Re: AUDA Page
Hi Günther, Le 22-févr.-09, à 23:16, Günther Greindl a écrit : will incorporate your changes as soon as time permits :-) Take all your time. I am myself rather busy. But thanks for telling me. Actually I take this AUDA page as an opportunity for thinking about the best books on Gödel's incompleteness theorems. I could send a list of books with short comments, perhaps in April. All good books on incompleteness and provability logic can be helpful on the AUDA, given that the AUDA is entirely build on incompleteness. Right now I think about the book inexhaustibility by Torkel Franzen, which is very good, at least for the mathematically inclined reader. We have already talk about Franzen's little book on the abuse of Gödel's theorems. Quite useful too, especially for non-logicians. 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-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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
random thoughts
Perhaps this paper would be of interest: Deterministic multivalued logic scheme for information processing and routing in the brain(arxiv.org/abs/0902.2033)? Speaking of logic, even though I am not starting from zero,and given that it is not my full time profession, which papers/book should be read, and are they available online? finally what is the difference between being awake and asleep from the programmatic POV? Ronald --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]
On 23 Feb 2009, at 00:39, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2009/2/23 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: From a logical point of view Shoemaker is right. You can say no for many reasons to the doctor. The copy will not even behave as you. The copy will behave like you, but is a phi-zombie. The copy behaves like you and as a soul/personality/consciousness, but yet is not you (and you are dead) This last is the problematic one. If it is valid, then it is also valid to say that I only live for a moment and continuity of identity is only an illusion. I don't think so. Unless you assume comp, but then to say the copy is not you has no meaning at all. This last is not really problematic, it is just equivalent with the negation of comp. It is brought by non-comp-people who, on the contrary insist a notion of continuity which is broken by digital substitution. For a computationalist, the continuity is given by the comp history, and is not broken by teleportation and the like, not even self- differentiation through self-duplication. Actually, I have no objection to this way of speaking, but we would then just have to say that this illusion of continuity is just as good as what we hitherto thought was real continuity. I think we agree. Just note that when I don't write assuming comp I consider also the case when comp is false. Perhaps I shouldn't. The copy is you (in Parfit sense: that it is as better than you). And, the copy can be you in deeper and deeper senses (roughly speaking up to the unspeakable you = ONE). I talk here on the first person you. It is infinite and unnameable. Here computer science can makes those term (like unnameable) much more precise. I don't see how the copy could be me in a deeper sense than having all my thoughts, memories etc. It would be like saying that if I wave my magic wand over you you will become specially blessed, even though nothing will actually change either subjectively or objectively. The copy could be you in the deeper sense that it could be you even in the case where he loses some memory, all memories, or in case he got new memories, including false souvenirs. But then it is like in the movie the prestige, your brother can be you. This path leads to the idea that we are already all the same person. It is not being the other which is an illusion in that case. I don't insist on this because we don't need to see that arithmetic is the theory of everything (and that physics comes from there). But it is needed for the other hypostases and the whole theological point. 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-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: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]
2009/2/23 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be The copy could be you in the deeper sense that it could be you even in the case where he loses some memory, all memories, or in case he got new memories, including false souvenirs. But then it is like in the movie the prestige, your brother can be you. This path leads to the idea that we are already all the same person. It is not being the other which is an illusion in that case. I don't insist on this because we don't need to see that arithmetic is the theory of everything (and that physics comes from there). But it is needed for the other hypostases and the whole theological point. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ If the copy has no memory of being me then It's not me... or you mean there is something which is not memory but which is me (and render memory useless as primary property of the self) ? It is a matter of semantic but if you accept that memory is not what can be ascribe to you then you/I/... doesn't mean anything... in that sense you are me and vice-versa, and everyone is everyone but I don't see this as a theory of self identity. Regards, Quentin -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]
Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2009/2/23 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be The copy could be you in the deeper sense that it could be you even in the case where he loses some memory, all memories, or in case he got new memories, including false souvenirs. But then it is like in the movie the prestige, your brother can be you. This path leads to the idea that we are already all the same person. It is not being the other which is an illusion in that case. I don't insist on this because we don't need to see that arithmetic is the theory of everything (and that physics comes from there). But it is needed for the other hypostases and the whole theological point. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ If the copy has no memory of being me then It's not me... or you mean there is something which is not memory but which is me (and render memory useless as primary property of the self) ? It is a matter of semantic but if you accept that memory is not what can be ascribe to you then you/I/... doesn't mean anything... in that sense you are me and vice-versa, and everyone is everyone but I don't see this as a theory of self identity. Regards, Quentin I tend to agree with Quentin that memories are an essential component of personal identity. But that also raises a problem with ideas like observer moments and continuity. Almost all my memories are not being remembered at an given time. Some I may not recall for years at a time. I may significant periods of time in which I am not consciously recalling any memories. So then how can memories and continuity be essential? I practice we rely on continuity of the body and then ask, Does this body have (some) appropriate memories? Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Personal Identity and Memory [was Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction] Quentin Anciaux wrote: If the copy has no memory of being me then It's not me... or you mean there is something which is not memory but which is me (and render memory useless as primary property of the self) ? It is a matter of semantic but if you accept that memory is not what can be ascribe to you then you/I/... doesn't mean anything... in that sense you are me and vice-versa, and everyone is everyone but I don't see this as a theory of self identity. Regards, Quentin I tend to agree with Quentin that memories are an essential component of personal identity. But that also raises a problem with ideas like observer moments and continuity. Almost all my memories are not being remembered at an given time. Some I may not recall for years at a time. I may significant periods of time in which I am not consciously recalling any memories. So then how can memories and continuity be essential? I practice we rely on continuity of the body and then ask, Does this body have (some) appropriate memories? Brent Hi Brent and Quentin, Could it be that it is the continuous possibility of recall from memory itself and not just the occasional recall acts that are important to continuity of P.I.? Stephen --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Personal Identity and Memory [was Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]
Stephen Paul King wrote: - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction] Quentin Anciaux wrote: If the copy has no memory of being me then It's not me... or you mean there is something which is not memory but which is me (and render memory useless as primary property of the self) ? It is a matter of semantic but if you accept that memory is not what can be ascribe to you then you/I/... doesn't mean anything... in that sense you are me and vice-versa, and everyone is everyone but I don't see this as a theory of self identity. Regards, Quentin I tend to agree with Quentin that memories are an essential component of personal identity. But that also raises a problem with ideas like observer moments and continuity. Almost all my memories are not being remembered at an given time. Some I may not recall for years at a time. I may significant periods of time in which I am not consciously recalling any memories. So then how can memories and continuity be essential? I practice we rely on continuity of the body and then ask, Does this body have (some) appropriate memories? Brent Hi Brent and Quentin, Could it be that it is the continuous possibility of recall from memory itself and not just the occasional recall acts that are important to continuity of P.I.? Stephen Sure. But what provides that possibility - the causal (physical) continuity of the brain and body. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Copying?
Dear Jonathan, Brent and Stathis, - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 2:02 AM Subject: Re: Copying? Stathis Papaioannou wrote: But the brain changes from moment to moment due to chemical reactions and thermal motion and we still remain the same person. If tolerances were so tight that the no-cloning theorem is relevant then the brain couldn't possibly function. [SPK] It seems as if we need to flesh out exactly what we mean by still remain the same person. My own ideas follow the work of V. Pratt and his work on Chu spaces and their logics. In http://chu.stanford.edu/guide.html#ratmech wherer he points out that Decartes' dictum properly stated is Cognito, ergo eram I think, therefore I was. The suggestion by Jonathan is helpful in understanding this, I believe: - Original Message - From: Johnathan Corgan jcor...@aeinet.com To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 3:46 PM Subject: Re: Copying? It is possible (I think likely) that there is a many-to-one relationship between exact quantum states and one conscious state, or observer moment. To put into Bruno's terminology, the your digital substitution level would then be at a higher level than the exact quantum state. [SPK] Ok, that might also help us deal with the binding problem where we try to sort out the issue of the unity of consciousness. If this is the case, then the method X of copying only needs to ensure that the resultant quantum state stays within the common higher level state to ensure continuity. [SPK] Would this help us explain the flow aspect of consciousness, where we have something like a window in time of a duration of about .25 sec where in memories can be updated upon the reseit of new data? Think of how while driving we see what appears to be an animal darting across the road only to realize a split secont later that it is just a wind blown leaf. To use a thermodynamic analogy, which I find increasingly useful to visualize these sorts of things, if the above many-to-one hypothesis holds true, then multiple microstates map to a single macrostate. Continuity of personal identity would allow a change in microstates (i.e., quantum states) during copying, as long as the resultant microstate still belonged to the same macrostate (observer moment). [SPK] Has any one seen any references to the idea of smearing macrostates over finite time intervals? Of course, what the defining function of membership of quantum states within an observer moment that would preserve personal identity is unknown. Still, as long as there is a many-to-one relationship, then the no-cloning theorem does not rule out transfer of identity through your method X. Johnathan Corgan [SPK] We still do not have any data on the lower limit of the membership is needed for this, but can we gloss over it and just jump to a conclusion? Brent Meeker Exactly. Anything that is going to produce useful information processing must ultimately be classical. Even quantum computers must have their results projected out classically. Tegmark and others have shown that brain processes involve actions many orders above Planck's constant - so a most quantum effects would produce small random effects. [SPK] That outputs of computations reduce to classical binary I understand and agree with, but it has been shown that one can not start off with a classical system and arrive at the results that we have. Feynmann and Svozil et all have written about how QM system of sufficient size can generate simulations of classical systems with arbitrary accurasy while the converse, classical systems generating simulations of QM systems, is restricted to 2bit systems. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1018862730956 http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~svozil/publ/1999-embed.pdf As to the Tegmark papers, they use a model of the brain that is very different form the real thing! They completely neglect small scale structures for one thing... http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v65/i6/e061901 Of course if you reject the idea that thinking is information processing, then you could attribute it some other aspect of quantum state evolution and ride off on Depak Chopra's horse. Brent [SPK] No, I do not reject that thinking is information processing per say, I just reject the notion that that is all it is. We should not ignore quatum aspects. Resent research has shown that photosynthesis in plants has a desitedly quantum aspect http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7006/full/431256a.html ; are we helping ourselves by ruling such out summarily in our thinking about consciousness? Onward! Stephen --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this
Re: Personal Identity and Memory
Hi Brent, - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 12:46 PM Subject: Re: Personal Identity and Memory [was Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction] Stephen Paul King wrote: snip Hi Brent and Quentin, Could it be that it is the continuous possibility of recall from memory itself and not just the occasional recall acts that are important to continuity of P.I.? Stephen Sure. But what provides that possibility - the causal (physical) continuity of the brain and body. Brent This is why I am very timid about accepting Platonic idealist theories, for they seemed to inevitably relegate consciousness to some sort of epiphenomena ridding on top of another epiphenomenon: the material universe. Frankly, I find that some dualist theories do not have this problem whereas monist theories have the problem of epiphenomena. OTOH, I do find Bruno's theory to be very interesting. ;) If the material universe is just as real as the universe of number or thought or whatever form the idealist theories propose, we only need to show how the duals are related and how dynamics can follow. See: http://chu.stanford.edu/guide.html#ratmech Onward! Stephen --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
AUDA (was David Shoemaker, Personal Identity)
On 23 Feb 2009, at 02:21, Günther Greindl wrote: Hi Stathis, Bruno, List, the copy can be you in deeper and deeper senses (roughly speaking up to the unspeakable you = ONE). I talk here on the first person you. It is infinite and unnameable. Here computer science can makes those term (like unnameable) much more precise. I don't see how the copy could be me in a deeper sense than having all my thoughts, memories etc. It would be like saying that if I wave my magic wand over you you will become specially blessed, even though nothing will actually change either subjectively or objectively. You must take into account Bruno's Plotinian interpretation: the One, the Intellect, and the Universal Soul. In this sense, you can become more you in that you penetrate false knowledge Maya and realize your true nature (the Dao, if you like, roughly the ONE in Plotinus). I would say the Universal Soul. To be the ONE? The difficulty is that Plotinus is not always clear. Obvioulsy he did not dispose of an arithmetical interpretation. Formidably enough he is aware that numbers can play a big role there, like most neoplatonists. The universal soul hypostase *is* a first person (or a theory about a first person). Some would say it is just an abstract person. That it is just the least common part of all souls, or in the arithmetical toy theology, that is the common part of all first persons corresponding to the ideally correct machines. But (with comp) we can make the point that such a person *is* conscious. A sort of confirmation is given by the thought of some mystic (Plotinus, Ibn Arabi, ...), but also from experience reports of those who experiments with Salvia Divinorum, which makes possible to have a total amnesia (forgetting not just who you are, but that you are, + forgetting everything up to the idea of time and space), yet remaining conscious, if not being even much more conscious with the feeling that memories are making you less conscious, and that a memory-brain is a filter on histories. Stable memories differentiate consciousness. A problem for comp is that, well at least I have thought that comp makes the soul (the first person, the third hypostase) conscious only through its building or generating time. But the salvia reports and my own experiences make me think I could be wrong there. @Bruno: What I have come to wonder: you take the Löbian Machine to be the model of a person - say, a human. But what if the Löbian Machine is actually (and only) the ultimate person - the universal soul, in Plotinus' terminology. OK. It is the ultimate person, but also the initial person.It is a baby god. The one who has to fall from truth to be able to go back to truth, but then the impossible marriage between just addition and multiplication explains (assuming we are digital) why we can lost our selves in an infinitely complex labyrinth of realities. This would account for the infinite (continuum!) histories (lived through the lives of all beings in the multiverse), the universal soul forgetting itself in a cosmic play, sort of - but also for COMP immortality - immortal would be the _universal soul_, but not necessarily concrete persons (as we conceive them, which requires at least some continuity of memory etc) I think you are quite correct. Except I would say all first persons feel themselves always as being concrete (in all situations, OMs, worlds, ...). Even an amnesic person can feel herself concrete, even if she forgets the meaning of the word concrete. And see what I said to Stathis, the point where I don't follow Parfit: we are never 100% concrete. Concreteness is always relative to a probable history. We are always abstract, immaterial types relatively embedded in infinitely many types of histories (computations seen from inside). So, like in Hinduism it seems comp gives the two main form of immortality: the one when you remember you are the universal soul, and the one which makes you live again, and again, and again, from mornings to mornings, from lives to lives, exploring the many realities. I think this happens when you don't remember you are the universal soul. That remembering is somewhat paradoxical, and, to be sure hard to extract from the interview of the universal machine. It is really an amnesia of an amnesia. Perhaps a forgetful functor in the category of the models of Lobian machines. I don't *know*! The incompleteness prevents the consistent machines to ever come back on earth with the last step of that remembering. It does not prevent the machine to commit that last step, only to come back with the memory of that step. Hmmm ... This could look a bit mystical, so I should recall AUDA, for the benefit of some others. AUDA in short. For the correct machine, the incompleteness makes obligatory to have a theology, in the sense that she
Re: Personal Identity and Ethics
Stathis: two questions. 1. Why are you breaking your head HOW to copy something we don't believe 'exists' at all? If it aint, don't copy it. Copy what? 2. Are *you* most of the matter in your body(??) or is there something more to it? This is exactly my point: if SOMEBODY SOMEHOW is indeed copying us, is the physical form the essence of the complexity we ARE? I may be 'homesick' for the variant of a year ago, when my arthritis dod not ache so much, but is the ache/not ache relation what makes me up? Our figment, the physical world image, serves some explanation about us, but I would not like to be identified with that earlier 'John' - say: 2 year old, or fetus, without mental experiences and capabilities. (This was the question I re-asked a Muslim when she referred to an earlier me to get to Heaven, instead of the sick old senile dying folks - what I asked originally.) John Mikes On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/2/23 John Mikes jami...@gmail.com: Stathis, I usually appreciate the wisdom in your posts. Now I have a retort: ...What I find incoherent is the idea that the psychological properties might be able to be duplicated but nevertheless there is no continuity of identity because the soul cannot be duplicated. If you accept the topic (to be discussed) of the unidentifiable imaginary soul, than you have to accept that IT(???) can be duplicated as well. Once we are in Wunderland we are in Wunderland. I don't believe in the soul so perhaps someone who does can comment (Tom Caylor?): is it that it can't be copied at all, i.e. not even God could make a soul-copying teleporter, or is it just that it can't be copied via physical means? And if you find yourself there you have no notion of your destoyed identity here and you A R E the copied fake (I call it 'fake', because it is extracted from your 'here'-relations which constitute the essential content of your identity. The there YOU is either another one with relations to the there circumstances or a fake replica of what you were 'here' (and have no knowledge (memory) of it. Or is the duplicate homesick? By that argument you could also say you are a copied fake of the John of a year ago, since most of the matter in your body has been replaced. -- 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-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: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]
2009/2/24 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: I tend to agree with Quentin that memories are an essential component of personal identity. But that also raises a problem with ideas like observer moments and continuity. Almost all my memories are not being remembered at an given time. Some I may not recall for years at a time. I may significant periods of time in which I am not consciously recalling any memories. So then how can memories and continuity be essential? I practice we rely on continuity of the body and then ask, Does this body have (some) appropriate memories? The continuity is contingent on having access to the relevant memories as required. If you are listening to a recording the parts where the music plays must be from that particular recording, but the silent parts could as easily be from any other recording. In the same way, if you are staring at a blank wall thinking of nothing for a moment, then during that moment you might be a generic human having such a similar experience. -- 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-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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
