Re: The Higgs and SUSY vs the Multiverse
On 23 Jul 2014, at 01:05, LizR wrote: On 22 July 2014 23:19, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 11:14, Richard Ruquist wrote: I agree that it does not make any sense. But complain to David Deusch who introduced the multiverse within the universe. We now have two scientific definitions of multiverse and it is very confusing. Richard Well Tegmark made an interesting attempt to classify different notions of many universe, although it does not mention the MV (strings landscape---or does he?) I think his level 2 or maybe 3 is post-inflationary bubbles which I believe are equivalent to the string landscape. , and miss the comp many dreams. Normally all many-things should emerge from the many dreams if comp is true. Well we know you and Tegmark aren't yet in tune regarding consciousness... :-) We were in Tune on this, implicitly at least, when ha talk about QM and Everett MW. I think we know now that Tegmark is not in tune with himself, after he wrote his weird paper on consciousness. But we know also that he does not take into account comp and the FPI into account, so miss that he has to extends Everett's embedding of the physicist in physics by the embedding of the mathematician in mathematics, and this in the same way, which leads to the measure problem. The string landscape MV (thanks to Liz for the precision) is different but not incompatible with Everett MW, although this should lead to multi-multiverses. Other terms don't quite seem to work. Metaverse, Omniverse, Multiplicity ... I quite like the Uberverse, which as far as I know I just made up, but some may disagree. I think Max T's level 4 multiverse is sometimes called Platonia. Poetically, but it is very naive. An expression like mathematical reality is something to be big to make sense. Mathematical logicians know that well. Then with comp the idea that there is more than elementary arithmetic is absolutely undecidable, if only by the hole dream argument. If someone can sum up the relations between SUSY, Higgs, and the string landscape, I would perhaps be able to say more. If not I put the video and references on my already long videos and references list, and might, or not, comment later. it is a difficult subject. I tried to ... to some extent ... in my last post. I think we are in agreement, OK. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: The Higgs and SUSY vs the Multiverse
On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 5:53 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: There should be an Everett style multiverse embedded in the string landscape universe. Perhaps but that's not the only way it could happen, string theory could be wrong and Everett still be right. Everett pointed out that Schrodinger's Wave Equation seems to be saying that everything that could happen does happen, and that seems to be what Andre Linde's theory of Eternal Inflation is saying too. And that's why I thing it's so important to know if the variation in the Big Bang polarization radiation that was announced in March is real or not. If Linde is right then Everett probably is too. if our bubble in the string landscape is infinite (which I think it can be?) then it *itself* contains a MWI style multiverse, Yes So we get a redundant infinity of identical universes (infinity squared ? ,Or cubed Those are all the same sized infinity, to get a larger one you have to go 2^infinity. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: CTM and the UDA (again!)
David, As I try to see if we disagree, or if it is just a problem of vocabulary, I will make comment which might, or not be like I am nitpicking, and that *might* be the case, and then I apologize. On 23 Jul 2014, at 15:38, David Nyman wrote: Recent discussions, mainly with Brent and Bruno, have really got me thinking again about the issues raised by CTM and the UDA. I'll try to summarise some of my thoughts in this post. The first thing to say, I think, is that the assumption of CTM is equivalent to accepting the existence of an effectively self-contained computationally-observable regime (COR). My problem here is that COR is ambiguous. I don't know what you mean by sef-contained computationally-observable regime. It seems to me that UD* *is* such a self-contained computable/ computational structure, and the existence of both the UD and UD* are *theorem* of arithmetic, which means that such a COR does not need to assume CTM (comp). By its very definition, the COR sets the limits of possible physical observation or empirical discovery. In principle, any physical phenomenon, whatever its scale, could be brought under observation if only we had a big enough collider. But by the same token, no matter how big the collider, no such observable could escape its confinement within the limits of the COR. I agree, but why? here a Peter Jones can say: not at all, to have something observable, you need consciousness, and to have consciousness you need a physical primitive reality. If we accept that the existence of a COR is entailed by assuming CTM, we come naturally to the question of what might be doing the computation. How could that not be answered by the existence of COR, or by arithmetic. We know that both the programs and their execution can be proved to exist in elementary arithmetic. The problem comes exclusively from the people who say that *a priori* the computation are not enough, and that they need to be implemented in the primitive physical reality (that they can't define, but the point is logically meaningful until step 8). In terms of the UDA, by the time we get to Step 7, it should be obvious that, in principle, we could build a computer from primitive physical components that would effectively implement the infinite trace of the UD (UD*). Furthermore, if such a computer were indeed to be implemented, the COR would necessarily exist in its entirety somewhere within the infinite redundancy of that trace. It would exist physically, and lead to the same measure problem, forcing the physicalist to bring up an hypothesis that the primitive physical universe is small to avoid the measure problem. This realisation alone might well persuade us, on grounds of explanatory parsimony and the avoidance of somewhat strained or ad hoc reservations, to accept FAPP that UD*-COR. Should we be so persuaded, any putative underlying physical computer would have already become effectively redundant to further explanation. Yes. At step seven, we can already use Occam, and abandon physicalism. At step 8, the move can still be done logically, but it is shown to be a god-of-the-gap move. Notwithstanding this, we may still feel the need to retain reservations of practicability. Perhaps the physical universe isn't actually sufficiently robust to permit the building of such a computer? To build it is not a problem, (I did it), but to run it for a sufficiently long time so that we have a measure problem is different. Or, even if that were granted, could it not just be the case that no such computer actually exists? Well, it exists like prime numbers exists. Same for his execution. Now, I doubt that in a physical universe we can run it *forever*. Reservations of this sort can indeed be articulated, although worryingly, they may still seem to leave us rather vulnerable to being captured by Bostrom-type simulation scenarios. This assume also the existence of computers, and physical computers. The bottom line however seems to be this: Under CTM, can we justify the singularisation, or confinement, of a computation, and hence whatever is deemed to be observable in terms of that computation, to some particular physical computer (e.g. a brain)? More generally, can we limit all possibility of observation to a particular class of computations wholly delimited by the activity of a corresponding sub- class of physical objects (uniquely characterisable as physical computers) within the limits of a definitively physical universe? That problem appears once we agree that a non physical computation can be as conscious as us, and that problems appears at step seven, including its solutions. It is because we will take all computations (going through our mental states) into account that we have a measure problem, which is the stabilization of physical laws problem. Of
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 3:08 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: I don't think the ability to say I know (or believe) I am awake has anything to do with intelligence. If so then it MUST be a byproduct of intelligence because otherwise it would not have evolved, and yet it did at least once. And by the way, when you go about your daily life do you really know that you know things or do you just know things? And do you really take the trouble to know that you know that you know things? The iterations are endless, but it all seems like a big waste of time to me. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Fwd: Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
The funny thing about this is that Sean says it has increased my own personal credence in
the correctness of the Everett approach to quantum mechanics from “pretty high” to
“extremely high indeed.”
Yet his penultimate paragraph is essentially a statement of Fuchs Qbism:
We like this derivation in part because it treats probabilities as epistemic (statements
about our knowledge of the world), not merely operational. Quantum probabilities are
really credences — statements about the best degree of belief we can assign in conditions
of uncertainty — rather than statements about truly stochastic dynamics or frequencies in
the limit of an infinite number of outcomes. But these degrees of belief aren’t completely
subjective in the conventional sense, either; there is a uniquely rational choice for how
to assign them.
Brent
Original Message
Subject: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function
Squared
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 15:21:04 +
From: Sean Carroll donotre...@wordpress.com
To: meeke...@verizon.net
WordPress.com
Sean Carroll posted: One of the most profound and mysterious principles in all of physics
is the Born Rule, named after Max Born. In quantum mechanics, particles don't have
classical properties like position or momentum; rather, there is a wave function that
assigns a (co
New post on *Sean Carroll*
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/?author=4
Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/07/24/why-probability-in-quantum-mechanics-is-given-by-the-wave-function-squared/
by Sean Carroll http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/?author=4
One of the most profound and mysterious principles in all of physics is the Born Rule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_rule, named after Max Born. In quantum mechanics
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/eternitytohere/quantum/, particles don't have
classical properties like position or momentum; rather, there is a wave function
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function that assigns a (complex) number, called the
amplitude, to each possible measurement outcome. The Born Rule is then very simple: it
says that the probability of obtaining any possible measurement outcome is equal to the
square of the corresponding amplitude. (The wave function is just the set of all the
amplitudes.)
*Born Rule:* \mathrm{Probability}(x) = |\mathrm{amplitude}(x)|^2.
The Born Rule is certainly correct, as far as all of our experimental efforts have been
able to discern. But why? Born himself kind of stumbled onto his Rule. Here is an excerpt
from his 1926 paper
http://hermes.ffn.ub.es/luisnavarro/nuevo_maletin/Born_1926_statistical_interpretation.pdf:
Born Rule
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/bornrule.jpeg
That's right. Born's paper was rejected at first, and when it was later accepted by
another journal, he didn't even get the Born Rule right. At first he said the probability
was equal to the amplitude, and only in an added footnote did he correct it to being the
amplitude squared. And a good thing, too, since amplitudes can be negative or even imaginary!
The status of the Born Rule depends greatly on one's preferred formulation of quantum
mechanics
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/05/29/quantum-mechanics-smackdown/. When
we teach quantum mechanics to undergraduate physics majors, we generally give them a list
of postulates that goes something like this:
1. Quantum states are represented by wave functions, which are vectors in a
mathematical
space called Hilbert space http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space.
2. Wave functions evolve in time according to the Schrödinger equation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation.
3. The act of measuring a quantum system returns a number, known as the
eigenvalue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenvalues_and_eigenvectors of the quantity
being
measured.
4. The probability of getting any particular eigenvalue is equal to the square
of the
amplitude for that eigenvalue.
5. After the measurement is performed, the wave function collapses to a new
state in
which the wave function is localized precisely on the observed eigenvalue
(as opposed
to being in a superposition of many different possibilities).
It's an ungainly mess, we all agree. You see that the Born Rule is simply postulated right
there, as #4. Perhaps we can do better.
Of course we can do better, since textbook quantum mechanics is an embarrassment
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/07/quantum-mechanics-is-an-embarrassment/.
There are other formulations, and you know that my own favorite is Everettian
(Many-Worlds) quantum mechanics
Fwd: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
This may clarify (or provoke) discussion of Moscow vs. Washington. It's interesting that
Carroll and Sebens use FPI and Sean says it increases his confidence in Everett's MWI.
But in his penultimate paragraph he essentially lays out an endorsement of Fuchs QBism,
which is generally seen as the instrumentalist alternative to MWI.
Brent
Original Message
Subject: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function
Squared
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 15:21:04 +
From: Sean Carroll donotre...@wordpress.com
To: meeke...@verizon.net
WordPress.com
Sean Carroll posted: One of the most profound and mysterious principles in all of physics
is the Born Rule, named after Max Born. In quantum mechanics, particles don't have
classical properties like position or momentum; rather, there is a wave function that
assigns a (co
New post on *Sean Carroll*
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/?author=4
Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/07/24/why-probability-in-quantum-mechanics-is-given-by-the-wave-function-squared/
by Sean Carroll http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/?author=4
One of the most profound and mysterious principles in all of physics is the Born Rule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_rule, named after Max Born. In quantum mechanics
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/eternitytohere/quantum/, particles don't have
classical properties like position or momentum; rather, there is a wave function
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function that assigns a (complex) number, called the
amplitude, to each possible measurement outcome. The Born Rule is then very simple: it
says that the probability of obtaining any possible measurement outcome is equal to the
square of the corresponding amplitude. (The wave function is just the set of all the
amplitudes.)
*Born Rule:* \mathrm{Probability}(x) = |\mathrm{amplitude}(x)|^2.
The Born Rule is certainly correct, as far as all of our experimental efforts have been
able to discern. But why? Born himself kind of stumbled onto his Rule. Here is an excerpt
from his 1926 paper
http://hermes.ffn.ub.es/luisnavarro/nuevo_maletin/Born_1926_statistical_interpretation.pdf:
Born Rule
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/bornrule.jpeg
That's right. Born's paper was rejected at first, and when it was later accepted by
another journal, he didn't even get the Born Rule right. At first he said the probability
was equal to the amplitude, and only in an added footnote did he correct it to being the
amplitude squared. And a good thing, too, since amplitudes can be negative or even imaginary!
The status of the Born Rule depends greatly on one's preferred formulation of quantum
mechanics
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/05/29/quantum-mechanics-smackdown/. When
we teach quantum mechanics to undergraduate physics majors, we generally give them a list
of postulates that goes something like this:
1. Quantum states are represented by wave functions, which are vectors in a
mathematical
space called Hilbert space http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space.
2. Wave functions evolve in time according to the Schrödinger equation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation.
3. The act of measuring a quantum system returns a number, known as the
eigenvalue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenvalues_and_eigenvectors of the quantity
being
measured.
4. The probability of getting any particular eigenvalue is equal to the square
of the
amplitude for that eigenvalue.
5. After the measurement is performed, the wave function collapses to a new
state in
which the wave function is localized precisely on the observed eigenvalue
(as opposed
to being in a superposition of many different possibilities).
It's an ungainly mess, we all agree. You see that the Born Rule is simply postulated right
there, as #4. Perhaps we can do better.
Of course we can do better, since textbook quantum mechanics is an embarrassment
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/07/quantum-mechanics-is-an-embarrassment/.
There are other formulations, and you know that my own favorite is Everettian
(Many-Worlds) quantum mechanics
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/30/why-the-many-worlds-formulation-of-quantum-mechanics-is-probably-correct/.
(I'm sorry I was too busy to contribute to the active comment thread on that post. On the
other hand, a vanishingly small percentage of the 200+ comments actually addressed the
point of the article, which was that the potential for many worlds is automatically there
in the wave function no matter what formulation you favor. Everett simply takes them
seriously, while alternatives need to go to extra efforts to erase them. As Ted Bunn
argues
Re: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
On 24 July 2014 18:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This may clarify (or provoke) discussion of Moscow vs. Washington. It's interesting that Carroll and Sebens use FPI and Sean says it increases his confidence in Everett's MWI. But in his penultimate paragraph he essentially lays out an endorsement of Fuchs QBism, which is generally seen as the instrumentalist alternative to MWI. Brent, could you possibly summarise what you see as the essential distinction between the CS and Fuchs alternatives for dummies? David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: It Knows That It Knows
I did read Hoffstader years ago. An organ is not totally alike a social insect colony. The electrons are moved at upper Newtonian, rather then via neurons, saavy? You don't have your liver trailing down the street after you. Why does that make it a poor analogy? Is there something essentialabout electrochemical potentials of axons? Aren't neurons rewardedby retrieving and integrating information (which are justexcitations to them). Have you not read Douglas Hofstader's conversation with anant-colony in Godel, Escher, and Bach? Brent -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Jul 22, 2014 5:57 pm Subject: Re: It Knows That It Knows On 7/22/2014 2:45 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: Ant colonies are not hooked together by neurons passing electrons, but yhe are integrated, by phermones, and behavior, such as rewards for retrieving food. Bees are even more this way. So its a poor analogy comparing a human with a termite hive. Why does that make it a poor analogy? Is there something essential about electrochemical potentials of axons? Aren't neurons rewardedby retrieving and integrating information (which are justexcitations to them). Have you not read Douglas Hofstader's conversation with anant-colony in Godel, Escher, and Bach? Brent Now ant colonies, versus human cities is much more accurate! Getting cosmic, do areas of spacetime have conscious, self awareness? Do planck cells have this, and are they interconnected? Do boltzmann brains have this? How intelligent would they be? Could we communicate with such phenomenal minds? -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: 22-Jul-2014 16:27:08 + Subject: Re: It Knows That It Knows On 7/22/2014 11:57 AM,John Mikes wrote: Bruno and Kim: what SELF would you consider in e.g. ants? if we realize the highly merged (individualized?) group-self - the answer is different from taking the present individual (simplified DOWN to functional minimum composition units) 'ant' and trying to assign a 'self' to such partial(?) entity. We may see the beginnings of such communalization in human societies as well. We feel as part of a larger unit in certain aspects. A human is a colony of cells, pretty much like an ant colony. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
On 7/24/2014 11:09 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 24 July 2014 18:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This may clarify (or provoke) discussion of Moscow vs. Washington. It's interesting that Carroll and Sebens use FPI and Sean says it increases his confidence in Everett's MWI. But in his penultimate paragraph he essentially lays out an endorsement of Fuchs QBism, which is generally seen as the instrumentalist alternative to MWI. Brent, could you possibly summarise what you see as the essential distinction between the CS and Fuchs alternatives for dummies? I'd need to study CS's paper a little, I just read Sean's blog summary. But Fuch's quantum Bayesianism says that the collapse of the wave function is just like the collapse of a classical probability distribution when we learn the value of the random variable. It's purely epistemic. It's a sort of instrumentalism. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: CTM and the UDA (again!)
HI Jesse, David, On 23 Jul 2014, at 18:49, Jesse Mazer wrote: Had some trouble following your post (in part because I don't know all the acronyms), but are you talking about the basic problem of deciding which computations a particular physical process can be said to implement or instantiate? If so, see my post at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list%40googlegroups.com/msg43484.html and Bruno's response at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list%40googlegroups.com/msg43489.html . I think from Bruno's response that he agrees that there is a well- defined way of deciding whether one abstract computation implements/ instantiates some other abstract computation within itself (like if I have computation A which is a detailed molecular-level simulation of a physical computer, and the simulated computer is running another simpler computation B, then the abstract computation A can be said to implement computation B within itself). So, why not adopt a Tegmark-like view where a physical universe is *nothing more* than a particular abstract computation, and that can give us a well-defined notion of which sub-computations are performed within it by various physical processes? This approach could also perhaps allow us to define the number of separate instances of a given sub-computation within the larger computation that we call the universe, giving some type of measure on different subcomputations within that computational universe (useful for things like Bostrom's self-sampling assumption, which in this case would say we should reason as if we were randomly chosen from all self-aware subcomputations). So for example, if many copies of a given AI program are run in parallel in a computational universe, that AI could have a larger measure within that computational universe than an AI program that is only ever run once within it...of course, this does not rule out the possibility that there are other parallel computational universes where the second program is run more often, as would be implied by Tegmark's thesis and also by Bruno's UDA. But there is still at least the theoretical possibility that the multiverse is false and that only one unique computational universe exists, so the idea that all possible universes/computations are equally real cannot be said to follow logically from COMP. To have the computations, all you need is a sigma_1 complete theory and/or a Turing universal machine, or system, or language. It would take many pages to describe formally elementary arithmetic (including the formal predicate calculus), which is indeed already such a sigma_1 complete system/machine/theory, but a simpler one can be given in less line, like the Putnam-Davis-Robinson-Matiyazevic-Jone universal diophantine polynomials. Or the combinators, whose sigma_1 complete theory is given by the axioms x = x x = y y = z -. x = z xy = xz / y = z yx = zx / y = z Kxy = x Sxyz = xz(yz) (I recall that a combinator is either K or S, or a combination of combinators (X, Y), so a combinator is for example (K (K S)) S) which we abbreviate K(KS)S as we can suppress all the left parenthesis for ease of readability. You can compute ((K K) K), or better KKK. By the second axiom you get KKK = K. But K(KK) does not match any axioms, and thus stay calm: K(KK) gives K(KK) as a stopping result. For the theory of everything, we need no more. Oh, well to avoid having just one combinators, you can add the axiom ~(K = S), but for the ontology it is not really needed. It is a Turing universal language, and all universal interpreters can be coded through a combinator. In particular, you can easily find combinators which mirrors faithfully the sigma_1 complete part of arithmetic, like you can find combinators which solves the PDRMJ universal diophantine polynomial equation. In that theory, we can define those very theories formally, and they all are instances of universal combinators, or universal numbers. A computation is what a number do relatively to a universal number. But by the FPI, a physical computation will be the one done, strictly speaking, by infinities of universal (and non universal also) numbers/ combinators. The absolute (relative measure) laws does not depend of choosing arithmetic, or combinators, that is, the laws of physics will not depend on the choice of the universal numbers. But the winner, or winners which support(s) and stabilize(s) your current state of mind is unknown, today. Except that when you interview the löbian machine, which are those who knows that they are sigma_1 complete, that they know that they are Turing universal, then you get that the winner has some quantum favor, as the many dreams in the combinatoric reality (the FPI on the sigma_1 complete reality). David, I think that with the combinators, I might more quickly explains different senses of going
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 23 Jul 2014, at 20:14, meekerdb wrote: On 7/23/2014 9:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Intelligence is more simple. It is, I think the natural state of the virgin universal machine. What's a UTM with no program? A Gift of God. It is a universal machine virgin of any program. A computer without application. An interpreter without program, nor data. Some years ago, you could buy them at the store, and program them at their basic level, in binary, or in hexadecimal. Or, in assembly language, or in any virtual universal numbers they will get. Today they are full of applications, whose codes are the numbers that the universal number, the UTM, will emulate. From the 1p view, It is you, I think. But, like the modern computer, the universality is hidden by the forest of applications. You might remember what it is, to be a UTM without programs, by taking holiday (a good approximation, perhaps) or by doing a sense deprivation experience, or in the sleep, or with dissociative technics, or just letting go. A universal number is a number which can compute all the phi_i. It is itself a certain u, computing a universal function phi_u: phi_u(i,j) = phi_i(j). For all i, j. The data of the universal program u is i, the program for phi_i, and j, the data of the program i that u will imitate on j. i,j is a number coding the giving of i and j. Here the UTM without program is u itself. The 3p-self of u is u. The 3p activity of u is given by the function phi_u. The 1p self of u is, well, like I describe above, it is you, without thinking to much and letting go the mundane representational identifications. If you try, unplug the phone, as the ringing of a phone is already a data/programs stream enough to prevent the remembering of the innocent time without applications, or, in case you got it, to wake you up to the rich but hard reality of the UTM with programs, tasks, news, bills, etc. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 23 Jul 2014, at 20:35, meekerdb wrote: On 7/23/2014 10:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 18:14, meekerdb wrote: On 7/22/2014 12:08 AM, Kim Jones wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 2:55 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: What part of your brain is more evolved than a cat's brain that allows you to say I know? I'm just guessing but maybe the Neocortex because it's the biggest anatomical difference between a cat's brain and mine. But I do know one thing for certain, whatever part it is if it evolved then it effects behavior; and if it effects behavior then the Turing Test works for consciousness and not just intelligence. John K Clark Are you saying that there is no consciousness without intelligence? I believe (up to here at least) consciousness can exist minus intelligence. Also, many things going on in the brain affect behaviour without necessarily having any impact on consciousness at all. I don't think the ability to say I know (or believe) I am awake has anything to do with intelligence. But it does require consciousness (even if asleep and dreaming that you said that.) What I am driving at is that it is vaguely impossible to understand anything 1p in a 3p manner. I think that is based on an unexamined idea of understand. Suppose I could monitor your brain with a super-fMRI and after long experimentation and mapping I could 'see' every thought, including distinguishing which were conscious and which weren't. And suppose using this information I could create a functional model of your brain so that given the various inputs and environmental effects, I could predict exactly what you would think, at least a few minutes in advance. And further, using this knowledge, I could use electrostimulation to cause you to have specific thoughts. And having attained this level of knowledge of many human brains, I can now make brains to order having various characteristics: musical ability, empathy, humor,... Now you will say I have not understood anything 1p (in fact my model predicts you will), but I would reply, OK, what else is there to understand? The difference between being the one knowing that he is in Washington and believing that he has a copy in Moscow with being the one knowing that he is in Moscow and believing that he has a copy in Washington. That difference is easily modelled in the physics and the fact that one will see Moscow and one will see Washington and each will remember Helsinki. I don't understand what difference you think is not understood. The description you give is pure 3p symmetrical. But now you have agreed that both diaries will describe an asymmetrical event: one will contain I am in W and not in M, and the other will contain I am in M and not in W. In the 3p view, the two diaries have not break the symmetry. But all diaries describes the breaking of that symmetry. You miss the experience of the guys, and the fact that if you believe we are machine, then we have to justify the stability of the observable from the solution of the measure problem, on the sigma_1 sentences (with oracles) Once you take it into account you can, by some work, understand that such a soul, subject, person, is not that easily related to a physical process. With comp, it is automatically related with infinitely computations, and that leads to interesting problems in math suggestion new ways to conceive the things rationally. You miss, and perhaps David's too (?), the fact that above a threshold of relative complexity, the lower level is not relevant for the description of the higher level. It would be like asking why Obama has been elected?, and getting back the answer: everything followed the SWE. That's David's explanation=elimination, not mine. OK. It is the point I agree with you, which indeed makes comp closer to materialism type of reductionism, except it reduce everything to your favorite universal number, and then describe the infinitely complex relations that numbers can develop above their substitution level, as from below they are confronted to a infinite sum of machine. Then you miss the *key* thing (well for those interested in the mind-body problem) that many people miss it; but not David. Nor the Ancients. It the mode of the subject, the hero behind the mask. Who is he? The modern seems to want to eliminate it. I want to show that it has no answer in the terms it is asked. (smile). Well, here I agree with David. Honestly, I think that is a physicalist prejudice. I think you are just not really interested in that subject (pun included). Thanks to incompleteness, machines already get refractory to that elimination, and known the 1p-3p difference. Here, it is that once you take the higher level description into account, with their relative independence, you have also to take into
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 23 Jul 2014, at 21:59, David Nyman wrote: On 23 July 2014 18:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: You miss, and perhaps David's too (?), the fact that above a threshold of relative complexity, the lower level is not relevant for the description of the higher level. It would be like asking why Obama has been elected?, and getting back the answer: everything followed the SWE. Hmm...Well, I originally suggested that the knower *couldn't* simply be reduced to computation or numbers, unlike the case of physical reducibility. In my view, the presence of a 1p knower is what retrospectively justifies realism about higher-level 3p structures with which the knower is to be associated. To see what I mean, let's assume that there is some putative ontology that can't in principle be used to justify the presence of such a knower. Any higher-level scenario conceived in terms of such an ontology is then vulnerable to a particularly pernicious species of zombie reductionism. It isn't merely that the radical absence of first person-hood leaves in its wake nothing but zombies with 3p functional bodies but no consciousness. It's much more radical than that. The zombie body is now radically lacking in existence-for-itself. Consequently, the distinction between any such putative body and its ontological reduction is a differentiation without a difference. To put it another way, there is nobody present for whom it could represent a difference. It still exist, or the difference 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... will need itself a knower to make sense. But with comp, we don't need more than the elementary arithmetic truth, to eventually make a knower by filtering the truth by a body or a representational set of beliefs. Rough artificial cops on the road, made in woods are zombies, but their existence still makes senses in the 3p, for a putative observer present of not. We the computational histories existe logically before the consciousness flux differentiate into knower interpreting themselves, if we want use the computation as defined in the usual 3p theoretical computer science. I realise this may be difficult to accept, for example in the case of Deep Blue that you posed to me. However, imagine re-posing this case with respect to an ontology with which (let us assume) a knower could not *in principle* be associated. That might not be as easy as you think, but let us see. In that case there could be no effective distinction between Deep Blue and its physical reduction, Why? That's not true. In UD* Deep blue has the time to play basically all chess games, perhaps even with all humans, much before the UD get the simulation of our good real blue at the level of the atoms of its late real incarnation. Even in the 3p, Deep blue is already more in its code, goal, strategies, examples, and high level skills, like his elementary belief in a the token of the game, the position on the chessboard. Even that abstract guy would survive, if we implement it in the Babbage machine. It is not a knower in the comp sense, because it has no well defined set of beliefs that he can express, but it might already experience something, hard to say without looking at the code (I think it is still in large part brut force, and that it does not represent itself to play, so we have not enough to apply Theaetetus). since we have ruled out, by assumption, the possibility of persons to whom this could represent a difference. Except the difference between being, and not being, relatively to some universal reality. The soul has a third person origin, even God has a third person origin, as the outer God is a complete 3p reality (arithmetical truth, or the sigma_1 part). What might prevent us from seeing this is that we can't help imagining the proposed scenario from a God's-eye perspective. God then takes the role of the knower and sees that Deep Blue is still there. Thus we have unwittingly justified our ascription of Deep Blue to some aspect of the generalised ontology by divine retrospection. That makes sense. The outer God gave rise to the inner God which contemplate the outer God, and eventually they can join, and separate again, in the course of many lives, inside and in between people. With comp the outer god, the ontological basic reality is a 3p structure, just enough infinite. It is an open question if this is conscious, and willing. Plotinus also has difficulty there. I guess it is the abramanic jump, ... open question. I search. I am rereading the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita, it might help for this. Bruno David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 7/24/2014 1:37 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 23 Jul 2014, at 20:35, meekerdb wrote: On 7/23/2014 10:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 18:14, meekerdb wrote: On 7/22/2014 12:08 AM, Kim Jones wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 2:55 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: What part of your brain is more evolved than a cat's brain that allows you to say I know? I'm just guessing but maybe the Neocortex because it's the biggest anatomical difference between a cat's brain and mine. But I do know one thing for certain, whatever part it is if it evolved then it effects behavior; and if it effects behavior then the Turing Test works for consciousness and not just intelligence. John K Clark Are you saying that there is no consciousness without intelligence? I believe (up to here at least) consciousness can exist minus intelligence. Also, many things going on in the brain affect behaviour without necessarily having any impact on consciousness at all. I don't think the ability to say I know (or believe) I am awake has anything to do with intelligence. But it does require consciousness (even if asleep and dreaming that you said that.) What I am driving at is that it is vaguely impossible to understand anything 1p in a 3p manner. I think that is based on an unexamined idea of understand. Suppose I could monitor your brain with a super-fMRI and after long experimentation and mapping I could 'see' every thought, including distinguishing which were conscious and which weren't. And suppose using this information I could create a functional model of your brain so that given the various inputs and environmental effects, I could predict exactly what you would think, at least a few minutes in advance. And further, using this knowledge, I could use electrostimulation to cause you to have specific thoughts. And having attained this level of knowledge of many human brains, I can now make brains to order having various characteristics: musical ability, empathy, humor,... Now you will say I have not understood anything 1p (in fact my model predicts you will), but I would reply, OK, what else is there to understand? The difference between being the one knowing that he is in Washington and believing that he has a copy in Moscow with being the one knowing that he is in Moscow and believing that he has a copy in Washington. That difference is easily modelled in the physics and the fact that one will see Moscow and one will see Washington and each will remember Helsinki. I don't understand what difference you think is not understood. The description you give is pure 3p symmetrical. But now you have agreed that both diaries will describe an asymmetrical event: one will contain I am in W and not in M, and the other will contain I am in M and not in W. In the 3p view, the two diaries have not break the symmetry. But all diaries describes the breaking of that symmetry. So what? It is a result easily predicted by my physical model. You miss the experience of the guys, and the fact that if you believe we are machine, then we have to justify the stability of the observable from the solution of the measure problem, on the sigma_1 sentences (with oracles) No, you have leaped a big gap from believe we are a machine to all the conclusions of the UDA. I still don't know what you mean by the experience of the guys. Ex hypothesi my physical model predicts exactly what each one will do and say, including reports of this experience and non-verbal signals. So I think you just saying I am missing the qualia - but that's the part that I think it is unreasonable to ask for an explanation of. In what terms can it be explained - I'd say none. And I don't think your explanation in terms of computation, while different and interesting, is any more complete than my physical one. Brent Once you take it into account you can, by some work, understand that such a soul, subject, person, is not that easily related to a physical process. With comp, it is automatically related with infinitely computations, and that leads to interesting problems in math suggestion new ways to conceive the things rationally. You miss, and perhaps David's too (?), the fact that above a threshold of relative complexity, the lower level is not relevant for the description of the higher level. It would be like asking why Obama has been elected?, and getting back the answer: everything followed the SWE. That's David's explanation=elimination, not mine. OK. It is the point I agree with you, which indeed makes comp closer to materialism type of reductionism, except it reduce everything to your favorite universal number, and then describe the infinitely complex relations that numbers can develop above their substitution level, as from below they are confronted to a infinite sum of machine. Then you miss the *key* thing (well
Re: The Higgs and SUSY vs the Multiverse
On 25 July 2014 02:38, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 5:53 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: There should be an Everett style multiverse embedded in the string landscape universe. Perhaps but that's not the only way it could happen, string theory could be wrong and Everett still be right. Sure. I meant should - given that both theories are correct. Everett pointed out that Schrodinger's Wave Equation seems to be saying that everything that could happen does happen, and that seems to be what Andre Linde's theory of Eternal Inflation is saying too. And that's why I thing it's so important to know if the variation in the Big Bang polarization radiation that was announced in March is real or not. If Linde is right then Everett probably is too. They may even become the same thing expressed differently. I am also looking forward to whether BICEP2 is supported by further observation. if our bubble in the string landscape is infinite (which I think it can be?) then it *itself* contains a MWI style multiverse, Yes So we get a redundant infinity of identical universes (infinity squared ? ,Or cubed Those are all the same sized infinity, to get a larger one you have to go 2^infinity. Yes, indeed. And the redundancy doesn't help with any measure problems (although I suspect those ARE a limitation of human maths or at least something we have yet to understand. Maybe we need another Cantor...) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
Cultural determism is incompatible with natural selection. That was plainly demonstrated by Symons in his book The evolution of human sexuality ,but it is common sense among evolutionists of any kind. Suppose that human culture determines human behaviour. Then suppose a mutant that use culture to manipulate others in order to increase his own reproductive succes, so that for example manipulate others for breeding his own kids. then this mutant very fast substitute the culturally manipulable individuals. That´s all. it is simple . It´s nt? Cultural determinism is not a evolutionarily stable strategy. Period. Thanks for your attention and bye. 2014-07-19 13:52 GMT+02:00, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:43 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: There are optimimums toward what we aim to. That a mother kill his son because she don´t feel capable to breed him does not man that this is as good as not killing him and having enoug resources and support to carry along. Both things are natural and adaptive. but the former is bad and the other is good. Anyone can distinguish between both. I can distinguish between feeling good and feeling bad. I prefer feeling good. Unfortunately for me, it is rarely clear which actions make me feel good in the long term. Exercise seems to work better than other, more metaphysical prescriptions. The world is full of advice on how to be good and feel good. I tried quite a few, and they rarely work. What usually works is self-discovery through deliberate personal inquiry. I suspect that if you are sufficiently wise, you refrain from giving advice -- live and let live. I was forced to go to catholic school for 6 years. They tried to teach me what was good and bad. I never felt so miserable. Here I agree with you: possibly we have some evolutionary mechanism that makes us feel overt dominance as pain. Some people are forced to endure that pain until they get used to it, I was lucky enough to be able to escape it. Abortion doesn't really affect me. I'll have to be honest: I don't care. I don't feel anything about it. Maybe I would if I was a parent, I don't know. My parents were strongly agains abortion, so I have to assume this is just my natural response. I am not a psychopath, I feel strong empathy for certain types of human suffering. For example, seeing homeless and/or mentally ill people affects me emotionally in a quite strong fashion. Societies are similar. Of course, they can go from good to bad. And of course that as humans we have prefered states. Don´t you? Yes, but my preferred states appear to be quite different from those of other people. Diversity seems to be intrinsic to the human condition. So I am very suspicious of broad claims. I don´t know what you don´t understand , neither what this question has in common whith what I said above. You say, for example, that cultural determinism has been refuted. But I don't think this accurate. I claim that such conclusion comes from a misunderstanding of what evolution is and what it produces. 2014-07-18 20:24 GMT+02:00, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: Alberto, What I don't understand in your reasoning is how you can take evolution as the ultimate theory on humans behavior and, at the same time, believe that culture is becoming degenerate and that we should personally take stock and do something about it. Surely these new tribes that you despise are also a product of evolution? You seem to anthropomorphize evolution, as if it had some goal or preferred state. Evolution is a self-referential, self-adaptive process. It can generate mind-boggling complexity, yet you seem to believe that organisms susceptible to cultural determinism are not on the table. It is also orders of magnitude slower than our brains. Cheers Telmo. On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 7:44 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Additionally, I don´t know how to remark that you systematically forget the notion that the rejection of God as a coverup for the rejection of God´s creation, a rejection of the current state of nature and society. If that were not the case, it would not make sense the rejection of something with no effects watsoever in life. For the atheist, God's creation is nothing but the poisonous effects in the minds of people, so that they do not show (epic fanfares start to sound) the complete unfolding of human potentialities But that cultural determinism has been refuted time ago, despite the fact that it remain in fashion and gives comfortable seats in politics and the university. Gender studies, gender politics etc etc etc. But it has been refuted. It is just a matter of taking seriously natural selection and applying it to the human being. Natural laws are not compatible with cultural determinism. Period. You can take a look at the
Re: Atheist
On 25 July 2014 10:21, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Cultural determism is incompatible with natural selection. Pardon my ignorance, but what is cultural determinism? (Or what would it be, if there was such a thing?) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
Oh, OK, WIkipedia! (oops!) *Cultural determinism* is the belief that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral levels. This supports the theory that environmental influences dominate who we are instead of biologically inherited traits. That sounds a bit like blank-slateism, the idea that humans are somehow divorced from their genetic inheritance and can be adapted to any purpose via acculturalism, if that's the word. I generally feel this is untrue, partly due to twin studies and so on, and partly because I'm not sure what it would mean if it was true... however, obviously culture has an *influence* on people. If you're born in 1930 you probably think the Beatles ruined popular music, or something. In 1940, you think the opposite. And so on. On 25 July 2014 10:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 25 July 2014 10:21, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Cultural determism is incompatible with natural selection. Pardon my ignorance, but what is cultural determinism? (Or what would it be, if there was such a thing?) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
Too much time lost with people that make his imaginary victimization the justification for anything. I attract no girls? that´s because religion. Am I mean and not very intelligent? Tha´ts because capitalism. Do I have a ugly looking face? That is because the Church. And too much diversity syrup makes me vomit 2014-07-25 0:21 GMT+02:00, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com: Cultural determism is incompatible with natural selection. That was plainly demonstrated by Symons in his book The evolution of human sexuality ,but it is common sense among evolutionists of any kind. Suppose that human culture determines human behaviour. Then suppose a mutant that use culture to manipulate others in order to increase his own reproductive succes, so that for example manipulate others for breeding his own kids. then this mutant very fast substitute the culturally manipulable individuals. That´s all. it is simple . It´s nt? Cultural determinism is not a evolutionarily stable strategy. Period. Thanks for your attention and bye. 2014-07-19 13:52 GMT+02:00, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:43 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: There are optimimums toward what we aim to. That a mother kill his son because she don´t feel capable to breed him does not man that this is as good as not killing him and having enoug resources and support to carry along. Both things are natural and adaptive. but the former is bad and the other is good. Anyone can distinguish between both. I can distinguish between feeling good and feeling bad. I prefer feeling good. Unfortunately for me, it is rarely clear which actions make me feel good in the long term. Exercise seems to work better than other, more metaphysical prescriptions. The world is full of advice on how to be good and feel good. I tried quite a few, and they rarely work. What usually works is self-discovery through deliberate personal inquiry. I suspect that if you are sufficiently wise, you refrain from giving advice -- live and let live. I was forced to go to catholic school for 6 years. They tried to teach me what was good and bad. I never felt so miserable. Here I agree with you: possibly we have some evolutionary mechanism that makes us feel overt dominance as pain. Some people are forced to endure that pain until they get used to it, I was lucky enough to be able to escape it. Abortion doesn't really affect me. I'll have to be honest: I don't care. I don't feel anything about it. Maybe I would if I was a parent, I don't know. My parents were strongly agains abortion, so I have to assume this is just my natural response. I am not a psychopath, I feel strong empathy for certain types of human suffering. For example, seeing homeless and/or mentally ill people affects me emotionally in a quite strong fashion. Societies are similar. Of course, they can go from good to bad. And of course that as humans we have prefered states. Don´t you? Yes, but my preferred states appear to be quite different from those of other people. Diversity seems to be intrinsic to the human condition. So I am very suspicious of broad claims. I don´t know what you don´t understand , neither what this question has in common whith what I said above. You say, for example, that cultural determinism has been refuted. But I don't think this accurate. I claim that such conclusion comes from a misunderstanding of what evolution is and what it produces. 2014-07-18 20:24 GMT+02:00, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: Alberto, What I don't understand in your reasoning is how you can take evolution as the ultimate theory on humans behavior and, at the same time, believe that culture is becoming degenerate and that we should personally take stock and do something about it. Surely these new tribes that you despise are also a product of evolution? You seem to anthropomorphize evolution, as if it had some goal or preferred state. Evolution is a self-referential, self-adaptive process. It can generate mind-boggling complexity, yet you seem to believe that organisms susceptible to cultural determinism are not on the table. It is also orders of magnitude slower than our brains. Cheers Telmo. On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 7:44 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Additionally, I don´t know how to remark that you systematically forget the notion that the rejection of God as a coverup for the rejection of God´s creation, a rejection of the current state of nature and society. If that were not the case, it would not make sense the rejection of something with no effects watsoever in life. For the atheist, God's creation is nothing but the poisonous effects in the minds of people, so that they do not show (epic fanfares start to sound) the complete unfolding of human potentialities But that cultural determinism has
Re: Atheist
From: Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com And too much diversity syrup makes me vomit Seems you choose to do much of your vomiting on this list; is there some reason you feel so compelled to share your vomit? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
And in any case 'natural selection' would just be replaced by 'cultural selection' - which is natural. Brent On 7/24/2014 3:42 PM, LizR wrote: Oh, OK, WIkipedia! (oops!) *Cultural determinism*is the belief that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral levels. This supports the theory that environmental influences dominate who we are instead of biologically inherited traits. That sounds a bit like blank-slateism, the idea that humans are somehow divorced from their genetic inheritance and can be adapted to any purpose via acculturalism, if that's the word. I generally feel this is untrue, partly due to twin studies and so on, and partly because I'm not sure what it would mean if it was true... however, obviously culture has an /influence/ on people. If you're born in 1930 you probably think the Beatles ruined popular music, or something. In 1940, you think the opposite. And so on. On 25 July 2014 10:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 25 July 2014 10:21, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com mailto:agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Cultural determism is incompatible with natural selection. Pardon my ignorance, but what is cultural determinism? (Or what would it be, if there was such a thing?) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
On 25 July 2014 11:27, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: And in any case 'natural selection' would just be replaced by 'cultural selection' - which is natural. What is 'cultural selection' ? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 4:49 PM Subject: Re: Atheist On 25 July 2014 11:27, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: And in any case 'natural selection' would just be replaced by 'cultural selection' - which is natural. What is 'cultural selection' ? An ape figures out how to insert a palm frond down into a termite nest and is able to harvest a bonanza of good termite protein... soon other apes in the vicinity begin mimicking the original creative ape... with some of them learning how to perform this new neat trick (others ignoring it and still others failing to master the new skill)... in time -- if compelling enough -- the idea spreads throughout the larger grouping of culturally inter-acting apes and many of the members of the larger inter-acting group learn the new valuable technique mother apes (who have mastered the termite feeding learned behavior) begin teaching their own offspring this new valuable survival skill. After some generations the culturally learned technique is firmly established in this particular ape sub-culture, while remaining absent in other ape sub-cultures of the same species that have not been exposed to this new cultural evolution. A successful *cultural innovation* will spread (or conversely fail to propagate) in a similar manner (through a different modality of course) as biologically encoded evolution. Good ideas -- i.e. those with high survival fitness -- will tend to spread through an interacting group of individuals in a given culture, who are in fairly close contact with each other. Sometimes bad ideas will spread, but it is rarer. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
On 25 July 2014 12:48, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: -- *From:* LizR lizj...@gmail.com *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Sent:* Thursday, July 24, 2014 4:49 PM *Subject:* Re: Atheist On 25 July 2014 11:27, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: And in any case 'natural selection' would just be replaced by 'cultural selection' - which is natural. What is 'cultural selection' ? An ape figures out how to insert a palm frond down into a termite nest and is able to harvest a bonanza of good termite protein... soon other apes in the vicinity begin mimicking the original creative ape... with some of them learning how to perform this new neat trick (others ignoring it and still others failing to master the new skill)... in time -- if compelling enough -- the idea spreads throughout the larger grouping of culturally inter-acting apes and many of the members of the larger inter-acting group learn the new valuable technique mother apes (who have mastered the termite feeding learned behavior) begin teaching their own offspring this new valuable survival skill. After some generations the culturally learned technique is firmly established in this particular ape sub-culture, while remaining absent in other ape sub-cultures of the same species that have not been exposed to this new cultural evolution. A successful *cultural innovation* will spread (or conversely fail to propagate) in a similar manner (through a different modality of course) as biologically encoded evolution. Good ideas -- i.e. those with high survival fitness -- will tend to spread through an interacting group of individuals in a given culture, who are in fairly close contact with each other. I agree that this would have been useful in a situation like that. Do you think this is still happening in Western culture? A lot of memes appear to not have any specific survival value, although some are undoubtedly useful. But the vast majority seem to just be what happens to be fashionable at the moment - which is often the result of the whole meme thing having been hijacked to benefit a few individuals. Sometimes bad ideas will spread, but it is rarer. I can think of a few which have negative reproductive / survival value but have nevertheless spread, especially religious ones. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
On 7/24/2014 4:49 PM, LizR wrote: On 25 July 2014 11:27, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: And in any case 'natural selection' would just be replaced by 'cultural selection' - which is natural. What is 'cultural selection' ? I think there are two kinds. One comes from competition between cultures. Supplanting one culture by another - as Engish culture supplanted aboriginal culture in Australia. The other is the influence of a culture on the reproductive success of individuals, e.g. being a great rock singer is good for your reproductive success in modern America. Doesn't help in Saudi Arabia. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
On 25 July 2014 13:32, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/24/2014 4:49 PM, LizR wrote: On 25 July 2014 11:27, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: And in any case 'natural selection' would just be replaced by 'cultural selection' - which is natural. What is 'cultural selection' ? I think there are two kinds. One comes from competition between cultures. Supplanting one culture by another - as Engish culture supplanted aboriginal culture in Australia. The other is the influence of a culture on the reproductive success of individuals, e.g. being a great rock singer is good for your reproductive success in modern America. Doesn't help in Saudi Arabia. Yes, that seems reasonable. But it's mainly to do with relatively unusual situations, at least in our current society - cultural clashes and behavioural extremes. I'm not sure what the connection is with cultural determinism, which seems more to do with what is considered acceptable behaviour and suchlike - i.e. determining general day to day behaviour, rather than what happens in exceptional situations. This is however a subject with an awful lot of grey areas... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
