Re: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Hi Stathis, Here is the follow up of my comments on your post. It seems we completely agree. Sorry. Le 23-janv.-07, à 06:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Simplistically, I conceive of computations as mysterious abstract objects, like all other mathematical objects. Physical computers are devices which reflect these mathematical objects in order to achieve some practical purpose in the substrate of their implementation. A computer, an abacus, a set of fingers, pencil and paper can be used to compute 2+3=5, but these processes do not create the computation, they just make it accessible to the user. The fact that 2 birds land on a tree in South America and 3 elephants drink at a watering hole in Africa, or 2 atoms move to the left in a rock and 3 atoms move to the right is essentially the same process as the abacus, but it is useless, trivial, lost in randomness, escapes the notice of theories of computation - and rightly so. However, what about the special case where a more complex version of 2+3=5 on the abacus is conscious? Then I see no reason why the birds and the elephants or the atoms in a rock should not also implement the same consciousness, even though there is no possibility of interaction with the outside world due to the computation being lost in noise. What this really does is destroy the whole notion of physical supervenience: if you shot the elephants or smashed the rock, the computation could as easily spring from the new noise situation. Thus, it would appear that consciousness comes from computation as pure mathematical object, and is no more created by the physical process that addition is created by the physical process. Either that, or it isn't computational at all. OK, so we do agree. The real question is not does a rock implement computations, the question is does a rock implement computations in such a way as to changed the relative measure of my (future) comp states in a relevant way? And for answering such question we need to know what a rock really is, and both physics and comp are not near at all to answer this. Comp has less trouble here because it does not have to reify any primary reality associated to the rock, which already emerge locally from many non material computations. No, as I implied above, a rock makes no difference whatsoever to the measure of computation it might be seen as implementing. OK. So, now, we have to extract physics from computations if we assume (even just standard comp). Do you agree with the UDA informal conclusion? That is, that physics will be given by relative (cf RSSA) measure on computational histories from some internal point of views? Such a measure has to be observer invariant (I am not talking about the content of what is measured, but about the general math of that measure). In any case we must dig on computations and provability, if only to get reasonable mathematical definition of those different person point of view. Bruno PS Could someone give me the plural of point of view ? 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: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Johnathan Corgan writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument we should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible things are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be constantly be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be struck by lightning. If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an interesting corollary to the quantum theory of immortality. While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness forward, indeed we are constantly shedding branches where the most brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death. Their measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability perspective, we don't worry about them. I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live. Some have a relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though they still happen in some branch.) Others, like having all our particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the possibility. Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.) If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low individual measure, I wonder how the integral of the measure across all of them comes out. It's not death that is the problem (you always get out of that), it's suffering. Final death would be better than a living hell, but QTI denies you final death. I take comfort in the speculation that if I'm still alive in a few hundred years, most likely this will be as a result of some advanced medical or cybernetic intervention, and if science understands the brain well enough to do that, it would be a relatively simple matter by comparison to ensure that I am content. I think the hellish routes to immortality would occur mostly by chance and would be of much lower total measure than the deliberate, happy routes. 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: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Jason Resch writes: Jason Resch writes: My appologies to those on this list, this is how I should have worded my conclusion: Positive spared lives = Take replication Neutral spared lives = Take coin flip Negative spared lives = Take coin flip [SP] This is an analysis from an altruistic viewpoint, i.e. which choice will increase the net happiness in the world. What I am asking is the selfish question, what should I do to avoid being tortured? If I choose the replication it won't worry me from a selfish point of view if one person will definitely be tortured because I am unlikely to be that person. Indeed, after the replication it won't affect me if *all* the other copies are tortured, because despite sharing the same psychology up to the point of replication, I am not going to experience their pain. [JR] I think our disagreement stems from our different conceptions of consciousness. You seem to believe that once you experience an observer moment, that you are destined to experience all future observer moments of that observer. While this is the way most people see the world, I consider that to be an illusion caused by memory. i.e. We remember past observer moments so we must be moving into the future. I believe that its is just as beneficial to do something that will improve someone else's observer moments as it is to improve one's future observer moments. Just think: your current observer moment never gets to experience the fruits of its current labors, it remains in that observer moment for all time. Yet we still go to work. That is why altruism is indistinguishable from selfish behavior in my philosophy. There is no consciousness outside of brain states, brain states are consciousness, since they exist they are experienced, no one can say by who or by what, their existance is experience. Therefore it is in everyone's interest to improve reality's first person, of which every observer moment is a part. It's easy to see how evolution taught us to work for one individual's future observer moments, we defer gratification all time in order to increase the average quality of all future observer moments. I'm not advocating we all become like Mother Teresa, but I think we should understand that we are no more (or less) our future observer moments than we are other individual's observer moments. I completely agree with your view of observer moments: the person who wakes up in my bed tomorrow won't be me-now, he'll just be someone who shares most of my memories and believes he is me. In fact, if I were killed with an axe during the night and replaced with an exact copy, it wouldn't make any difference to me or anyone else, because I die every moment anyway. But the problem is, I am very attached to the illusion of continuity of conscious and personal identity even though I know how it is generated. If I give in to it, I might decide to treat everyone the same as I do myself, but just as likely I might decide to be completely reckless with my life, or even with everyone else's life. But my brain just won't let me think this way. 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: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Brent Meeker writes: Bruno Marchal wrote: ... Now, when you run the UD, as far as you keep the discourse in the third person mode, everything remains enumerable, even in the limit. But from the first person point of view, a priori the uncountable stories, indeed generated by the UD, take precedence on the computable one: thus the continua of white rabbits. This results from the lack of any possibility from the first person point of view to locate herself into UD*. Somehow the first person belongs to 2^aleph_zero histories at the start. A similar explosion of stories appears with quantum mechanics, except that here the physicist as an easy answer: white rabbits and Potter universe are eliminated through phase randomization (apparently). But only relative some particular bases. Why the quantum mechanical world has the classical world as an approximation (instead of a white rabbit world) is not a solved problem - though there are proposed, possible solutions. Doesn't the SWE make some events much more likely than others, whether that involves CI collapse or distribution of histories in the MWI? 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: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Bruno marchal writes: Le 23-janv.-07, à 06:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Simplistically, I conceive of computations as mysterious abstract objects, like all other mathematical objects. Physical computers are devices which reflect these mathematical objects in order to achieve some practical purpose in the substrate of their implementation. A computer, an abacus, a set of fingers, pencil and paper can be used to compute 2+3=5, but these processes do not create the computation, they just make it accessible to the user. The fact that 2 birds land on a tree in South America and 3 elephants drink at a watering hole in Africa, or 2 atoms move to the left in a rock and 3 atoms move to the right is essentially the same process as the abacus, but it is useless, trivial, lost in randomness, escapes the notice of theories of computation - and rightly so. However, what about the special case where a more complex version of 2+3=5 on the abacus is conscious? Then I see no reason why the birds and the elephants or the atoms in a rock should not also implement the same consciousness, even though there is no possibility of interaction with the outside world due to the computation being lost in noise. What this really does is destroy the whole notion of physical supervenience: if you shot the elephants or smashed the rock, the computation could as easily spring from the new noise situation. Thus, it would appear that consciousness comes from computation as pure mathematical object, and is no more created by the physical process that addition is created by the physical process. Either that, or it isn't computational at all. OK, so we do agree. The real question is not does a rock implement computations, the question is does a rock implement computations in such a way as to changed the relative measure of my (future) comp states in a relevant way? And for answering such question we need to know what a rock really is, and both physics and comp are not near at all to answer this. Comp has less trouble here because it does not have to reify any primary reality associated to the rock, which already emerge locally from many non material computations. No, as I implied above, a rock makes no difference whatsoever to the measure of computation it might be seen as implementing. OK. So, now, we have to extract physics from computations if we assume (even just standard comp). Do you agree with the UDA informal conclusion? That is, that physics will be given by relative (cf RSSA) measure on computational histories from some internal point of views? Such a measure has to be observer invariant (I am not talking about the content of what is measured, but about the general math of that measure). In any case we must dig on computations and provability, if only to get reasonable mathematical definition of those different person point of view. Yes, I agree, *given* comp. PS Could someone give me the plural of point of view ? points of view 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: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Bruno, as another chap with learned English in vertical stance I partially agree with your 'plural' as would all English mother-tongued people, but I also consider the gramatically probably inproper points of views, since WE allow different 'views' in our considerations. Stathis may choose his preferenceG. Points of view assumes THE one view we allow. MATTER OF FACTlLY (plural: 'matters-of factly'? - if it really HAS a plural. Is there an English singulare tantum? ) I still speculate what point of views may refer to, however I would volunteer a point-of-views in the conventional sense. Alas, no 'utmost' authority OVER the hundreds of live English versions. John On 1/25/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno marchal writes: Le 23-janv.-07, à 06:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Simplistically, I conceive of computations as mysterious abstract objects, like all other mathematical objects. Physical computers are devices which reflect these mathematical objects in order to achieve some practical purpose in the substrate of their implementation. A computer, an abacus, a set of fingers, pencil and paper can be used to compute 2+3=5, but these processes do not create the computation, they just make it accessible to the user. The fact that 2 birds land on a tree in South America and 3 elephants drink at a watering hole in Africa, or 2 atoms move to the left in a rock and 3 atoms move to the right is essentially the same process as the abacus, but it is useless, trivial, lost in randomness, escapes the notice of theories of computation - and rightly so. However, what about the special case where a more complex version of 2+3=5 on the abacus is conscious? Then I see no reason why the birds and the elephants or the atoms in a rock should not also implement the same consciousness, even though there is no possibility of interaction with the outside world due to the computation being lost in noise. What this really does is destroy the whole notion of physical supervenience: if you shot the elephants or smashed the rock, the computation could as easily spring from the new noise situation. Thus, it would appear that consciousness comes from computation as pure mathematical object, and is no more created by the physical process that addition is created by the physical process. Either that, or it isn't computational at all. OK, so we do agree. The real question is not does a rock implement computations, the question is does a rock implement computations in such a way as to changed the relative measure of my (future) comp states in a relevant way? And for answering such question we need to know what a rock really is, and both physics and comp are not near at all to answer this. Comp has less trouble here because it does not have to reify any primary reality associated to the rock, which already emerge locally from many non material computations. No, as I implied above, a rock makes no difference whatsoever to the measure of computation it might be seen as implementing. OK. So, now, we have to extract physics from computations if we assume (even just standard comp). Do you agree with the UDA informal conclusion? That is, that physics will be given by relative (cf RSSA) measure on computational histories from some internal point of views? Such a measure has to be observer invariant (I am not talking about the content of what is measured, but about the general math of that measure). In any case we must dig on computations and provability, if only to get reasonable mathematical definition of those different person point of view. Yes, I agree, *given* comp. PS Could someone give me the plural of point of view ? points of view 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: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Le 25-janv.-07, à 12:25, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes: Le 23-janv.-07, à 06:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Searle is not a computationalist - does not believe in strong AI - but he does believe in weak AI. Penrose does not believe in weak AI either. Yes. In that way Searle is not even wrong. Meaning what? I thought you agreed his position was coherent. In the sense that if you predict that weak AI is possible and strong AI is not, then he can no more be refuted. At least Penrose can be refuted by a success of weak AI, at least in principle. Now you can note that both Penrose and Searle are coherent with respect to comp (called strong AI by Searle) in the sense that they are aware of some difficulty between comp and materialism. Of course they are both materialist and so believes that comp must be abandoned. I prefer to abandon materialism which I have practically always suspect of incoherence even before I learned about QM (which I take as confirming that the notion of primary matter is at least not well defined). Just to be clear on vocabulary: COMP = I am a digital machine (roughly) STRONG AI = digital machine can have qualia/subjective life WEAK AI = digital machine can behave exactly like if they does have qualia/subjective life. A lot of people confuse COMP and STRONG AI. But obviously, it is logically possible that a digital machine could have subjective experience, without me being a machine. Of course if machine can think, this could be taken as an inductive inference argument for *guessing* that I could be a machine myself, but deductively Machine can think does not entail that *only* machine can think, perhaps angels and supergods could too, or whatever. So COMP = STRONG AI = WEAK AI, but in principle none of those arrows are reversible. snip: see my preceding post to you If there are more arbitrary sequences than third person computations, how does it follow that arbitrary sequences are not computations? I guess I miss something (or you miss your statement?). Is it not obvious that if there are more arbitrary sequences than third person computations, then some (even most) arbitrary sequences are not computations. OK, but my concern was to find room in the arbitrary sequences for all computations, not the other way around (perhaps I didn't make this clear). Every rational number is also a real number. We certainly agree on that. And all computable sequences are indeed contained in the set of all sequences. Let us define what is a computable infinite sequence. A sequence is computable if there is a program (a machine) which generates specifically the elements of that sequence in the right order, and nothing else. The set of programs is enumerable, but by Cantor theorem the set of *all* sequences is not enumerable. So the set of computable sequences is almost negligible compared to the arbitrary one. Does it mean there is no program capable of generating a non computable sequence? Not at all. A universal dovetailer generates all the infinite sequences. The computable one, (that is, those nameable by special purpose, specific, program) and the non computable one (how? by generating them all). I give another example of the same subtlety. One day a computer scientist told me that it was impossible to write a program of n bits capable of generating an incompressible finite sequence or string of length m with m far greater than n. I challenge him. Of course, what is true is that there is no program of n bit capable of generating that m bits incompressible string, AND ONLY, SPECIFICALLY, THAT STRING. But it is really easy to write a little program capable of generating that incompressible string by letting him generate ALL strings: the program COUNT is enough. I think this *is* the main line of the *everything* list, or a miniature version of it if you want. Yes, and there are many related examples, like Borges' library; I would include the computations that might be hiding in noise as another such example. We will have to go back on this. I would compare the Borges' library (or its countable infinite generalization) as equivalent with the counting algorithm. It generates all (finite) strings, and a lot of computations can be considered as being embedded in those strings. Still I consider that the counting algorithm is not equivalent with a universal dovetailer. I will try to explain the difference with some details, but roughly speaking, what the UD does, and what neither the rock nor the counting algorithm really do, is that the UD generates both the program codes and their finite and infinite running. Saying that all computations are generated by the counting algorithm makes sense only if we add a universal interpreter in the description. I can anticipate that you will say this does not change anything from inside. But remember that once we abandon the
Re: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Le 25-janv.-07, à 16:48, John Mikes a écrit : Bruno, as another chap with learned English in vertical stance I partially agree with your 'plural' as would all English mother-tongued people, but I also consider the gramatically probably inproper points of views, since WE allow different 'views' in our considerations. Stathis may choose his preferenceG. Points of view assumes THE one view we allow. MATTER OF FACTlLY (plural: 'matters-of factly'? - if it really HAS a plural. Is there an English singulare tantum? ) I still speculate what point of views may refer to, however I would volunteer a point-of-views in the conventional sense. Alas, no 'utmost' authority OVER the hundreds of live English versions. OK thanks. I think I will follow mostly Stathis' suggestion, but you just put the finger on why I have a problem. Sometimes I want to talk on many first (say) person pointS of view. But sometimes I want to speak about all person (first, third, singular, plural) pointS of ViewS. So indeed there is a little nuance depending on the number of points and views :-) (Note all this is a bit useless because there are few correlation between what I think and write especially when in hurry) Another solution which I have apparently already used consists in saying hypostase in the place of person point of view ... 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: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Bruno Marchal writes: Le 23-janv.-07, à 06:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Searle's theory is that consciousness is a result of actual brain activity, not Turing emulable. No... True: Searle's theory is that consciousness is a result of brain activity, but nowhere does Searle pretend that brain is not turing emulable. He just implicitly assume there is a notion of actuality that no simulation can render, but does not address the question of emulability. Then Searle is known for confusing level of description (this I can make much more precise with the Fi and Wi, or with the very important difference between computability (emulability) and provability. Searle seems to accept that CT implies the brain is Turing emulable, but he does not believe that such an emulation would capture consciousness any more than a simulation of a thunderstorm will make you wet. Thus, a computer that could pass the Turing Test would be a zombie. Yes. It confirms my point. And Searle is coherent, he has to refer to a notion of physically real for his non-computationalism to proceed. He may be right. Now his naturalistic explanation of consciousness seems rather ad hoc. But all what I say is that IF comp is correct, we have to abandon physicalism. Searle is not a computationalist - does not believe in strong AI - but he does believe in weak AI. Penrose does not believe in weak AI either. Yes. In that way Searle is not even wrong. Meaning what? I thought you agreed his position was coherent. snip: see my preceding post to you If there are more arbitrary sequences than third person computations, how does it follow that arbitrary sequences are not computations? I guess I miss something (or you miss your statement?). Is it not obvious that if there are more arbitrary sequences than third person computations, then some (even most) arbitrary sequences are not computations. OK, but my concern was to find room in the arbitrary sequences for all computations, not the other way around (perhaps I didn't make this clear). Every rational number is also a real number. Let us define what is a computable infinite sequence. A sequence is computable if there is a program (a machine) which generates specifically the elements of that sequence in the right order, and nothing else. The set of programs is enumerable, but by Cantor theorem the set of *all* sequences is not enumerable. So the set of computable sequences is almost negligible compared to the arbitrary one. Does it mean there is no program capable of generating a non computable sequence? Not at all. A universal dovetailer generates all the infinite sequences. The computable one, (that is, those nameable by special purpose, specific, program) and the non computable one (how? by generating them all). I give another example of the same subtlety. One day a computer scientist told me that it was impossible to write a program of n bits capable of generating an incompressible finite sequence or string of length m with m far greater than n. I challenge him. Of course, what is true is that there is no program of n bit capable of generating that m bits incompressible string, AND ONLY, SPECIFICALLY, THAT STRING. But it is really easy to write a little program capable of generating that incompressible string by letting him generate ALL strings: the program COUNT is enough. I think this *is* the main line of the *everything* list, or a miniature version of it if you want. Yes, and there are many related examples, like Borges' library; I would include the computations that might be hiding in noise as another such example. The significant thing in all these cases is that from the third person perspective, the information or computation is inaccessible. You need to have the book you want already before you can find it in the Library of Babel. However, if computations (or books) can be conscious, then they will still be conscious despite being unable to communicate with the world at the level of their implementation. The first person perspective makes these situations non-trivial. Or you may regard it as a reductio against the proposition that a consciousness can be encapsulated. Perhaps consciousness is only relative to an open system. If the universe started from nothing, or very little in terms of information, then the unitary evolution of the wave function preserves information. Hence the information of the universe is very small. The apparent information, including that which describes conscious processes, is a consequence of projecting out onto a reduced basis. Now, when you run the UD, as far as you keep the discourse in the third person mode, everything remains enumerable, even in the limit. But from the first person point of view, a priori the uncountable stories, indeed generated by the UD,
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Johnathan Corgan writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument we should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible things are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be constantly be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be struck by lightning. If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an interesting corollary to the quantum theory of immortality. While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness forward, indeed we are constantly shedding branches where the most brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death. Their measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability perspective, we don't worry about them. I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live. Some have a relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though they still happen in some branch.) Others, like having all our particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the possibility. Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.) If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low individual measure, I wonder how the integral of the measure across all of them comes out. It's not death that is the problem (you always get out of that), it's suffering. Final death would be better than a living hell, but QTI denies you final death. I take comfort in the speculation that if I'm still alive in a few hundred years, most likely this will be as a result of some advanced medical or cybernetic intervention, and if science understands the brain well enough to do that, it would be a relatively simple matter by comparison to ensure that I am content. I think the hellish routes to immortality would occur mostly by chance and would be of much lower total measure than the deliberate, happy routes. I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be more probable that a continuation of your consciousness arises in some other branch of the multiverse by chance, rather than as a state of your erstwhile body. This would seem particularly more probable as your consciousness simplifies due to deterioration of your brain - how hard can it be to find a continuation of a near coma. Perhaps this continuation is the consciousness of a fish - and it's the Hindus rather than the Bhuddists who are right. 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: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Brent Meeker writes: Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:52:01 -0800 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Rép : The Meaning of Life Stathis Papaioannou wrote:Bruno Marchal writes: Le 23-janv.-07, à 06:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Searle's theory is that consciousness is a result of actual brain activity, not Turing emulable. No... True: Searle's theory is that consciousness is a result of brain activity, but nowhere does Searle pretend that brain is not turing emulable. He just implicitly assume there is a notion of actuality that no simulation can render, but does not address the question of emulability. Then Searle is known for confusing level of description (this I can make much more precise with the Fi and Wi, or with the very important difference between computability (emulability) and provability. Searle seems to accept that CT implies the brain is Turing emulable, but he does not believe that such an emulation would capture consciousness any more than a simulation of a thunderstorm will make you wet. Thus, a computer that could pass the Turing Test would be a zombie. Yes. It confirms my point. And Searle is coherent, he has to refer to a notion of physically real for his non-computationalism to proceed. He may be right. Now his naturalistic explanation of consciousness seems rather ad hoc. But all what I say is that IF comp is correct, we have to abandon physicalism. Searle is not a computationalist - does not believe in strong AI - but he does believe in weak AI. Penrose does not believe in weak AI either. Yes. In that way Searle is not even wrong.Meaning what? I thought you agreed his position was coherent. snip: see my preceding post to youIf there are more arbitrary sequences than third person computations, how does it follow that arbitrary sequences are not computations? I guess I miss something (or you miss your statement?). Is it not obvious that if there are more arbitrary sequences than third person computations, then some (even most) arbitrary sequences are not computations.OK, but my concern was to find room in the arbitrary sequences for all computations, not the other way around (perhaps I didn't make this clear). Every rational number is also a real number. Let us define what is a computable infinite sequence. A sequence is computable if there is a program (a machine) which generates specifically the elements of that sequence in the right order, and nothing else. The set of programs is enumerable, but by Cantor theorem the set of *all* sequences is not enumerable. So the set of computable sequences is almost negligible compared to the arbitrary one. Does it mean there is no program capable of generating a non computable sequence? Not at all. A universal dovetailer generates all the infinite sequences. The computable one, (that is, those nameable by special purpose, specific, program) and the non computable one (how? by generating them all). I give another example of the same subtlety. One day a computer scientist told me that it was impossible to write a program of n bits capable of generating an incompressible finite sequence or string of length m with m far greater than n. I challenge him. Of course, what is true is that there is no program of n bit capable of generating that m bits incompressible string, AND ONLY, SPECIFICALLY,THAT STRING. But it is really easy to write a little program capable of generating that incompressible string by letting him generate ALL strings: the program COUNT is enough. I think this *is* the main line of the *everything* list, or a miniature version of it if you want.Yes, and there are many related examples, like Borges' library; I would include the computations that might be hiding in noise as another such example. The significant thing in all these cases is that from the third person perspective, the information or computation is inaccessible. You need to have the book you want already before you can find it in the Library of Babel. However, if computations (or books) can be conscious, then they will still be conscious despite being unable to communicate with the world at the level of their implementation. The first person perspective makes these situations non-trivial. Or you may regard it as a reductio against the proposition that a consciousness can be encapsulated. Perhaps consciousness is only relative to an open system. If the universe started from nothing, or very little in terms of information, then the unitary evolution of the wave function preserves information. Hence the information of the universe is very small. The apparent information, including that which describes conscious processes, is a consequence of projecting out onto a reduced basis.Isn't the universe taken as a whole