worlds & propositions
Here is a fun article about possible worlds, for those of us who are logically inclined. http://consequently.org/news/2008/12/09/always_more/#more --Abram -- Abram Demski Public address: abram-dem...@googlegroups.com Public archive: http://groups.google.com/group/abram-demski Private address: abramdem...@gmail.com --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Mind and personhood. Was: Kim 1
> So, do you have one? :) Will attempt to respond tomorrow--I have a whole bunch of emails flagged for this group that I meant to respond to earlier. This list is much busier than I would have ever suspected, but I'm not complaining. :) Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Mind and personhood. Was: Kim 1
Anna, I did not read this email 10 days ago when you sent it out. It is interesting that the thread I started 5 days later about time became both a repetition of the intuitions you put forward here, and a definite example of your complaint about essentialistic debates. Much of academic philosophy is exactly what you were complaining about... what does "truth" mean, what does "possible" mean, what does "good" or "ethical" mean... I definitely see why you might complain: the answer to all such questions is basically "whatever the person using it intends it to mean". Yet, I am not sure it is an empty exercise. I agree absolutely about approaching consciousness from the perspective you lay out. Philosophical discussions about which lumps of matter are conscious and which are not and why abound, but such theories can be confirmed and falsified only by our intuitions... a theory about which pieces of matter will *claim* to be conscious is much more practical. So, do you have one? :) --Abram On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 1:35 AM, A. Wolf wrote: > > I apologize if I seemed rude or accusatory...I'm just expressing an idea. > Words are very useful, but systematic measurements are better for certain > things, because the Universe seems to allow us to repeat them. > > Issues involving the mind are intrinsically harder to tackle. Human > dialogue over the millenia suggests there's some subjective experience of > personhood or "being" that we all share, and each of us presumably > experiences something like that. But we have no way to quantify or measure > the conscious experience itself. We're left feeling like there's something > missing from what we can measure. > > If we're scientists, what we should really be asking is this: why do people > say all the things they do about conscious experience? It doesn't seem too > strange to think that a computer program which has some meta-cognitive > ability and self-awareness might, as part of the natural output of its > program, spit out a bunch of symbols related to the "experience" of > self-awareness itself. Science doesn't suggest there must be anything more > to what we are than this kind of output. > > We don't like the idea that our precious consciousness could be a mere > illusion, because our sense of self is something we cling to with the fervor > of evolutionary self-preservation. If Everett's is true, you could even > think about a person as only existing for the barest instant: one single, > static state, frozen in time, in an infinite mathematical sea of other > states (well, not really, but roughly). All the experience of travelling > forward through time could be just an illusion produced by our own memory > and meta-cognitive ability. In a sense, we'd cease to be every instant no > less surely than if we'd just died. > > So I guess the underlying philosophical question is, what does it mean to be > a conscious person? Socially it's useful to think of a person as the > history of that person's memories, but I don't know if there's a useful way > to think about it scientifically. Even as I type this, there's no way for > me to demonstrate that I exist for more than an instant, and I doubt there > ever will be. > > As you read this last sentence, please enjoy your first and last moment of > existence. ;) Oh, and happy holidays. > > Anna > > > - Original Message - > From: "Kim Jones" > To: > Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 1:04 AM > Subject: Re: KIM 1 (was: Lost and not lost 1) > > >> >> Blame me if you want... >> >> I'm just trying to see whether the exposition can be made with a good >> deal less number-spinning >> >> Truth is, most people - given the choice - would probably prefer to >> avoid language pretty much all together - >> for the dangers you so aptly characterise >> >> Language is a bag of utter corruption and manipulation, anyway. I >> apologise for forcing the issue >> >> Given that some of us do better at understanding words than numbers, >> yes, we may be stuck with a few semantic issues. >> >> Personally, I just want to understand. If I get a bit fractal, it's >> because of those rotten semantics which need constant attention. I >> agree that any kind of definition of what 'life' would only be a work >> in progress >> >> I find the concept of real truth a bit dodgy, actually >> >> always only trying to 'see' what the other 'sees' >> >> Hence the questions - not attacking questions; requests for more >> information to fill out perception >> >> The result is something that is less arcane and more day to day. Why >> should all beautiful knowledge live in an ivory tower? I want to know >> how this whole thing actually impacts on my life. >> >> Actually, my preference would be to avoid words and numbers and do it >> via music. But, I guess that's back to numbers. >> >> cheers, >> >> Kim >> >> >> >> On 14/12/2008, at 1:30 PM, A. Wolf wrote: >> >>> >>> One of the reasons I rarely post to this list is that many people here >>> see
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Bruno, things are starting to hang together in my new digital brain (bright yellow) you wrote the plan: --- A) UDA (Universal Dovetailer Argument) 1) I explain that if you are a machine, you are already immaterial. --- Fine. This thought is merely surprising and somewhat (strangely) satisfying. It doesn't affect the way I live my life, but it sure as hell gets me some funny looks from people when I try to explain it to them! Most people think I am identifying the "self" with the "soul" or the "spirit" or some other metaphysical conjecture that they have heard of from religion or from their grandmother. They simply do not buy it when I tell them that all of reality is like this - that the assumption of a primitive, primary material reality is probably a gross "error of perception" albeit quite an understandable one. People are so hoodwinked by appearances, by their senses. Somehow I still think we are *meant* to be fooled by appearances - although this thought may well be self-contradictory. It's a good thing I find most things quite unconvincing - including appearances and reality generally! I am always asking myself "What is really going on here? Why are things THIS way, in particular? Why not some other way? I have always been like this. Some people find me quite annoying in this regard... - 2) Mechanism entails the existence of a subjective or first person indeterminacy or uncertainty. - In the sense that I cannot know who or what I am, BEING who or what I am. Correct? I would necessarily have to step outside my existence to do so - manifestly impossible, given the laws of physics (or simply given MEC/COMP). I would have to reboot from a different system; be a different entity in fact. Paradox Alert: Without a first person perspective there could be no third person perspectives anyway, isn't that correct? Why then doesn't some part of the first person uncertainty (ie "my" uncertainty about "me") translate into 3rd person perspectives? Anything I might say or merely perceive about something or someone else is surely contaminated by my uncertainties...so, in the quest to "know myself" how can I trust the veracity of any knowledge that comes to me from outside? All knowledge comes via brains (wet, messy ones) and all of these brains are suffering the same uncertainties about their identity as I. Note, I am not a solipsist. Also, you cannot experience the experience that I experience and vice versa. Which is why I think art and music in particular are important revelations of the first person perspective. Music is an ATTEMPT to overcome first person indeterminacy by "universalising" certain qualia. Tchaikowsky expects you to BECOME Tchaikowsky when you listen to the first movement of his 6th Symphony. You suffer and agonise and die with him. It's a VR experience. Madonna just doesn't do this for me. However, new research has shown that reading the mind is literally possible. We can now assemble an image seen via an optical system transmitted only via the electrical impulses read in a brain system (NewScientist last ed.) Perhaps it is not too far from here to the thought that you and I might "swap instantiations" for a short time? Maybe it would be fun to think, walk, talk and act like Bruno Marchal, if only for 5 minutes. In fact, I would pay a princely sum to have that experience. In an age when some people will spend gazillions on a "space tourist" (virtual) reality experience, I would go for the "Be Bruno for Five Minutes" option long before I would want to see the globe from orbit - 3) The Universal Machine, the Universal Dovetailer and the reversal physics/bio-psycho-theo-whatever-logy. -- OK - so Abram has been impatient on this point but I guess I am ready too: On 23/12/2008, at 8:11 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Abram, > > > On 23 Dec 2008, at 00:23, Abram Demski wrote: > >> I think you are right in calling this view eliminative materialism. I >> am saying that the "I" is a convenient fiction. > > > All right. It is a normal tendency for scientist. It is like wanting > to see Platonia from outside. I always think of the Sydney Opera House as Platonia. You cannot predict how it looks on the outside if you are teleported into the foyer! Also, the Tardis of Doctor Who has a similar asymmetry between outside and inside view. Are you saying Platonia has no outside? The true inside of all outsides - just like the 1st person perspective, in fact. > It is like deciding to believe only in > the third person description view, abstracting away our experiences > and subjectivity. Then the "I", free-will, decisions, and eventually > "consciousness" are explained ... away. Yes - and then, to make matters worse, we turn the whole morass of uncertainty o
Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)
Abram, On 23 Dec 2008, at 00:23, Abram Demski wrote: > I think you are right in calling this view eliminative materialism. I > am saying that the "I" is a convenient fiction. All right. It is a normal tendency for scientist. It is like wanting to see Platonia from outside. It is like deciding to believe only in the third person description view, abstracting away our experiences and subjectivity. Then the "I", free-will, decisions, and eventually "consciousness" are explained ... away. > > >> Hmmm... If you were correct, it seems to me you should say "he" when >> you talk about yourself in the future. I love coffee so he will drink >> coffee. > > Maybe "We love coffee, so we will drink coffee" (with "we" referring > to many moment-selves). Does your "we" includes my "we" ? > Or, perhaps, "Abram loves coffee, so Abram > will drink coffee" (no identification of a self, only of an identity). Almost like a regression. To hide the first person data, you have to change the language. You are very coherent (as "time-skeptic"). OK. > > >> It is also a pity to think that you will die the time I finish this >> sentence. You think now you have survived that reading, but you >> did'nt, you are the copy. > > Since all possible moments exist, that old self did not die. Again, you talk like if you are seeing the whole platonia. But I think that none of you are an observer-moment. You are inextricably linked to time. You are an observer moment embedded in a set of observer moments with a proximity relation among them. > My > after-reading consciousness can observe that it is not the > before-reading consciousness, and the before-reading consciousness > could observe that it is not the after-reading consciousness, but that > is all. There is no switching from one to the other, since that would > require time (which does not exist). :) Nice. You give me the opportunity to (re)define time: it is the switching from one to the other. The switching can be defined eventually by the relation among numbers which captures the universal computational dependency. Time is a creation of the first person. Look at the occidental Brouwer or the oriental Dogen for analysis of consciousness in term of time creation. > > > Of course, that is where I-as-time-skeptic have trouble knowing what > it means to choose. Not a good thing before Christmas ! > I can understand being-in-a-state-of-choosing, but > I refuse to accept the cause/effect reasoning that gos along with that > state. (In other words, I can understand choosing from the 3rd person > perspective, but cannot understand it from the 1st person > perspective.) No machine can. No bodies can know from inside who the chooser really is. That is perhaps why the meditation on the question "who am I" (cf Ramana Maharshi) can lead to the "enlightenment". That is probably why in the eastern "art of the war", people learns to not-decide, yet act. Bruno > > > --Abram > > On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:16 PM, Bruno Marchal > wrote: >> >> >> I wrote: >> >> >> >>> Abram wrote --When I tell you my bet about which movie I will see, I am not minimizing the chance of being condemned to hell, I am minimizing the number of my copies that will be so carried. >>> >>> ? >> >> >> OK. I was distracted. To do this by altruism? And *you* (in your >> sense) you die. >> Is this what you mean? >> >> And you say "yes" to the doctor because you die at each instant. >> >> And you still care about the quality and seriousness of the doctor >> because you care by altruism for the copy. >> >> With MEC we have indeed this at each instant ( through QM or not). >> >> But then, you will have to think about anything you do in the future >> as an act of altruism. You take a cigarette because you care about >> the >> satisfaction feeling of the "copy" who will smoke it, and you abandon >> the cigarette because you care of the lungs of the copies of the >> future. >> >> Egoism as pure self-altruisme, why not? But then, assuming MEC, any >> statement of any laws (physical, arithmetical, juridic, etc.) >> concerns >> our copies, and this means that taking this point of view or not is >> not relevant in the reasoning, we have still to derive the laws, be >> it >> by altruism or egoism according to the interpretation of identity. >> >> Hmmm... If you were correct, it seems to me you should say "he" when >> you talk about yourself in the future. I love coffee so he will drink >> coffee. >> >> I think that if you put yourself in the place of the polycopies, none >> will feel like that except a few exception. I mean the quasi- >> tautology >> that none *feels* dying at each instant. You have to meditate eight >> hours per day during eight years or to eat or smoke something >> (legal!), or to die, or perhaps to dream for PERHAPS get a feeling of >> what dying could be, according to some. >> >> But your view is coherent and rather cool to
