Re: Bruno List continued
2011/10/11 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com On Oct 10, 10:32 am, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2011/10/10 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com No. Your claim is that all inputs must also be neurological. He *never* said that. What he said is this : If you know the input + the working of a neuron, you can predict the output (fire or not fire), the input can be from adjacent neurons or from nerves which are link to the external environment via sensors. You are the one keeping on claiming that the model must predict the external environment and that is non-sensical. Adjacent neurons = neurological. Nerves = neurological. Sensors = neurological. His claim excludes internal spontaneous causes. I'm just pointing out that neurological outputs cannot be predicted without them and that those cannot be determined from the physiology and the environment alone. You have to know what the brain is feeling to predict everything that the neurons that make it up are going to do. You have to know the transition rule(s) of the neuron. Transition rule(s) + input = output. Input == Internal state of the neuron + environment state where the neuron is (adjacent cells, nerves signal, chemical environment, ...) You don't have to know what the brain is feeling as a whole... because the neuron does not. 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-list@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: Bruno List continued
On Oct 11, 2:52 am, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2011/10/11 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com On Oct 10, 10:32 am, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2011/10/10 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com No. Your claim is that all inputs must also be neurological. He *never* said that. What he said is this : If you know the input + the working of a neuron, you can predict the output (fire or not fire), the input can be from adjacent neurons or from nerves which are link to the external environment via sensors. You are the one keeping on claiming that the model must predict the external environment and that is non-sensical. Adjacent neurons = neurological. Nerves = neurological. Sensors = neurological. His claim excludes internal spontaneous causes. I'm just pointing out that neurological outputs cannot be predicted without them and that those cannot be determined from the physiology and the environment alone. You have to know what the brain is feeling to predict everything that the neurons that make it up are going to do. You have to know the transition rule(s) of the neuron. Transition rule(s) + input = output. The idea of transition rules is not appropriate to describe the phenomenology. It collapses the sensorimotive capacity into an a hollow arithmetic silhouette, which has no place in a living organism. Computer programs have transition rules, cells have conditioned responses and learned behaviors. Input == Internal state of the neuron + environment state where the neuron is (adjacent cells, nerves signal, chemical environment, ...) You don't have to know what the brain is feeling as a whole... because the neuron does not. You *do* have to know what the brain is feeling as a whole, because even though the neuron does not know what the brain is feeling in the brain's terms, it participates in the collective pattern of charge in the brain which is the 3-p shadow of a person's subjectivity. The neuron feels a local recapitulation of the overall state of the neurological collective, specific to it's particular role and capacity. It's on a need to know basis, just as we are in our own levels of consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness, but it must know something, otherwise nothing knows anything. Without knowing the feeling in it's native subjective terms, it would be like trying to predict animated Rorschach inkblots. Sort of like technical analysis of the stock market - a death spiral of self- similarity feedback which takes us further from the signifying fundamentals we care about and deeper into the quicksand of a- signifying quantitative fantasy. Craig -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno List continued
On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 1:27 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: If you simulate a neuron, then you predict what the neuron will do given certain inputs. The model of the neuron does not include the inputs. No. Your claim is that all inputs must also be neurological. You say over and over that neurons can only fire in response to other neurons. I have shown that it is not true and now you are being dishonest about your position throughout this conversation. I may be crazy but I don't have Alzheimers (yet). Whether a neuron fires or not depends on its present state and the inputs, and the most important inputs are from other neurons and from sense organs. The model of a neuron does not include the inputs. A larger model of a network of neurons includes inputs and outputs from all the neurons in the network but does not include external inputs. The simulation is not the same as the object being simulated but it can come arbitrarily close to any 3-P observable aspect of the object's behaviour. I would agree as far as the simulation of objects, but not of subjects. That's what this whole thread is about - me asserting that there is likely a primitive, irreducible ontology of subjectivity and you and others denying that such a thing is possible. Bruno's conclusion is that both objectivity and subjectivity supervene upon an arithmetic primitive ontology, (which I have agreed with in the past and would probably continue to agree with if I were Bruno and had his facility with arithmetic concepts), whereas I conclude that arithmetic is actually a subject, but a particular subject - the essentializing of objectivity...it is a powerful way of way of making sense, but there are other kinds of sensemaking and qualia such as symmetry and succession, presence and absence, etc, which form the foundation upon which arithmetic realism depends. What is your position though? It seems to be that consciousness and life are not real for you on any level. Your cogito seems to be Ion channels open therefore something thinks that it thinks, therefore it is not'. You're welcome to your opinions of course, but I find it hard to take this worldview seriously in light of our ordinary experience and the findings of neurology. We understand that high level processes to in fact influence low level processes. I offer a hypothesis which models those dynamics. We observe that much of the activity in the brain is in fact spontaneous, and not cyclical or dependent upon external neurological inputs for firing - that neurons are in fact living organisms capable of autonomous and synchronized intentionality. Your solution seems to be to hide in a cave of pre-scientific incuriousity. Content to let our entire lives as we experience them natively to be sequestered in a never-never land that is neither physical nor spiritual. Your assumptions paint conscious subjects as epiphenomenal non-objects, orphaned from reason, science, or any possibility of understanding. Further, they deny their own self-invalidation without justification, so that somehow these thoughts of exclusively deterministic epistemology are themselves immune from their own critical purview. It is to say that all thought is 'simply' neurology - except this thought. This is the one special magic thought which disqualifies all others. It is a philosophy that appeals to many, for obvious reasons, as it provides the sense of certainty and safety which we crave. The truth is that is thought is 'simply' the mirror image of new age religiosity, but owing more of it's spirit to the Inquisition. I really can't understand your emotional objection to the idea that consciousness may be epiphenomenal and supervenient on mechanistic processes. It doesn't worry me or affect my behaviour; why should it? The scientific consensus in neuroscience is that there is physical basis for everything that happens in the brain. The brain is physical, so everything that happens in the brain is by definition physical. There is scientific consensus that brain events correlate to subjective events but there is no such consensus that subjective intentions do not cause physical events. Indeed common sense would dictate that we are the ones subjectively choosing our words here, since they are not floating around in our ion channels. Physical events in my brain lead me to choose the words and on top of this process is the subjectivity of choice. A neuron will only fire if its biochemistry requires it to fire. I agree. But it's biochemistry requires electromagnetism, and I am saying that electromagnetism *must* have a subjective, sensorimotive ontology (otherwise our subjectivity could not be closely correlated with it). I don't believe in a never never land of Cartesian theater - feeling can only be electromagnetic and electromagnetism can only be feeling. They are the same thing, only viewed from 1-p vs 3-p. What is this
Re: COMP is empty(?)
On 10 Oct 2011, at 22:50, benjayk wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 09 Oct 2011, at 18:29, benjayk wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 08 Oct 2011, at 21:00, benjayk wrote: I'm not saying that arithmetic isn't an internally consistent logic with unexpected depths and qualities, I'm just saying it can't turn blue or taste like broccoli. Assuming non-comp. There is no assumption needed for that. It is a category error to say arithmetics turns into a taste. It is also a category error to say that arithmetic has an internal view. If by arithmetic you mean some theory/machine like PA, you *are* using non comp. The point is that we don't need any assumptions for that. It is just an observation. There is only the internal view viewing into itself, and it belongs to no one. It is just not possible to find an owner, simply because only objects can be owned. It is a category error to say subjectivity (consciousness) can be owned, just like, for example, numbers can't be owned. We have discuss this. You are not aware that we search an explanation for matter and consciousness. I am aware of that. It is obvious that this is what you searching. The point is, if you try to explain concsciousness you are applying a concept to something that just doesn't fit what is talked about. I agree. That is part of the difficulty. Explaining consciousness in the sense you mean it (explain it *from* something) is nonsense, as consciousness is already required *before* anything at all can arise. This is not valid. I need consciousness, like a need a brain, to understand consciousness or the working of the brain. Like I need logic to to do metalogic. Perhaps you are asking for some kind of total or complete explanation, but this does not exist for anything. The nice thing is that we can explain consciousness by showing that machine introspecting herself are lead to a term # which can help us to understand they see the problem, and should perhaps not be considered as zombie. Machine can understand that such a # run deep, is non communicable, cannot be explain, etc. An explanation *from something* can just work if what you explain from exists prior to that what is to be explained. exists prior is ambiguous (especilly for a non believer in a fundamental time). No numbers can arise without consciousness, and therefore consciousnes can't be explained from them. But numbers do not belong to the category of what arise. Numbers never arise. The category error is here. And it is quasi obvious that if we assume comp, consciousness has something to do with number relations, given that some number relation emulates computation, in the sense of Turing, Church Co. Bruno Marchal wrote: As soon as you use Gödel, you go beyond arithmetic, making the label arithmetical truth close to meaningless. Godel's prove does not go beyond arithmetic. PA can prove its own Gödel's theorem. Where in arithmetic is the axiom that numbers can encode things? You don't need such an axiom. You can prove the existence of encoding just by using the usual axioms. How does Gödel prove work if they can't encode things? But number can encode things? They can even prove that they can encode things. I can explain the detail in some period where I have more time, or you can consult any textbook on the subject. Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: It makes as much sense to say that a concept has an internal view. nternal view just applies to the only thing that can have/is a view, namely consciousness. It applies to person. No. There is no person to find that has consciousness. This is depriving the littele ego, man, from having conscious experience. That makes me chill. Of course, it is threatening to the ego. The little ego has no conscious experience. It is an object within the conscious experience. You talk from experience. If that can inspire you for a theory, bring the theory, not the experience. Your threatening of the ego is frightening coming from someone saying no to the doctor. You can evacuate your little ego like that, but not the other one, nor the machine's one. Bruno Marchal wrote: You statement contradict the whole endeavor of science, Yes, if science thinks it can explain fundamental things. Science explains nothing. Science put some light, including on its limitation. It can relatively explain local things, and describe things very well, and be a good tool for development of technology. If you confine science on this, irrationalism will crop up in the fundamental, and we already know the amount of despair and suffering this leads to. Bruno Marchal wrote: and even of life. Life is not for the ego, life is for God. Er... I am not sure of that. It is rather ambiguous also. Bruno Marchal wrote: It is like saying look we will go in heaven, so why not kill ourselves right now to
Re: COMP is empty(?)
On 11 Oct 2011, at 02:58, Russell Standish wrote: On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 02:13:17PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: here you are summing up well my critics of Schmidhuber and Tegmark which I have done when entering in this list discussion. This has given the big debate between ASSA and RSSA (the absolute and the relative Self-Sampling-Assumption). DM, or comp, does not work with the ASSA, which indeed would make the physical as a sort of geographical. In a sense, comp rescues physics from such approaches, and it introduces a new invariant (the change of the phi_i, or the change for the initial ontic theory). But comp also rescues consciousness and persons from the materialist tendency to eliminate them. Anthropic principles are not completely evacuated, some defense of them and variants are still possible, especially for the cosmological history and for some explanation of geography. But the laws of physics are not anthropic. They might be said in a loose sense to be universal machine-thropic, or Löbian-Thropic, but not in the Bayesian sense. The probabilities and their rôle are derived from the first person indeterminacy. With COMP, I don't see any difference between Anthropic and Löbian-Thropic. That is why I prefer to avoid the expression Löbian-thropic, except for some cosmological or geographical aspect of reality. With COMP, and via your UDA, our observed universe is selected from the set of all infinite strings (which I call descriptions in my book). My non observed future; or computational extensions, is selected, making the comp physics explainable in term of statistics on computations. This leads to general physical laws invariant for all observers. There is no selection of a particular computations, just a relative indeterminacy bearing on all computations going through my state. In particular we cannot use Bayes theorem, for example. Computations are not infinite strings, but can have infinite strings as inputs, and so infinite strings can play a role in the (re)normalization needed to avoid the infinities of abnormal histories. Without the anthropic principle, ISTM that your theory would suffer the Occam catastrophe fate. How do you avoid that? Is that equivalent with the white rabbits? We avoid this by having just much more normal or lawful local histories than abnormal one. It is the redundancy of the UD* + the non triviality of the self- referential constraints which saves, up to now, the consistency of comp. The anthropic principle might be capable to explain geographical and historical features, but it cannot explain why we remain in those geographico-historical computations, or why they are stable. Best, Bruno Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno List continued
On Oct 11, 8:45 am, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 1:27 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: If you simulate a neuron, then you predict what the neuron will do given certain inputs. The model of the neuron does not include the inputs. No. Your claim is that all inputs must also be neurological. You say over and over that neurons can only fire in response to other neurons. I have shown that it is not true and now you are being dishonest about your position throughout this conversation. I may be crazy but I don't have Alzheimers (yet). Whether a neuron fires or not depends on its present state and the inputs, and the most important inputs are from other neurons and from sense organs. Why would the inputs from other neurons and sense organs be any more important that the spontaneous activity within the neurons themselves? The model of a neuron does not include the inputs. A larger model of a network of neurons includes inputs and outputs from all the neurons in the network but does not include external inputs. Without any external inputs, and without any recognition of internal spontaneous activity, what is it that this closed circuit of neurons would be inputting and outputting that would be worth modeling? The simulation is not the same as the object being simulated but it can come arbitrarily close to any 3-P observable aspect of the object's behaviour. I would agree as far as the simulation of objects, but not of subjects. That's what this whole thread is about - me asserting that there is likely a primitive, irreducible ontology of subjectivity and you and others denying that such a thing is possible. Bruno's conclusion is that both objectivity and subjectivity supervene upon an arithmetic primitive ontology, (which I have agreed with in the past and would probably continue to agree with if I were Bruno and had his facility with arithmetic concepts), whereas I conclude that arithmetic is actually a subject, but a particular subject - the essentializing of objectivity...it is a powerful way of way of making sense, but there are other kinds of sensemaking and qualia such as symmetry and succession, presence and absence, etc, which form the foundation upon which arithmetic realism depends. What is your position though? It seems to be that consciousness and life are not real for you on any level. Your cogito seems to be Ion channels open therefore something thinks that it thinks, therefore it is not'. You're welcome to your opinions of course, but I find it hard to take this worldview seriously in light of our ordinary experience and the findings of neurology. We understand that high level processes to in fact influence low level processes. I offer a hypothesis which models those dynamics. We observe that much of the activity in the brain is in fact spontaneous, and not cyclical or dependent upon external neurological inputs for firing - that neurons are in fact living organisms capable of autonomous and synchronized intentionality. Your solution seems to be to hide in a cave of pre-scientific incuriousity. Content to let our entire lives as we experience them natively to be sequestered in a never-never land that is neither physical nor spiritual. Your assumptions paint conscious subjects as epiphenomenal non-objects, orphaned from reason, science, or any possibility of understanding. Further, they deny their own self-invalidation without justification, so that somehow these thoughts of exclusively deterministic epistemology are themselves immune from their own critical purview. It is to say that all thought is 'simply' neurology - except this thought. This is the one special magic thought which disqualifies all others. It is a philosophy that appeals to many, for obvious reasons, as it provides the sense of certainty and safety which we crave. The truth is that is thought is 'simply' the mirror image of new age religiosity, but owing more of it's spirit to the Inquisition. I really can't understand your emotional objection to the idea that consciousness may be epiphenomenal and supervenient on mechanistic processes. It doesn't worry me or affect my behaviour; why should it? If consciousness were epiphenomenal and supervenient on mechanistic processes, you would not have a choice whether or not to worry. You would have no opinion, and there could be no such thing as an opinion. My objection is that it's a nonsensical position. The scientific consensus in neuroscience is that there is physical basis for everything that happens in the brain. The brain is physical, so everything that happens in the brain is by definition physical. There is scientific consensus that brain events correlate to subjective events but there is no such consensus that subjective intentions do not cause physical events. Indeed common sense
Re: COMP is empty(?)
On 10/11/2011 9:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: My non observed future; or computational extensions, is selected, making the comp physics explainable in term of statistics on computations. This leads to general physical laws invariant for all observers. There is no selection of a particular computations, just a relative indeterminacy bearing on all computations going through my state. In particular we cannot use Bayes theorem, for example. Isn't relative indeterminacy quantified by conditional probability; for which Bayes theorem is the appropriate tool. 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-list@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: COMP is empty(?)
Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: The point is that successor and 0 become meaningless, or just mere symbols, when removed from that context. What context are you talking about. The theory is interpretation independent. The interpretations themselves are part of model theory. For using the axiom you need only the inference rules. But just rules give just rules. The context I am talking about are particular measurements, or particular countable things. COMP uses it outside of this context, making it meaningless. What context? A TOE. Bruno Marchal wrote: Also, if you were right here, all theories, especially the first order theory, would be meaningless. Why? All physical theories relate to particular measurements. Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: I don't agree with these axioms removed from any context, as without it, they are meaningless. I don't necessarily disagree with them, either, I just treat them as mere symbols then. They are much more than that. There are symbols + finitist rule of manipulation. Which are just symols as well. The rules are just more then symbols with unspecified meaning if they represent something. The rules are algorithmic. They make the theorem checkable by machine. That's true. So, machines can handle symbols with unspecified meaning,...? Bruno Marchal wrote: You are arguing against all theories. ? Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: The difference is as big as the difference between what you can feel looking at the string z_n+1 = (z_n)^2 + c and what you can feel looking at a rendering of what it describes, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7JLHxBm0eY This just works if we give the rules meaning in terms of particular objects, namely pixels on the screen. In this context they aren't removed from context, because an image of a screen with measureable distance is an obvious context for numbers. The equation without an geometrical context means very little to an average human (of course to mathematician it means a lot in terms of other mathematical things, which is no valid context for the average human). COMP doesn't give an adequate context. If it would, you could give particular predictions of what COMP entails in term of measureable or countable objects. Comp just do that in the extreme, given that it gives the physical laws. That is what the UDA proves. (And AUDA confirms partially, and shows it consistent, also). You have not given any physical law. Predicting that some quantum stuff is going on is not giving the physical laws. The UDA may simply not work, if COMP is false. You can't use the hypothesis that COMP is true to defend that it is refutable! In order for it to refutable you have to make actual predictions. Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Of course we can still use them in a meta-sense by using .. = 2 as a representation for, say a nose, and ... = 3 as a representation for a rose and succesor= +1 as a representation for smelling, and then 2+1=3 means that a nose smells a rose. But then we could just as well use any other symbol, like ß or more meaningfully :o) o-. I am not sure that you are serious. I am serious, I just presented it in a ;)-manner. Well, if you are serious, you have to study a bit about numbers, addition and multiplication. You are confusing the symbol 2, which can indeed represent a nose, and the number 2, which does not represent anything a priori, but is the number 2 that you are supposed to be acquainted with since high school. No, I am not confusing 2 and 2. 2 can represent a nose, but so can 2 (or II or ..), just as the word apple can represent a nose and an actual apple can represent a nose (OK, both are quite stupid, but we could do it). You are supposed to be acquainted with numbers fundamentally representing things, since kindergarten. There is no meaning in numbers if they don't represent anything. You confuse numbers and what they describe, the numerically describable part of reality. Numbers are conceptual, and a concept that doesn't represent anything is empty, meaningless. That's my criticism all along. Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: There are intented meaning, and logics is a science which study the departure between intended meaning and a mathematical study of meaning. Logic studied both the syntactical transformation (a bit like neurophysiologist study the neuronal firings) and the space of the possible interpretations. Interesting things happen for the machine doing that on themselves. This is a lot of talk of how meaningful it is without presenting any actual relevant meaning. What is missing? Any thing that is concretely applicable to the observable world. Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Personally, I might prefer to use the combinators. But we have to agree on some
Re: COMP is empty(?)
On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 06:03:42PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: With COMP, and via your UDA, our observed universe is selected from the set of all infinite strings (which I call descriptions in my book). My non observed future; or computational extensions, is selected, making the comp physics explainable in term of statistics on computations. This leads to general physical laws invariant for all observers. There is no selection of a particular computations, just a relative indeterminacy bearing on all computations going through my state. In particular we cannot use Bayes theorem, for example. Like Brent, I don't follow you here. Computations are not infinite strings, but can have infinite strings as inputs, and so infinite strings can play a role in the (re)normalization needed to avoid the infinities of abnormal histories. That wasn't my point. The set of computational extensions is infinite, uncountable cardinality even. Without the anthropic principle, ISTM that your theory would suffer the Occam catastrophe fate. How do you avoid that? Is that equivalent with the white rabbits? No, it is quite the opposite problem. As Einstein purportedly said Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Occam's razor theorem, which comes from Solomonoff and Levin's considerations of algorithmic information theory would imply that we don't see anything interesting at all. That is the Occam catastrophe. Something prevents the world from being too simple. I think that something is the Anthropic Principle, but I'm interested if you have an alternative suggestion. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: COMP is empty(?)
On Oct 11, 4:14 pm, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au wrote: That is the Occam catastrophe. Something prevents the world from being too simple. I think that something is the Anthropic Principle, but I'm interested if you have an alternative suggestion. In addition to the Anthropic Principle, I offer a Law of Improbability Preservation. If a universe had only rules it would get only unknowable unconsciousness and no possibility of novel patterns. If it had only novelty, then it would get intolerable insanity. Life is a quintessential example what you get when you have a principle which counterbalances rules and novelty, since intentional reproduction of uncommon patterns would be one way of preserving them in the face of endlessly recurring common patterns. So yes, it's the Anthropic Principle, but what makes it even possible for an Antrhopic Principle to even exist is a small but significant statistical advantage that this universe gives oddball events to stick around long enough to collect into patterns. That advantage of unexpected statistical bias toward the unexpected is the seed of 'significance' itself and the motivation behind that bias is the essence of teleology and biology. Natural selection is a concrete manifestation of this law, preserving and extinguishing species as an engine of biodiversity, and sexual reproduction is an even more amplified diversity engine, providing intentionality of individual organisms to combine their dominant common genomes and nurture their desirable recessive phenomes. For those who see life as ‘simply’ a matter of Anthropic inevitability, they are partially right. To those who see life as a special, meaningful magical process, they are partially right too. Both things arise from their distinction to the other. Without probability there could be no improbability, and life, if nothing else, is literally the embodiment of improbability. A tradition of exceptional rules which preserve and promote exceptions to the rules. Life is what improbability feels like. It is the midpoint between inevitability and impossibility. Craig -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: COMP is empty(?)
Hey Benjay, On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 2:11 PM, benjayk benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com wrote: Honestly, I won't bother to study a theory in much depth that I hold to be utterly implausible at the start. I have to wonder why you're putting so much energy into refuting an idea you feel to be utterly implausible. Anyway, if you put all the energy you've invested into attacking the idea into really understanding the consequences of the UDA you'd be in a much better position to actually criticize it. You really show a bad sort of professor mentality here. You give me a bunch of complicated semi-nonsense, which is really impossible to understand (one may understand technicalities, but these really solve no question at all) and as long as I don't understand it (forever), you will say I must study more until I am really able to critisize what you say. But you are unwilling to discuss the very fundament of your theory (then you claim I don't even understand stuff from high school or primary school, or maybe at some point, kindergarten). That's a nice strategy to be right, that's for sure. You just don't understand it, study more. The ideas are understandable if you're willing to depart from your preferred way of viewing the world. Bruno has been adamant about not committing to whether comp is true - he is not trying to sell you anything. The only thing is he is saying is *if* comp is true, then *these* are the consequences (materialism is false). That is only threatening if you believe comp is true *and* you believe the materialist worldview. It doesn't sound like you're committed to either, so really I don't understand why you take such a defensive stance. In fact, you can use Bruno's arguments to support the idea that comp is false by invoking the absurdity of his conclusions (I once read Bruno say this). But you are in a poor position to criticize his argumentation if you don't think comp is true, or are unwilling to assume it for the sake of argument, because that's really the starting point for the argument. That's step 1 of UDA. Fine, you disagree with step 1. You're done, have a sandwich. A good theory, in my opinion, is open to criticism if you just know the basics. I appreciate the sentiment expressed here. Einstein's deep belief in the power of a beautifully simple idea is an example of that. But just to add my own 2 cents, Bruno's ideas are good (brilliant, actually) *and* unfortunately, you need to be able to understand the technical aspects of the UDA to see why. It is unfortunate that one must have some minimum competence in philosphy of mind and computer science to do that (which you would seem to have)... although it's possible someone more gifted than Bruno at teaching could explain the ideas in a simple enough way that you don't even need to know that much. With your defensive posture however it seems as though you won't give yourself a chance to appreciate the ideas, even if you ultimately disagree with them. Terren -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
