Re: Intelligence and Nomologicalism
On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 2:21 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On 9/23/2010 8:26 PM, Rex Allen wrote: If you expose a deterministic system to a set of inputs that represent a particular environment, the system will react in the one and only way it can to that set of inputs. And if that reaction is to manipulate it's envrionment is a way advantageous to it, it's intelligent. A rock interacts with its environment. A human interacts with its environment. The term manipulate is misleading...in that it adds nothing over interacts with except the implication of intentionality. Which assumes that which must be proven...that there is something intrinsically different in the rock's interactions and the human's interactions. Basically I am arguing that intentionality is epiphenomenal in a rule-driven universe. It has no causal power, it doesn't add anything to the underlying rules, and it isn't part of the underlying rule set. Intentionality is just part of how things seem to us...an aspect of our conscious experience. It is a concept that we are conscious of, but which has no existence outside of conscious thought. Since intentionality is merely experiential, epiphenomenal, and non-causal - an abstract concept - then intelligence is as well. Intelligence must always be relative to some situation or environment. That's where Putnam and Moravec go wrong and Merriam-Webster get it right. If you can find a Putnam-mapping that can extracts a representation of a conscious entity, you can also find a mapping that extracts a representation of an environment to go with it. The attribution of intelligence is just part of our experience. Which is just to say, that person seems intelligent to me. But the rule-generated belief that the person is intelligent is all there is to his intelligence. Therefore: No one is intelligent, but many people are believed to be. Knowledge is just the internal state of the deterministic system. That's not a usable definition: internal=inaccessible. Knowledge must be expressible. It must be information that makes a difference. Otherwise you fall into the paradox of the rock that computes everything. A rock's internal state does make a difference in how it interacts with its environment. It's just that these differences are too subtle to be easily detected. The way the rock absorbs and emits heat and radiation, it’s response to vibrations, and even the precise way air molecules interact with it all reveal information about it’s internal state. To quote Jim Holt: Take that rock over there. It doesn't seem to be doing much of anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The rock's innards 'see' the entire universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run through. And where there is information, says panpsychism, there is consciousness. In David Chalmers's slogan, 'Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside.' But the rock doesn't exert itself as a result of all this 'thinking.' Why should it? Its existence, unlike ours, doesn't depend on the struggle to survive and self-replicate. It is indifferent to the prospect of being pulverized. If you are poetically inclined, you might think of the rock as a purely contemplative being. And you might draw the moral that the universe is, and always has been, saturated with mind, even though we snobbish Darwinian-replicating latecomers are too blinkered to notice. -- 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: Intelligence and Nomologicalism
On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 2:43 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The word 'universe does not refer to anything except the observable experiential first person plural (sharable among collection of programs) that arithmetic places on us as a consequence of addition and multiplication. I agree that first person experience can probably be represented that way, but I doubt that it is that way in an ontological sense. But that is not a reason to say that the universes and intelligence does not exist, only that they are not primitive. I think I agree. The term intelligence has meaning in the first person experiential sense, but not in the third person. -- 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: What's wrong with this?
Hi Brent and Bruno,
Thank you for pointing this out! I did mean infinite subsets, or
else the isomorphism would obviously not obtain, but in what Brent wrote is
the escape from the reason why infinities are not observable; we can only
observe those finite parts because we can distinguish those from each other
and from the whole of which they are subsets. In a sense you are making the
point that I was trying to make. Hopefully I will finish the sketch of my
bisimulation idea by this weekend.
Thanks! J
Stephen
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2010 3:33 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: What's wrong with this?
Stephen P. King wrote:
Umm, I had no idea that this would be so difficult to understand! I am
claiming that if there does not exist a means to determine a difference then
no difference can be said to exist. This is just a restatement of the
principle of identity of indiscernibles. If the totality of all that exists
is such that it does not exclude any possibility then it is infinite and as
such would have that property of infinities, namely that any proper subset
of that infinity is isomorphic with the infinity itself. This is equivalent
to saying that an infinity is such that is cannot distinguish itself as a
whole from any part of itself. To distinguish objects from each other
there must be some form of deviation and/or weakening from this isomorphism
relationship.
On 25 Sep 2010, at 18:06, Brent Meeker wrote:
This is wrong. Proper subsets of infinite sets may well be finite, {1,2} is
a proper subset of the integers.
On 9/25/2010 12:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Perhaps Stephen meant infinite subset, in which case it is correct for N or
any enumerable set (N is isomorphe (in bijection) with all its infinite
proper and improper subsets). But still incorrect in general. N is an
infinite proper subset of R. All infinite set injects properly in bigger
sets; by Cantor theorem.
People are usually more intrigued by improper subset. That {1, 2} is
included in {1, 2, 3} is normal, but that {1, 2, 3} is included in {1, 2, 3}
astonished the beginners. Of course A is included in B means just that x in
A implies x in B.
I guess everyone know the argument that cannabis is a gateway drug. I goes
like that: 90 % of the heroine user have begun with Cannabis. Of course it
is non valid. 100% of the heroin users have begun with water. This does not
imply that water is a gateway product to heroin. To evaluate if cannabis
leads to heroin, you have to count the proportion of heroin user in the
cannabis smoker population; not to count the number of cannabis smoker among
the heroin user. This error is a confusion between A included in B and B
included in A, or between (x in A - x in B) with (x in B - x in A)..
That error is widespread and is due to local associative reasoning (itself
due to Darwinian selection). Logical validity distinguish the relevant
association, making some emotional association irrelevant, despite natural
predisposition.
You can be sure that innocent people have been condemned to the death
penalty due to that error.
Paul Valery said that in life the only choice you have is the choice between
logic and war. He said: ask for proof, and if you don't get them understand
that some people are doing a war against you. Proof, said Valery, is
elementary politeness.
I think logic is a tool for preventing manipulation indeed. But alas logic
is not well taught nor even applied in the human affair. It is a false
secret that nobody has found any evidence that cannabis is toxic or
addictive so they insist: it is gateway drug, and parents can blame cannabis
for leading their children to heroin, but it is a mistake, an error, a
confusion between p - q and q - p. I am paid for giving bad notes to
students, but in the health politics it is done all the time, since more
than a century. By doing such error you can manipulate people for fearing or
hating anything, and do the war to anyone, just use emotional association.
Actually when you do the correct statistics, despite illegality there is no
evidence at all that cannabis lead to other drug, on the contrary it seems
to prevent it slightly (and would be more so if legalized probably).
The whole prohibition stuff is a complete hoax. Prohibition of a drug
literally creates a huge non taxed black market. Prohibitionism does not
protect the children, it makes them the main target of that unregulated
market. It creates the drug problem. It leads also to misinformation. If all
the drug were legalized and taxed with respect to their damage cost, people
would quickly understand what are the real dangerous drug, and I bet many
would be astonished. Democracy did not prevent brain washing. Cannabis and
salvia divinorum are about infinitely less dangerous than aspirin or
Re: Intelligence and Nomologicalism
On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: The text is well done. Thanks. A question. What would be the consequence of the nomologicalism for a person that would like to earn some more money? Well, let us not consider the case when one successfully sells the text about nomologicalism. Hm. Well, I'd say the consequence is that whether you earn more money in the future is a function of the universe's initial conditions and (possibly probabilistic) causal laws. Either things will go your way, or they won't. To the extent that it isn't predetermined, it's random. Bottom line: At the end of the day, the day is over. -- 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: Intelligence and Nomologicalism
On 9/25/2010 11:59 PM, Rex Allen wrote: On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 2:21 PM, Brent Meekermeeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On 9/23/2010 8:26 PM, Rex Allen wrote: If you expose a deterministic system to a set of inputs that represent a particular environment, the system will react in the one and only way it can to that set of inputs. And if that reaction is to manipulate it's envrionment is a way advantageous to it, it's intelligent. A rock interacts with its environment. A human interacts with its environment. The term manipulate is misleading...in that it adds nothing over interacts with except the implication of intentionality. Which assumes that which must be proven...that there is something intrinsically different in the rock's interactions and the human's interactions. Basically I am arguing that intentionality is epiphenomenal in a rule-driven universe. It has no causal power, it doesn't add anything to the underlying rules, and it isn't part of the underlying rule set. Intentionality is just part of how things seem to us...an aspect of our conscious experience. It is a concept that we are conscious of, but which has no existence outside of conscious thought. Since intentionality is merely experiential, epiphenomenal, and non-causal - an abstract concept - then intelligence is as well. Intelligence must always be relative to some situation or environment. That's where Putnam and Moravec go wrong and Merriam-Webster get it right. If you can find a Putnam-mapping that can extracts a representation of a conscious entity, you can also find a mapping that extracts a representation of an environment to go with it. Sure - but it's not our environment. The attribution of intelligence is just part of our experience. Which is just to say, that person seems intelligent to me. But the rule-generated belief that the person is intelligent is all there is to his intelligence. Therefore: No one is intelligent, but many people are believed to be. Knowledge is just the internal state of the deterministic system. That's not a usable definition: internal=inaccessible. Knowledge must be expressible. It must be information that makes a difference. Otherwise you fall into the paradox of the rock that computes everything. A rock's internal state does make a difference in how it interacts with its environment. It's just that these differences are too subtle to be easily detected. The way the rock absorbs and emits heat and radiation, it’s response to vibrations, and even the precise way air molecules interact with it all reveal information about it’s internal state. To quote Jim Holt: Take that rock over there. It doesn't seem to be doing much of anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The rock's innards 'see' the entire universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run through. And where there is information, says panpsychism, there is consciousness. In David Chalmers's slogan, 'Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside.' But the rock doesn't exert itself as a result of all this 'thinking.' Why should it? Its existence, unlike ours, doesn't depend on the struggle to survive and self-replicate. It is indifferent to the prospect of being pulverized. In some mapping it does. That's the paradox. If you allow arbitrary mappings then the rock is conscious, has intentions, actions, etc. But not in our environment. Brent If you are poetically inclined, you might think of the rock as a purely contemplative being. And you might draw the moral that the universe is, and always has been, saturated with mind, even though we snobbish Darwinian-replicating latecomers are too blinkered to notice. -- 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: Intelligence and Nomologicalism
On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: If you can find a Putnam-mapping that can extracts a representation of a conscious entity, you can also find a mapping that extracts a representation of an environment to go with it. Sure - but it's not our environment. Is our environment the only environment? Is the mapping that constitutes our environment priviliged in some way? Perhaps environment is relative to observer? But then from whence the observer? -- 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: Intelligence and Nomologicalism
On 9/26/2010 12:15 PM, Rex Allen wrote: On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Brent Meekermeeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: If you can find a Putnam-mapping that can extracts a representation of a conscious entity, you can also find a mapping that extracts a representation of an environment to go with it. Sure - but it's not our environment. Is our environment the only environment? Is the mapping that constitutes our environment priviliged in some way? It is if we're the ones doing the mapping. Perhaps environment is relative to observer? But then from whence the observer? That's possible, but it's solipism. 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.
