Re: Olympia's Beautiful and Profound Mind
Dear Lee, Let me use your post to continue our offline conversation here for the benefit of all. The idea of a computation, is it well or not-well founded? Usually TMs and other finite (or infinite!) state machines are assume to have a well founded set of states such that there are no "circularities" nor infinite sequences in their specifications. See: http://www.answers.com/topic/non-well-founded-set-theory One of the interesting features that arises when we consider if it is possible to faithfully represent the 1st person experiences of the world -"being in the world" as Sartre wrote - in terms of computationally generated simulations is that circularities arise almost everywhere. Jon Barwise, Peter Wegner and others have pointed out that the usual notions of computation fail to properly take into consideration the necessity to deal with this issue and have been operating in a state of Denial about a crucial aspect of the notion of conscious awareness: how can an a priori specifiable computation contain an internal representational model of itself that is dependent on its choices and interactions with "others", when these others are not specified within the computation? http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/b/Barwise:Jon.html http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/pw/ Another aspect of this is the problem of concurrency. http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/compsci340s2c/lectures/lecture10.pdf http://boole.stanford.edu/abstracts.html I am sure that I am being a fooling tyro is this post. ;-) Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: "Lee Corbin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 2:00 AM Subject: RE: Olympia's Beautiful and Profound Mind Hal writes We had some discussion of Maudlin's paper on the everything-list in 1999. I summarized the paper at http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m898.html . Subsequent discussion under the thread title "implementation" followed ... I suggested a flaw in Maudlin's argument at http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m1010.html with followup http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m1015.html . In a nutshell, my point was that Maudlin fails to show that physical supervenience (that is, the principle that whether a system is conscious or not depends solely on the physical activity of the system) is inconsistent with computationalism. It seemed to me that he made a leap at the end. (In fact, I argued that the new computation is very plausibly conscious, but that doesn't even matter, because it is sufficient to consider that it might be, in order to see that Maudlin's argument doesn't go through. To repair his argument it would be necessary to prove that the altered computation is unconscious.) I know that Hal participated in a discussion on Extropians in 2002 or 2003 concerning Giant Look-Up Tables. I'm surprised that either in the course of those discussions he didn't mention Maudlin's argument, or that I have forgotten it. Doesn't it all seem of a piece? We have, again, an entity that either does not compute its subsequent states, (or as Jesse Mazer points out, does so in a way that looks suspiciously like a recording of an actual prior calculation). The GLUT was a device that seemed to me to do the same thing, that is, portray subsequent states without engaging in bonafide computations. Is all this really the same underlying issue, or not? Lee Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/S.QlOD/3MnJAA/Zx0JAA/pyIolB/TM ~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fabric-of-Reality/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: A Questionnaire for Bill Taylor
Le 14-mai-05, à 16:04, Lee Corbin a écrit : If they are furthermore enough rich in complexity to have "abstract inhabitants", it is reasonable or plausible (at least) that for those inhabitants their abstract universe will look as it is real. This rests on the surprising conclusion that the inhabitants actually compute later states from earlier ones. Of course, it can always be made to *look* as though that is what "happened". Eternal Truth #6: seek and ye shall find. It is precisely this latter "surprising conclusion" that is resisted by so many (including me). Just as it would seem that anyone should resist making conclusions about the relationships between the books in Borges' Library of Babel. Borges' Library is different from the UD in this very respect. The UD does not simply generate all programs, but it executes all program. In the platonic sense that it does relate the computational states to each other. Its existence is far from from obvious. It seems easy for a mathematician to refute its existence by simple cantor-like diagonalisation. It takes the genius of Kleene or Post to unravel the paradoxes, to show that the set of programmable functions is close for the diagonal procedure, to show this entails the absoluteness of the computability relation, and the relativeness of any provability relation. It is a whole new mathematical world which has been discovered. And this will make sense if, furthermore again, their relative abstract computational continuations have the right measure. And theoretical computer science can justify the existence of such relative measure. We may take the books in the Borges library---admittedly in his scenario none of which is infinite---and begin willy-nilly assigning a greater measure to some than to others. It is extremely tempting to assign greater measure to short ones. But in the infinite-string version of Borges' library, Russell Standish (for one) begins by assigning equal measure to each bit string. I do not assign measure to short strings. Nor to any strings. I just use the Godel-Lob Logic to define the particular case of "measure one" in the language of a (Lobian) Universal Machine. Lobian is equivalent with having enough provability ability. I use a result from Goldblatt which translates Quantum logic in modal logic. I compute the inverse of Goldblatt transformation on the lobian machine description of that measure one, and I compare with quantum logic. Looks simple but those transformation are not easy to handle and lead to intractable problems and open question. Compare to QM or even Newton, I agree, the comp-physics is still too young (to say the least), but this only with respect to pure 3-person prediction, let us say the quanta. But thanks to incompleteness, which in the modal setting is captured by the gap between two amazing modal logics G and G*, I can say that with respect, to the existence of 1 and 3 person, an to the explanation of why quanta and qualia, and why they are different, the comp-physics is already in advance. Modal logic is just a tool for adding possible nuance to classical logic. My experience is that modal logic is more easy to understand than to understand the difference between atheist and agnostic. Indeed, I am used to explain the difference between atheist and agnostic by using the belief modality. I'm sure you know the difference between atheist and agnostic, but let me explain it with an explicit modality. Let d be the proposition according to which God exists. Let B be the belief modality as applied to someone. And let - represent negation. Then, by definition I would say: -a religious believer is someone who believes in the existence of God, i.e. about who 'Bd' is true. -an atheist is someone who believes God does not exist, i.e. about who 'B-d' is true. -an agnostic is someone who does not believe in the existence of God, and he does not believe in the non existence of God. Both '-Bd' and '-B-d" are true for him (or her, it, ...). People tends to confuse, and natural language does not help, propositions like -Bd and B-d. Most acts of putting the mind-body under the rug, or using Godel theorem against comp, can be seen at some level of description of the argumentations as error of that kind. That's why the discovery of G and G* by Solovay is a formidable event for simplifying the life of those who want to study the counter-intuitive lesson of the universal machine which introspect itself: what machine can prove and cannot prove but can correctly guess about their consistent extensions, and their geometry. The modal logic G is the study of the Beweisbar Gödel probability predicate Bew(x) which is true if there is a number coding a proof of x. You should'nt reduce the whole of computer science in the Library of Babel. Machine have dynamics, even if they are on the type discrete, digital, and, when seen in Platonia, looks like static abstractions. Here the movi
RE: A Questionnaire for Bill Taylor
Bruno writes
> Le 12-mai-05, à 19:14, Peter D Jones a écrit :
>
> > I don't see why. Surely what is being asserted is that there is a set
> > of physically real universes, and it is a subset of logically
> > possible universes ("Platonia") -- but logically possible universes
> > are not real in any sense, they are just an abstraction.
Well, that is the whole (as yet unproven) claim of those like
Balfour, Schmidhuber, and Marchal, etc. Namely, that they are
real (see Bruno's nice "sum up" below).
> But logically possible universes are certainly real in one sense: as
> being logically possible. Or as being logically consistent.
Yes indeed. If I have a string that contains (looks entirely arbitrary)
...071CB7150F1B0571C391BF0194C713100F15070C33149054012F0C59202039D10091...
of one's and zeros (in hex notation) and somewhere else an almost
exactly similar string (both either finite, or infinite), then
indeed there *is* an objective relationship between them if they
are sufficiently similar. They are, in fact, related precisely
to the degree that there is such a mapping from one to the other.
Now the more complex the mapping, that is, the more esoteric the
TM that is needed (the greater the Kolmogorov complexity of the
program that relates them), the less that they are *objectively*
related.
And since by hypothesis, all strings "exist" to platonic mathematicians,
all strings exist in Platonia, then any and every relationship that you
care to name exists there also. But one has to keep in mind a sort of
futility that attends such observations; a futility described first by
Borges.
> If they are furthermore enough rich in complexity to have "abstract
> inhabitants", it is reasonable or plausible (at least) that for those
> inhabitants their abstract universe will look as it is real.
This rests on the surprising conclusion that the inhabitants actually
compute later states from earlier ones. Of course, it can always be
made to *look* as though that is what "happened". Eternal Truth #6:
seek and ye shall find.
It is precisely this latter "surprising conclusion" that is resisted
by so many (including me). Just as it would seem that anyone should
resist making conclusions about the relationships between the books
in Borges' Library of Babel.
> And this will make sense if, furthermore again, their relative abstract
> computational continuations have the right measure. And theoretical
> computer science can justify the existence of such relative measure.
We may take the books in the Borges library---admittedly in his
scenario none of which is infinite---and begin willy-nilly assigning
a greater measure to some than to others. It is extremely tempting
to assign greater measure to short ones. But in the infinite-string
version of Borges' library, Russell Standish (for one) begins by
assigning equal measure to each bit string.
> And, finally, if such mathematical measure leads to the verified
> empirical measure, then, frankly, it seems to me that materialism in
> physics begins to look like ... late vitalism in 19th century biology.
A big "if"! Indeed, if a single new prediction comes from consideration
of Platonia or of Borges' Library (finite or infinite-string version),
then there will be quite a cause for celebrating.
> To sum up: "real" is just (abstract) consistency as seen from inside.
Great summary. Are all these books in libraries whispering to
each other or not? They indeed even quote each other verbatim,
and many can be seen to be holding conversations with each other
at arbitrarily high degrees of abstraction and wisdom. But will
anyone a hundred years from now think there is anything substantial
in this perception, or not?
Lee
RE: many worlds theory of immortality
Lee Corbin writes (replying to Bruno Marchal): > I agree the abandoning of vitalism is progress. And it is true that > natural science has explained features like self-reproduction, > animal motion, energy transformation (sun -> living matter) and so > on. But it is just erroneous to conclude that the mind-body problem > has been solved. No, it is not "just erroneous". I know of many thoughtful people, and include myself as one of them, who believe that the so-called mind body problem is some sort of verbal or linguistic problem. We see it as arising most likely in the minds of people who think there must be a deeper explanation for why highly advanced products of natural selection can report their internal states. > And then if we are really "digital machine", I offer a case > that materialism will be abandoned from purely rational > consideration. Matter? A lasting aristotelian superstition ... Well, you could be right! The jury's still out! :-) > > Observer-moments seems to arise simply from observers, > > Except that nobody has ever succeed in explaining how the 1-person > observer moment can arise from any 3-person description of an observer. And the aforesaid "we" don't think that anything needs explaining. Almost everyone reading this believes that an AI program could be written such that even if you single-step through it, it will report on its feelings, and that they'll be no less genuine than ours. And from this, I conclude that in all likelihood, there really isn't a problem :-) Lee I don't believe there is anything fundamentally mysterious about the human brain, in that it is just a collection of a dozen or so chemical elements organised in a particular way. Some people are offended by this assertion, and believe there is some special ingredient or mysterious process involved in cognition, which is perhaps forever beyond scientific scrutiny. We could call this folk dualism and folk vitalism, and it is very common in the community. Of course, it's nonsense. Having clarified that, I still think there is a real issue when considering consciousness and the 1st person/ 3rd person distinction. The problem is that it is possible, in theory, to collect, record and communicate information about any aspect of the physical universe *except* one's conscious experience. A person who is blind from birth might learn everything about light, how the eye works, how the brain processes sensory data from the optic nerve, and so on, but still have *no idea* of what it actually feels like to see. I don't believe there is some "deeper explanation" for why we have conscious experiences; manifestly, it is something that happens when certain electrochemical reactions occur in our brain, just as travelling down the road at 60 km/h is something that happens when controlled explosions occur in the cylinders of a car's engine. But this does not mean that the unique, private nature of conscious experience should be ignored or denied. --Stathis Papaioannou _ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
RE: Olympia's Beautiful and Profound Mind
Jesse wrote: > The main objection that comes to my mind is that in order to plan ahead of > time what number should be in each tape location before the armature > begins moving and flipping bits, you need to have already done the > computation in the regular way--so Olympia is not really computing > anything, it's basically just a playback device for showing us a > *recording* of what happened during the original computation. > > I don't think Olympia contributes anything more to the measure of the > observer-moment that was associated with the original computation, any > more than playing a movie showing the workings of each neuron in my brain > would contribute to the measure of the observer-moment associated with > what my brain was doing during that time. You have to be careful, however, that you are not maintaining that when we perform a computation and then do it in exactly the same way again that we can only consider the first run to be genuine. And taking note of the machine states and tape configuration during each step of the first run does not mean that the second run is any less of a computation. This aside, you are right that we need knowledge of the steps of the original computation to construct Olympia. We could have just filmed the steps of the original computation and played back the film, claiming that the film is also performing a computation. I would agree that this would not fit the bill. Information does not flow. But is it correct to say that information does not flow in Olympia? Consider the following. Olympia's tape configuration is causally dependent on the armature being in a certain state; that is, being at a certain location. And because the tape is "multiply-located", what happens at one point can affect what is happening at another point. Furthermore, Olympia goes through as many state changes as the original machine and the machine state has been defined without reference to the state of the tape and vice-versa. Lastly, unlike a film, Olympia is sensitive to counterfactuals when in the unblocked state. Do these indicate the flow of information? I'm tempted to say yes! Brian Scurfield
