RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Bruno Marchal writes (quoting Tom Caylor): In my view, your motivation is not large enough. I am also motivated by a problem: the problem of evil. I don't think the real problem of evil is solved or even really addressed with comp. This is because comp cannot define evil correctly. I will try to explain this more. I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of course those light are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more below. Surely you have to aknowledge that there is a fundamental difference between matters of fact and matters of value. Science can tell us how to make a nuclear bomb and the effects a nuclear explosion will have on people and the environment, but whether it is good or bad to use such a weapon is not an empirical question at all. You could say that I believe blowing people up is bad is a statement of empirical fact, either true or false depending on whether you are accurately reporting your belief. However, blowing people up is bad is a completely different kind of statement which no amount of empirical evidence has any bearing on. If you survey a million people and all of them believe that blowing up people is bad, you have shown that most people believe that blowing up people is bad, but you have not shown that blowing up people is bad. If you find a message from God stating that blowing up people is bad then you have shown that God believes that blowing up people is bad (and perhaps will send you to hell if you do it), but you have not shown that blowing up people is bad. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Hello all - My Theory of Everything
On Mon, Dec 11, 2006 at 03:26:59PM -0800, William wrote: If the universe is computationallu simulable, then any universal Turing machine will do for a higher hand. In which case, the information needed is simply the shortest possible program for simulating the universe, the length of which by definition is the information content of the universe. What I meant to compare is 2 situations (I've taken an SAS doing the simulations for now although i do not think it is required): 1) just our universe A consisting of minimal information 2) An interested SAS in another universe wants to simulate some universes; amongst which is also universe A, ours. Now we live in universe A; but the question we can ask ourselves is if we live in 1) or 2). (Although one can argue there is no actual difference). Nevertheless, my proposition is that we live in 1; since 2 does exist but is less probable than 1. information in 1 = inf(A) information in 2 = inf(simulation_A) + inf(SAS) + inf(possible other stuff) = inf(A) + inf(SAS) + inf(possible other stuff) inf(A) You're still missing the point. If you sum over all SASes and other computing devices capable of simulating universe A, the probability of being in a simulation of A is identical to simply being in universe A. This is actually a theorem of information theory, believe it or not! A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Le 12-déc.-06, à 03:58, 1Z a écrit : 1Z wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. !! To expand a bit, Well, thanks. both of these easily answer the problem Of Evil if you treat them as Theories of Everything (and not just Everything Physical). I was kind enough to consider them as theories as everything indeed, but then it is an obvious fact that Loop Gravity (LG) and String Theories (ST) does not even address the question, nor any qualia question. Of course, LG and ST, like all physicalist approaches, rely on an implicit materialist theological doctrine. The Problem of Evil is the Problem of reconciling a good God with a suffering world. No. This is only a version of the problem of Evil in christian theologies. In Buddhism, the problem of evil can arguably be translated into the problem of finding the roots of suffering (and how to cut them). In non-eliminative materialism the problem of evil is the problem of why and how information processing by neurons does make a first person feeling pain, etc. Here I was alluding to the quasi trivial fact that to get a scientific theory of suffering (and thus more generally evil) we need a theory of qualia before. Since there is no God in either theory, the problem does not arise. Which illustrates that ST and LG are not theory of everything (unless we take the materialist doctrine, but then comp is wrong, or my argument UDA is incorrect, ...) But evil exists, (no?), if only through the existence of suffering (although evil is a notion arguably far more complex than just suffering (hope you grant a relation between suffering and evil)). Of course, from a comp point of view, LG and ST address only the fourth hypostases (Z1 and Z1*, perhaps S4Grz1 and the X logics too). And they does not try to distinguish between the communicable and the non communicable part of it. BTW you are quick saying there is no God in LG and in ST, is that a theorem? I don't see the question addressed in those theories except perhaps somehow by Hawking ... (http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html) 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 12-déc.-06, à 03:58, 1Z a écrit : 1Z wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. both of these easily answer the problem Of Evil if you treat them as Theories of Everything (and not just Everything Physical). I was kind enough to consider them as theories as everything indeed, but then it is an obvious fact that Loop Gravity (LG) and String Theories (ST) does not even address the question, nor any qualia question. Of course, LG and ST, like all physicalist approaches, rely on an implicit materialist theological doctrine. Haven't you said in the past that science is silent on the question of whether there is a real material universe? It is assumed by most scientists, as by most people, but it is not actually one of the testable predictions of the scientific theory. The Problem of Evil is the Problem of reconciling a good God with a suffering world. No. This is only a version of the problem of Evil in christian theologies. In Buddhism, the problem of evil can arguably be translated into the problem of finding the roots of suffering (and how to cut them). In non-eliminative materialism the problem of evil is the problem of why and how information processing by neurons does make a first person feeling pain, etc. OK, but if you just say problem of evil it generally means what Peter has said above to most people who have heard of the term. Here I was alluding to the quasi trivial fact that to get a scientific theory of suffering (and thus more generally evil) we need a theory of qualia before. But even such a theory (if possible) would not explain what evil is any better than saying that it is suffering, or some variation on this. Since there is no God in either theory, the problem does not arise. Which illustrates that ST and LG are not theory of everything (unless we take the materialist doctrine, but then comp is wrong, or my argument UDA is incorrect, ...) But evil exists, (no?), if only through the existence of suffering (although evil is a notion arguably far more complex than just suffering (hope you grant a relation between suffering and evil)). Of course, from a comp point of view, LG and ST address only the fourth hypostases (Z1 and Z1*, perhaps S4Grz1 and the X logics too). And they does not try to distinguish between the communicable and the non communicable part of it. I don't see how it's such a big problem. Consciousness exists, therefore feelings exist, and some of these feelings are unpleasant ones. Explaining consciousness is difficult, but once granted, you don't need an extra theory for every different type of feeling. BTW you are quick saying there is no God in LG and in ST, is that a theorem? I don't see the question addressed in those theories except perhaps somehow by Hawking ... (http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html) LG and ST do not specifically discuss elephants and are not dependent on the existence or nonexistence of elephants for validity. It is possible that without God the universe would not have come about, but the same is true for elephants. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 12-déc.-06, à 03:58, 1Z a écrit : 1Z wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. !! To expand a bit, Well, thanks. both of these easily answer the problem Of Evil if you treat them as Theories of Everything (and not just Everything Physical). I was kind enough to consider them as theories as everything indeed, but then it is an obvious fact that Loop Gravity (LG) and String Theories (ST) does not even address the question, They do address the reconciling aspect of the question. There is nothing to reconcile Evil with if there is no God. The rest of the question is the question of qualia, which is a different question. nor any qualia question. Of course, LG and ST, like all physicalist approaches, rely on an implicit materialist theological doctrine. Yes, that is the point. The existence or otherwise of god is not a specific theory. the non-existince of God is a doctrine of physicalism rather than physics. That's why your comment about ST and LQG reads so strangely. The Problem of Evil is the Problem of reconciling a good God with a suffering world. No. This is only a version of the problem of Evil in christian theologies. That is *the* problem of evil. It doesn't arise under other theologies. In Buddhism, the problem of evil can arguably be translated into the problem of finding the roots of suffering (and how to cut them). There is no reason why a physical theory shoud even attempt to address that. In non-eliminative materialism the problem of evil is the problem of why and how information processing by neurons does make a first person feeling pain, etc. That is the problem of qualia. Pain and suffering have no special status. Here I was alluding to the quasi trivial fact that to get a scientific theory of suffering (and thus more generally evil) we need a theory of qualia before. If qualia can be explained by computationalism, they can be explained by materialism, since materialism and computationalism *are* compatible in the absence of Platonism. Since there is no God in either theory, the problem does not arise. Which illustrates that ST and LG are not theory of everything (unless we take the materialist doctrine, but then comp is wrong, or my argument UDA is incorrect, ...) It just illustrates that they are physics. But evil exists, (no?), if only through the existence of suffering (although evil is a notion arguably far more complex than just suffering (hope you grant a relation between suffering and evil)). Lots of things exist. That isn't a problem. It is only a problem if you have some reason to expect them not to exist. The hypothesis of a good god is a reason not to expect evil/suffering to exist. (But has no impact on pleasure/good. Hence the classic, JudaeoChristian Problem of Evil is quite different to the problem of qualia). Of course, from a comp point of view, LG and ST address only the fourth hypostases (Z1 and Z1*, perhaps S4Grz1 and the X logics too). And they does not try to distinguish between the communicable and the non communicable part of it. BTW you are quick saying there is no God in LG and in ST, is that a theorem? No. Physics doesn't deal in theology. There is no god in LQG is not even wrong. I don't see the question addressed in those theories except perhaps somehow by Hawking ... (http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html) 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Le 12-déc.-06, à 11:16, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes (quoting Tom Caylor): In my view, your motivation is not large enough. I am also motivated by a problem: the problem of evil. I don't think the real problem of evil is solved or even really addressed with comp. This is because comp cannot define evil correctly. I will try to explain this more. I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of course those light are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more below. Surely you have to aknowledge that there is a fundamental difference between matters of fact and matters of value. Yes. Sure. And although I think that science is a value by itself, I am not sure any scientific proposition can be used in judging those value. But then, I also believe that this last sentence can be proved in comp theories. Science can tell us how to make a nuclear bomb and the effects a nuclear explosion will have on people and the environment, but whether it is good or bad to use such a weapon is not an empirical question at all. Hmmm. This is not entirely true. We can test pain killer on people, and we can see in scientific publication statements like the drugs X seem to provide help to patient suffering from disease Y. Then it can be said that dropping a nuclear bomb on a city is bad for such or such reason, and that it can be good in preventing bigger use of nuclear weapon, etc. Again, we don't have too define good and bad for reasoning about it once we agree on some primitive proposition (that being rich and healthy is better than being poor and sick for example). Recall that even the (although very familiar) notion of natural numbers or integers cannot be defined unambiguously in science. Science asks us only to be clear on primitive principles so that we can share some reasoning on those undefinable entities. You could say that I believe blowing people up is bad is a statement of empirical fact, either true or false depending on whether you are accurately reporting your belief. However, blowing people up is bad is a completely different kind of statement which no amount of empirical evidence has any bearing on. It really depends on the axioms of your theory. A theory of good and bad for a lobian machine can be based on the idea of 3-surviving or 1-surviving, etc. And then we can reason. Now I do agree with you that good and bad can probably not be defined intrinsically in a mathematical way. But a richer lobian machine can define some notion of self-referential correctness for a less rich lobian machine and then reason about it, and then lift the result in some interrogative way about herself. Some suicide phenomenon with animals could be explained in such a way. You have the Parfit book reason and persons. There are many pieces of valid reasoning (and non normative) on ethical points in that book. Science can handle values and relation between values as far as it does not judge normatively those values. If you survey a million people and all of them believe that blowing up people is bad, you have shown that most people believe that blowing up people is bad, but you have not shown that blowing up people is bad. Again this depends on your theory. If you have the naive theory that if a majority thinks that X is bad for them, then X is bad in the context of that majority, then this could be used to provide a counter-example (a bad one, but this does not change its point). I do agree with you that science, as such, cannot show that blowing up people is bad. I believe that science cannot even define or name bad . It seems to me that bad and good are even more complex notions than true which is already beyond the scope of what science can express. We can build approximations, or accept some axioms if only to be enough clear so that we can be falsified and progress. If you find a message from God stating that blowing up people is bad then you have shown that God believes that blowing up people is bad (and perhaps will send you to hell if you do it), but you have not shown that blowing up people is bad. Sure. Actually I cannot imagine a test showing that something is a message from a god ... And this completely independently that something *could* be a message of a god, and that some terrestrial creature could believe correctly (but then personally if comp is correct) that something is such a message. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Le 12-déc.-06, à 13:02, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes: Le 12-déc.-06, à 03:58, 1Z a écrit : 1Z wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. both of these easily answer the problem Of Evil if you treat them as Theories of Everything (and not just Everything Physical). I was kind enough to consider them as theories as everything indeed, but then it is an obvious fact that Loop Gravity (LG) and String Theories (ST) does not even address the question, nor any qualia question. Of course, LG and ST, like all physicalist approaches, rely on an implicit materialist theological doctrine. Haven't you said in the past that science is silent on the question of whether there is a real material universe? When approaching rather subtle point, I think it could be misleading to use the term science like if science was a person saying things. What I said was that lobian machine cannot prove that there is a reality, because that would be equivalent as proving their own consistency, and that would contradict the second incompleteness theorem. So lobian science cannot say that there is a universe or a reality, material or not. Now, what *I* say is that IF there is a reality and IF comp is correct (classical or platonist comp: I allow the use of the excluded middle principle) THEN that reality cannot be material (or more precisely the assumption of matter cannot be related with the observation of matter so that with the usual occam razor the (aristotelian) concept of primary matter loses its explanation power. It is assumed by most scientists, as by most people, but it is not actually one of the testable predictions of the scientific theory. OK. That is why, for lobian machine, to believe in a reality is already theological. Most probably, humans (if not most animals) have such a theology buried in their genes. The cat believes in the mouse. The Problem of Evil is the Problem of reconciling a good God with a suffering world. No. This is only a version of the problem of Evil in christian theologies. In Buddhism, the problem of evil can arguably be translated into the problem of finding the roots of suffering (and how to cut them). In non-eliminative materialism the problem of evil is the problem of why and how information processing by neurons does make a first person feeling pain, etc. OK, but if you just say problem of evil it generally means what Peter has said above to most people who have heard of the term. Thanks for reminding this to me. (But I thought it was clear I do take some distance from materialist christian sciences and theology). Of course I have to be clear if I address some new audience. Here I was alluding to the quasi trivial fact that to get a scientific theory of suffering (and thus more generally evil) we need a theory of qualia before. But even such a theory (if possible) would not explain what evil is any better than saying that it is suffering, or some variation on this. Of course. Darwinianly (if I may say) suffering is good. It has obvious survival value. People lacking pain receptor survive with difficulties. It less clear evil is necessary where evil could be *defined* by the useless suffering humans makes on itself ..., or pain during agony (what is the use?). Perhaps the word has no meaning at all ... Since there is no God in either theory, the problem does not arise. Which illustrates that ST and LG are not theory of everything (unless we take the materialist doctrine, but then comp is wrong, or my argument UDA is incorrect, ...) But evil exists, (no?), if only through the existence of suffering (although evil is a notion arguably far more complex than just suffering (hope you grant a relation between suffering and evil)). Of course, from a comp point of view, LG and ST address only the fourth hypostases (Z1 and Z1*, perhaps S4Grz1 and the X logics too). And they does not try to distinguish between the communicable and the non communicable part of it. I don't see how it's such a big problem. Consciousness exists, therefore feelings exist, and some of these feelings are unpleasant ones. Explaining consciousness is difficult, but once granted, you don't need an extra theory for every different type of feeling. We certainly need either extra axioms or extra definition. An explanation of consciousness will not necessarily provide by itself an explanation of all accessible state of consciousness. BTW you are quick saying there is no God in LG and in ST, is that a theorem? I don't see the question addressed in those theories except perhaps somehow by Hawking ... (http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html) LG and ST do not specifically discuss
Re: Hello all - My Theory of Everything
Russell Standish wrote: On Mon, Dec 11, 2006 at 03:26:59PM -0800, William wrote: If the universe is computationallu simulable, then any universal Turing machine will do for a higher hand. In which case, the information needed is simply the shortest possible program for simulating the universe, the length of which by definition is the information content of the universe. What I meant to compare is 2 situations (I've taken an SAS doing the simulations for now although i do not think it is required): 1) just our universe A consisting of minimal information 2) An interested SAS in another universe wants to simulate some universes; amongst which is also universe A, ours. Now we live in universe A; but the question we can ask ourselves is if we live in 1) or 2). (Although one can argue there is no actual difference). Nevertheless, my proposition is that we live in 1; since 2 does exist but is less probable than 1. information in 1 = inf(A) information in 2 = inf(simulation_A) + inf(SAS) + inf(possible other stuff) = inf(A) + inf(SAS) + inf(possible other stuff) inf(A) You're still missing the point. If you sum over all SASes and other computing devices capable of simulating universe A, the probability of being in a simulation of A is identical to simply being in universe A. This is actually a theorem of information theory, believe it or not! I wasn't aware that there was any accepted way of assigning a probability to being in a universe A. Can you point to a source for the proof of this theorem? 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Hello all - My Theory of Everything
On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 08:54:51AM -0800, Brent Meeker wrote: You're still missing the point. If you sum over all SASes and other computing devices capable of simulating universe A, the probability of being in a simulation of A is identical to simply being in universe A. This is actually a theorem of information theory, believe it or not! I wasn't aware that there was any accepted way of assigning a probability to being in a universe A. Can you point to a source for the proof of this theorem? Brent Meeker See theorem 4.3.3 aka Coding Theorem in Li and Vitanyi. Being in a simulation corresponds to adding a fixed length prefix corresponding to the interpreter to the original string, although there will also be other programs that will be shorter in the new interpreter. After summing over all possible machines, and all possible programs simulating our universe on those machines, you will end with a quantity identical to the Q_U(x) in that theorem, aka universal a priori probability. Note that in performing this sum, I am not changing the reference machine U (potential source of confusion). Of course this point is moot if the universe is not simulable! Cheers A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Hello all - My Theory of Everything
Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 08:54:51AM -0800, Brent Meeker wrote: You're still missing the point. If you sum over all SASes and other computing devices capable of simulating universe A, the probability of being in a simulation of A is identical to simply being in universe A. This is actually a theorem of information theory, believe it or not! I wasn't aware that there was any accepted way of assigning a probability to being in a universe A. Can you point to a source for the proof of this theorem? Brent Meeker See theorem 4.3.3 aka Coding Theorem in Li and Vitanyi. Being in a simulation corresponds to adding a fixed length prefix corresponding to the interpreter to the original string, although there will also be other programs that will be shorter in the new interpreter. After summing over all possible machines, and all possible programs simulating our universe on those machines, you will end with a quantity identical to the Q_U(x) in that theorem, aka universal a priori probability. Note that in performing this sum, I am not changing the reference machine U (potential source of confusion). Of course this point is moot if the universe is not simulable! Or if the length of the code has nothing to do with it's probability. 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Hello all - My Theory of Everything
On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 02:07:28PM -0800, Brent Meeker wrote: Of course this point is moot if the universe is not simulable! Or if the length of the code has nothing to do with it's probability. Brent Meeker No, because that assumption (Solomonoff-Levin style probability and its relationship with algorithmic information was assumed by the respondent - whose name has become buried in the everything list archive. I seriously doubt any other probability distribution would make sense, but that's another point altogether. Cheers A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 12-déc.-06, à 11:16, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes (quoting Tom Caylor): In my view, your motivation is not large enough. I am also motivated by a problem: the problem of evil. I don't think the real problem of evil is solved or even really addressed with comp. This is because comp cannot define evil correctly. I will try to explain this more. I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of course those light are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more below. Surely you have to aknowledge that there is a fundamental difference between matters of fact and matters of value. Yes. Sure. And although I think that science is a value by itself, I am not sure any scientific proposition can be used in judging those value. But then, I also believe that this last sentence can be proved in comp theories. Science can tell us how to make a nuclear bomb and the effects a nuclear explosion will have on people and the environment, but whether it is good or bad to use such a weapon is not an empirical question at all. Hmmm. This is not entirely true. We can test pain killer on people, and we can see in scientific publication statements like the drugs X seem to provide help to patient suffering from disease Y. Then it can be said that dropping a nuclear bomb on a city is bad for such or such reason, and that it can be good in preventing bigger use of nuclear weapon, etc. Again, we don't have too define good and bad for reasoning about it once we agree on some primitive proposition (that being rich and healthy is better than being poor and sick for example). OK, but the point is that the basic definition of bad is arbitrary. It might seem that there would be some consensus, for example that torturing innocent people is an example of bad, but it is possible to assert without fear of logical or empirical contradiction that torturing innocent people is good. There are people in the world who do in fact think there is nothing wrong with torture and although they are not very nice peopel, they are not as a result of having such a belief deluded. Recall that even the (although very familiar) notion of natural numbers or integers cannot be defined unambiguously in science. Science asks us only to be clear on primitive principles so that we can share some reasoning on those undefinable entities. But there is a big difference between Pythagoras saying 17 is prime and Pythagoras saying that eating beans is bad. You can't say that prime and bad are equivalent in that they both need to be axiomatically defined. You could say that I believe blowing people up is bad is a statement of empirical fact, either true or false depending on whether you are accurately reporting your belief. However, blowing people up is bad is a completely different kind of statement which no amount of empirical evidence has any bearing on. It really depends on the axioms of your theory. A theory of good and bad for a lobian machine can be based on the idea of 3-surviving or 1-surviving, etc. And then we can reason. Now I do agree with you that good and bad can probably not be defined intrinsically in a mathematical way. But a richer lobian machine can define some notion of self-referential correctness for a less rich lobian machine and then reason about it, and then lift the result in some interrogative way about herself. Some suicide phenomenon with animals could be explained in such a way. You have the Parfit book reason and persons. There are many pieces of valid reasoning (and non normative) on ethical points in that book. Science can handle values and relation between values as far as it does not judge normatively those values. If you survey a million people and all of them believe that blowing up people is bad, you have shown that most people believe that blowing up people is bad, but you have not shown that blowing up people is bad. Again this depends on your theory. If you have the naive theory that if a majority thinks that X is bad for them, then X is bad in the context of that majority, then this could be used to provide a counter-example (a bad one, but this does not change its point). I do agree with you that science, as such, cannot show that blowing up people is bad. I believe that science cannot even define or name bad . It seems to me that bad and good are even more complex notions than true which is already beyond the scope of what science can express. We can build approximations, or accept
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Bruno Marchal writes: I don't see how it's such a big problem. Consciousness exists, therefore feelings exist, and some of these feelings are unpleasant ones. Explaining consciousness is difficult, but once granted, you don't need an extra theory for every different type of feeling. We certainly need either extra axioms or extra definition. An explanation of consciousness will not necessarily provide by itself an explanation of all accessible state of consciousness. Yes, but specifically the Problem of Evil has no special status compared to the Problem of Loud Neighbours, the Problem of Crappy Television, the Problem of Whether to Learn the Trumpet or the Clarinet, and many other Problems which reductionist science is ill-equiped to deal with. Stahis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: computer pain
No responses yet to this question. It seems to me a straightforward consequence of computationalism that we should be able to write a program which, when run, will experience pain, and I suspect that this would be a substantially simpler program than one demonstrating general intelligence. It would be very easy to program a computer or build a robot that would behave just like a living organism in pain, but I'm not sure that this is nearly enough to ensure that it is in fact experiencing pain. Any ideas, or references to sources that have considered the problem? If 3rd person behaviour can be taken as evidence of 1st person experience what does that mean in the case of a machine emulating an organism in pain? The ability to experience pain appears to be phylogenetically very old and dependent on only very minimal cognitive ability. A person in the end stages of dementia may make you wonder whether they are conscious at all, until they start screaming in response to a painful stimulus and it becomes clear that they must retain at least that most basic of conscious experiences. Building a machine to emulate just the responses to pain would be a doddle compared to building one that could walk, talk, be creative etc. Would such a machine thereby actually experience the pain? If so, is it possible that I could run a program on my computer which would experience pain if I move the mouse in a particular way, or that I am inadvertently torturing the computer as I am writing this? Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computer pain
Stathis, The reason for lack of responses is that your idea goes directly to illuminating why AI systems - as promoulgated under current designs of software running in hardware matrices - CANNOT emulate living systems. It an issue that AI advocates intuitively and scrupulously AVOID. Pain in living systems isn't just a self-sensor of proper/improper code functioning, it is an embedded registration of viable/disrupted matrix state. And that is something that no current human contrived system monitors as a CONCURRENT property of software. For example, we might say that central processors regularly 'display pain' .. that we designers/users recognize as excess heat .. that burn out mother boards. The equipment 'runs a high fever', in other words. But where living systems are multiple functioning systems and have internal ways of guaging and reacting locally and biochemically vis a vis both to the variance and retaining sufficient good-operations while bleeding off 'fever', hardware systems have no capacity to morph or adapt itself structurally and so keep on burning up or wait for external aware-structures to command them to stop operating for a while and let the equipment cool down. I maintain that living systems are significantly designed where hardware IS software, and so have a capacity for local adaptive self-sensitivity, that human 'contrived' HW/SW systems don't and mostly .. can't. Jamie Rose Stathis Papaioannou wrote: No responses yet to this question. It seems to me a straightforward consequence of computationalism that we should be able to write a program which, when run, will experience pain, and I suspect that this would be a substantially simpler program than one demonstrating general intelligence. It would be very easy to program a computer or build a robot that would behave just like a living organism in pain, but I'm not sure that this is nearly enough to ensure that it is in fact experiencing pain. Any ideas, or references to sources that have considered the problem? Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
