date:20121112

ROGER: On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:55:03AM -0500, Roger Clough wrote: 
> Hi Russell Standish 
> 
> No, rational beings have to decide which truths they need to apply 
> to what and how to apply them. These are all relational acts, 
> which require choice, hence intelligence. 
> 

RUSS: I will insist that this is incorrect. The very first line of the 
Wikipedia page states: 

In philosophy, rationality is the characteristic of any action, 
belief, or desire, that makes their choice a necessity.[1] 

ROGER: My mistake.  Just omit "rational" from my statement.


SNIP> to all that below:
--
Reference [1] is the Cambridge dictionary of philosophy, which is 
presumably a more authorative source on the use of the word than 
Wikipedia, but I don't have a copy. 

The operative word here is _necessity_: namely the choice is not free, 
which is what you claimed earlier: 

"In my discussions of intelligence, I define intelligence as the 
ability to (fairly freely) make one's own choices." 

BTW - rational beings can encounter situations where they're unable to 
make the choice - for example because they have insufficient resources 
to compute the optimum of the utility, or because their utility is too 
ill-defined on the choices at hand. I have even seen occasions of 
quite intelligent people, more rational than most, though certainly 
not perfectly rational, being struck by a kind of paralysis when faced 
with a choice they cannot compute. Like when asked what restaurant 
they'd like to go to for dinner :). 


-- 

 
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 
 

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How wonderful greed is

Hi Russell Standish  

Below you infer that economics is a rational activity.
It isn't. it's close to a branch of psychology. 

Buying stocks, as Gordon Gekko said in "Wall Street",  is usually
based not merely on desire, but desire in the face of risk. 
Then Greed seems to be the best word in that case.  
Wall Street is not a welfare program, IT IS DRIVEN BY GREED.

And conversely, selling stocks is based on fear that the stock is going to go 
down.

So no rational or logical program will ever be a good stock customer.

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
11/12/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 

- Receiving the following content -  
From: Russell Standish  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-11-10, 18:56:41 
Subject: Re: Where's the fixed identity in turing machines and comp ? 

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 03:27:47PM -0800, meekerdb wrote: 
>  
> But the definition  

[of rationality] 

> seems overly restrictive. It's well known that 
> in competitive games the best strategy may random in some way. So I 
> don't see how you can arbitrarily rule out random choices as 
> 'irrational' when they are shown to be optimal by rational analysis. 
>  
> Brent 

Its not me doing the ruling out. Its the way the term is used in 
philosophy and economics. 

There are plenty of examples (such as the ones your refer to) where 
making random choices is optimal (according to a given utility). But 
here you have to go to meta-level to say its the choice to play 
randomly that is rational, not the choices themselves being rational. 

One can see there are situations where it is rational to be irrational. I 
sent you a reference to a paper of mine describing just such a 
sitation in the classic theory of the firm (``Emergent Effective 
Collusion in an Economy of Perfectly Rational Competitors''). 

A classic example where it is rational to be irrational is in chess 
where sometimes one might sacifice a queen in order to gain a 
competitive advantage. 

But if it is rational to be irrational, is it possible to be rational any more? 

--  

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 

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Re: Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?

Hi Russell Standish  

Consciousness and intelligence, not just consciousness. 
A cave man had to determine if a twig lying on the ground is a snake or a twig. 

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
11/12/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 

- Receiving the following content -  
From: Russell Standish  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-11-10, 23:00:23 
Subject: Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible? 

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 07:02:04PM -0800, meekerdb wrote: 
> On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote: 
> >I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain) 
> >is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an 
> >anti-solipsism requirement. 
>  
> But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from COMP? 
> Is it just an anthropic selection argument? 
>  
> Brent 
>  

I'm not sure how Bruno argues for it, but my version goes something 
like: 

1) Self-awareness is a requirement for consciousness  

2) We expect to find ourselves in an environment sufficiently rich and 
complex to support self-aware structures (by Anthropic Principle), but 
not more complex than necessary (Occams Razor). Sort of like 
Einstein's principle "As simple as possible, and no simpler."  

3) The simplest environment generating a given level of complexity is 
one that has arisen as a result of evolution from a much simpler 
initial state. This is the evolution in the multiverse observation, 
that evolution is the only creative (or information generating) 
process. 

4) Evolutionary proccesses work with populations, so automatically, 
you must have other self-aware entities in your world, and 
consequently intersubjectivity. 

Note that Bruno does not agree with 1). So I'm not quite sure how he 
gets to the anti-solipsist veiwpoint. 

1) comes from the fact that applying 2), without something like 1) 
being true, leads to the Occam catastrophe, namely we should expect to 
find ourselves in a very simple boring world with nothing complex like 
brains in it. Given that we can conceive of ourselves as being born 
into a virtual reality (eg matrix style) where the virtual reality 
generator renders nothing at all, the occams catastrophe situation is 
certainly conceivable. Hence my interest at what happens in sensory 
deprivation experiments. If you put a newborn baby in one of those, it 
may never become conscious (not that that experiment is ethical though!). 

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 

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Re: Re: Where's the fixed identity in turing machines and comp ?

Hi Russell Standish  

Reason is what allows us to exist in the face of desire and danger.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
11/12/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Russell Standish  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-11-11, 00:53:52 
Subject: Re: Where's the fixed identity in turing machines and comp ? 


On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 06:44:36PM -0800, meekerdb wrote: 
> On 11/10/2012 5:37 PM, Russell Standish wrote: 
> >Only for some extended, loose definition of "rational". The 
> >non-deterministic choices themselves are not rationally determined. 
>  
> Of course not by your definition of rational for in that case they 
> would be deterministic and potentially predictable and hence 
> worthless in the game. 
>  
> But the definitions I find in Dictionary of Philosophy by Angeles: 
>  
> 1. Containing or possessing reason or characterized by reason. 
> 2. Capable of functioning rationally. 
> 3. Capable of being understood. 
> 4. In comformity with reason. Intelligble. 
> 5. Adhering to qualities of thought such as consistency, coherence, 
> simplicity, abstractness, completeness, order, logical structure. 
>  
> or online: 
>  
> *1. * Having or exercising the ability to reason. 
> *2. * Of sound mind; sane. 
> *3. * Consistent with or based on reason; logical: rational 
> behavior. See Synonyms at logical 
> . 
>  
> /a/ *:* having reason or understanding 
> /b/ *:* relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason *: 

I'm sure you would agree that none of those definitions are technical 
in nature - they are more like what you'd find in a regular English 
dictionary - so are of little help. 

> *Or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: 
>  
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian/ 
>  
> 'Bayesian epistemology' became an epistemological movement in the 
> 20^th century, though its two main features can be traced back to 
> the eponymous Reverend Thomas Bayes (c. 1701-61). Those two features 
> are: (1) the introduction of a /formal apparatus/ for inductive 
> logic; (2) the introduction of a /pragmatic self-defeat test/ (as 
> illustrated by Dutch Book Arguments) for /epistemic/ /*rationality*/ 
> as a way of extending the justification of the laws of deductive 
> logic to include a justification for the laws of inductive logic 

I agree, a rational agent should never choose an action that can be 
exploited by a Dutch book. I would say this supports my claim that the 
rational agent doesn't have a free choice in the matter. 

>  
>  
> There are 915 entries turned up by searching the SEP for "rational" 
> I looked a about a dozen and found nothing that would require 
> rational to be deterministic. 
>  
> > 
> >I have never come across the term rational agent applying to a 
> >stochastic one in the literature. By contrast, I see definitions such 
> >as the one I quoted from Wikipedia's article indicating that rational 
> >agents are strictly deterministic. 
>  
> In looking at my dictionaries of philosophy I find nothing saying 
> that rational implies deterministic. And it's common knowledge that 
> stochastic decisions can be optimal in games - so I don't see how 
> you can call them anything but rational. The same Wikipedia article 
> you cited goes on to say,"A *rational* decision is one that is not 
> just reasoned, but is also optimal for achieving a goal or solving a 
> problem." 
>  

Correct. A stochastic decision is obviously not reasoned, so the 
decision itself cannot be rational. 

The question is whether an agent using a stochastic strategy can be 
said to be behaving rationally. I do see your point that the choice of 
strategy is rational, but then in that case the strategy choice is 
deterministic. What is hard to get a grips on is how the term is used 
in the literature, particularly vis-a-vis iterated games, where 
stochatsic strategies can have better payoff. 

The following thread is interesting, as it would appear the situation 
is rather more murky than the black-and-white positions we've been 
arguing.  

http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/126310-economic-definition-rationality-irrationality.html
 

But for instance the example of me buying an apple instead of 
an orange one day, then buying an orange instead of an apple the next 
is usually explained in terms of time dependent utility, rather than 
me as behaving irrationally! 

> The Cambridge Philosophical Dictionary cited in the Wikepedia entry 
> on "Rationality" doesn't actually have an entry defining 
> "rationality" (although the word "rational" appears about a 100 
> times). It has one on "rationalism" which is contrasted with 
> empiricism. The definition of "rationality" on page 772 is part of 
> a discussion of "rationalism, moral". 
>  

Not much help then. Thanks for looking it up! 


--  

 
Prof Russell Standish Phone 04

the "God" hypothesis

Hi Stephen P. King  

Leibniz thought that everything needs a sufficient reason to
exist as it does. Thus all of the parts of the universe have
a sufficient reason to be (as they are).  I don't know how to
explain that by anything other than the the "God" hypothesis. 


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
11/12/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Stephen P. King  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-11-10, 12:28:31 
Subject: Re: Communicability 


On 11/10/2012 6:01 AM, Roger Clough wrote: 
> Hi Stephen P. King 
> 
> There's no mystery. That's presumably how a machine packed 
> them during manufacture. 

Hi Roger, 

 The order of the crackers has a cause, some physical process lead  
to the order. When we are considering ontological models and theories  
and using ideas that depend on epistemological knowledge, it is easy to  
fall into regress. I have found that regress can be controlled and there  
is even a nice mathematical theory that uses regressive sets - sets that  
have no least member and sets that have themselves as a member, but any  
time that we claim a 'cut off' there has to be sufficient reasons for it. 

> 
> er Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
> 11/10/2012 
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
> 
> 
> - Receiving the following content - 
> From: Stephen P. King 
> Receiver: everything-list 
> Time: 2012-11-09, 13:32:23 
> Subject: Re: Communicability 
> 
> 
> On 11/9/2012 11:24 AM, Roger Clough wrote: 
>> Hi Stephen P. King 
>> 
>> Get a box of crackers with the crackers all lined perfectly up inside. 
> No explanation at all is given as to how the cracker got to be 
> "perfectly lined up". ... Right. 
> 
>> That's Platonia. 
>> 
>> Now invert the box and let the crackers fall, scattering on the 
>> floor and some even breaking. That's our contingent world. 
>> 
>> Nobody knows why, but that's the way time works. 
> 
> -- 
> Onward! 
> 
> Stephen 
> 
> 
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> 


--  
Onward! 

Stephen 


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Re: Where's the fixed identity in turing machines and comp ?


On 11/12/2012 2:53 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/11/11 Stephen P. King >


On 11/11/2012 11:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Nov 2012, at 17:44, meekerdb wrote:


On 11/9/2012 3:26 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

It seems to me that we automatically get a 'fixed identity'
when we consider each observer's 1p to be defined by a bundle
or sheaf of an infinite number of computations. The chooser of
A and of B is one and the same if and only if the computational
bundle that make the choice of A also make the choice of B.
What you are considering is just an example of my definition of
reality.


But what makes the bundle or sheaf stay together?  As
computations why don't they quickly diverge?  That's the
question I was raising in the Moscow/Washington thought
experiment.  We know the M-man and the W-man diverge because
they experience different things.  But they experience different
things because their physical eyes/skin/ears... are in
differenct physical places?  And those experiences form two
different sheafs of computation that have a lot in common within
each and differences between them.  But there is no
computational explanation of why that should be so. 
Computationally there could be just one sheaf including the

M-man and the W-man just as the drone pilot has a sheaf that
includes Florida and Afghanistan.  So the argument for comp
seems to rely on physics.







No, it can't. It has to rely on the infinitely many computations
which exists once you postulate one Turing universal
realm. So physics has to emerged from the first plural
indeterminacy. Plural means that when I diverge, a similar
proportion of copies of you, too, so that we share the
indeterminacy. Then we must seen it when looking close enough,
and that is confirmed by QM (without collapse).

If you attribute the physical to one universal machine, but with
comp that "one" universal machine, if it exists must be justified
by being the unique solution to the comp measure problem.

Bruno


Dear Bruno,

 Why do you only consider a single universal machine and only
one solution to the comp measure problem?


That's not what Bruno said. He said that if you "want" a unique UTM to 
be the generator of the appearance of the physical universe, then that 
specific UTM should be justified by being the unique solution to the 
comp measure problem.


He does not says that a unique UTM is the generator of the appearance 
of the physical universe, on the contrary. It's an answer to Brent 
inquiry "Computationally there could be just one sheaf including...".


Quentin


Ah! Right, OK. Thank you for the correction. I was thinking of the 
sheaf is a completely different sense. It seems to me that each Observer 
moment would involve infinitely many computations...


--
Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Re: WHY FREE WILL IS A BOGUS ISSUE

Hi meekerdb 

Those are the complaints of the far left.
They hate everything that has authority or power.
 

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/12/2012 
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content - 
From: meekerdb 
Receiver: everything-list 
Time: 2012-11-10, 18:36:27
Subject: Re: WHY FREE WILL IS A BOGUS ISSUE


On 11/6/2012 2:21 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 
Other concepts, like  good, evil, morals etc, that could磏 be reduced, were 
relegated to a individual irrational sphere. This is the era of the false 
dichotomy between is and ought. Because the most fundamental questions for 
practical life were denied to rational discussion, they were delegated to 
demagoges, revolutionaries, and various kinds of saviors of countries and 
planets.  The results are the never ending waves of totalitarianisms within 
Modernity.

No, modernity came with the invention of individualism, the existence of a 
private sphere of belief and endeavor that was secure from the ecclesiastical 
authorities who tried to define good, evil, morals etc as extending to every 
nook and cranny not only of private life, but even of thought and consciousness.

Brent

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Re: the "God" hypothesis


On 11/12/2012 7:29 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

Leibniz thought that everything needs a sufficient reason to
exist as it does. Thus all of the parts of the universe have
a sufficient reason to be (as they are).  I don't know how to
explain that by anything other than the the "God" hypothesis.

Dear Roger,

Yes, I understand all that. My point is that the God hypothesis is 
just a way to hide the infinite regress problem. I would like to find a 
solution to it.  I see a quilt-work of theories as necessary, stitched 
together the way we stitch coordinate systems together to make manifolds 
in topology...
I think that tying computation to resources gets us half-way to the 
solution. The other half is covered by the way that time and logical 
entailment work on Pratt's theory and the use of non-well founded sets. 
Gregg Zuckerman's theory of consciousness uses the latter nicely.






Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/12/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Stephen P. King
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-10, 12:28:31
Subject: Re: Communicability


On 11/10/2012 6:01 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

There's no mystery. That's presumably how a machine packed
them during manufacture.

Hi Roger,

  The order of the crackers has a cause, some physical process lead
to the order. When we are considering ontological models and theories
and using ideas that depend on epistemological knowledge, it is easy to
fall into regress. I have found that regress can be controlled and there
is even a nice mathematical theory that uses regressive sets - sets that
have no least member and sets that have themselves as a member, but any
time that we claim a 'cut off' there has to be sufficient reasons for it.


er Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/10/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Stephen P. King
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-09, 13:32:23
Subject: Re: Communicability


On 11/9/2012 11:24 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

Get a box of crackers with the crackers all lined perfectly up inside.

No explanation at all is given as to how the cracker got to be
"perfectly lined up". ... Right.


That's Platonia.

Now invert the box and let the crackers fall, scattering on the
floor and some even breaking. That's our contingent world.

Nobody knows why, but that's the way time works.





--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: I am a realist rather than a nominalist because universal gravity exists.

2012-11-12 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Tuesday, November 6, 2012 8:32:27 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
>
>
>
> Physics thus tells us that a falling tree will make 
> a sound even if nobody is there to witness the event. 
>

Just the opposite. Physics tells us that sound is an experience for 
subjects who have some kind of ear. Without that, there is only a recurring 
change in the position of bodies (vibration), which requires that there be 
bodies which can detect that this change is occurring. There doesn't need 
to be a human witness unless by 'make a sound' we mean an experience 
interpreted with human qualities of sound discernment and sensitivity.

>
> Because existence then is independent of mind 
> (the realist position), 

But it is not independent of experience.

> This also refutes Berkeley's 
> position that things exist because we perceive them. 
>

Yes, Berkeley didn't take it far enough and realize that perception was the 
sole universal principle, and not just a human privilege.

> Those are the complaints of the far left. 
>
They hate everything that has authority or power.
>

I think that the far left would argue that they do not hate powerful 
authorities like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai 
Lama, etc. You know, leaders who rise to positions of adoration without 
taking power from others.

Craig

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Re: the "God" hypothesis

2012-11-12 Thread Richard Ruquist

Hi Roger Clough,

Actually the action of mathematical physics gives "everything" the
reason to live.
As Hawking says, there is "no need for god if you got quantum gravity".

I confess to giving cosmic consciousness a reason to live.
http://vixra.org/pdf/1101.0044v1.pdf

Hopefully, a benevolent, understanding, tolerant and forgiving consciousness,
that somehow chooses the best universe from an infinitude of mental
possibilities,
according to Leibniz...

But physical Nature can be stern and unforgiving.
Life as we know it will eventually disappear from earth,
for cosmic reasons later, if not human reasons sooner..

Richard Ruquist



On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 7:29 AM, Roger Clough  wrote:
> Hi Stephen P. King
>
> Leibniz thought that everything needs a sufficient reason to
> exist as it does. Thus all of the parts of the universe have
> a sufficient reason to be (as they are).  I don't know how to
> explain that by anything other than the the "God" hypothesis.
>
>
> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
> 11/12/2012
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
>
>
> - Receiving the following content -
> From: Stephen P. King
> Receiver: everything-list
> Time: 2012-11-10, 12:28:31
> Subject: Re: Communicability
>
>
> On 11/10/2012 6:01 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
>> Hi Stephen P. King
>>
>> There's no mystery. That's presumably how a machine packed
>> them during manufacture.
>
> Hi Roger,
>
>  The order of the crackers has a cause, some physical process lead
> to the order. When we are considering ontological models and theories
> and using ideas that depend on epistemological knowledge, it is easy to
> fall into regress. I have found that regress can be controlled and there
> is even a nice mathematical theory that uses regressive sets - sets that
> have no least member and sets that have themselves as a member, but any
> time that we claim a 'cut off' there has to be sufficient reasons for it.
>
>>
>> er Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
>> 11/10/2012
>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
>>
>>
>> - Receiving the following content -
>> From: Stephen P. King
>> Receiver: everything-list
>> Time: 2012-11-09, 13:32:23
>> Subject: Re: Communicability
>>
>>
>> On 11/9/2012 11:24 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
>>> Hi Stephen P. King
>>>
>>> Get a box of crackers with the crackers all lined perfectly up inside.
>> No explanation at all is given as to how the cracker got to be
>> "perfectly lined up". ... Right.
>>
>>> That's Platonia.
>>>
>>> Now invert the box and let the crackers fall, scattering on the
>>> floor and some even breaking. That's our contingent world.
>>>
>>> Nobody knows why, but that's the way time works.
>>
>> --
>> Onward!
>>
>> Stephen
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
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>
> Stephen
>
>
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Re: Against Mechanism

On 11 Nov 2012, at 19:53, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 12:48 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

 >> the main problem is that you're striving to somehow get the  
Helsinki man to remember the future,

> To predict it. Precisely to predict its personal memory of the  
past, in the future.

I have no idea what " its personal memory of the past in the future"  
means

It is the content of the diary that the candidate brings with him in  
the teleportation box, and in which he will put the result of his self- 
localization after having push on the button and been duplicated in W  
and M.

or who "its" refers to

Up to the duplication, it concerns the Helsinki person, and after the  
duplication, it concerns all the copies. As the diary has been  
duplicated too in the two places, it will contain W, or it will  
contain M, from all possible subject being interrogated.

but I can predict that in the future there will be 2 people who call  
themselves John Clark

That's correct.

and BOTH of them will remember being me, the Helsinki man of right  
now.

That's correct.

 I can also predict that one of those people will feel like he's in  
Washington and only Washington and the other will feel like he's in  
Moscow and only Moscow.

That's correct. And from this it follows that one will write W in the  
diary, and the other will write M. Both will agree that they were  
unable to predict this individual particular outcome.

So Bruno, what part of my prediction do you think I got wrong?

You said "W and M". here you were correct on all point, but did not  
give the answer to the question asked to the Helsinki person: "where  
you will feel to be after pushing the button", or "what do you expect  
to write in the diary after pushing the button and proceed to the self- 
localization?"

Just like any prediction the only way to tell if it was correct or  
not it to wait until the future arrives and examine the evidence, in  
this case that means interviewing the Washington man and the Moscow  
Man and BOTH will say that my prediction was 100% correct.

If you allude to the prediction "W and M", both will understand that  
it was NOT correct, as both will agree to be self-localized, from  
their 1p view, in only one city, and the question was "which one?".

Speaking of predictions I can predict what you're response to this  
will be, you'll start peeing again and insisting that I'm confused.  
But the fact is you can't interview "the Helsinki man of right now"  
after the experiment and see if he still thinks his prediction is  
(was?) correct because the Helsinki man of right now will not exist  
in the future and nobody can remember the future, only the past.

With comp the helsinki man survives the double teleportation, despite  
his body has been annihilated, and so I can interview the Helsinki man  
in both M and W places, and both assess to be now in one precise and  
particular city.

> But the helsinki guy is sure that it will be W or M.

That's one reason this thought experiment is so weak, it depends  
entirely on who the Helsinki man is;

Not at all. It concerns any human or machines doing the experience.

if he's you then yes he is sure it will be W or M, but if he's me  
then no because he is sure it will be W AND M.

This is not possible, as comp guaranty that there will no simultaneous  
connected consciousness of being in W and M. You are just persisting  
in the confusion between the 3-view on the 1-views, and the 1-views  
themselves.

Bruno

And it's important to keep in mind that predicting is not the same  
as remembering and being sure is not the same as being correct.

  John K Clark

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: My embarassing misunderstanding of the intelligence of computers

2012-11-12 Thread Craig Weinberg

Doesn't mean that a coffee filter is intelligent too? If so, is a series of 
coffee filters more intelligent than one? What about one with a hole in it?

Craig


On Sunday, November 11, 2012 8:14:05 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
>
> Hi 
>
> I was wrong. 
>
> According to my own definition of intelligence-- that it is the 
> ability of an entity, having at least some measure of free will, 
> to make choices on its own (without outside help)--  a 
> computer can have intelligence, and intelligence in no small measure. 
>
> The ability to sort is an example. To give a simple example, a 
> computer can sort information, just as Maxwell's Demon could, 
> into two bins. Instead of temperature, it could just be a number. 
> Numbers larger than A go into one bin, smaller than A go 
> into another bin.  It does it all on its own, using an "if" statement. 
>
>
>
>
>
> Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net  
> 11/11/2012   
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
>

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Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?

On 11 Nov 2012, at 20:46, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 11/10/2012 8:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:14:47PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions: (MAT is weak
materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical
reality)

COMP -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really
MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a
weirdness close to quantum Everett.

But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction. There
may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has not
made many definite predictions that could be contradicted. That's
why I brought up the location of consciousness. Empirically
consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point
of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would
predict that a consciousness should have no particular location and
not reason to be associated with a particular body.

I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
anti-solipsism requirement.

Dear Russell,

This is the same idea that I have been trying to address with
Bruno. He does not seem to notice that without a means to define a
3p localizability that there is no way for minds to distinguish
themselves from each other.

That's part of the body problem, which admits a precise mathematical
formulation derivable from comp.

This leads, it seems to me, to a solipsism situation for a mind.

This cannot been excluded, but then comp is made very plausibly false,
as it is a non solipsism at the start, given that it attributes
different minds to an infinity of different relative numbers.

Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity) is
required for consciousness.

But is Loebianity necessary for the ability of a consciousness to
know that it is conscious

Possible.

or is it necesary just to be conscious w/o knowning that it is? I am
ignoring considerations of reportability for now...

I tend to think that a planaria is conscious, but not self-conscious,
contrary to jumping spiders, octopi and all vertebrates and other
Löbian entities.

I know that I disagree with Bruno on this
matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more
restricted.

Does Bruno agree with panprotopsychism?

No. Only person, in a larger sense than human person of course, are
conscious, and they all necessitate a computer or relative universal
number.

Comp makes panprotopsychism even undefined, as "pan" is very
ambiguous. Does it means all numbers, or all physical objects, or all
mental objects?

With comp, only person supported by universal relations can think and
can be conscious.

Bruno

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Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?

On 11 Nov 2012, at 21:16, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 11/10/2012 10:02 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:14:47PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions: (MAT is weak
materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical
reality)

COMP -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really
MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a
weirdness close to quantum Everett.

I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
anti-solipsism requirement.

But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from
COMP? Is it just an anthropic selection argument?

Hi Brent,

This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp
seems to only define a single conscious mind!

That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different conscious
mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite different
conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and perhaps God.
You might confuse individual persons and the abstract Löbian machine
common to them.

Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of
numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a
plurality of minds.

It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
different experiences and minds.

It seems to me that if we allow got Godel numbering schemes to code
propositions then we cause the uniqueness of number identity to
become degenerate. For example: 0123456789 can mean many things. It
can be a particular number, it can be a Godel code for some other
number, it can be a string of numbers...

A number support a person only relatively to a universal number. You
have the same problem with any notion of states description in
physics, or in any theory.

Bruno

Brent

Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity) is
required for consciousness. I know that I disagree with Bruno on
this
matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more
restricted.

Cheers

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Re: 14 billion years ago there was a huge explosion



On 11 Nov 2012, at 23:35, Russell Standish wrote:


Rubbish, it not a measurement of the age of the universe, but rather
of the Hubble constant. It only corresponds to the age of the universe
in the context of a specific theory, usually the Friedmann universe,
which is one of the simplests solutions to Einstein's theory of
general relativity.

Journalists tend to oversimplify things, and get it so wrong.


You are quite right. Note that some physicists do seem to believe, in  
the religious dogmatic way, that the Big Bang is the ultimate start.  
Others believe that it might just be a local big explosion, or that  
the big bang result from the collision of branes (in string theory or  
M theory), and that it is not the beginning of the story. With comp we  
"know" such thing at the start. The ultimate story is not even  
physical at all.


Bruno






Cheers

On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 08:01:46AM -0500, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Russell Standish

It's not theory, it's measurement to 4 figures, with an error of  
plus or minus 0.87 %:


http://www.universetoday.com/13371/1373-billion-years-the-most-accurate-measurement-of-the-age-of-the-universe-yet/

"13.73 Billion Years -- The Most Precise Measurement of the Age of  
the Universe Yet

by Ian O'Neill on March 28, 2008
Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on  
Twitter


NASA? Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has taken the  
best measurement of the age of the Universe to date.
According to highlyprecise observations of microwave radiation  
observed all over the cosmos, WMAP scientists now have the

best estimate yet on the age of the Universe:
13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years (that's an  
error margin of only 0.87% ! not bad really).


The WMAP mission was sent to the Sun-Earth second Lagrangian point  
(L2), located approximately 1.5 million km
from the surface of the Earth on the night-side (i.e. WMAP is  
constantly in the shadow of the Earth) in 2001.


The reason for this location is the nature of the gravitational  
stability in the region and the lack of
electromagnetic interference from the Sun. Constantly looking out  
into space, WMAP scans the
cosmos with its ultra sensitive microwave receiver, mapping any  
small variations in the background temperature (anisotropy) of the  
universe. It can detect microwave radiation in the wavelength range  
of 3.3-13.6 mm
(with a corresponding frequency of 90-22 GHz). Warm and cool  
regions of space are therefore mapped, including the radiation  
polarity.



Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/11/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Russell Standish
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-10, 17:39:09
Subject: Re: 14 billion years ago there was a huge explosion


Not quite. It has measured that the universe 14 billion year ago was
very different from now, ie very hot and dense. All else is theory -
some theories have a beginning, others don't.

Cheers

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:50:38AM -0500, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen,

Science has meaured the beginning of the universe
to have occured about 14 billion years ago.
So it has a beginning.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/10/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Hal Ruhl
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-09, 12:26:47
Subject: RE: Life: origin, purpose, and qualia spectrum


Hi Stepen:

Interesting post.

I indicated in the initiating posts that life should rapidly  
appear where

the conditions supporting it are found.

I suspect that in most cases the sphere of influence for a  
particular
instance of a biosphere is small when compared to the size of the  
universe.
Therefore I propose to change "heat death" to "operative heat  
death" re your

"finite resolving power" for observers. This should allow for the
possibility of an "open" universe.

I am also considering changing "purpose of life" to "function of  
life".


Thanks

Hal


Dear Hal,

What consequences would there be is the Universe (all that exists)  
is
truly infinite and eternal (no absolute beginning or end) and what  
we
observe as a finite (spatially and temporally) universe is just  
the result
of our finite ability to compute the contents of our observations?  
It is
helpful to remember that thermodynamic arguments, such as the heat  
engine
concept, apply only to closed systems. It is better to assume open  
systems
and finite resolving power (or equivalently finite computational  
abilities)

for observers.

--  
Onward!


Stephen



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Re: Plato's cave analogy



On 11 Nov 2012, at 23:35, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/11/2012 10:34 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Nov 2012, at 12:32, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Bruno Marchal

Plato says that we all live in a dark cave, seeing only
shadows on the wall, eager to see the light outside.
So there is at least a duality which I call platonia (heaven)
and contingia (earth).


OK. For example with heaven played by the truth of all the  
propositions. But earth, with comp, belongs to heaven, or at least  
on the path of going back to the one, among many path. The  
existence of the paths are necessary, but the memory of the path is  
half in heaven, and half in particular contingent geographico- 
historical context.






Platonia contains the necessary stuff, the dark cave we live in
contains the contingent stuff.


The dark cave might be the physical universe.  It is the border of  
the universal mind reality. An object whose mathematics is amenable  
to number theory, or computer science.


We cannot experimentally make the difference between a law, or an  
instantiation of a deeper law. We cannot separate experimentally  
geography and physics, but we can define physics by what gives the  
universal prediction by different universal beings, and with comp  
this is enough to define a precise indeterminacy domain from which  
the universal beings can seen aspects of the universal border.


Comp reopens the debate between Plato and Aristotle. At the least,  
it shows that science has not decided this, and it illustrates, by  
listening what the machines can already say about them,  another  
rationalist conception of reality, which gives sense to the  
Pythagorean neoplatonist negative theology.


Bruno




Dear Bruno,

   This is wonderful! Now, all I want from you is that you consider  
the idea that "knowledge is not free".


It is fuzzy, but as far as I can interpret this favorably, I do agree.




There is a cost in resource utilization (or entropy generation) to  
gain knowledge.


I can still agree. Then the comp consequence is that the physical  
resources are derivable from a notion of arithmetical resource.




I hope to have a more coherent formula involving the Blum measure  
soon.


You can consult "Conscience and Mechanism" where I use Blum measure  
for the "theory of intelligence". Blum measure is a quite general  
notion of arithmetical or computer science theoretical measure indeed.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Where's the fixed identity in turing machines and comp ?

On 11 Nov 2012, at 23:43, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 11/11/2012 11:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 10 Nov 2012, at 17:44, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/9/2012 3:26 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

It seems to me that we automatically get a 'fixed identity'
when we consider each observer's 1p to be defined by a bundle or
sheaf of an infinite number of computations. The chooser of A and
of B is one and the same if and only if the computational bundle
that make the choice of A also make the choice of B. What you are
considering is just an example of my definition of reality.

But what makes the bundle or sheaf stay together? As computations
why don't they quickly diverge? That's the question I was raising
in the Moscow/Washington thought experiment. We know
the M-man and the W-man diverge because they experience different
things. But they experience different things because their
physical eyes/skin/ears... are in differenct physical places? And
those experiences form two different sheafs of computation that
have a lot in common within each and differences between them.
But there is no computational explanation of why that should be
so. Computationally there could be just one sheaf including the M-
man and the W-man just as the drone pilot has a sheaf that
includes Florida and Afghanistan. So the argument for comp seems
to rely on physics.

No, it can't. It has to rely on the infinitely many computations
which exists once you postulate one Turing universal
realm. So physics has to emerged from the first plural
indeterminacy. Plural means that when I diverge, a similar
proportion of copies of you, too, so that we share the
indeterminacy. Then we must seen it when looking close enough, and
that is confirmed by QM (without collapse).

If you attribute the physical to one universal machine, but with
comp that "one" universal machine, if it exists must be justified
by being the unique solution to the comp measure problem.

Bruno

Dear Bruno,

Why do you only consider a single universal machine and only
one solution to the comp measure problem?

I do not. I said IF, and then explain that which one has to be
justified by the competition between an infinity of one, and then,
this can be justified by any of one, looking inward deep enough.

Bruno

Do you not see that this implies that the "one" is solipsistic? What
if only many local approximations to the ideal are possible? Let not
the perfect be the enemy of the possible!

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Stephen

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Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?



On 12 Nov 2012, at 00:33, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/11/2012 12:20 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 11 Nov 2012, at 05:00, Russell Standish wrote:


On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 07:02:04PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
anti-solipsism requirement.


But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from  
COMP?

Is it just an anthropic selection argument?

Brent



I'm not sure how Bruno argues for it, but my version goes something
like:

1) Self-awareness is a requirement for consciousness

2) We expect to find ourselves in an environment sufficiently rich  
and
complex to support self-aware structures (by Anthropic Principle),  
but

not more complex than necessary (Occams Razor). Sort of like
Einstein's principle "As simple as possible, and no simpler."

3) The simplest environment generating a given level of complexity  
is

one that has arisen as a result of evolution from a much simpler
initial state. This is the evolution in the multiverse observation,
that evolution is the only creative (or information generating)
process.

4) Evolutionary proccesses work with populations, so automatically,
you must have other self-aware entities in your world, and
consequently intersubjectivity.

Note that Bruno does not agree with 1). So I'm not quite sure how he
gets to the anti-solipsist veiwpoint.


By praying, mainly. (grin).
It is not excluded that comp leads to solipsism, especially after  
or near death, but even after death, it is not guarantied either.  
Solipsism is avoided by the first person plural, when the entire  
population of universal beings is multiplied into coherent  
continuation. There might be anthropic, or consciousness-tropic  
conditions justifying this. I do think that the adding of "Dt"  
makes the job (and the "1p", redemolish it for the qualia and  
sensations).


Everett QM illustrate very well the 'contagion of duplications',  
making us sharing "normal histories". Empirically, Everett saves  
comp from solipsism, but to be "sure", assuming comp, we have to  
derive Everett QM from all computations (a concept that Church  
Thesis makes utterly mathematically clear, as you can choose any  
Turing universal system to be define it mathematically).




Dear Bruno,

   Everett's MWI avoids solipsism by defining an observer in  
physical terms! Read his paper for yourself to see this.


Of course. He presumes a physical reality, although quite mathematical  
(the universal wave). But then comp this work only if that universal  
wave function is explained by the machine epistemology/theology, and  
the statistics on relative computations.
I love everett, but logically, it is not neede for UDA and AUDA, only  
for comparing the comp-physics with the physics extrapolated today by  
the physicists.











1) comes from the fact that applying 2), without something like 1)
being true, leads to the Occam catastrophe, namely we should  
expect to
find ourselves in a very simple boring world with nothing complex  
like

brains in it. Given that we can conceive of ourselves as being born
into a virtual reality (eg matrix style) where the virtual reality
generator renders nothing at all, the occams catastrophe situation  
is

certainly conceivable. Hence my interest at what happens in sensory
deprivation experiments. If you put a newborn baby in one of  
those, it
may never become conscious (not that that experiment is ethical  
though!).


It may hard for him/her to become self-conscious, but there are  
evidence that ape embryo already dream that they climb in trees, so  
I think the new born baby is conscious.


   To be conscious does not demand that the entity is conscious of  
its consciousness, IMHO.


I agree. This asks for one more reflexive loop. It is the difference  
between universal number and Löbian number.






But if you put it in a tank, his consciousness might quite similar  
to the disconnected consciousness of a Robinsonian arithmetic. This  
is not used in UDA.


   Could you elaborate on the disconnected consciousness of a  
Robinsonian arithmetic a bit?


It is consciousness without any idea of a self, nor even of a reality.  
It can be attained, with a lot of training, in the sleep states, or  
with some dissociative drugs, apparently.






The salvia reports, but also the reports of people having been  
victim of some trauma might suggest this.



   Salvia seems to work by suppressing memory,


It is a deeper disconnection, or dissociation. there is also a feeling  
or remembering something which seem obvious in that state, but seems  
quasi-contradictory in the normal state.





by making it so that the person under the influense only is aware of  
the present moment with no thoughts of previous moments of experience.


Even the awareness of the present moment, or anything related to time  
and sp

Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?



On 12 Nov 2012, at 01:13, freqflyer07281972 wrote:

So why the big fuss over teleportation when the UDA is really all  
about establishing that comp is consistent and implies computational/ 
machine metaphysics rather than materialism? Well, it would seem to  
me the entire argument stands or falls on this teleportation  
business, and if it's not possible, then the argument for the UD  
doesn't seem to get off the ground.


Neither comp nor QM makes it impossible to teleport classical  
informations. On the contrary comp explains why teleportation of  
unknown physical state are impossible. Up to now QM confirms comp,  
especially what seems weird (from an aristotelian perspective).


Anyway, comp does not suppose any physical theory at the start. It   
presupposes a physical reality (a priori primitive or not) and it  
presupposes that such a physical reality is enough rich to support  
relative universal machine, if only to give sense to brain and  
concrete computers.


Then we can reason from that, and eventually recognize that, like  
Darwin show life evolving from material inter-relations, comp shows  
the laws of physics are themselves born and developing in the first  
person apperception of the numbers relatively to the numbers and their  
inter-relations.


This makes arithmetic, or equivalent, into a testable TOE.

Bruno



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Re: Evolutionary logic Re: Some musings on is/ought and modal logic

On 12 Nov 2012, at 02:59, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/11/2012 8:00 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I have seen some physical terms, but no materialistic term.

To provide the logic, you need to gives the axioms to which the B,
O, [], etc. obey, and you should provide semantics, and make clear
the relation between the symbols, and the reality you are betting
on, as this would be an exercise in applied logic. An expression
like "natural selection" presuppose a lot, including quite
different possibilities.

It is pretty much the project of William S. Cooper in his book "The
Origin of Reason" to explain how logic, mathematics, and decision
theory would have developed by evolutionary processes.

It is very interesting, but this evolution occur at some level, and
explain naturally the human reason. But it presuppose that nature acts
rationally before the human were there. Then comp can explain where
nature's reason come from. That occurs at a different level.

Bruno

Brent

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Re: the "God" hypothesis



On 12 Nov 2012, at 13:29, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Stephen P. King

Leibniz thought that everything needs a sufficient reason to
exist as it does. Thus all of the parts of the universe have
a sufficient reason to be (as they are).  I don't know how to
explain that by anything other than the the "God" hypothesis.


It is always dangerous (for the mental sanity) to invoke "God" in an  
explanation. It is an easy evacuation of the problem.


But I can relate with this idea, though.

With comp, in fine, we need also a "God hypothesis", which seems to be  
innocent: as it is the "arithmetical truth hypothesis". It needs  
studies in logic to understand that such an hypothesis is quite  
strong, and share many religious principle with God, as we can only  
scratch a tiny part of arithmetical truth, and don't know really what  
it is. We can even not give it a name. Like "God", "arithmetical  
truth" is only a pointer to something which, assuming comp,  
intrinsically transcends us.


Note also that divine intellect (the complete quantified G*) is far  
more complex than Arithmetic Truth. Even with Arithmetical truth as  
oracle, the divine intellect (the arithmetical noùs) is undecidable.  
So the theology of the universal machine is even beyond "God". This is  
counter-intuitive and explains some difficulties and quasi divergence  
between Plato and Plotinus. Comp seems to side with Plotinus on this.  
God is simpler than its "creation/emanation", making it losing  
omnipotence and omniscience.


Bruno






Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/12/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Stephen P. King
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-10, 12:28:31
Subject: Re: Communicability


On 11/10/2012 6:01 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

There's no mystery. That's presumably how a machine packed
them during manufacture.


Hi Roger,

The order of the crackers has a cause, some physical process lead
to the order. When we are considering ontological models and theories
and using ideas that depend on epistemological knowledge, it is easy  
to
fall into regress. I have found that regress can be controlled and  
there
is even a nice mathematical theory that uses regressive sets - sets  
that
have no least member and sets that have themselves as a member, but  
any
time that we claim a 'cut off' there has to be sufficient reasons  
for it.




er Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/10/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Stephen P. King
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-09, 13:32:23
Subject: Re: Communicability


On 11/9/2012 11:24 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

Get a box of crackers with the crackers all lined perfectly up  
inside.

No explanation at all is given as to how the cracker got to be
"perfectly lined up". ... Right.


That's Platonia.

Now invert the box and let the crackers fall, scattering on the
floor and some even breaking. That's our contingent world.

Nobody knows why, but that's the way time works.


--
Onward!

Stephen


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--  
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Stephen


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Re: the "God" hypothesis



On 12 Nov 2012, at 15:55, Richard Ruquist wrote:


Hi Roger Clough,

Actually the action of mathematical physics gives "everything" the
reason to live.
As Hawking says, there is "no need for god if you got quantum  
gravity".


I confess to giving cosmic consciousness a reason to live.
http://vixra.org/pdf/1101.0044v1.pdf

Hopefully, a benevolent, understanding, tolerant and forgiving  
consciousness,

that somehow chooses the best universe from an infinitude of mental
possibilities,
according to Leibniz...

But physical Nature can be stern and unforgiving.
Life as we know it will eventually disappear from earth,
for cosmic reasons later, if not human reasons sooner..


Yes, life as we know it, but not necessarily life as we don't know it.

Bruno





Richard Ruquist



On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 7:29 AM, Roger Clough   
wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

Leibniz thought that everything needs a sufficient reason to
exist as it does. Thus all of the parts of the universe have
a sufficient reason to be (as they are).  I don't know how to
explain that by anything other than the the "God" hypothesis.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/12/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Stephen P. King
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-10, 12:28:31
Subject: Re: Communicability


On 11/10/2012 6:01 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

There's no mystery. That's presumably how a machine packed
them during manufacture.


Hi Roger,

The order of the crackers has a cause, some physical process lead
to the order. When we are considering ontological models and theories
and using ideas that depend on epistemological knowledge, it is  
easy to
fall into regress. I have found that regress can be controlled and  
there
is even a nice mathematical theory that uses regressive sets - sets  
that
have no least member and sets that have themselves as a member, but  
any
time that we claim a 'cut off' there has to be sufficient reasons  
for it.




er Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
11/10/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Stephen P. King
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-09, 13:32:23
Subject: Re: Communicability


On 11/9/2012 11:24 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

Get a box of crackers with the crackers all lined perfectly up  
inside.

No explanation at all is given as to how the cracker got to be
"perfectly lined up". ... Right.


That's Platonia.

Now invert the box and let the crackers fall, scattering on the
floor and some even breaking. That's our contingent world.

Nobody knows why, but that's the way time works.


--
Onward!

Stephen


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Stephen


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Re: the "God" hypothesis

2012-11-12 Thread Richard Ruquist

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
> On 12 Nov 2012, at 15:55, Richard Ruquist wrote:
>
>> Hi Roger Clough,
>>
>> Actually the action of mathematical physics gives "everything" the
>> reason to live.
>> As Hawking says, there is "no need for god if you got quantum gravity".
>>
>> I confess to giving cosmic consciousness a reason to live.
>> http://vixra.org/pdf/1101.0044v1.pdf
>>
>> Hopefully, a benevolent, understanding, tolerant and forgiving
>> consciousness,
>> that somehow chooses the best universe from an infinitude of mental
>> possibilities,
>> according to Leibniz...
>>
>> But physical Nature can be stern and unforgiving.
>> Life as we know it will eventually disappear from earth,
>> for cosmic reasons later, if not human reasons sooner..
>
>
> Yes, life as we know it, but not necessarily life as we don't know it.

Yes. My reasoning is incomplete as all reasonings should be.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>>
>> Richard Ruquist
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 7:29 AM, Roger Clough  wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Stephen P. King
>>>
>>> Leibniz thought that everything needs a sufficient reason to
>>> exist as it does. Thus all of the parts of the universe have
>>> a sufficient reason to be (as they are).  I don't know how to
>>> explain that by anything other than the the "God" hypothesis.
>>>
>>>
>>> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
>>> 11/12/2012
>>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
>>>
>>>
>>> - Receiving the following content -
>>> From: Stephen P. King
>>> Receiver: everything-list
>>> Time: 2012-11-10, 12:28:31
>>> Subject: Re: Communicability
>>>
>>>
>>> On 11/10/2012 6:01 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

 Hi Stephen P. King

 There's no mystery. That's presumably how a machine packed
 them during manufacture.
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Roger,
>>>
>>> The order of the crackers has a cause, some physical process lead
>>> to the order. When we are considering ontological models and theories
>>> and using ideas that depend on epistemological knowledge, it is easy to
>>> fall into regress. I have found that regress can be controlled and there
>>> is even a nice mathematical theory that uses regressive sets - sets that
>>> have no least member and sets that have themselves as a member, but any
>>> time that we claim a 'cut off' there has to be sufficient reasons for it.
>>>

 er Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
 11/10/2012
 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


 - Receiving the following content -
 From: Stephen P. King
 Receiver: everything-list
 Time: 2012-11-09, 13:32:23
 Subject: Re: Communicability


 On 11/9/2012 11:24 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
>
> Hi Stephen P. King
>
> Get a box of crackers with the crackers all lined perfectly up inside.

 No explanation at all is given as to how the cracker got to be
 "perfectly lined up". ... Right.

> That's Platonia.
>
> Now invert the box and let the crackers fall, scattering on the
> floor and some even breaking. That's our contingent world.
>
> Nobody knows why, but that's the way time works.


 --
 Onward!

 Stephen


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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Onward!
>>>
>>> Stephen
>>>
>>>
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>>
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>>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> --
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Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?

On 12 Nov 2012, at 17:08, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Nov 2012, at 21:16, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 11/10/2012 10:02 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:14:47PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions: (MAT is weak
materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical
reality)

COMP -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what
really

MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a
weirdness close to quantum Everett.

But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction. There
may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has
not

made many definite predictions that could be contradicted. That's
why I brought up the location of consciousness. Empirically
consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point
of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would
predict that a consciousness should have no particular location
and

not reason to be associated with a particular body.

I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
anti-solipsism requirement.

But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from
COMP? Is it just an anthropic selection argument?

Hi Brent,

This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp
seems to only define a single conscious mind!

That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different
conscious mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite different
conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and perhaps God.
You might confuse individual persons and the abstract Löbian machine
common to them.

Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of
numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a
plurality of minds.

It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
different experiences and minds.

Once I said that I am open to the idea that there is only one first
person.

That might also be confused with solipsism.

Again, this is truly even more at the opposite of solipsism. It is the
case where not only you attribute consciousness to others, but you
attribute to them your own identity, where solipsism denies them
consciousness and subjective identity (and thus consider them as
zombie). To say that there is only person is very natural in the
context of the WM duplication experience, where from the 3-view, you
are in both cities, and then you differentiate, but you can still
consider or understand that the doppelganger is "you", put in a
different context, and then you can generalize and get the idea that
we are all the same original amoeba, but put in a quite big set of
variate experiences and sensations, which deludes us about our
identity and we fail to recognize ourselves in the others.

Bruno

A number support a person only relatively to a universal number. You
have the same problem with any notion of states description in
physics, or in any theory.

Bruno

Brent

Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity)
is
required for consciousness. I know that I disagree with Bruno on
this
matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more
restricted.

Cheers

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Re: Against Mechanism

2012-11-12 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012  Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>> I have no idea what " its personal memory of the past in the future"
>> means
>
>
> > It is the content of the diary that the candidate brings with him in the
> teleportation box, and in which he will put the result of his
> self-localization after having push on the button
>

According to your protocol the Helsinki Man is destroyed when he pushes
that button so he writes nothing at all in his diary after that. As for
what the Helsinki Man imagines will happen to him after he pushes that
button I really don't care because that depends entirely on the particular
personal beliefs of the man involved. I'm not interested in what the
Helsinki man believes will happen to him I'm interested in what will really
happen to him and to find that out the Helsinki man is of no use because he
no longer exists in the future. To find out what happened to him we need to
rely on memory not prediction and we need to interview all the parties that
still exist, and that means the Washington and the Moscow man. If we do
that we find that the Washington man remembers being the Helsinki man and
remembers that man walking into the booth and being instantly teleported to
Washington where he is alive and well, and we find that the Moscow man
remembers being the Helsinki man and remembers that man walking into the
booth and being instantly teleported to Moscow where he is alive and well.

>> or who "its" refers to
>>
>
> > Up to the duplication, it concerns the Helsinki person, and after the
> duplication, it concerns all the copies. As the diary has been duplicated
> too in the two places, it will contain W, or it will contain M, from all
> possible subject being interrogated.
>

And if John Clark had been the Helsinki man you would find that his diary
contained a correct prediction of what was going to happen as can be easily
verified by asking everybody that still existed. If Bruno Marchal had been
the Helsinki man you would find that his diary contained a lot of mystical
stuff that can only be verified by asking the Helsinki man to remember the
future.

In general the only way to know if a mind has survived from point A to
point B on a timeline is to look back from point C, there is no way to know
for sure from point A because predicting is hard, especially the future
:>), and because we  remember the past and not the future.

> >> but I can predict that in the future there will be 2 people who call
> themselves John Clark
>
> > That's correct.
>
> >> and BOTH of them will remember being me, the Helsinki man of right now.
>
> > That's correct.
>
>  >> I can also predict that one of those people will feel like he's in
> Washington and only Washington and the other will feel like he's in Moscow
> and only Moscow.
>
> > That's correct.
>

Thank you.

> And from this it follows that one will write W in the diary, and the
> other will write M.
>

Yes.

> Both will agree that they were unable to predict this individual
> particular outcome.
>

WHAT?!! Both will agree that was exactly precisely what the Helsinki man
predicted would happen, even if the Helsinki man was Bruno Marchal, even he
made the correct prediction. Bruno Marchal predicted that 2 people will
feel to be the Helsinki man and Bruno Marchal predicted that nobody will be
experiencing Helsinki anymore because the body there has been destroyed,
and Bruno Marchal predicted that both people who feel like the Helsinki man
will be experiencing one and only one city and Bruno Marchal predicted that
the Washington man will be the one experiencing Washington and the Moscow
man will be the one experiencing Moscow. I just don't see what more is
needed for a successful prediction.

> >> So Bruno, what part of my prediction do you think I got wrong?
>
> > You said "W and M". here you were correct on all point,
>

Thank you.

> but did not give the answer to the question asked to the Helsinki person:
> "where you will feel to be after pushing the button",
>

I did not answer the question for 2 reasons:

1) It's a incomplete question because with that machine and all its
duplication and destruction it is not clear who "you" is; it's the same
reason I don't answer the question "how long is a piece of string?".

2) The question demands a single answer but in this case there is not one.
I won't answer the question "what is the one and only number that solves
the equation X^2 =4  ?" either because the answer is 2 AND -2,  there is no
one and only one answer.

> or "what do you expect to write in the diary after pushing the button and
> proceed to the self-localization?"
>

It doesn't matter what the Helsinki man expects to happen it only matters
what will happen, and to determine that we need to examine memory not
predictions, and in this the Helsinki man is of no use to us because he
can't remember the future.

> from their 1p view, in only one city,
>

Yes.

> and the question was "which one?".
>

If you're the Washington man then the city yo

Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?


On 11/12/2012 11:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 11 Nov 2012, at 21:16, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/10/2012 10:02 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:14:47PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions:  (MAT is weak
materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical
reality)

COMP   ->  NOT MAT
MAT ->  NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really
MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a
weirdness close to quantum Everett.

But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction. There
may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has not
made many definite predictions that could be contradicted. That's
why I brought up the location of consciousness. Empirically
consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point
of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would
predict that a consciousness should have no particular location and
not reason to be associated with a particular body.


I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
anti-solipsism requirement.


But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from 
COMP?  Is it just an anthropic selection argument?

Hi Brent,

   This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp 
seems to only define a single conscious mind!


?

That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different conscious 
mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite different 
conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and perhaps God.
You might confuse individual persons and the abstract Löbian machine 
common to them.


Dear Bruno,

I am trying to figure out how you differentiate "individual 
persons" (which seem to be distinguished by their relative locations - 
such as being in Moscow and being in Washington) from the abstract 
Löbian machine common to them.




Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of 
numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a 
plurality of minds.


It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with 
different experiences and minds.


What distiguishes the different machines? My question follows from 
the way that Godel numbering makes the natural ordering of the Integers 
vanish unless there is a way to keep the native identity of the integers 
separated from the Godel numbers and from the universal numbers.




It seems to me that if we allow got Godel numbering schemes to code 
propositions then we cause the uniqueness of number identity to 
become degenerate. For example: 0123456789 can mean many things. It 
can be a particular number, it can be a Godel code for some other 
number, it can be a string of numbers...


A number support a person only relatively to a universal number. You 
have the same problem with any notion of states description in 
physics, or in any theory.


How are the universal numbers distinguished from each other at the 
Platonic level?





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Stephen


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Re: Plato's cave analogy


On 11/12/2012 11:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 11 Nov 2012, at 23:35, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/11/2012 10:34 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Nov 2012, at 12:32, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Bruno Marchal

Plato says that we all live in a dark cave, seeing only
shadows on the wall, eager to see the light outside.
So there is at least a duality which I call platonia (heaven)
and contingia (earth).


OK. For example with heaven played by the truth of all the 
propositions. But earth, with comp, belongs to heaven, or at least 
on the path of going back to the one, among many path. The existence 
of the paths are necessary, but the memory of the path is half in 
heaven, and half in particular contingent geographico-historical 
context.






Platonia contains the necessary stuff, the dark cave we live in
contains the contingent stuff.


The dark cave might be the physical universe.  It is the border of 
the universal mind reality. An object whose mathematics is amenable 
to number theory, or computer science.


We cannot experimentally make the difference between a law, or an 
instantiation of a deeper law. We cannot separate experimentally 
geography and physics, but we can define physics by what gives the 
universal prediction by different universal beings, and with comp 
this is enough to define a precise indeterminacy domain from which 
the universal beings can seen aspects of the universal border.


Comp reopens the debate between Plato and Aristotle. At the least, 
it shows that science has not decided this, and it illustrates, by 
listening what the machines can already say about them,  another 
rationalist conception of reality, which gives sense to the 
Pythagorean neoplatonist negative theology.


Bruno




Dear Bruno,

   This is wonderful! Now, all I want from you is that you consider 
the idea that "knowledge is not free".


It is fuzzy, but as far as I can interpret this favorably, I do agree.




There is a cost in resource utilization (or entropy generation) to 
gain knowledge.


I can still agree. Then the comp consequence is that the physical 
resources are derivable from a notion of arithmetical resource.


Dear Bruno,

Could you explain this idea of arithmetical resource in depth?






I hope to have a more coherent formula involving the Blum measure soon.


You can consult "Conscience and Mechanism" where I use Blum measure 
for the "theory of intelligence". Blum measure is a quite general 
notion of arithmetical or computer science theoretical measure indeed.


OK, I will study this. I will use the Google Translate service. ;-)




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Re: 14 billion years ago there was a huge explosion

2012-11-12 Thread John Mikes

The Bartender speaketh:

Russell and Bruno, IMO all (cosmological?) start-up theories (incl. the
Friedmann one, my contemporaneous one) include a vision of TODAY's
universe- physics, gravity, sizes, math etc. - absolutely rubbish down from
the zillion-times values that could have been in the 'pre-explosion'(?)
 morsel we think it had to start from.
Furthermore the theories are mostly based on linear processing - no
justification for such.
(R: the Hubble constant is one of the actual deductions of OUR present
universe-view)
(B: I heard about a 'religious dogmatic' opinion about a ~6000 y.o. world.
What religion dogmates (!) 14 b years? not even my 'un-religion'.)

I just love the inflation-theory aiming to seting the math-mistakes
straight.
*
My 'narrative' (I don't call it a theory) ends the universes (all of
them?!) when the complexities (= violations in the totally-symmetrical
Plenitude) re-distribute into said totl symmetry (heat death) and smoothen
BACK into the Plenitude they popped out from inevitably.
I do not speculate about that darn Plenitude - so far beyond our
capabilities and resources to learn anything about it. It is (supposed to
be) sort of an Everything in infinite equilibrium/symmetry in our human
logic.

The rest is our partial knowledge we applied to 'explain' (mostly math.ly)
our poorly understood observational fragments we gathered over the
millennia of enlightenment, - always at the actual level of understanding.

John M

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 11 Nov 2012, at 23:35, Russell Standish wrote:
>
>  Rubbish, it not a measurement of the age of the universe, but rather
>> of the Hubble constant. It only corresponds to the age of the universe
>> in the context of a specific theory, usually the Friedmann universe,
>> which is one of the simplests solutions to Einstein's theory of
>> general relativity.
>>
>> Journalists tend to oversimplify things, and get it so wrong.
>>
>
> You are quite right. Note that some physicists do seem to believe, in the
> religious dogmatic way, that the Big Bang is the ultimate start. Others
> believe that it might just be a local big explosion, or that the big bang
> result from the collision of branes (in string theory or M theory), and
> that it is not the beginning of the story. With comp we "know" such thing
> at the start. The ultimate story is not even physical at all.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> Cheers
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 08:01:46AM -0500, Roger Clough wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Russell Standish
>>>
>>> It's not theory, it's measurement to 4 figures, with an error of plus or
>>> minus 0.87 %:
>>>
>>> http://www.universetoday.com/**13371/1373-billion-years-the-**
>>> most-accurate-measurement-of-**the-age-of-the-universe-yet/
>>>
>>> "13.73 Billion Years -- The Most Precise Measurement of the Age of the
>>> Universe Yet
>>> by Ian O'Neill on March 28, 2008
>>> Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on
>>> Twitter
>>>
>>> NASA? Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has taken the best
>>> measurement of the age of the Universe to date.
>>> According to highlyprecise observations of microwave radiation observed
>>> all over the cosmos, WMAP scientists now have the
>>> best estimate yet on the age of the Universe:
>>> 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years (that's an error
>>> margin of only 0.87% ! not bad really).
>>>
>>> The WMAP mission was sent to the Sun-Earth second Lagrangian point (L2),
>>> located approximately 1.5 million km
>>> from the surface of the Earth on the night-side (i.e. WMAP is constantly
>>> in the shadow of the Earth) in 2001.
>>>
>>> The reason for this location is the nature of the gravitational
>>> stability in the region and the lack of
>>> electromagnetic interference from the Sun. Constantly looking out into
>>> space, WMAP scans the
>>> cosmos with its ultra sensitive microwave receiver, mapping any small
>>> variations in the background temperature (anisotropy) of the universe. It
>>> can detect microwave radiation in the wavelength range of 3.3-13.6 mm
>>> (with a corresponding frequency of 90-22 GHz). Warm and cool regions of
>>> space are therefore mapped, including the radiation polarity.
>>>
>>>
>>> Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
>>> 11/11/2012
>>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
>>>
>>>
>>> - Receiving the following content -
>>> From: Russell Standish
>>> Receiver: everything-list
>>> Time: 2012-11-10, 17:39:09
>>> Subject: Re: 14 billion years ago there was a huge explosion
>>>
>>>
>>> Not quite. It has measured that the universe 14 billion year ago was
>>> very different from now, ie very hot and dense. All else is theory -
>>> some theories have a beginning, others don't.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:50:38AM -0500, Roger Clough wrote:
>>>
 Hi Stephen,

Re: How wonderful greed is

2012-11-12 Thread Russell Standish

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 07:11:40AM -0500, Roger Clough wrote:
> Hi Russell Standish  
> 
> Below you infer that economics is a rational activity.
> It isn't. it's close to a branch of psychology. 

You misconstrue me if you think this. Firstly, I'm not an economist,
so my opinions on the subject don't count, but more importantly my
opininion is that neo-classical economics is built as a house of cards
on mathematical fallacies. See my friend Steve Keen's book "Debunking Economics"
for a much better explanation. He is an economist, and was talking
about the GFC several years before before it happened, and as a result
is now being listened to!

As far as the concept of perfect rational agent is concerned, it is a
fiction - but worse than that - it is an inconsistent fiction, as my
comments try to draw out. Of course people do not act as rational
agents, my point is that they cannot even act approximately like
rational agents either. But neo-classical economics is founded on the
concept of rational agent as a corner stone, and as Steve points out,
this one of many fallacies gracing the theories used by our national
treasuries.

As far as your last sentence goes (economics is close to a branch of
psychology), yes of course. The problem is that psychology is a long
way from being a hard, mathematical science. Hari Seldon is a long
distant fantasy :). But economists have "physics envy", so they'd like
to roll up their psychology problems into neat mathematical boxes like
spherical cows, which they label rational. Trouble is, it doesn't work
the way they've done it.

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

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Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?


On 11/12/2012 12:50 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 12 Nov 2012, at 17:08, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 11 Nov 2012, at 21:16, Stephen P. King wrote:



  This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp 
seems to only define a single conscious mind!


?

That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different 
conscious mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite different 
conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and perhaps God.
You might confuse individual persons and the abstract Löbian machine 
common to them.





Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of 
numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a 
plurality of minds.


It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with 
different experiences and minds.


Once I said that I am open to the idea that there is only one first 
person.


If there is only one first person how is the content of such 
completely self-consistent? My problem is that I don't understand how 
all of the possible points of view implied by a plurality of minds can 
be combined together into a single narrative of a self.




 That might also be confused with solipsism.


If there is only one mind that exists then that mind is solipsistic 
by definition; there are no other minds to consider. "... the self is 
the only existing reality and that all other reality, including the 
external world and other persons, are representations of that self, and 
have no independent existence." It seems that minds cannot know of each 
other directly at all.




Again, this is truly even more at the opposite of solipsism. It is the 
case where not only you attribute consciousness to others, but you 
attribute to them your own identity,


What does this mean: "you attribute to them your own identity?

where solipsism denies them consciousness and subjective identity (and 
thus consider them as zombie).


Yes, in the case of strong solipsism, but solipsism is not a bad 
thing if we are careful. One mind cannot know the content of some other 
mind and thus minds 'do not exist' to each other (unless you use my 
weird definition of existence).


To say that there is only person is very natural in the context of the 
WM duplication experience, where from the 3-view,


I do not understand how the 3-view obtains in your thinking. Is 
there an entity that has as its personal 1p the entire content of this 
'3-view"? In my thinking the 3-view is an concept and is not real at all.



you are in both cities,


You are defining "you-ness" or "I-ness" in a strange way. I only 
find myself in one location at any time. I join with John Clark in 
complaining about this strange idea that you are promoting.


and then you differentiate, but you can still consider or understand 
that the doppelganger is "you",


What maintains the identity? What is the invariant under the 
transformations of location?


put in a different context, and then you can generalize and get the 
idea that we are all the same original amoeba,


Ummm, you are thinking of consciousness as if it where a single 
continuous 'fluid" that is distributed over all forms of life?


but put in a quite big set of variate experiences and sensations, 
which deludes us about our identity and we fail to recognize ourselves 
in the others.


This is the greatest failing of humanity in my opinion, the lack of 
empathy.




Bruno





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Stephen


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Re: How wonderful greed is