to do. For example, with mechanical or biological brains - while it seems entirely reasonable to me that the contents of my conscious experience can be represented by quarks and electrons arranged in particular ways, and that by changing the structure of this arrangement over time in the right way one could also represent how the contents of my experience changes over time. However, there is nothing in my conception of quarks or electrons (in particle or wave form) nor in my conception of arrangements and representation that would lead me to predict beforehand that such arrangements would give rise to anything like experiences of pain or anger or what it's like to see red. The same goes for more abstract substrates, like bits of information. What matters is not the bits, nor even the arrangements of bits per se, but rather what is represented by the bits. Information is just a catch-all term for what is being represented. But, as you say, the same information can be represented in *many* different ways, and by many different bit-patterns. And, of course, any set of bits can be interpreted as representing any information. You just need the right one-time pad to XOR with the bits, and viola! The magic is all in the interpretation. None of it is in the bits. And interpretation requires an interpreter. SO...given that the bits are merely representations, it seems silly to me to say that just because you have the bits, you *also* have the thing they represent. Just because you have the bits that represent my conscious experience, doesn't mean that you have my conscious experience. Just because you manipulate the bits in a way as to represent me seeing a pink elephant doesn't mean that you've actually caused me, or any version of me, to experience seeing a pink elephant. All you've really done is had the experience of tweaking some bits and then had the experience of thinking to yourself: hee hee hee, I just caused Rex to see a pink elephant... Even if you have used some physical system (like a computer) that can be interpreted as executing an algorithm that manipulates bits that can be interpreted as representing me reacting to seeing a pink elephant (Boy does he look surprised!), this interpretation all happens within your conscious experience and has nothing to do with my conscious experience. Thinking that the bit representation captures my conscious experience is like thinking that a photograph captures my soul. Though, obviously this is as true of biological brains as of computers. But so be it. This is the line of thought that brought me to the idea that conscious experience is fundamental and uncaused. The behavior between these two brains is in all respects identical, since the mechanical neurons react identically to their biological counterparts. However for some unknown reason the computer has no inner life or conscious experience. I agree that if you assume that representation invokes conscious experience, then the brain and the computer would both have to be equally conscious. But I don't make that assumption. So the problem becomes that once you open the door to the multiple realizability of representations then we can never know anything about our substrate. You *think* that your brain is the cause of your conscious experience...but as you say, a computer representation of you would think the same thing, but would be wrong. Given that there are an infinite number of ways that your information could be represented, how likely is it that your experience really is caused by a biological brain? Or even by a representation of a biological brain? Why not some alternate algorithm that results in the same *conscious* experiences, but with entirely different *unconscious* elements? How could you notice the difference? Information can take many physical forms. Information requires interpretation. The magic isn't in the bits. The magic is in the interpreter. Rex The brain might be (it's impossible, I assume it's probable) wired in a lab, and there are electrical signals in my brain that connect my mind to a seperate brain in my body, is also the
Re: Interactions between mind and brain
On 10/23/2012 7:16 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/23/2012 3:35 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 10/23/2012 1:29 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/23/2012 3:40 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: snip But you wrote, Both require the prior existence of a solution to a NP-Hard problem. An existence that is guaranteed by the definition. Hi Brent, OH! Well, I thank you for helping me clean up my language! Let me try again. ;--) First I need to address the word existence. I have tried to argue that to exists is to be necessarily possible but that attempt has fallen on deaf ears, well, it has until now for you are using it exactly how I am arguing that it should be used, as in An existence that is guaranteed by the definition. DO you see that existence does nothing for the issue of properties? The existence of a pink unicorn and the existence of the 1234345465475766th prime number are the same kind of existence, I don't see that they are even similar. Existence of the aforesaid prime number just means it satisfies a certain formula within an axiom system. The pink unicorn fails existence of a quite different kind, namely an ability to locate it in spacetime. It may still satisfy some propositions, such as, The animal that is pink, has one horn, and loses it's power in the presence of a virgin is obviously metaphorical.; just not ones we think of as axiomatic. Hi Brent, Why are they so different in your thinking? If the aforesaid prime number is such that there does not exist a physical symbol to represent it, how is it different from the pink unicorn? Why the insistence on a Pink Unicorn being a real' creature? I am using the case of the unicorn to force discussion of an important issue. We seem to have no problem believing that some mathematical object that cannot be physically constructed and yet balk at the idea of some cartoon creature. As I see it, the physical paper with a drawing of a pink horse with a horn protruding from its forehead or the brain activity of the little girl that is busy dreaming of riding a pink unicorn is just as physical as the mathematician crawling out an elaborate abstract proof on her chalkboard. A physical process is involved. So why the prejudice against the Unicorn? Both exists in our minds and, if my thesis is correct, then there is a physical process involved somewhere. No minds without bodies and no bodies without minds, or so the expression goes... once we drop the pretense that existence is dependent or contingent on physicality. It's not a pretense; it's a rejection of Platonism, or at least a distinction between different meanings of 'exists'. Right, I am questioning Platonism and trying to clear up the ambiguity in the word 'exists'. Is it possible to define Physicality can be considered solely in terms of bundles of particular properties, kinda like Bruno's bundles of computations that define any given 1p. My thinking is that what is physical is exactly what some quantity of separable 1p have as mutually consistent But do the 1p have to exist? Can they be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson? 1p is the one thing that we cannot doubt, at least about our own 1p. Descartes did a good job discussing that in his /Meditations/... That something other than ourselves has a 1p, well, that is part of the hard problem! BTW, my definition of physicality is not so different from Bruno's, neither of us assumes that it is ontologically primitive and both of us, AFAIK, consider it as emergent or something from that which is sharable between a plurality of 1p. Do you have a problem with his concept of it? (or representable as a Boolean Algebra) but this consideration seems to run independent of anything physical. What could reasonably constrain the computations so that there is some thing real to a physical universe? That's already assuming the universe is just computation, which I think is begging the question. It's the same as saying, Why this and not that. No, I am trying to nail down whether the universe is computable or not. If it is computable, then it is natural to ask if something is computing it. If it is not computable, well.. that's a different can of worms! I am testing a hypothesis that requires the universe (at least the part that we can observe and talk about) to be representable as a particular kind of topological space that is dual to a Boolean algebra; therefore it must be computable in some sense. There has to be something that cannot be changed merely by changing one's point of view. So long as you think other 1p viewpoints exist then intersubjective agreement defines the 'real' 3p world. My thinking is that it exists as a necessary possibility in some a priori sense and it actually existing in a 'real 3p' sense are not the same thing. Is this a problem? The latter implies that it is accessible in some way. The former, well, there is some debate...
Re: Against Mechanism
On 10/23/2012 6:33 PM, Max Gron wrote: On Sunday, November 28, 2010 5:19:08 AM UTC+10:30, Rex Allen wrote: On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 7:40 PM, Jason Resch jason...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Rex Allen rexall...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: But I also deny that mechanism can account for consciousness (except by fiat declaration that it does). Rex, I am interested in your reasoning against mechanism. Assume there is were an] mechanical brain composed of mechanical neurons, that contained the same information as a human brain, and processed it in the same way. I started out as a functionalist/computationalist/mechanist but abandoned it - mainly because I don't think that representation will do all that you're asking it to do. For example, with mechanical or biological brains - while it seems entirely reasonable to me that the contents of my conscious experience can be represented by quarks and electrons arranged in particular ways, and that by changing the structure of this arrangement over time in the right way one could also represent how the contents of my experience changes over time. However, there is nothing in my conception of quarks or electrons (in particle or wave form) nor in my conception of arrangements and representation that would lead me to predict beforehand that such arrangements would give rise to anything like experiences of pain or anger or what it's like to see red. I think that's a failure of imagination. From what I know about quarks and electrons I can infer that they will form atoms and in certain circumstances on the surface of the Earth they will form molecules and some of these can be molecules that replicate and evolution will produce complex reproducing organisms these will evolve ways of interacting with the environment which we will call 'seeing red' and 'feeling pain' and some of them will be social and evolve language and symbolism and will experience emotions like anger. The same goes for more abstract substrates, like bits of information. What matters is not the bits, nor even the arrangements of bits per se, but rather what is represented by the bits. Information is just a catch-all term for what is being represented. But, as you say, the same information can be represented in *many* different ways, and by many different bit-patterns. And, of course, any set of bits can be interpreted as representing any information. You just need the right one-time pad to XOR with the bits, and viola! The magic is all in the interpretation. None of it is in the bits. And interpretation requires an interpreter. SO...given that the bits are merely representations, it seems silly to me to say that just because you have the bits, you *also* have the thing they represent. Just because you have the bits that represent my conscious experience, doesn't mean that you have my conscious experience. Just because you manipulate the bits in a way as to represent me seeing a pink elephant doesn't mean that you've actually caused me, or any version of me, to experience seeing a pink elephant. All you've really done is had the experience of tweaking some bits and then had the experience of thinking to yourself: hee hee hee, I just caused Rex to see a pink elephant... Even if you have used some physical system (like a computer) that can be interpreted as executing an algorithm that manipulates bits that can be interpreted as representing me reacting to seeing a pink elephant (Boy does he look surprised!), this interpretation all happens within your conscious experience and has nothing to do with my conscious experience. Thinking that the bit representation captures my conscious experience is like thinking that a photograph captures my soul. That's right. The meaning, the what is represented, is given by interaction (including speech) with the environment (including others). So only a computer with the ability to interact can seem intelligent and therefore conscious and only one that interacts intelligently with people (a robot) can have human-like intelligence that we can infer from behavior. Brent Though, obviously this is as true of biological brains as of computers. But so be it. This is the line of thought that brought me to the idea that conscious experience is fundamental and uncaused. The behavior between these two brains is in all respects identical, since the mechanical neurons react identically to their biological counterparts. However for some unknown reason the computer has no inner life or conscious experience. I agree that if you assume that representation invokes conscious experience, then the brain and the computer would both
