RE: FW: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
[I will assume that Brent meant to forward this to the list, his mailer often seems to send replies only to me.] Brent wrote: -Original Message- From: Hal Finney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 5:06 AM To: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: RE: FW: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness Brent Meeker writes: From: Hal Finney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, I think it is enough that I have thought of the concept! Or more accurately, I think it is enough that the concept is thinkable-of. Why bother with the computer at all. Since you're just conceptualizing the computer (it is actually going to do anything) and all the computer would do would be to produce some other bit-string, given the input bit-string; why not just think of all possible bit-strings. Isn't that what Bruno's UDA does - generate all possible bit strings. But since they only have to be thinkable-of, it seems all this talk about bit-strings and computers is otiose. The universe is thinkable-of, therefore it exists. Yes, I think that is true too. But the bit strings, interpreted as programs, are crucial for the whole theory to be able to make predictions. The idea is that the bit string is a compressed representation of the universe. Only universes which are lawful are compressible. Hence, lawful universes can be represented by small bit strings, which have greater measure. You are right that our universe exists, as its literal, expansive, redundant self; but it also exists in the form of the many different programs that would generate it. Only the shortest such programs make a significant contribution to the measure, so the long-form, literal representation of the universe doesn't even matter. But it's the idea of representation that bothers me. I think representation is a trinary relation, Rxyz = x represents y to z; not a binary one. Also, to apply Chatian's idea of algorithmic compression requires that the universe be infinite - all finite sequences are equally compressible. I'm not sure how to interpret the z in x represents y to z. If a computer generates string y from string x, is the computer the z? And as for Chaitin's algorithmic complexity, I am afraid that you have it backward, that it does apply to finite strings. I'm not even sure how to begin to apply it to infinite strings. For example, consider all 1,000,000-bit strings. Only about 2^1,000 of them could be represented by a 1,000-bit program, since there are only 2^1,000 such programs. Most million-bit strings can't be created by programs of substantially less than a million bits in size, because there just aren't enough short programs. Without the concept of bit strings and computers, we have no basis for saying that more lawful universes have greater measure than random and incompressible ones. This would eliminate one of the great potential strengths of the all-universe hypothesis (AUH), that it offers an explanation for why we live in a lawful universe. Why not? In the infinite sequence of all bit-strings there are more short strings than long ones. So if we had only a simple, literal equivalence between bit strings and universes, what would that mean, there are more small universes than big ones? That doesn't seem to be either a very useful or accurate prediction. Hal Finney
RE: many worlds theory of immortality
Hal, I should add that I don't believe in QTI, I don't believe that we are guaranteed to experience such outcomes. I prefer the observer-moment concept in which we are more likely to experience observer-moments where we are young and living within a normal lifespan than ones where we are at a very advanced age due to miraculous luck. Aren't the above two sentences contradictory? If it is guaranteed that somewhere in the multiverse there will be a million year old Hal observer-moment, doesn't that mean that you are guaranteed to experience life as a million year old? --Stathis Papaioannou _ SEEK: Over 80,000 jobs across all industries at Australia's #1 job site. http://ninemsn.seek.com.au?hotmail
Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
I once read an article in, I believe, Time Magazine, about the relatively new field of neurotheology which investigates what goes on in the brain during ecstatic states, etc. One suggestion that intrigued me was that it may be possible that in such a state, and I believe that schizophrenics were also mentioned, that the brain is malfunctioning in such a way as to allow it to perceive states of reality other than that which the normal brain would perceive. In other words, the antenna (brain) is picking-up signals that are usually beyond the scope of the normal brain. I wondered if anyone could comment on this, and if there was any reason to even entertain the thought that perhaps some people have passed through a crack in the division between our universe or dimension, into perhaps another? I read this several years ago and wish that I could recall the details of the article, but I don't have it anymore. Jeanne - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 11:19 PM Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality Russell, To be fair, I should elaborate on my earlier post about amnesics and psychotics. If I consider the actual cases I have seen, arguably they do have *some* sense of the passage of time. Taking the first example, people with severe Korsakoff Syndrome (due to chronic alcohol abuse) appear to be completely incapable of laying down new memories. If you enter their room to perform some uncomfortable medical procedure and they become annoyed with you, all you have to do is step outside for a moment, then step back inside, and they are all smiles again, so you can have another go at the procedure, and repeat this as many times as you want. While you are actually in their sight, however, they do recognise that you are the same person from moment to moment, and they do make the connection between the needle you are sticking into them and the subsequent pain, causing them to become annoyed at you. So they do have a sense of time, even if only for a few seconds. The second example, the disorganised schizophrenic, is somewhat more complex. There is a continuum from mild to extreme disorganisation, and at the extreme end, it can be very difficult to get any sense of what the person is thinking, although it is quite easy to get a sense of what they are feeling and it would be very difficult to maintain a belief that they are not actually conscious (you really have to see this for yourself to understand it). Usually, even the most unwell of these patients give some indirect indication that they maintain some sense of time. For example, if you hold out a glass of water, they will reach for it and drink from it, which suggests that they may have a theory about the future, and how they might influence it to their advantage. Occasionally, however - and I have to confess I have not actually tried the experiment - there are patients who seem incapable of even as simple (one could say near-reflexive) a task as grabbing a glass of water. With treatment, almost all these people improve, and it is interesting to ask them what was happening during these periods. Firstly, it is interesting that they actually have any recollection. It is as if the CPU was defective, but the data was still written to the hard drive, to be analysed later. They might explain that everything seemed fragmented, so that although they could see and hear things, the visual stimuli did not form recognisable objects and the auditory stimuli did not form recognisable words or other sounds. Furthermore, the various perceptual data seemed to run into each other spatially, so that it was not possible to distinguish background from foreground, significant from insignificant. Catatonic patients, on the other hand, may (later, when better) describe a state of total inertia, being stuck in the present moment, unable to move either physically or mentally, unable to even imagine a possibility of change from the present state, aware of everything going on around them as a kind of extended simultaneity. --Stathis Papaioannou On Mon, May 09, 2005 at 11:02:18PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Dear aet.radal ssg, I think you missed my point about the amnesic and psychotic patients, which is not that they are clear thinkers, but that they are conscious despite a disability which impairs their perception of time. Your post raises an ... As I said before, I think this is a valuable contribution, but not something I know how to deal with at this point in time. Presently, these psychotic patients account for only a fraction of conscious observers (assuming they are conscious as you say they are). Quantum Mechanics only requires that most observers have their own time like domain, not that all of them do. I'm still not convinced that TIME isn't a necessary
Re: Which is Fundamental?
Le 10-mai-05, à 06:33, Lee Corbin a écrit : Why not instead adopt the scientific model? That is, that we are three-dimensional creatures ensconced in a world governed by the laws of physics, or, what I'll call the atoms and processes model. Because we don't need that hypothesis. That's nice because that hypothesis entails three big unsolved problems: - what is matter (particles, processes, ...) and where does matter come from ? - what is mind ? - how are they related ? No doubt that physics gives an admirable compact description of our neighborhood. But it puts the data mind under the rug. What could be an admirable methodological simplification is now accepted like a religion. I would not call it a scientific model. Of course in scientific communication, we cannot use first person evidences, but it is a category error to derive from that sound interdiction that we cannot make third person scientific theories *about* first person phenomena. About observer-moments, I would say what LaPlace answered to Napoleon about a deity: I have no need of that hypothesis. But you cannot say they does not exist. You would be lying to yourself. You are living just one of them right now. Of course when I say I don't need the hypothesis of the laws of physics I am anticipating the successful derivation of QM from arithmetical observer moment. It seems to me I got enough to at least be doubting we need in principle the laws of physics, and the comp-physics I did derived from the computationalist hypothesis, although it cannot yet be considered as a real competitor of QM right now, it is in advance, right now, by putting light on the three questions above, as I will try to make clear without technics asap (on both list). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Le 09-mai-05, à 19:39, Brent Meeker a écrit : In what sense does the program exist if not as physical tokens? Is it enough that you've thought of the concept? The same program, i.e. bit-string, does different things on different computers. So how can the program instantiate reality independent of the compu By the magic of Church thesis, going from one computer to another is just like making a change of basis in some space. All result in Algorithmic information theory are independent of the choice of computer modulo some constant. The same for recursion theory (abstract computer or generalized computer theory) even without constant. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Bruno, You've probably already addressed this recently, but given the number of posts and my work load I have not been able to read the much of the list recently. What does comp make of time? Is it merely some measure of the relationships among bitstrings in platonia? Danny Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 09-mai-05, à 19:39, Brent Meeker a écrit : In what sense does the program exist if not as physical tokens? Is it enough that you've thought of the concept? The same program, i.e. bit-string, does different things on different computers. So how can the program instantiate reality independent of the compu By the magic of Church thesis, going from one computer to another is just like making a change of basis in some space. All result in Algorithmic information theory are independent of the choice of computer modulo some constant. The same for recursion theory (abstract computer or generalized computer theory) even without constant. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
Le 10-mai-05, à 12:25, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : I should add that I don't believe in QTI, I don't believe that we are guaranteed to experience such outcomes. I prefer the observer-moment concept in which we are more likely to experience observer-moments where we are young and living within a normal lifespan than ones where we are at a very advanced age due to miraculous luck. Aren't the above two sentences contradictory? If it is guaranteed that somewhere in the multiverse there will be a million year old Hal observer-moment, doesn't that mean that you are guaranteed to experience life as a million year old? With some ASSA perhaps, but with the RSSA it makes sense only if those old Hal OM. have the right relative proportion to the young one. where: SSA self-sampling assumption (by Nick Bolstrom) ASSA idem but conceived as absolute RSSA idem but conceived as relative OM = Observer Moment Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
Le 10-mai-05, à 05:55, Hal Finney a écrit : I should add that I don't believe in QTI, I don't believe that we are guaranteed to experience such outcomes. I prefer the observer-moment concept in which we are more likely to experience observer-moments where we are young and living within a normal lifespan than ones where we are at a very advanced age due to miraculous luck. To be honest I prefer that too. Now I'm not sure reality will take into account my preference, unless the Loebian placebo effect I talked about last year is really at the root of everything. But that's remain to be developed. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
Dear Stathis:- Original Message -From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], everything-list@eskimo.comSubject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortalityDate: Mon, 09 May 2005 23:02:18 +1000 Dear aet.radal ssg, I think you missed my point about the amnesic and psychotic patients, which is not that they are clear thinkers, but that they are conscious despite a disability which impairs their perception of time. OK, let me take what you just said there, "conscious despite a disability which impairs their perception of time". A person can be conscious and have any number of disabilities that impair their perception of reality. Doesn't mean that their perception is accurate, valid, or even mildly interesting. The word "impair" should have been a clue. Your post raises an interesting question in that you seem to assume that normally functioning human minds have a correct model of reality, as opposed to the "broken" minds of the mentally ill. This is really very far from the truth. If the mentally ill had a correct perception of reality, they wouldn't be mentally ill. Hello? Simultaneously, not all sane people have a "correct model of reality" (whatever that means) but they usually know what they're doing on a basic level and function without taking medication to keep them tuned into reality and not the psycho channel. It doesn't mean that they can't be motivated by wrong ideas or misconceptions or even manipulated by somebody smater or with political power, but we're talking apples and oranges now. Human brains evolved in a specific environment, often identified as the African savannah, so the model of the world constructed by the human mind need only match "reality" to the extent that this promoted survival in that environment. And if their perception of that reality environment hadn't been correct, they wouldn't have survived. Simultaneously, other creatures, in that same environment, developed other ways other perceiving it. The point you're missing is that the environment is the same. If I take an array of sophisticated measuring and recording devices into that environment, I should be able to detect all of the aspects that most of the non-insect creatures do, and in some cases, a lot of the insect perceptions. However, if I introduce a paranoid schizophrenic into the equation, I will probably not detect the hallucinations that he will see, though I may be able to identify possible external causes. As a result, we humans are only able to directly perceive and grasp a tiny, tiny slice of physical reality. Which doesn't make the hallucinations of the mentally ill or those with cognitive disabilities, any more valid. Furthermore, although we are proud of our thinking abilities, the theories about physical reality that humans have come up with over the centuries have in general been ridiculously bad. I think part of the problem here is the use of the term "reality" when something else would be better. Since you failed to give any examples of what you meant by "theories about physical reality" I will assume that you mean the matters dealing with the nature of the Earth and its place in the solar system, etc. If not, please be specific. In any case, much of those errors in perception had to do with physical limitations in the ability to conduct accurate observations, further crippled by various philosophical dogma. I have spent the last ten years treating patients with schizophrenia, and I can assure you that however bizarre the delusional beliefs these people come up with, there are multiple historical examples of apparently "sane" people holding even more bizarre beliefs, and often insisting on pain of death or torture that everyone else agree with them. Hallucinations aren't the same as religious or philosophical dogmatic beliefs and usually don't operate the same way, no matter how destructive or misguided the latter might be. I think I detect a straw man here. Itstill doesn't make your case that the inability to perceive time accurately is a valid condition on which to postulate ideas about temporal moments not being physically connected. I've done plenty of research in the area of consciousness - links between schizophrenia, psychedelic drug states and self-induced drug-free altered states, the psychology of creativity, comparisons between possible schizophrenic perceptions of parallel worlds and other possible perceptions through various altered states, etc. I'm building, and hope to test this summer, a technological platformthrough which some schizophrenics might be able, under clinical supervision,to learn to tune out manyof their hallucinations. So I know my way around these issues and I'm just saying that you haven't made your case. You might point out that despite the above, science has made great progress. Actually, I didn't and don't have to. This is true, but it has taken the cumulative efforts of millions of people over thousands of years
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Hi Danny, First there is a basic notion of TIME which is taken as primitive (and perhaps related to the TIME hypothesis of Russell Standish, I don't know) and which is just the (first order logic) notion of successive natural numbers. This TIME is fixed and lives atemporally in Platonia, and constitutes the core skeleton of arithmetical truth. The parameter time of the physicist is a mystery for me, and I don't get it by comp, and perhaps it is not necessary, because even physicist doubt it exist (at least the relativist physicists). It would be just a type of other universe like in David Deutsch's conception of time (see its FOR book). The Heraclitean Brouwerian Bergsonian sort of subjective duration time is what appear automatically with comp once the first person is defined modal-logically, and it is given by the modal logic S4Grz and S4Grz1 (see perhaps my SANE paper). I talk about this one to Stephen some time ago. I would like to say more but I have not the time (paraphrasing a recent joke by Charles on the FOR LIST:) I promise to Brian to explain what is the observer in comp, but I need to explain at least a minimal amount of modal logic, and this without technics, I will try asap, but then I can explain what is S4Grz and modal time). Grz is for Grzegorczyk, a big polish logician. Goldblatt (see ref in my thesis) has made also a startling modal analysis of Minkowsky space time through an old greek Diodorean modality, which I wish to extract in the arithmetical frame imposed by comp, but I don't even smell it (alas). Bruno Le 10-mai-05, à 16:04, danny mayes a écrit : Bruno, You've probably already addressed this recently, but given the number of posts and my work load I have not been able to read the much of the list recently. What does comp make of time? Is it merely some measure of the relationships among bitstrings in platonia? Danny Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 09-mai-05, à 19:39, Brent Meeker a écrit : In what sense does the program exist if not as physical tokens? Is it enough that you've thought of the concept? The same program, i.e. bit-string, does different things on different computers. So how can the program instantiate reality independent of the compu By the magic of Church thesis, going from one computer to another is just like making a change of basis in some space. All result in Algorithmic information theory are independent of the choice of computer modulo some constant. The same for recursion theory (abstract computer or generalized computer theory) even without constant. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Bitstrings, Ontological Status and Time
Hal wrote: I agree that in our particular universe the role of time is complex IF there is anything that is not complex... Time is definitely not a Ding an sich, definitely not a 'thing' and as agreed: we really don't know how to identify that word. The phenomena we assign as 'time related' are poorly identified. ...It's entirely possible that time may yet turn out to be a simple coordinate. ... I tried once to consider it a 'motion'-coordinate (in strictly 'physical' motion - paired with space) - later tried to alter it to a 'change-coordinate' but neither motion nor change turned out to be exactly identifiable concepts (ie how far we can refine our model views). As we learn more, we know less and less. Respectfully John Mikes - Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 4:55 PM Subject: Re: Bitstrings, Ontological Status and Time Stephen Paul King writes: I would agree that Time is just a coordinate (system), or as Leibniz claimed an order of succession, if we are considering only events in space-time that we can specify, e.g. take as a posteriori. What I am trying to argue is that we can not do this in the a priori case for reasons that have to do with Heisenberg's Unceratanty Principle. Since it is impossible to construct a space-time hypersurface where each point has associated with it all of the physical variables that we need to compute the entire global manifold, from initial Big Bang singulary to the, possibly, infinite future, it is a mistake to think of time simply as a coordinate. OTOH, it is consistent if we are dealing with some particular situation and using Special (or General) Relativity theory to consider the behavious of clocks and rulers. ;-) I agree that in our particular universe the role of time is complex. Since we don't have a unified theory yet, we really can't say anything definitive about what time will turn out to be. It's entirely possible that time may yet turn out to be a simple coordinate. Wolfram is pushing ideas where the universe is modeled as a cellular automaton (CA) which has discrete units of space and time. Of course his theories don't quite work yet, but then, nobody else's do, either. I am trying to include the implications of QM in my thinking and hence my point about time and my polemics against the idea of block space-time. I do not care how eminent the person is that advocates the idea of Block space-time, they are simply and provably wrong. In this universe, perhaps so, although as I argued above absent a true and accurate theory of physics I don't agree that we can so assertively say that block models are disproven. But I do agree that a simple, relativity-based block model (if such exists) is incomplete as a model for our universe since it does not include QM. BTW there is also a block-universe type construction possible in QM. Let phi(t) represent the state function of the entire universe at time t. Then Schrodinger's equation H(phi) = i hbar d/dt(phi) shows how the wave function will evolve. It is determinstic and in a many worlds interpretation this is all there is to the underlying physics. So this is a block-universe interpretation of QM. However, it is non relativistic. From what I understand, a full marriage of QM and special relativity requires quantum field theory, which is beyond my knowledge so I don't know whether it can be thought of as a block universe. And then of course that still leaves gravitation and the other phenomena of general relativity, where we have no theory at all that works. Whether it will be amenable to a block universe view is still unknown as far as I understand. I don't see why you are so bound on rejecting block universes. You just don't like them? If you look around in the journals and books you will find discussion of the implications of multiple-time dimensions. For example: Sure, in fact I first learned of the idea from one of Tegmark's papers, he who is unknowingly one of the founding fathers of this list. http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/dimensions.html describes his ideas for why universes with 2 or more time dimensions are unlikely to have observers. The point is, you can't go quoting Leibniz about this stuff. We've left him far behind. Hal Finney
Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
Dear Jeanne: Message - From: "Jeanne Houston" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:19:01 -0400 I didn't read the article but I am aware of the conceptual basis for this idea. To answer your question, it is possible that altered states, including those caused by mental illness, can allow the brain to pick-up information from elsewhere. However, the differentiation must be made between such elsewhere (or elsewhen) awarenesses and true hallucinations (the same goes for dreams. Some people postulate that some dreams could be awarenesses of other realities but then use lucid dreaming as an example. Right idea, wrong type of dream). Many of the hallucinations common to schizophrenics are based on outside stimuli triggering a preconvieved viewpoint which is then externalized as a hallucination. For example, such a patient may be on his way to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled and see abillboard for an auto body repair shop that features a close-up shot of a man cowering in fear that says "Watch Out! The Morons are Out There!" (a true advertisement). This billboard could stimulate a reaction in the patient based upon the apprehension that the doctor may not know what he's doing and prescribed the wrong medication. This reaction could manifest itself as a merely a thought, "Yeah. And I bet my shrink's a moron too!" or it could extend into the outside world if the patient looks back at the sign. Suddenly the sign could have its own response to this sudden thought that the patient's psychiatrist is a moron and could read something like "Yes! Your shrink's a moron and he's out to get you!" This is based on research done by Janssen Pharmaceutica http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/aug/schizophrenia/in the development of a simulator of the schizophrenic experience. The simulator was created with the input of actual patients to make it as realistic as possible, and I have used it before, as part of my research. In this case, the hallucinations of the schizophrenic are based on internalapprehensions and are not observations of some parallel reality.The tendency should be resisted to simply assume that just because someone is perceiving something that we aren't, that what they're are perceiving is somehow linked to someinterdimensional knowledgeor higher reality. If one wants to take that tact, then they must also engage in the very real hard work of substantiating exactly what the nature of these perceptions are and if they have any kind of objective basis. To do that takes a considerable amount of work. Otherwise the question goes unanswered and any consideration of what is or isn'tgoing on is simply unbridled speculation. Hope that helps. I once read an article in, I believe, Time Magazine, about the relatively new field of "neurotheology" which investigates what goes on in the brain during ecstatic states, etc. One suggestion that intrigued me was that it may be possible that in such a state, and I believe that schizophrenics were also mentioned, that the brain is malfunctioning in such a way as to allow it to perceive states of reality other than that which the normal brain would perceive. In other words, the "antenna" (brain) is picking-up signals that are usually beyond the scope of the normal brain. I wondered if anyone could comment on this, and if there was any reason to even entertain the thought that perhaps some people have passed through a crack in the division between our universe or dimension, into perhaps another? I read this several years ago and wish that I could recall the details of the article, but I don't have it anymore. Jeanne -- ___Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup
[Fwd: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality]
aet.radal ssg wrote: Dear Jeanne: Message - From: "Jeanne Houston" To: "Stathis Papaioannou" , [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:19:01 -0400 I didn't read the article but I am aware of the conceptual basis for this idea. To answer your question, it is possible that altered states, including those caused by mental illness, can allow the brain to pick-up information from elsewhere. However, the differentiation must be made between such elsewhere (or elsewhen) awarenesses and true hallucinations (the same goes for dreams. Some people postulate that some dreams could be awarenesses of other realities but then use lucid dreaming as an example. Right idea, wrong type of dream). Many of the hallucinations common to schizophrenics are based on outside stimuli triggering a preconvieved viewpoint which is then externalized as a hallucination. For example, such a patient may be on his way to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled and see abillboard for an auto body repair shop that features a close-up shot of a man cowering in fear that says "Watch Out! The Morons are Out There!" (a true advertisement). This billboard could stimulate a reaction in the patient based upon the apprehension that the doctor may not know what he's doing and prescribed the wrong medication. This reaction could manifest itself as a merely a thought, "Yeah. And I bet my shrink's a moron too!" or it could extend into the outside world if the patient looks back at the sign. Suddenly the sign could have its own response to this sudden thought that the patient's psychiatrist is a moron and could read something like "Yes! Your shrink's a moron and he's out to get you!" This is based on research done by Janssen Pharmaceutica http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/aug/schizophrenia/in the development of a simulator of the schizophrenic experience. The simulator was created with the input of actual patients to make it as realistic as possible, and I have used it before, as part of my research. In this case, the hallucinations of the schizophrenic are based on internalapprehensions and are not observations of some parallel reality.The tendency should be resisted to simply assume that just because someone is perceiving something that we aren't, that what they're are perceiving is somehow linked to someinterdimensional knowledgeor higher reality. If one wants to take that tact, then they must also engage in the very real hard work of substantiating exactly what the nature of these perceptions are and if they have any kind of objective basis. To do that takes a considerable amount of work. Otherwise the question goes unanswered and any consideration of what is or isn'tgoing on is simply unbridled speculation. Hope that helps. I'm not one to shy away from what others would perceive to be "unbridled speculation," however there are a few fundamental problems with the idea set forth by Jeanne. First, to the best that I understand, there is no evidence that we will ever be able to access the information of the parallel outcomes (worlds) in question. We can access the processing power of the other worlds, but the laws of physics seem to prevent our pulling information from another "world" into our world given the collapse that happens at the end of a computation (when we get our result from a quantum computer). So the idea seems to be prohibited by the laws of physics. And lets not even get into the proof problem. It's sort of like UFO's. Is it easier to believe that someone is crazy/seeing things/misinterpreting stimuli, or that they really are seeing other worlds/aliens? Spectacular claims require spectacular proof, and I don't see how this idea presents the prospect of any proof. Perhaps, if someone could in a statistically significant way predict future events or the location of hidden items, like remote viewing, could provide evidence, but there would still have to be some way to establish the link between that phenomena and other worlds. Danny
RE: many worlds theory of immortality
Stathis Papaioannou writes: Hal, I should add that I don't believe in QTI, I don't believe that we are guaranteed to experience such outcomes. I prefer the observer-moment concept in which we are more likely to experience observer-moments where we are young and living within a normal lifespan than ones where we are at a very advanced age due to miraculous luck. Aren't the above two sentences contradictory? If it is guaranteed that somewhere in the multiverse there will be a million year old Hal observer-moment, doesn't that mean that you are guaranteed to experience life as a million year old? I don't think there are any guarantees in life! I don't see a well defined meaning about anything I am guaranteed to experience. I am influenced by Wei Dai's approach to the fundamental problem of what our expectations should be in the multiverse. He focused not on knowledge and belief, but on action. That is, he did not ask what we expect, he asked what we should do. How should we behave? What are the optimal and rational actions to take in any given circumstances? These questions are the domain of a field which, like game theory, is a cross between mathematics, philosophy and economics: decision theory. Classical decision theory is uninformed by the AUP, but it does include similar concepts. You consider that you inhabit one of a virtually infinite number of possible worlds, which in this theory are not real but rather represent your uncertainty about your situtation. For example, in one possible world Bigfoot has sneaked up behind you but you don't know it, and in other worlds he's not there. You then use this world concept to set up a probability distribution, and make your decision based on optimal expected outcome over all possible worlds. Incorporating the multiverse can be done in a couple of ways. I think Wei proposed just to add the entire multiverse as among the possible worlds. Maybe we live in a multiverse, maybe we don't. The hard part is then, supposing that we do, how do we rank the expected outcomes of our actions? Each action affects the multiverse in a complex way, being beneficial in some branches and harmful in others. How do we weight the different branches? Wei proposed to treat that weighting as an arbitrary part of the user's utility function; in effect, making it a matter of taste and personal preference how to weight the multiverse branches. I would aim to get a little more guidance from the theory than that. I would first try to incorporate the measure of the various branches which my actions influence, and pay more attention to the branches with higher measure. Then, I think I would pay more attention to the effects in those branches on observers (or observer-moments) which are relatively similar to me. However, that does not mean I would ignore the effects of my actions on high-measure branches where there are no observers similar to me (i.e. branches where I have died). I might still take measures such as buying life insurance for my children, because I care about their welfare even in branches where I don't exist. Similarly, if I were a philanthropist, I might take care to donate my estate to good causes if I die. These considerations suggest to me an optimal course of action in a multiverse, or even in a world where we are not sure if we live in a single universe or a multiverse, which is arguably the situation we all face. It rejects the simplicity of the RSSA and QTI by recognizing that our actions influence even multiverse branches where we die, and taking into consideration the effects of what we do on such worlds. There is still an element of personal preference in terms of how much we care about observers who are very similar to ourselves vs those who are more different, which gives room for various philosphical views along these lines. And in terms of your question, I would not act as though I expected to be guaranteed a very long life span, because the measure of that universe is so low compared to others where I don't survive. Hal Finney
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
Le Mardi 10 Mai 2005 19:13, Hal Finney a écrit : And in terms of your question, I would not act as though I expected to be guaranteed a very long life span, because the measure of that universe is so low compared to others where I don't survive. Hal Finney Hi, but by definition of what being alive means (or being conscious), which is to experience observer moments, even if the difference of the measure where you have a long life compared to where you don't survive is enormous, you can only experience world where you are alive... And to continue, I find it very difficult to imagine what could mean being unconscious forever (what you suggest to be likely). Quentin Anciaux
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
Quentin Anciaux writes: but by definition of what being alive means (or being conscious), which is to experience observer moments, even if the difference of the measure where you have a long life compared to where you don't survive is enormous, you can only experience world where you are alive... The way I would say it is that you can only experience worlds where you are conscious. Being alive is not enough. But really, this is a tautology: you can only be conscious in worlds where you are conscious. It sheds exactly zero light on any interesting questions IMO. And to continue, I find it very difficult to imagine what could mean being unconscious forever (what you suggest to be likely). Yet you have already been unconscious forever, before your birth (if we pretend/assume that the universe is infinite in both time directions). Can you imagine that? Why can it happen in one direction but not the other? And what do you think of life insurance? Suppose you have young children whom you love dearly, for whom you are the sole support, and who will suffer greatly if you die without insurance? Would you suggest that QTI means that you should not care about their lives in universe branches where you do not survive, that you should act as though those branches don't exist? Hal Finney
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
Le Mardi 10 Mai 2005 20:14, Hal Finney a écrit : Yet you have already been unconscious forever, before your birth (if we pretend/assume that the universe is infinite in both time directions). It can't be forever... I'm conscious now... so it was not forever. But I know you'll say infinity and all. So the meaning of forever before (me/you) and after (me/you) is not quite the same. Can you imagine that? Why can it happen in one direction but not the other? Don't know, I just say I had a lot of difficulties to imagine being unconscious forever. And what do you think of life insurance? Suppose you have young children whom you love dearly, for whom you are the sole support, and who will suffer greatly if you die without insurance? Would you suggest that QTI means that you should not care about their lives in universe branches where you do not survive, that you should act as though those branches don't exist? Hal Finney I do not see the other branches, nor do I feel them. So I don't know how it is supposed to be taken in account. And for the other hand, if all the universes exists, and at whatever moments it splits into new branches for each possible outcome, whatever I do, there will be branches where it turns bad (for me, my friends, whatever)... Why put you high measure on universe where all is good for your friend if you've done good in your life (or think about a life insurance) compared to those were you didn't ? Quentin Anciaux
Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I happen to be a believer in the observer-moment as fundamental, and the only thing one can be sure of from the first person perspective. "I think, therefore I am" is taking it too far in deducing the existence of an observer; "I think, therefore there is a thought" is all that I can be absolutely certain of. Hi Stathis, I also believe that the observer moment is fundamental, but I don't think there is anything wrong with "I think therefore I am" as long as this statement is taken as a definition of "being" rather than as an explanation: Look at it as "I think, this means 'I am.' " I you accept that the observer-moment is fundamental, and nothing else is, then "being" cannot be defined using any physical substrate since, at this point of the argument, physics has not been defined yet. You are left only with a definition of "being:" To be is to think. To paraphrase Erdos, "To be is to do math." ;-) George
Re: Which is Fundamental?
Lee Corbin writes: Why not instead adopt the scientific model? That is, that we are three-dimensional creatures ensconced in a world governed by the laws of physics, or, what I'll call the atoms and processes model. About observer-moments, I would say what LaPlace answered to Napoleon about a deity: I have no need of that hypothesis. Observer moments are more than a hypothesis, they are our raw experiences of the world. It is more the world that is the hypothesis to explain the observer moments, than vice versa. I think, therefore I am... an observer moment, as Descartes meant to say. However, given the strong evidence we have for the world's existence and the explanatory power it gives for our experience, I don't think there is a problem with treating it as fundamental. This leads to a model of world - observers - observer-moments. A world maintains and holds one or more observers, which can themselves be thought of as composed of multiple observer moments. A key point is that the mapping is not just one-to-many. It is many-to-many. That is, an observer moment is shared among multiple observers; and an observer exists in multiple worlds. To explain the first point, observers merge whenever information is forgotten. And they diverge whenever information is learned. This means that each observer-moment is a nexus of intersection of many observers. The observer moment has multiple pasts and multiple futures. To explain the second point, observers exist in any world which is consistent with their observations. The amount of information in an observer is much less than the amount of information in a world (at least, for observers and worlds like our own). So there are many worlds which are consistent with the information in an observer, and the observer can be thought of as occupying all of those worlds. In this sense, the mapping above might be better expressed as world - observers - observer-moments. It is many-to-many in both directions. I see both views - worlds as primary, or observers and observer-moments as primary - as playing an important role in understanding our relationship to the multiverse. In terms of choosing actions or making predictions, we need methods for making quantitative estimates of what is likely to happen. This requires us to take into consideration the set of worlds which our observer-moments span, and the set of possible future observer-moments which we care about. To calculate, we need a measure over observer-moments. Then we can have a greater expectation of experiencing observer moments with higher measures. So how do we do this calculation? I start by calculating the measure of universes. Using an arbitrary, simple, universal computer, I would calculate the minimum program size for creating a given universe. (Yes, I know this is non-computable, but we can approximate it and use that for our estimates.) The program size gives the measure of that universe, and then that measure should lead us to a measure for the observers and observer-moments in that universe. This step of going from universe-measure to observer-measure seems a bit problematic to me and I don't have a completely satisfactory solution, but I won't go into the details of the problems right now. Anyway, once you have the measure for an observer moment in a given universe, you can sum the measures over all universes that generate that particular observer moment, to get the measure of the observer moment. Then, with a measure over observer-moments, you can take your current observer moment, look at ones that you identify with in the future, and consider the measure of those observer moments in helping you to choose what actions to take. This is how one should behave in a multiverse. This approach seems to require acknowledgement of the fundamental importance both of worlds and observer-moments. We use worlds to calculate measure; we use observer-moments to constrain the set of worlds that we occupy, now and in the future. A world-only approach would seem to pin us to a single world and not recognize that we span all worlds which contain identical observer-moments; an observer-only approach does not seem to give us grounds to estimate measure a priori (although I think Bruno may have a method which is supposed to do that). We have to use both concepts to get a complete picture of what is going on. Hal Finney
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
Le Mardi 10 Mai 2005 20:14, Hal Finney a écrit : And what do you think of life insurance? Suppose you have young children whom you love dearly, for whom you are the sole support, and who will suffer greatly if you die without insurance? Do you agree with this ? 1- whenever there is a choice to be made, the universe split (each outcome has a probabilty p). 2- So some outcome are more probable than other. Would you suggest that QTI means that you should not care about their lives in universe branches where you do not survive, that you should act as though those branches don't exist? By point 1 and 2, imagine the following : There is 0.5% chance that you go crazy and go killing some friends, and 99.5% that you do not. Now, the split is done, so imagine it splits in 1000 (for convenience :)), in 5 next observer moments on 1000 you go killing some friends, whatever the actual feelings of the 995 others you are, the event happening to these 5 you and people surrounding them is equally real... So why do you care of the fate of your family in the 995 others universe than of the 5 where the things turn bad (not strange, not magic, just bad), which are equally real for the observers living in it ? Quentin Anciaux
Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
I vaguely recollect the phenomenon you mention, if I am thinking of the same thing. The problem is that when something goes wrong, either in a brain or in another machine, in the vast majority of cases it will result in some sort of dysfunction. If you took to your computer with a hammer, there is a *tiny* chance that you will somehow improve it, or give it some new ability, but most likely you will damage it. Having said that, the process of evolution works in exactly this way: random errors occur, and that tiny proportion which results in survival advantage is selected for. I have heard of a much older theory about schizophrenia, that the kind of weird/lateral thinking that occurs in subclinical cases (who are perhaps carriers of the SZ gene or genes) may be responsible for the great intellectual innovations in human history, which is why this devastating disease has not died out. --Stathis Papaioannou From: Jeanne Houston [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED],everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:19:01 -0400 I once read an article in, I believe, Time Magazine, about the relatively new field of neurotheology which investigates what goes on in the brain during ecstatic states, etc. One suggestion that intrigued me was that it may be possible that in such a state, and I believe that schizophrenics were also mentioned, that the brain is malfunctioning in such a way as to allow it to perceive states of reality other than that which the normal brain would perceive. In other words, the antenna (brain) is picking-up signals that are usually beyond the scope of the normal brain. I wondered if anyone could comment on this, and if there was any reason to even entertain the thought that perhaps some people have passed through a crack in the division between our universe or dimension, into perhaps another? I read this several years ago and wish that I could recall the details of the article, but I don't have it anymore. Jeanne - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 11:19 PM Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality Russell, To be fair, I should elaborate on my earlier post about amnesics and psychotics. If I consider the actual cases I have seen, arguably they do have *some* sense of the passage of time. Taking the first example, people with severe Korsakoff Syndrome (due to chronic alcohol abuse) appear to be completely incapable of laying down new memories. If you enter their room to perform some uncomfortable medical procedure and they become annoyed with you, all you have to do is step outside for a moment, then step back inside, and they are all smiles again, so you can have another go at the procedure, and repeat this as many times as you want. While you are actually in their sight, however, they do recognise that you are the same person from moment to moment, and they do make the connection between the needle you are sticking into them and the subsequent pain, causing them to become annoyed at you. So they do have a sense of time, even if only for a few seconds. The second example, the disorganised schizophrenic, is somewhat more complex. There is a continuum from mild to extreme disorganisation, and at the extreme end, it can be very difficult to get any sense of what the person is thinking, although it is quite easy to get a sense of what they are feeling and it would be very difficult to maintain a belief that they are not actually conscious (you really have to see this for yourself to understand it). Usually, even the most unwell of these patients give some indirect indication that they maintain some sense of time. For example, if you hold out a glass of water, they will reach for it and drink from it, which suggests that they may have a theory about the future, and how they might influence it to their advantage. Occasionally, however - and I have to confess I have not actually tried the experiment - there are patients who seem incapable of even as simple (one could say near-reflexive) a task as grabbing a glass of water. With treatment, almost all these people improve, and it is interesting to ask them what was happening during these periods. Firstly, it is interesting that they actually have any recollection. It is as if the CPU was defective, but the data was still written to the hard drive, to be analysed later. They might explain that everything seemed fragmented, so that although they could see and hear things, the visual stimuli did not form recognisable objects and the auditory stimuli did not form recognisable words or other sounds. Furthermore, the various perceptual data seemed to run into each other spatially, so that it was not possible to distinguish
Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 07:19:01AM -0400, Jeanne Houston wrote: I once read an article in, I believe, Time Magazine, about the relatively new field of neurotheology which investigates what goes on in the brain during ecstatic states, etc. One suggestion that intrigued me was that it may be possible that in such a state, and I believe that schizophrenics were also mentioned, that the brain is malfunctioning in such a way as to allow it to perceive states of reality other than that which the normal brain would perceive. In other words, the antenna (brain) is picking-up signals that are usually beyond the scope of the normal brain. I wondered if anyone could comment on this, and if there was any reason to even entertain the thought that perhaps some people have passed through a crack in the division between our universe or dimension, into perhaps another? I read this several years ago and wish that I could recall the details of the article, but I don't have it anymore. Jeanne My own comment is that there are pure 1st person phenomena, and there are 1st person phenomena shared with other conscious beings. The first variety should not be accorded with any real significance, beyond that of a dream, or whatever. The latter shared type is the basis of objective science. With my TIME and PROJECTION postulates, or with COMP, there are 1st person phenomena shared by _all_ conscious beings. This last type we can truly label objective. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpy8z4tMTgoS.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 04:44:21PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: Goldblatt (see ref in my thesis) has made also a startling modal analysis of Minkowsky space time through an old greek Diodorean modality, which I wish to extract in the arithmetical frame imposed by comp, but I don't even smell it (alas). Bruno I do not get Minkowskian spacetime either with my approach - it is definitely an add-in, as it is with Frieden's work and Stenger's work. I suspect (dimly) that it can be related back to the observer by asking about topological effects on the network structure of universal Turing machines. Nobody has done any stuff on this, that I can make out. But if true, then at least with COMP you can get a necessary, or perhaps only likely requirement for Minkowskian space-time. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpkEnQHYj4GR.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [Fwd: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality]
The Grover algorithm is a form of accessing information from other worlds. Of course the worlds need to be prepared in just the right way, of course... On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 01:01:32PM -0400, danny mayes wrote: I'm not one to shy away from what others would perceive to be unbridled speculation, however there are a few fundamental problems with the idea set forth by Jeanne. First, to the best that I understand, there is no evidence that we will ever be able to access the information of the parallel outcomes (worlds) in question. We can access the processing power of the other worlds, but the laws of physics seem to prevent our pulling information from another world into our world given the collapse that happens at the end of a computation (when we get our result from a quantum computer). So the idea seems to be prohibited by the laws of physics. And lets not even get into the proof problem. It's sort of like UFO's. Is it easier to believe that someone is crazy/seeing things/misinterpreting stimuli, or that they really are seeing other worlds/aliens? Spectacular claims require spectacular proof, and I don't see how this idea presents the prospect of any proof. Perhaps, if someone could in a statistically significant way predict future events or the location of hidden items, like remote viewing, could provide evidence, but there would still have to be some way to establish the link between that phenomena and other worlds. Danny -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpQAXbeATde1.pgp Description: PGP signature
where is the harmonic oscillatorness?
I think some of the discussions about COMP and simulating people
could be better understood if we can first understand a (much)
simpler problem: a harmonic oscillator.
The relevance of this is that ultimately there might be no meaning
in saying that a string in Platonia or wherever represents anything,
without the mapping that gives the semantics for it. If it means
something, then we should be able to explicit show how to objectively
find this meaning for a simple case of a harmonic oscillator.
Let's define a turing machine M with a set of internal states Q,
an initial state s, a binary alphabet G={0,1}. The transition
function is f: Q X G - Q X G X {L,R} , i.e., the function
determines from the internal state and the symbol at the pointer
which symbol to write and which direction (left or right) to
move.
Write a program in M that calculates the evolution of a harmonic
oscillator (HO). The solutions are to be N pairs of position and
momentum of a HO, with time step T and d decimal digits. Let this
set of pairs be P.
The program will eventually halt and the tape will display a string
S.
The programmer knows (of course) how to read S and find P. The
programmer uses for that (unconsciously or not) a mapping A that
takes from strings to pairs of real numbers. This mapping depends
ultimately on the particular way the programmer chose to write the
program and is by no means trivial.
Suppose you didn't write this program. Can you look at the output
and know that it represents a harmonic oscillator, given that you
know all the details of M? This is a problem of reverse engineering
which could be feasible in principle for a simple enough program.
It would help particularly if M is reversible, since you could from
the output work out the program and with enough time and luck, work
out what the program is supposed to do. In this way you would be
finding the mapping A.
But is there anything objective about the string S and the machine
M that makes that program represent a harmonic oscillator, or is
that interpretation ultimately dependent on the mapping A?
Is there some harmonic oscillatorness in S?
Eric.
Re: where is the harmonic oscillatorness?
Eric Cavalcanti writes:
Let's define a turing machine M with a set of internal states Q,
an initial state s, a binary alphabet G={0,1}. The transition
function is f: Q X G - Q X G X {L,R} , i.e., the function
determines from the internal state and the symbol at the pointer
which symbol to write and which direction (left or right) to
move.
Write a program in M that calculates the evolution of a harmonic
oscillator (HO). The solutions are to be N pairs of position and
momentum of a HO, with time step T and d decimal digits. Let this
set of pairs be P.
The program will eventually halt and the tape will display a string
S.
...
Is there some harmonic oscillatorness in S?
Yes, potentially there is. The first thing you need to do is to
define a harmonic oscillator. Obviously you can't ask whether there
is X-ness in something if you don't have a definition of X.
So let us write a definition of a harmonic oscillator. Express it as a
program which, when given some input that claims to describe a harmonic
oscillator, returns true if it is one, and false if it is not. This
input can be required to be in some canonical form.
Now, if string S truly contains a harmonic oscillator, we should be
able to write a simple program which translates S into the form needed
for input to our test program, and which will then cause the test
program to return true.
The key is that the translation program must be simple. The simpler it
is, the greater the degree to which we can say that S contains a harmonic
oscillator. The more complex it is, then the harmonic oscillator is as
much in the mapping as in S.
This argument gains strength when we are dealing with an object more
complex than a harmonic oscillator. If the object we are testing for
is so complex that it takes billions of bits to specify, then as long
as the mapping program is substantially smaller than that size, we have
an excellent reason to believe that the object is really in S.
Now, I have cheated in one regard. I don't know of an objective way of
judging whether the mapping program is simple. There are some results
in algorithmic information theory which go part way in this direction,
but there seem to be loopholes that are hard to avoid. So things are not
quite as simple as I have said, but I think the thrust of the argument
shows the direction to pursue.
Hal Finney
Re: Which is Fundamental?
Bruno, Lee: Le 10-mai-05, à 06:33, Lee Corbin a écrit : Why not instead adopt the scientific model? That is, that we are three-dimensional creatures ensconced in a world governed by the laws of physics, or, what I'll call the atoms and processes model. Because we don't need that hypothesis. That's nice because that hypothesis entails three big unsolved problems: - what is matter (particles, processes, ...) and where does matter come from ? - what is mind ? - how are they related ? No doubt that physics gives an admirable compact description of our neighborhood. But it puts the data mind under the rug. What could be an admirable methodological simplification is now accepted like a religion. I would not call it a scientific model. Of course in scientific communication, we cannot use first person evidences, but it is a category error to derive from that sound interdiction that we cannot make third person scientific theories *about* first person phenomena. OK, it would be wonderful if your above three questions could be answered by appealing only to maths or logic (and I hope to understand your thesis one day, Bruno). However, does there *have* to be some deeper explanation? For example, is it logically impossible that the universe consists, say, of tiny billiard balls which follow the rules of Newtonian mechanics, with consciousness being an emergent phenomenon when these billiard balls are in a particular configuration? About observer-moments, I would say what LaPlace answered to Napoleon about a deity: I have no need of that hypothesis. But you cannot say they does not exist. You would be lying to yourself. You are living just one of them right now. Of course when I say I don't need the hypothesis of the laws of physics I am anticipating the successful derivation of QM from arithmetical observer moment. It seems to me I got enough to at least be doubting we need in principle the laws of physics, and the comp-physics I did derived from the computationalist hypothesis, although it cannot yet be considered as a real competitor of QM right now, it is in advance, right now, by putting light on the three questions above, as I will try to make clear without technics asap (on both list). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ I agree with Bruno about observer-moments. Lee, I'll PayPal you $50 if you can convince me that you can doubt that you are experiencing an observer-moment! --Stathis Papaioannou _ REALESTATE: biggest buy/rent/share listings http://ninemsn.realestate.com.au
