Re: Bruno's argument
1Z wrote: > > Brent Meeker wrote: > > >>In other words it is not justified, based on our limited understanding of >>brains, to say we'll never >>be able to know how another feels based on observation of their brain. > > > > We don't know how insects or amoebae feel, either. > It is not just an issue of complexity. > We don't knw where to *start* with qualia. We know where to start when it comes to knowing how other people feel, i.e. we empathize. If we knew how our brain worked and how the brain of our friend worked, then we could correlate the empathized feeling with the brain events. This doesn't mean we would experience our friends feeling, but we could produce a mapping between his brain processes and his (inferred) feelings. Of course we wouldn't *know* this was right - but scientific knowledge is always uncertain, so I don't see that as a objection to calling it knowledge. Then there are homologous structures in our friends brain to those in a chimpanzee's brain and there are similar behavoirs - so I think we could extend our map to the feelings of a chimpanzee. Of course with some really alien life form, say an octopus, this would be difficult to test empirically - but not, I think, impossible. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
COMP & Self-awareness
On Sat, Jul 22, 2006 at 04:49:04PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> Le 20-juil.-06, à 13:46, Russell Standish a écrit :
>
> > Bruno, I know in your theory that introspection is a vital component
> > (the Goedel-like constructions), but I didn't see how this turns back
> > onto the self-awareness issue. Did you develop this side of the
> > argument?
>
>
> Yes sure. The Goedel-like construction can handle only a 3-person
> discursive self-reference.
> A little like if you where reasoning on some 3-description of your
> brain or body with your doctor, although it could be also an high level
> 3-description (like I have a head).
>
... Removed for brevity
>
> I will come back on the correspondence later. The key point is that the
> nuance between
> p, Bp, Bp & p, Bp & Dp, Bp & Dp & p, are imposed by the incompleteness
> phenomenon, and self-awareness corresponds to the one having " & p" in
> their definition. It is the umbilical chord between "truth" and
> intellect of the "reasonable" first person.
>
> Bruno
How do we get the "& p" part corresponding to self-awareness? That
doesn't seem to make sense at all!
We could of course be foundering upon my major problem with your
work. I have no problems with your UDA, and even think it could be
generalised to the functionalist position, but where I come to grief
is the latter Theatetical arguments.
I have studied the book by Boolos, and can appreciate the power of
modal logic to handle reasoning about provability. I can also see how
you (and others) have extended these logic systems to the Theatetical
notion of knowledge (adding the &p), but my (physicist's) intuition
riots against this definition capturing what we mean by knowledge. At
best, I consider it a description of _mathematical_ knowledge, where
indeed we can never know something unless proved. General scientific
knowledge doesn't seem to work that way, let alone knowledge of
humanities or other types (echoes of John Mike's criticisms here, I know).
Parenthetically, what about scientific knowledge being captured by
DB-p & -B-p? In other words, "falsifiable, but not falsified", a
statement of Popper's principle.
Substituting D=-B-, we get -BDp & Dp, which has a similar Theatetical
structure about a statement being possibly true.
Anyway, thats by the bye. If I accept the Theatetical notion for the
sake of argument (since I can see how it might work for mathematical
knowledge), I still struggle to see how the "&p" part leads to self
awareness.
Cheers
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Re: Emotions (was: Indeterminism
Bruno Marchal wrote: > Then if you take your theory seriously enough you will be lead to > Chalmers or Penrose sort of theory which needs actual non Turing > emulable stuff to make singular your experience or even "local nature". I don't see why. The idea that computation can't lead to what you call "stuffy" existence is not based on some non-computational property of matter. It is based on the idea that computation is just an abstract description of physical behaviour, and real existence cannot spring from abstract descriptions, any more than the characters in a novel can come to life. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Brent Meeker wrote: > In other words it is not justified, based on our limited understanding of > brains, to say we'll never > be able to know how another feels based on observation of their brain. We don't know how insects or amoebae feel, either. It is not just an issue of complexity. We don't knw where to *start* with qualia. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: This is not the roadmap
Bruno Marchal wrote: > You asked me more difficult problems in the past, John. > *assuming comp*, there is an easy answer. Go to Numberplatonia, use > Goedel's technic to write a little program with the instruction "help > yourself". Pray each day your little program develop itself convenably, > perhaps with the help of the heaven. When sufficiently developed, > maybe after billions of years, invite e to the next grocery and buy er > a vanilla candy, and then ask er. E will give you the best description > you can ever hope of a taste of vanilla, corresponding to a billion > years of ordinary number manipulations and you can look at them if you > have print the execution of the program. There is no reason to think numbers can describe qualia at all, so the question of the "best" description hardly arises. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
John M wrote: > Brent, > there is wisdom in your views - b u t -... > > Does anybody really 'know'- 'experience'-and indeed: ' feel' what and how > another person idenfifies internally feeling the color red? I think 'know' and 'experience' are different. We all think that we know how another person feels when they hit their thumb with a hammer - because we've done that and we remember how it feels. But instead of seeing the other person hit their thumb and hearing their reaction, suppose we observed all their brain and other neural and hormonal processes at the time and suppose we knew enough about human brains that we could make one. I'm suggesting that we could know how the person felt about hitting his thumb just from that "internal" observation. And then, carrying that a step further, we could infer how chimpanzees feel from their neural processes, and dogs, and mice, and... > All physical-physiological data can be fixed, yet it is open whether > another person feels 'red' as I do 'green. (Long standing debate os psych > lists). But is it really in doubt, or is it just a philosophical game. Knowledge is usually taken to mean true belief that is justified: not certain. > Then again we forget the big mystery: the (feeling of) SELF, and I mean it > in a wider sense, not only human. I try to identify it (am not satisfied) > with the broader effect of an intereffecting relational group on its > wide-range environmental impacts. The 'self' does not end at the skin (I say > that metaphorically), but depends on the 'within-skin' processes of > interrelated and self-reflected relations in the 'beyond skin' relations. > Now these are just as individual,as DNA or fingerprint (just 2 silly > examples) and so is the interrelation with the beyond-skin world. No two > 'self-s' relate identically. 1) How do you know this? and 2) how about "similarly"? Sure DNAs are unique and so are fingerprints - but that doesn't mean we can't understand how another person's fingers work. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 21-juil.-06, à 17:52, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > >>If there is anything left over. I don't think it is sufficiently >>appreciated that this >>"unknowability" is an assumption. > > > No bigger than the "assumption" that "other" minds exists (a key > assumption in comp if only through the trust to the doctor). Aren't those two propositions independent - that there are other minds and that we cannot possibly know what their experiences are like? > > And then it is a theorem that for any correct machine there are true > propositions about them that the machine cannot prove. And there are true propositions about itself that the machine cannot prove - but are they "experiences"? Certainly there are myriad true propositions about what my brain is doing that I am not, and cannot be aware of, but they aren't experiences. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Brent, there is wisdom in your views - b u t -... Does anybody really 'know'- 'experience'-and indeed: ' feel' what and how another person idenfifies internally feeling the color red? All physical-physiological data can be fixed, yet it is open whether another person feels 'red' as I do 'green. (Long standing debate os psych lists). Then again we forget the big mystery: the (feeling of) SELF, and I mean it in a wider sense, not only human. I try to identify it (am not satisfied) with the broader effect of an intereffecting relational group on its wide-range environmental impacts. The 'self' does not end at the skin (I say that metaphorically), but depends on the 'within-skin' processes of interrelated and self-reflected relations in the 'beyond skin' relations. Now these are just as individual,as DNA or fingerprint (just 2 silly examples) and so is the interrelation with the beyond-skin world. No two 'self-s' relate identically. We may KNOW (observe, calculate, learn) all data about the processes exercised by the inter-skinnal components (e.g. brain) but not the extraskinnal relations in a world of continual change. Not with our ongoing instrumentation. This is for today. We may learn more by tomorrow. John M - Original Message - From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 4:40 PM Subject: Re: Bruno's argument Quentin Anciaux wrote: > Le Vendredi 21 Juillet 2006 22:08, Brent Meeker a écrit : > >>No, the hypothetical was stronger than that: it was that I knew exactly >>how >>your brain worked to the degree that I could make one. > > > You could know everything on how my brain works without being ever able > feeling being me... And I repeat if you could then you would be me by > definition. Me is the only one able to feel being me... It is non-sense to > claim otherwise, what ever you could know on the external working and > behavior of myself. As I understood the question was whether we could ever know how another person/brain/alien felt - not whether we could experience their feeling. Obviously only the person having the experience feels/percieves it. But I think it is plausible that, knowing the how a alien brain was constructed and how it worked (as we do a planaria's) and how the alien interacted with the world and behaved, then we could infer whether or not, for example, it felt pain and when and what brain processes corresponded to feeling pain. I'm not sure that this is the case - but it maybe. In other words it is not justified, based on our limited understanding of brains, to say we'll never be able to know how another feels based on observation of their brain. Brent Meeker -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.2/393 - Release Date: 7/19/2006 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: This is not the roadmap
Thanks, Bruno, for your helping effort. It did not do too much for me because it started out with 'assuming comp' which means: we need nothing more than (number) trivialities and (as you wrote): > Numbers protects the free mind against a *vast* > class of reductionism< What I feel is the complete reductionism INTO numbers. No wonder if 'they' protect us against other types. Your 'vanilla story' did not ring a bell in my mind to an understganding about what you wrote. I learned that the square root of 2 is irrational, but did not learn what 2 may be if not two kikcs in the behind or two roses. Square rooting goes well within your 'manipuklating numbers' what I believed similarly to "Noah survived the flood". I call 'happiness of the mathematicians' the happiness of the believers not questioning what "number" may be and using them from pre-platonia on. I feel (not in numbers) that your mind is working in the numbers-maze so deeply that I doubt if your help copuld really induce me (from the unbiased outside) into the platonistic-Godelian number crunching wisdom. Thanks anyway for your friendly trying John --- Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Le 21-juil.-06, � 22:52, John M a �crit : > > > Could we talk 'topics' without going into > trivialities what every child > > knows after the first visit to the grocery store? > > > But the cute thing (in my perhaps naive lobianity) > here is that you > don't need more than the trivialities every child > knows after the first > visit to the grocery store, to understand that, once > we assume comp, > Numbers protects the free mind against a *vast* > class of reductionism. > I should perhaps not insist on that because, > sometimes I ask myself, > humanity could be not mature enough, but there are > many reason to > believe that eventually all universal machines > sufficiently correct to > survive will converge toward a state of being > universal dissident, a > typical allergy to authoritative arguments. > > > As long as we cannot identify what a 'number' is, > it does not > > contribute to > > an understanding of reason. > > Could we identify what a human is? > > > What is '3' without monitoring something? > > With the Fi I tried to explain how far can numbers > can monitors > numbers, including partially themselves. > Also, I would get the feeling of lying to myself if > I was not > acknowledging that I understand better the number 3 > than an electron or > a theory about electrons. > > > (This is not a personal attack on you or YOUR > >theory, it is a common belief > > and I question its usability - not by opposing, > just curious to find a way > > to accept it and experience the happiness of the > mathematicians). > > > Do you know the proof that the square root of 2 is > irrational. It is an > impossibility theorem. Godel's incompletness and > Turing's > insolubilities are very deep impossibility theorem > concerning machine, > and us (assuming comp). The happiness of the > mathematician is of many > type: barock, romantic, jazz, mystery-inspired, > esthetic > > > As you can see, I have no idea about number > theory. Whenever I tried > > to read > > into it, I found myself (the text) inside the > >mindset which I wanted to > > approach from the outside. Nobody offered so far a > >way to "get in" if you are "outside" of it > > > I can offer my help, but I don't want to insist. > > > It is a magic and I do not like magic. > > I like true magic. I hate magic+ marmelade. > > > > Next time when I ask "how can you describe the > taste of vanilla by > > manipulating ordinary numbers"? TRY IT. > > You asked me more difficult problems in the past, > John. > *assuming comp*, there is an easy answer. Go to > Numberplatonia, use > Goedel's technic to write a little program with the > instruction "help > yourself". Pray each day your little program develop > itself convenably, > perhaps with the help of the heaven. When > sufficiently developed, > maybe after billions of years, invite e to the next > grocery and buy er > a vanilla candy, and then ask er. E will give you > the best description > you can ever hope of a taste of vanilla, > corresponding to a billion > years of ordinary number manipulations and you can > look at them if you > have print the execution of the program. > > If comp is true, nobody will know for sure which > numbers are > responsible for the vanilla qualia, although > empirical theories will > progress up to the point of buying "qualia". > Successes there will be > serendipitous, and unproved scientifically, but most > of us will not > care ... only for bugs ... and protection of privacy > (an explosively > daunting task of the future which will be made > tractable through > quantum information practice I think). > > Bruno > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are su
Re: Bruno's argument
Le 20-juil.-06, à 13:46, Russell Standish a écrit : > Bruno, I know in your theory that introspection is a vital component > (the Goedel-like constructions), but I didn't see how this turns back > onto the self-awareness issue. Did you develop this side of the > argument? Yes sure. The Goedel-like construction can handle only a 3-person discursive self-reference. A little like if you where reasoning on some 3-description of your brain or body with your doctor, although it could be also an high level 3-description (like I have a head). The Goedel construction leads to the modal logic G, where the atomic propositions "p" are interpreted by arithmetical sentences, and the modal box "B" by the Goedel provability predicate. So, for example, with f the logical constant FALSE, and "~" = negation, Goedel second incompleteness can be written ~Bf -> ~B ~Bf you can read like the machine says that if the false is provable by er, then that very fact (that the false is not provable) is itself not provable. But "B" is only one among many notion of person, and G corresponds to an intellectual, discursive, 3-describable, scientific if you want, sort of self-referential discourse. G* also, but G* got the whole truth (at this propositional level thanks to Solovay theorem). Consciousness and first person self-awareness will correspond to "theaetetical weakening" of that Goedlian provability notion, besides the arithmetical version of comp. Mainly: Bp & p Bp & ~B~p Bp & ~B~p & p or if you abbreviate ~B~p by the diamond: Dp,: Bp & p Bp & Dp Bp & Dp & p Although G* can prove the arithmetical equivalence of those "provability predicates", G cannot prove them equivalent, and they will give rise to different modal logics corresponding to different internal perception of number-truth. Bp & p gives a temporal knower in an branching multiverse, Bp & Dp gives rise to a quantum sort of sharable credibility or a bottom symmetrical multiverse, etc. Actually, thanks to the nuances you inherit from the corona G* \ G, those "hypostases" are divided into sharable and no sharable part making quanta particular case of qualia. I will come back on the correspondence later. The key point is that the nuance between p, Bp, Bp & p, Bp & Dp, Bp & Dp & p, are imposed by the incompleteness phenomenon, and self-awareness corresponds to the one having " & p" in their definition. It is the umbilical chord between "truth" and intellect of the "reasonable" first person. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: This is not the roadmap
Le 21-juil.-06, à 22:52, John M a écrit : > Could we talk 'topics' without going into trivialities what every child > knows after the first visit to the grocery store? But the cute thing (in my perhaps naive lobianity) here is that you don't need more than the trivialities every child knows after the first visit to the grocery store, to understand that, once we assume comp, Numbers protects the free mind against a *vast* class of reductionism. I should perhaps not insist on that because, sometimes I ask myself, humanity could be not mature enough, but there are many reason to believe that eventually all universal machines sufficiently correct to survive will converge toward a state of being universal dissident, a typical allergy to authoritative arguments. > As long as we cannot identify what a 'number' is, it does not > contribute to > an understanding of reason. Could we identify what a human is? > What is '3' without monitoring something? With the Fi I tried to explain how far can numbers can monitors numbers, including partially themselves. Also, I would get the feeling of lying to myself if I was not acknowledging that I understand better the number 3 than an electron or a theory about electrons. > (This is not a personal attack on you or YOUR theory, it is a common > belief > and I question its usability - not by opposing, just curious to find > a way > to accept it and experience the happiness of the mathematicians). Do you know the proof that the square root of 2 is irrational. It is an impossibility theorem. Godel's incompletness and Turing's insolubilities are very deep impossibility theorem concerning machine, and us (assuming comp). The happiness of the mathematician is of many type: barock, romantic, jazz, mystery-inspired, esthetic > As you can see, I have no idea about number theory. Whenever I tried > to read > into it, I found myself (the text) inside the mindset which I wanted > to > approach from the outside. Nobody offered so far a way to "get in" if > you > are "outside" of it I can offer my help, but I don't want to insist. > It is a magic and I do not like magic. I like true magic. I hate magic+ marmelade. > Next time when I ask "how can you describe the taste of vanilla by > manipulating ordinary numbers"? TRY IT. You asked me more difficult problems in the past, John. *assuming comp*, there is an easy answer. Go to Numberplatonia, use Goedel's technic to write a little program with the instruction "help yourself". Pray each day your little program develop itself convenably, perhaps with the help of the heaven. When sufficiently developed, maybe after billions of years, invite e to the next grocery and buy er a vanilla candy, and then ask er. E will give you the best description you can ever hope of a taste of vanilla, corresponding to a billion years of ordinary number manipulations and you can look at them if you have print the execution of the program. If comp is true, nobody will know for sure which numbers are responsible for the vanilla qualia, although empirical theories will progress up to the point of buying "qualia". Successes there will be serendipitous, and unproved scientifically, but most of us will not care ... only for bugs ... and protection of privacy (an explosively daunting task of the future which will be made tractable through quantum information practice I think). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Le 21-juil.-06, à 17:52, Brent Meeker a écrit : > If there is anything left over. I don't think it is sufficiently > appreciated that this > "unknowability" is an assumption. No bigger than the "assumption" that "other" minds exists (a key assumption in comp if only through the trust to the doctor). And then it is a theorem that for any correct machine there are true propositions about them that the machine cannot prove. Modeling (at first) knowledge by [true justified opinion] (Theaetetus) and modeling (at first) the [justified opinion] by the machine provability ability (in the sense of Godel), gives a theory justifying that for each correct machine there exist true unknowable propositions. More can be said: if you have two machines M1 and M2 having similar complexity there will be truth about M1 which are unknowable by M2 and vice versa. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Le Samedi 22 Juillet 2006 04:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : > Quentin Anciaux wrote: > > But in this case what is the difference between knowing how and having > > the experience ? > > Seems to me there's a lot of difference between knowing how to shoot myself > in the foot and having the experience of doing so. Not in this case... I recall you that you said to know how it is to feel having the experience.. to know what it is like to be me/to have my experience. You go away in a semantical debate which is not the point at all ! > >If you could know how then you should be able to recreate the > > experience for yourself and feel the feeling of being me ;) Then it means > > you are me > > If I do it or if I know how? How could you do my feelings ? So sure it is when you know how... Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
