Hi Russell, Hi Stephen,
I comment the two (now three!) posts in one mail.
On 14 Apr 2011, at 04:12, Stephen Paul King wrote:
-Original Message-
From: Russell Standish
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 8:07 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: A possible flaw un UDA?
I confess I got lost too with your presentation. My gut feeling is
your
discomfort stems from an almost magical insertion of the subjective
(ie a knower) into the UDA. Another way of putting it is what runs
the UD?.
However, the knower is introduced explicitly with the yes, doctor
assumption - that I survive with my brain substituted by a digital
device. What is this I if it isn't the knower? What possible meaning
can survive have, without there being a sense of being?
Yes. And for the UDA (UD Argument), the knower is sufficiently defined
by his/her personal memory, like the sequence of self-localization in
its duplication history written in his diary (WWWMWMMWMWMMWMWWMMMW...).
In AUDA, the definition is more subtle, and is due to Theaetetus (or
Plato), it is the believer in some truth (by definition), and is
handled by the Bp p translation. Remember that, by the second
incompleteness theorem, Bf is not equivalent with Bf f, from the
point of view of the machine. G* (the 'divine intellect') proves that
Bf is equivalent with Bf f, but the machine itself cannot.
Externally, a UD just exists as a static program (just a number that
exists platonically). However, once you have a knower, you can run the
UD, albeit viewed from the inside. In my book I make this explicit
with the TIME postulate, but I don't see anything hugely controversial
about it. It is not referring to any external time, just that the
knower cannot experience all experiences at once.
Which makes sense in the block arithmetical universe with TIME given
by the UD-steps. The *execution* of the UD is also static in Platonia.
It is static not through one static number, but through infinite (and
bifurcating/branching) sequence of numbers.
Here, physicists accepting even just special relativity have no
problem with that. Subjective time (re)appears in the static discourse
made by the machine inside that block statical mindscape.
I suspect that Stephen, in the manner of Prigogine, wants some basic
fundamental time. I suspect him also to be under the charm of some
mathematical mermaids!
I answer Stephen below.
Have I put my finger on it, or is this just wide of the mark?
--
**
[SPK] Hi Russell,
Yes, that is part of the discomfort. Another is a feeling that
the UDA is the semantic equivalent of building a beautiful castle in
midair. One first erects is a brilliant scaffolding then inserts
the castle high up on top of the scaffolding. We then are invited to
think that the castle will stay in place after the scaffolding is
removed. Let me be clear, I find Bruno's idea to be work of pure
genius. I delight in it and I deeply admire Bruno and his tenacity.
I just was to remove these nagging doubts I have about it. I want to
be absolutely sure that it can stand up to ferocious and diligent
attacks before I will commit to it.
Remember: if COMP is true, we will never know it for sure. We will
never be sure about it, and we might even be at risk if we take it for
granted. And that might happen.
If you are using each day a (classical) teleporting device, you might
find hard to doubt comp, yet you can't still not be sure. You might
suffer an 'agnosologic disease, like that poor first pionneer of
teleportation: after being reconstituted, he was blind, deaf,
paralysed, and when after years of effort he succeed to communicate
something it was great, the experience was successful, I feel
healthy, with all my capacities, and I am willing to do it again!.
That is one of the reason I insist that COMP belongs to theology, you
need an act of faith, and you need to reiterate it all the time. I do
think plausible that nature has already bet on it, in some way, and
that we do those reiteration bets, all the time, instinctively, but
that is a theory, and to believe and to apply a theory to yourself,
you need an unavoidable act of faith.
Let us consider in detail an idea that emerged here in my post
and Bruno's response:
***
start cut/paste
From: Bruno Marchal
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 7:02 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: A possible flaw un UDA?
Hi Stephen,
On 13 Apr 2011, at 02:35, Stephen Paul King wrote:
AR must be expressible as some belief in each 1p (modulo coherent
and soundness):
[BM] Why? It is true, but I don't see the relevance.
for AR to exist
[BM]What do you mean by AR exists? That is ambiguous. And what you
are saying begin to look like archeology is needed for dinosaur to
exist. The very idea of AR is that 1+1=2 does not need a human for
being true. Of course, a human or some alien is needed to
