Re: Artificial Philosophizing
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Georges wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So Bruno says that: a) I am a machine. b) ...no man can grasp all aspect of man Tom says that to philosophize is one aspect of humanness that is more than a machine (i.e. simply following a set of instructions). Jef and Brent say that we are machines who (that?) philosophize. Brent says that realizing we are machines is the beginning of (or another step in) the death of human hubris (arrogance). I thought that Bruno maintains that humility is on the side of realizing that we cannot totally understand ourselves. Pascal, Reason can begin again when we recognize what we cannot know. Could we try to make sense of this, given that we believe in sense? Tom Given that we believe in sense? Who/what gives that? Do we believe in that? Georges. Georges, you are using sense by asking those questions. Well, all my education (and probably even my genes) tried hard to convice me that I do. Still, I have a (very strong) doubt. Obviously, things tend to appear just as if I would. But maybe just as obviously as the sun tend to appear to be moving around the earth. Obviously also, the sense view is very well suited for us to best live and reproduce. This means it is almost always appropriate and efficient for everyday life discussion and decision making. But being appropriate and efficient in such cases does not mean at all that it is correct. It does not follow that it is appropriate everywhere, especially when we are in the kind of discussions we have here, about what would be a machine or what it might mean that reality actually exists. I was just wondering whether people here were willing to have a look on what they are sitting on. List, OK, we don't have to use any of those scary words like sense and reason and faith. We're just trying to get at reality. Or are people starting to get nihilistic? Have a little faith (oops) and let's talk. I suggest we start out by concentrating on the fact that Brent and Jef don't agree with Bruno's b) above. (And also perhaps Bruno doesn't agree with himself (Bruno's a) vs. b) above)). If we truly are machines, then by definition we should be able to (in theory) figure out the list of instructions that we follow. I feel a flaw in the then just there whatever definition of machine you want to consider. Georges. -- Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CLIPS-IMAG, 385, rue de la Bibliothèque, B.P. 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9 Tel: (33-4) 76 63 58 55, Fax: (33-4) 76 44 66 75
Re: belief, faith, truth
Tom Caylor writes: We can't JUST DO things (like AI). Whenever we DO things, we are THINKING ABOUT them. I'd venture to say that HOW WE THINK ABOUT THINGS (e.g. philosophy, epistemology, etc.) is even MORE important that DOING THINGS (engineering, sales, etc.). That is one way of looking at the advantage that we humans have over machines. We have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them. This runs counter to the whole PHILOSOPHY (mind you) of modern science, that we are simply machines, and that there is no WHY. This modern philosophy, if taken to its extreme, is the death of the humanness. We are definitely machines: machines made of meat. A negative answer to the question of whether a machine made of semiconductors and wire can ever be functionally equivalent to a brain, or whether the human mind is Turing-emulable, does not in itself imply that we are not simply machines. And if we have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them, then at least some machines are able to wonder why. Granted, common usage of the term machine generally excludes living organisms, but this distinction will be recognised as spurious when we develop nanotechnology that can copy and surpass any naturally evolved biological process. Stathis Papaioannou _ careerone.com.au http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fadsfac%2Enet%2Flink%2Easp%3Fcc%3DNWS014%2E19163%2E0%26clk%3D1%26creativeID%3D28927_t=752722611_m=EXT
Re: Artificial Philosophizing
Le 08-févr.-06, à 22:55, Russell Standish a écrit : On Wed, Feb 08, 2006 at 08:17:05PM +0100, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi, we (as observer) perceive at any given time a finite amount of information... so what you could know (still as an observer of a system) is finite, hence digitalisable at the level of information that you could know about the object, so I don't see why a radioactive source and the click pattern on a geiger counter cannot be simulated... You could object randomness, but generating (and executing) all program by the UD will generate all random string as well. Regards, Quentin A UD can generate the set of all random strings, but it still needs to select a single string to be equivalent to a Geiger counter. AFAIK, this is impossible for a Turing machine ... Not if the UD (which is a turing machine) copies you each time it generates one bit of the random strings. This is the idea of getting the quantum indeterminacy as a particular case of the comp first person indeterminacy. I think it is the idea of Everett and everything-like theories. but rather trivial from a real, physical machine. Accepting not only weak-materialism (existence of primitive matter) and the quantum theory that is accepting the existence of primitive matter and that it obeys to the quantum. But this is the kind of things we are trying to explain (from simpler things, like numbers and/or comp etc.). I can do it on my computer, for example, showing it to be capable of more than a Turing machine. Only if your computer is interfaced with a quantum generator (assuming the quantum theory). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 09-févr.-06, à 07:22, Kim Jones a écrit : I was just about to ask what an angel was! You must have read my mind, Bruno. Non-machine-emulable is angel. OK. Why do they(?) have to be called angel? Can one liken them(?) to the theological description of an angel or is there some other reason? Actually Plotinus never use that word. Instead, he seems to use gods or in some partiicular case daemon. I use it because it is shorter than non-machine and less disturbing than Plotinus' Gods. I am open that they could be liken to any celestial object sincere theologian can discuss,. Sincere = they can discuss it in the open-to-doubt scientist way to talk about things. The advantage of angel is that it reminds us that they are not effective constructible objects. They exist in the intelligible world only (Plato's Heaven, Cantor Paradise, Plotinus Divine Intellect). Terrestrial angel could exist though, but this is an open problem (both for theoreticians using comp or weaker, and empiricists). I hope people are not too much disturbed by my vocabulary. For those who knows a bit about recursion theory, simple angels can be classified by being more or less canonically associated to the Turing degrees of insolubility. Most angels are just machine having added to them some divine ability (under the form of Turing's oracles, or being capable to do omega proofs in one strike, etc.). The interesting thing, for mathematician, is that they existence shows that the incompleteness results are extremely solid, all those angels are still under the Godel-Lob dicto, and, if I am correct, I mean if ma derivation of physics is correct (which remains to be seen I recall) they are under the quantum dicto too. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Artificial Philosophizing
On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 03:05:48PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
A UD can generate the set of all random strings, but it still needs to
select a single string to be equivalent to a Geiger counter.
AFAIK,
this is impossible for a Turing machine ...
Not if the UD (which is a turing machine) copies you each time it
generates one bit of the random strings.
I had a smart response here, and I just realised I had misinterpreted
the word copy here, so I just deleted it. Copy in English also
means to send something (envoyer) (I copied him in on the
conversation), as well as to reproduce something.
Yes you are quite right (under COMP, and under the more regular meaning
of copy). However, I don't think this is how a Geiger counter works...
This is the idea of getting the quantum indeterminacy as a particular
case of the comp first person indeterminacy. I think it is the idea of
Everett and everything-like theories.
but rather trivial from a
real, physical machine.
Accepting not only weak-materialism (existence of primitive matter) and
the quantum theory that is accepting the existence of primitive matter
and that it obeys to the quantum. But this is the kind of things we are
trying to explain (from simpler things, like numbers and/or comp etc.).
This is one point where I depart from your metaphysics. Traditional
aristotelianism asserts existence of matter, and that psyche emerges
from that. You assert the existence of numbers, and of psyche, and
show how matter arises from that.
I think both are needed. The psyche supervenes on matter, and the
properties of matter depend on the psyche. All of which exists because
numbers exist. There is a name for such a concept - strange loop. I
thought this name was due to Stewart and Cohen, but it appears
Hofstadter got there first in GEB.
The reason I have come to this position is that try as I might, I
cannot remove the Anthropic Principle as an axiom. I would dearly love
someone to show that it is a consequence of other assumptions, or can
be derived from such by means of a simple, obvious assumption. But
most people I talk to don't even see the problem (perhaps because
they're still grounded in Aristotelian ways...)
I can do it on my computer, for example,
showing it to be capable of more than a Turing machine.
Only if your computer is interfaced with a quantum generator (assuming
the quantum theory).
But it is. Its called a keyboard. (The faster you type, the more
genuine randomness is generated). Do a Google search on /dev/random,
or on Havege*. There is also a fantastically complicated quantum
random generator that consists of an arrangement of spinning disks
interacting with a volume of air@ (OK perhaps not proven quantum, but
our best theories that describe the operation of the device, ie Chaos
theory, indicates quantum influence).
*
@Article{Seznec-Sendrier03,
author = {Andr\'e Seznec and Nicolas Sendrier},
title ={{HAVEGE}: A user-level software heuristic for generating
empirically strong random numbers},
journal = {{ACM} Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation},
year = 2003,
volume = 13,
pages ={334--346}
}
@
@InProceedings{Jakobsson-etal98,
author = {Jakobsson, M. and Shriver, E. and Hillyer, E. and Juels, A.},
title ={A Practical Secure Physical Random Bit Generator},
booktitle ={Proceedings of the 5th {ACM} Conference on Computer and
Communications Security},
pages ={103--111},
year = 1998,
address = {San Francisco},
month ={November}
}
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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
pgp4kC0HXwTet.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: Artificial Philosophizing
Hi Russel,
Interleaving some comments...
- Original Message -
From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Everything-List List everything-list@eskimo.com
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: Artificial Philosophizing
On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 03:05:48PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
A UD can generate the set of all random strings, but it still needs to
select a single string to be equivalent to a Geiger counter.
AFAIK,
this is impossible for a Turing machine ...
Not if the UD (which is a turing machine) copies you each time it
generates one bit of the random strings.
I had a smart response here, and I just realised I had misinterpreted
the word copy here, so I just deleted it. Copy in English also
means to send something (envoyer) (I copied him in on the
conversation), as well as to reproduce something.
**
[SPK]
Does it not seem incoherent to use terms that imply some form of
*process* when considering notions that are implicitly changeless and
static? This has perpetually bothered me in the discussions of the
neoplatonians...
BTW, copying is the identity morphism for computations (and
informorphisms in general) in Pratt's discussion of Chu spaces...
**
Yes you are quite right (under COMP, and under the more regular meaning
of copy). However, I don't think this is how a Geiger counter works...
***
[SPK]
It does seem that Bruno is considering the ticks, etc. of the Geiger
Counter as included in the over all 1st person aspect of the bit string,
this would include all aspects of the experience of the Geiger Counter...
***
This is the idea of getting the quantum indeterminacy as a particular
case of the comp first person indeterminacy. I think it is the idea of
Everett and everything-like theories.
but rather trivial from a
real, physical machine.
Accepting not only weak-materialism (existence of primitive matter) and
the quantum theory that is accepting the existence of primitive matter
and that it obeys to the quantum. But this is the kind of things we are
trying to explain (from simpler things, like numbers and/or comp etc.).
This is one point where I depart from your metaphysics. Traditional
aristotelianism asserts existence of matter, and that psyche emerges
from that. You assert the existence of numbers, and of psyche, and
show how matter arises from that.
I think both are needed. The psyche supervenes on matter, and the
properties of matter depend on the psyche. All of which exists because
numbers exist. There is a name for such a concept - strange loop. I
thought this name was due to Stewart and Cohen, but it appears
Hofstadter got there first in GEB.
**
[SPK]
Are you considering a Categorical difference of classes here, in the
sense that the classof matter structures/processes is different (in kind not
degree) from the class of psychies? Have you considered Vaughan Pratt's idea
for a relationship between them?
**
The reason I have come to this position is that try as I might, I
cannot remove the Anthropic Principle as an axiom. I would dearly love
someone to show that it is a consequence of other assumptions, or can
be derived from such by means of a simple, obvious assumption. But
most people I talk to don't even see the problem (perhaps because
they're still grounded in Aristotelian ways...)
**
[SPK]
I concurr with this observation; it is as if most people do not see the
deep conundrum that exist within the Aristotelian hylemorphism
(http://radicalacademy.com/jdcosmology2.htm) in its assumption of a primal
substance which, if I understand correctly, is seperated into its plethora
of forms by many processes. It is the origin of the latter that I argue
should be considered as fundamental, as a primitive class Becoming (ala
Bergson), and substance is then shown to be the class of all forms that can
emerge (think morphisms) from Becoming.
Pratt's idea seems to add a dual to this morphism that would include
such notions as computations; we then have a nice duality that avoid's
Descartes' fallasy of trying to build dualism from substantivalism, ala res
extensa and res cognitas.
**
I can do it on my computer, for example,
showing it to be capable of more than a Turing machine.
Only if your computer is interfaced with a quantum generator (assuming
the quantum theory).
But it is. Its called a keyboard. (The faster you type, the more
genuine randomness is generated). Do a Google search on /dev/random,
or on Havege*. There is also a fantastically complicated quantum
random generator that consists of an arrangement of spinning disks
interacting with a volume of air@ (OK perhaps not proven quantum, but
our best theories that describe the operation of the device, ie Chaos
theory, indicates quantum influence).
***
[SPK]
Would the subclass of all of these randomness generators include
automorphisms?
***
*
@Article{Seznec-Sendrier03,
author = {Andr\'e Seznec and Nicolas
Re: Artificial Philosophizing
On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 08:49:24PM -0500, Stephen Paul King wrote:
*
@Article{Seznec-Sendrier03,
author = {Andr\'e Seznec and Nicolas Sendrier},
title = {{HAVEGE}: A user-level software heuristic for generating
empirically strong random numbers},
journal = {{ACM} Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation},
year = 2003,
volume = 13,
pages = {334--346}
}
@
@InProceedings{Jakobsson-etal98,
author = {Jakobsson, M. and Shriver, E. and Hillyer, E. and Juels, A.},
title = {A Practical Secure Physical Random Bit Generator},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 5th {ACM} Conference on Computer and
Communications Security},
pages = {103--111},
year = 1998,
address = {San Francisco},
month = {November}
}
**
[SPK]
Any of these available online free, to non-academics like me?
**
snip
Onward!
Stephen
Yes, I believe so, as I think I read them. Do a Google search on the
paper titles...
If they really are copy protected, I can probably get a copy for you through
my (fading) UNSW connection.
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
pgpsmXYPtS1ip.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: Artificial Philosophizing
Best of all - try a washing machine. Get all your wife's stockings and throw them loosely into the washing machine and switch it on for one cycle. When you see the state of entanglement of everything at the end you will understand genuine randomness. Kim Jones On 10/02/2006, at 10:18 AM, Russell Standish wrote: Only if your computer is interfaced with a quantum generator (assuming the quantum theory). But it is. Its called a keyboard. (The faster you type, the more genuine randomness is generated). Do a Google search on /dev/random, or on Havege*. There is also a fantastically complicated quantum random generator that consists of an arrangement of spinning disks interacting with a volume of air@ (OK perhaps not proven quantum, but our best theories that describe the operation of the device, ie Chaos theory, indicates quantum influence).
